Now, in Galatians 3 here, Paul starts out this chapter with some pretty harsh words
to the Galatians.
He says in chapter 3 verse 1,
O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth, before
whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?
This only would I learn of you, received ye the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by
the hearing of faith.
Are ye so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
So right away, he calls them foolish Galatians.
And then he asks the question two verses later, are you so foolish?
And you know, in our modern vernacular, we don't really use the word foolish very much.
We probably say, you know, are you really that dumb?
Are you really that stupid?
Are you really that foolish as to think X, Y, and Z?
So this chapter is rebuking the Galatians on a lot of false doctrine that's been coming
in.
Now that's, this particular doctrine at the beginning of the chapter is not really what
I want to rebuke, but later on in the chapter, he says in verse 16 to these same people that
he's called foolish.
He said, you guys are just very foolish.
He says in verse 16,
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.
And he saith not, and to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed which is Christ.
And then if we jump down, of course, to the famous verse in verse 29, it says, and if
ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.
And what I want to preach about tonight is the subject of attention to detail.
Attention to detail.
Now here right away, God is showing us how important it is to have attention to detail
in verse 16, because he makes a statement here that just changing one letter of one
word completely changes the meaning of what God meant when he said.
And so my first point tonight is that we need to have attention to detail when it comes
to God's word.
Every detail of God's word matters.
He says in Galatians 3 16, look down at your Bible,
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.
He saith not, and to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed which is Christ.
You see, the doctrine that we derive from that statement is completely different if
we have seed singular or seed plural.
See if we have seed singular, he says that's referring to Jesus Christ.
And he says if you're in Christ, you're part of that seed and heirs according to the promise.
Whereas if he said seeds plural, that could be referring to Abraham's physical descendants.
Instead of one singular descendant, Jesus Christ, it would be referring to all of his
descendants or many of his descendants or a plurality of his descendants.
That one word and that one letter of that word matter.
It says in Matthew 5 18, you don't have to turn there, but the Bible reads,
For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in
no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
God says every jot, every tittle, man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
That means we need to be able to look at the Bible and look at every detail and look at
every word and look at what's singular and look what's pure plural and try to understand
exactly what God said.
We need to read our Bibles and read exactly what God said in order to be able to understand
what it means.
Now you say why is that important?
Because there are many people today that teach and believe that the details of God's Word
don't matter.
And what they do is they're constantly coming out with new versions of the Bible that dramatically
change the wording of the Bible to something completely different than of what the original
said, of what the Greek and the Hebrew said, just they change it to something completely
different, they take great liberties with what God has said.
And here's what they say, well it's just the thought that matters.
As long as we get the basic gist of what God is saying, as long as it's roughly what God
said, you know as long as it doesn't affect doctrine, long as it doesn't affect any major
doctrine, you know so it can affect minor doctrine.
It's okay to change a word here and change a word there, just as long as we get the basic
equivalent of what God's trying to say.
Wrong.
God said every word.
He said heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away.
He promised to preserve His words unto all generation, not just the thoughts, not just
the ideas.
You say well you know these versions that change stuff, they still have the Gospel but
He didn't just promise to preserve the Gospel, He promised to preserve every word.
And you know what, there are details about the Gospel that are found in the wording.
And when you start changing the wording, when you start messing around with the words, you
start messing with the details and saying details don't matter.
Well you know what, pretty soon you've got false doctrine and you've got a book full
of lies and contradictions.
The Bible is not a book of lies and contradictions, the Bible is consistent with itself from Genesis
to Revelation.
If it's the Word of God, it has no contradictions in it.
If there is a contradiction in the Bible, then the Bible is not God's Word.
It's that simple.
Because if God contradicts Himself, then He's not a perfect God.
He's not a holy God.
Then we can't trust the Word of God if it's constantly contradicting itself and it's constantly
not even lining up with itself.
But today there are people who think that these kind of details don't matter.
Now this sermon is dealing mainly with spiritual things.
I have three points, you know, I want to talk about the fact that we need to be concerned
with the details when it comes to God's Word.
We need to be concerned with the details when it comes to following the commandments of
God.
And we need to be concerned with the details when it comes to worshipping God and serving
God in the way that He sees fit in the place that He shall choose.
Not just worshipping God however we want.
You know, just following the commandments of God, sort of.
You know, just reading the Word of God roughly kind of what He said or the gist of what He
said.
No, no.
We need the details.
And this sermon about details, you need to apply this to every area of life because let
me tell you something.
If you're sloppy about details, you're going to fail at your job.
You know, if you're one who is very sloppy about details, you will fail.
You know, I used to run a business until last week, okay.
I used to run a fire alarm business.
And let me tell you something.
Whenever I was looking at, you know, working with anybody, one of the things that I would
always ask is, you know, how is your handwriting?
Do you write like a five-year-old or do you write like an adult?
You know, I've constantly asked people that question because I'll tell you something right
now.
If I were sitting, and I've never worked in human resources, my wife used to before we
were married, now she works in human resources, you know, like she works in child resources
and cooking resources and stuff like that.
But anyway, when she used to work, didn't you honey work in something like that?
You know, I'll tell you right now, if I were working in human resources, which I never
have, but I have run a business, you know what the first thing I would look at if somebody
turned in an application is the handwriting on that application.
And if that handwriting had sloppy handwriting, I probably would just throw it immediately
into the trash.
You know, it's funny, somebody was mocking my wife recently, you know, just some online
stalker or whatever, but somebody was, it wasn't a real human being or anything, but
somebody online was making fun of my wife saying, oh, you know, because she had laid
out her homeschooling curriculum on her blog, and they're like, oh, you teach your children
hand, you know, handwriting, oh, this is 2013, oh, oh, you know, handwriting, oh, it's all
computer based.
You know what?
Honestly, if I see somebody who has just really sloppy handwriting, you know, that just tells
me this is a sloppy person not really taking the time to fill out this application and
have detail.
What if people are misspelling things on the application?
You know, you look at that and you say, this person doesn't have good attention to detail.
You know what they're going to do?
They're going to forget to hook up the red wire to the red wire.
They're going to cross the red and the black.
They're going to cross the positive and the negative.
They're going to mess up the programming of the fire alarm panel.
You know, they're going to mess things up because they don't pay attention to details.
Pastors preach false doctrine because they didn't pay attention to details.
People mess up and blow things up when they're running electrical wiring.
They blow things up, they blow up their tools, they blow up breakers because they're not
paying attention to details.
You know, plumbers don't pay attention to details and they don't solder this joint and
they don't solder that joint.
You turn it on, water's spraying everywhere.
I mean look, details are going to help you succeed in every area of life.
You just pay attention to details and not be sloppy but say, you know what, anything
that's worth doing is worth doing right the first time.
Now look, we all make misspellings from time to time, right?
We all forget to solder a joint every once in a while, right Brother Jerry?
We all, you know, we all get our wires crossed every once in a while.
But then there are other people who are constantly getting their wires crossed, constantly, you
know, making mistakes just because they just don't pay attention, they don't care.
But look, when it comes to serving God, you better pay attention.
When it comes to reading your Bible, look, these are spiritual matters.
These are matters of eternal significance.
These are matters in many cases of heaven and hell.
We better pay attention to God's Word.
We better pay attention to keeping the commandments of God because we want the blessing of God
on our life because we kept His commandments.
But how can we keep them if we don't even know what they are?
We're not even paying attention, we're not even reading the Bible.
Or we're just roughly, well I'm just kind of living a good life in my eyes and I call
that keeping God's commandments.
No, let's get the commandments of God and let's follow them.
You know, well, you know, we go to church and it seems like it's kind of what the Bible
said.
No, our church should be patterned after the Bible in every way.
We need to pay attention to the details.
Now, when it comes to attention to detail when it comes to God's Word, you can be as
astute as you want to be.
You can have both eyes wide open and be wide awake and reading your Bible, reading every
word of your Bible the way that you should be, right?
But if you've got some modern, screwed up version by somebody who had zero attention
to detail and somebody who didn't care about the details or someone who purposely set out
to pervert the details, what good is it going to do you?
You can read it with a microscope and a magnifying glass, but if you're reading the wrong book,
you're reading the wrong book.
You say, well, I just don't think that it's that matter.
I say, you know, you King James only people, right?
You guys are King James only.
You're splitting hairs, they'll say.
You're worried about details that don't matter, they'll say.
You're just splitting hairs.
Well, is God splitting hairs when he says there's a difference between seed and seeds?
Now, let's examine some of these versions here quickly, and I don't want to spend all
night on this point, but I just want to show you how ridiculous these versions are.
Here are the top versions today.
I've got the top versions and then there's one more, the ESV, we're not going to take
time to look at.
I have a whole sermon called The ESV Exposed, so just go to that.
But I looked up online, what are the top five versions in the United States?
Of course, the King James is in the top five.
Of course, the King James is timeless.
The King James is always in the top five, whereas these other ones go in and out of
the top five all the time.
But the top five versions, number one version they listed was the NIV.
That was number one, okay?
So let me give you the NIV, brother Matt, all right?
All right, I know you don't, but do it, help me out here.
So the number one version is the NIV.
The number two best-selling version in 2013 is the King James Bible, the real Bible, okay?
Then number three, four, and five were the ESV, the New King James, this is where they
dug up King James and exhumed him and he signed it with his dead hand, okay?
So I'm going to give that to you, brother Segura, is that all right?
And then number five most popular was the New Living Translation, okay?
There you go, brother Garrett, that's number five.
So those are the top Bibles, right?
They're all pretty much the same, right?
Couple of minor details, what's the big deal, right?
Okay, I want you gentlemen to all look up Galatians 3.16 in these new versions, okay?
And let's see if they paid as much attention to detail as God paid in this exact passage
about the seed versus the seeds.
Now while they're turning in their false Bibles there, let's go back to the Old Testament
to where this quote came from and let's see if it really says what Paul said it said,
okay?
Let's go back to Genesis 22, keep your finger in Galatians 3.
Let's go back to Genesis 22 and see if the Apostle Paul, see if the Holy Spirit of God
moving through the Apostle Paul gave us an accurate assessment of what was said in the
Old Testament.
Galatians 22 says this, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will
multiply thy seed, singular, right?
And he said, as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore, and thy
seed shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the
earth be blessed because thou has obeyed my voice.
Everybody got a seed singular there?
Oh yeah.
Now go to Genesis 26.
Let's look at another place where this is mentioned.
Same exact thing.
Genesis 26 verse 3, sojourn in this land and I will be with thee and will bless thee for
unto thee and unto thy seed I will give all these countries and I will perform the oath
which I swear unto Abraham thy father and I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars
of heaven and will give unto thy seed all these countries and in thy seed shall all
nations of the earth be blessed.
And that's exactly what it said in Galatians 3.
Go to verse 8 of Galatians 3 if you're still there.
It says in the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith preached
before the gospel unto Abraham saying in thee shall all nations be blessed.
So then they which be of faith are blessed with faith, Abraham.
Look, the Bible says that back in Genesis 22 and Genesis 26 when God made that promise
to Abraham saying in thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed, he did that because
he foresaw that God would justify the heathen through faith and that if we're in Christ
we are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise because the seed of Abraham
is Jesus.
And God said that all nations would be blessed in his seed because guess what?
There are people of every nation that have believed on Christ.
Every single nation in this world there are people who have believed on Jesus Christ.
You name the nation, you name the kindred, you name the tongue, you name the family on
this earth, the Bible says that in heaven in Revelation that there will be people in
heaven of all kindreds, of all nations, of all tongues.
Look every nation has been blessed by Jesus Christ because there are people within that
nation who have believed on Christ and those that are of faith are blessed with faithful
Abraham.
It's so consistent what the Bible teaches and God is saying look in Genesis 22 and in
Genesis 26 when he's saying look I'm going to give this land under your seed, I'm going
to bless your seed, I'm going to bless all nations through your seed, he said that was
about the Gospel, that was about Jesus Christ, that was about a man that was the singular
seed of Abraham in whom all nations of the earth would be blessed.
It's important.
It's this key biblical New Testament doctrine where the New Testament is shedding light
on what the Old Testament is saying.
Let's go to these new versions and see what they've done to just completely butcher and
destroy clear biblical doctrine that we have consistency between the Old and New Testament.
Okay, Brother Garrett, give us Galatians 3.16 in the New Living Translation.
I want everybody to pay attention and I want you to look down at your King James Bible.
Look down at your Bible as Brother Garrett reads from the corrupted New Living Translation.
Nice and loud, Brother Garrett.
God gave the promises to Abraham and his child and notice that the scripture does not say
to his children as if it meant many descendants, rather it says to his child, and that of course
means Christ.
Okay, go back to Genesis 22 now, Brother Garrett.
Everybody back in Genesis 22?
Go back in Genesis 22 and let me just summarize in case you had trouble hearing Brother Garrett.
Brother Garrett just read for us from the New Living Translation, he said that the passage
said that the promise was made to Abraham and to his child, not children, as if he had
meant many descendants, but to his child.
That's what the New Living said, right?
Everybody hear that?
Okay, are you looking down at Genesis 22, 17?
Read for us, Brother Garrett, 17 and 18 from the New Living Translation, nice and loud.
I will certainly bless you, I will multiply your descendants beyond number like the stars
in the sky and the sand on the seashore.
Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies and through your descendants
all the nations of the earth will be blessed all because you have obeyed me.
Okay, so notice, the New Living Translation in Genesis 22, it doesn't say in thy seed,
singular, it says in your descendants, plural, three times it said, and your descendants
will inherit the land, and in your descendants all nations will be blessed.
Then in the New Testament of the exact same book he says, well he said child.
Did it even say child in their own book?
I mean the book contradicts itself.
I mean the Old Testament says descendants, descendants, descendants, plural.
Then in the New Testament, you look at Galatians 3, 16 in the New Living Translation, he says
well he said child because if he would have said children it would have meant descendants.
I mean read that again Garrett, read from Galatians 3, 16 again in the New Living.
So the New Living says descendants, descendants, descendants, then if you go to chapter 26
it says descendants, descendants, descendants.
So six times it says descendants.
Then when you get into the New Testament and Galatians, listen to what it says, Galatians
3, 16.
God gave the promises to Abraham and his child and notice that the scripture does not say
to his children as if it meant many descendants rather than...
Yeah, there's no way he said descendants, right?
Of course he said child because he didn't mean descendants.
I mean look, how can you take that seriously?
How can you pick up that book and read it every day and say I read my Bible?
That is the number five most popular version of the Bible in America today.
That is what hundreds of thousands, yay, millions of people are picking up that book every day
and think that they're reading the Bible.
And that book is a mockery of itself.
This is just one passage, okay?
Now let's see what the New King James has done because the New King James is pretty
much the same thing, right?
I mean it just gets rid of the these and the else, right?
Okay, well let's see what the New King James has done.
Who's got the New King James?
Brother Segura?
All right, read for us Galatians 3, 16 in the New King James.
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made, he doth not say into seeds as of many
but as of one and to your seed who is Christ.
Okay so that was pretty much the same as the King James, right?
Seed versus seeds, okay.
But now let's go back to Genesis 22 in the New King James, see if it says seed.
Yeah, 22, 17, you're looking at your Bible, look at Genesis 22, 17 in the King James,
Chris Segura is going to read from the New King James.
Blessing I will bless you and multiplying I will multiply your descendants.
Your what?
Multiply your descendants, okay?
As the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore and your descendants
shall possess the gate of their enemies.
In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.
Okay so there we go, so you see the deception of the New King James.
What the New King James has done is in verse 17 they changed seed to descendants, plural,
right?
Twice.
In verse 18, because verse 18 is directly quoted in Galatians 3, you'd have to be an
idiot to put an S on the end of it when God flat out said there's no S on the end of it.
So then there they just decide to magically put the singular seed again.
So they go descendants, descendants, seed.
Here's what's funny, you go back to the Hebrew, it's the same word all three times.
Seed, seed, seed.
Did you hear that?
You go back to the Hebrew, it says seed, seed, seed.
What does the King James say?
Seed, seed, seed.
What does the New King James say?
Descendants, plural, descendants, plural, seed, only because we have to.
You know what I mean?
Because otherwise we're going to look like a fool.
Okay, you say what's the point?
There's an agenda.
Why would they change, why change seed to descendants?
You know it's supposed to be translated seed, that's what the apostle Paul told you.
Why are you changing it to descendants, why?
Because you want to tell people that they have to support those physical descendants
and that land.
So you know, they're going to mess with chapter 22 verse 17 because oh, well if it's talking
about the land, we better change that to descendants.
Because you know what, the people who are financing that version, the people who finance
the New King James, the people who finance the NIV, the people who finance the New Living
Translation have an agenda that's a Zionist agenda.
It's a pro-nation state of Israel agenda, that they'll just change the Bible to fit
that agenda.
You're their dupe if you're reading the New King James.
If you're reading the King James, you get the truth.
Okay, let's look at what the NIV has done.
Do you have the NIV, Brother Matt?
Okay let's hear Galatians 3, 16 from the NIV.
It's hard to even find in these modern versions.
The way they number the verses makes it hard to find.
You got it?
The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.
The scripture does not say and to seeds, meaning many people, but and to your seed, meaning
one person is Christ.
Okay, so same thing as the King James, virtually, right?
Go back to Genesis 22 now.
Let's see if the NIV is consistent with itself, okay?
So the NIV said that if we go back to Genesis 22, we're going to find a singular seed, right?
Okay go ahead and give it to me from verse 17.
I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous.
Your what?
Descendants plural, again, even though the original Hebrew says the word seed.
Even though the King James said it was seed.
Even though the New Testament said it was seed, right?
Keep going, sorry.
As the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore, your descendants will take possession
of the cities of their enemies.
Keep going, verse 18.
And through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed
me.
Okay, so look, basically what the NIV does is it goes, descendants, descendants, offspring.
Now look, offspring is neither singular nor plural.
I mean, who ever heard of offsprings?
Okay, offspring is neither singular nor plural.
So what we have there is that basically we have them saying descendants, descendants,
offspring.
Obviously when you get to offspring, you think we're talking about the descendants that we
just mentioned twice.
All of that should say seed, and if you look at the footnotes in the NIV and the footnotes
in the New King James and the footnotes in the ESV and the footnotes in the New American
Standard, they all say at the bottom of the page, oh by the way, the Hebrew says seed.
Then what are you doing changing it?
I mean look, if you go to Job chapter 1 and Job chapter 2 when it says that there came
a day when the sons of God presented themselves before the Lord, you know, if you go to the
NIV, it says the angels presented themselves.
Then you go to the bottom of the page in the footnote and it says, oh by the way, in Hebrew
this is sons of God.
So why are you writing in English angels if the Hebrew says sons of God?
I mean I thought of translation, you just translated.
And I understand that when you translate things, they come out basically in different wording,
you know, like as far as not the same word order.
Like those that speak Spanish and English in our church or those that speak two languages,
you know that you can say the exact same thing in two different languages.
You don't always lose something in the translation, that's bogus.
You can say the exact same thing in Spanish as in English, but sometimes you do words
in a little different order and everything, right?
But you know what?
You don't just go from sons of God to angels.
That's just two different words, that's just not even the same word.
That's just not even the same thing.
But the NIV is just taking liberties, just changing details, details on every page, every
chapter is tampered with in that NIV.
There is not one chapter in that NIV that is not tampered with, every chapter is tampered
with.
And look, you say, why are we King James only?
Because we need to pay attention to these details.
And if we're reading a Bible by translators that can't even figure out, Galatians 3 should
match what it's quoting.
And there is not a Hebrew manuscript on this planet that has that in plural, or that says
anything other than seed.
I mean these people, you know what, no, I'm sorry, they're not dumb.
They're deceptive, they're doing it on purpose.
I mean do you think that these people just sat around, I mean do you think that the translators
of these Bibles are sitting around with like a beanie with a propeller on top going, they're
all just imbeciles?
No, no, no, these are smart men who hate the Word of God and perverted it on purpose.
And you know why?
Because somebody put a bunch of money in their hand and said, promote Israel.
Promote the nation of Israel.
Promote 1948, creation of United Nations.
Promote Zionism.
Promote dispensationalism.
Promote false doctrine.
Demote Jesus.
Demote him from being the Lord Jesus to just Jesus.
You know, make hell a little colder by calling it Hades or Sheol.
Cool it down a little bit, turn that thing down.
And I've got to get off that point because of time, but number one, let's have attention
to detail when it comes to God's Word.
That means we need to just read our Bible carefully, not just blow through it in the
morning.
Just blow through it, blow back, no, stop and slow down and read your Bible and pay
attention.
And have a Bible that's worth paying attention to, translated by people who are paying attention,
the King James Version.
Number two, not only should we have attention to detail when it comes to the Word of God,
reading exactly what God has spoken or written, but number two, we should have attention to
detail when it comes to the commandments of God.
Because right after Jesus said that one jot or one tittle would not pass from the law,
the next thing he said in verse 19 was, Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments
and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.
But whoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Look that tells me that we should have an attention to detail when it comes to commandments
of God and not to say, well, I'm not really breaking any of the big commandments.
I'm not killing, I'm not stealing, I'm not committing adultery, but God said pay attention
to every jot and tittle because you don't even want to break the least commandments.
You want to pay close attention to all of the commandments of God.
Now some of the commandments of God we might say, I don't think that that's very important,
but if God said it, it's important.
Now let's go back to an Old Testament example.
Look at 1 Chronicles 13.
Now we realize that we are living in the New Testament and that there is a difference between
the New Testament and the Old Testament.
You know the New Testament is filled with commandments.
The Old Testament is filled with commandments.
Some of the Old Testament commandments carry over to the New Testament.
The book of Hebrews does a great job of explaining what we're following in the New Testament
versus what was something that was only for the Old Testament.
You know the book of Colossians explains that, the book of Galatians goes into that, but
the book of Hebrews, Hebrews is probably the main book that helps us to discern between
Old Testament and New Testament and to put a difference between the two, because there
is a difference between the two.
But still we can get principles from the Old Testament.
Even if these commandments are not the same commandments we're dealing with, the principle
still applies.
Because what we're going to look at right here is an Old Testament commandment.
See in the New Testament we no longer have the Ark of the Covenant on this earth, right,
that we basically have to deal with and sprinkle blood on the mercy seat, because the Bible
says Jesus already did that once.
He went into the holy place in Hebrews, it tells us that he sprinkled the blood of his
own blood that he shed for us, he went into the temple with his own blood, the Bible says,
and he sprinkled that blood upon the mercy seat in heaven, the real Ark of the Covenant,
the real mercy seat, not the one that was made on this earth which was a pattern of
the one in heaven.
Even in the Old Testament, did they not have a physical, literal Ark of the Covenant?
Okay, well that physical, literal Ark of the Covenant was stored in the tabernacle.
And the tabernacle was the Old Testament house of God where they would go to serve the Lord,
and where they would go to worship the Lord, they would go to the tabernacle, which is
basically a giant tent that was made to very specific specifications that the tabernacle
was the house of God of the Old Testament.
What's the house of God in the New Testament according to the Bible?
The church, 1 Timothy 3.16 tells us that the house of God is the church of the living God.
So in the New Testament, the church is the house of God.
In the Old Testament, the tabernacle was the house of God, okay?
And the Ark of the Covenant was kept in the most holy place of the tabernacle.
Now the tabernacle was a place that would move, it didn't always stay put, because when
God first had them build the tabernacle, they were wandering in the wilderness.
And they continued to wander with the tabernacle, and the tabernacle would go from place to
place, so there had to be a way to move the tabernacle from one place to another.
And God gave very specific instructions, not only for how to build the tabernacle, but
in Exodus and in the book of Numbers, God gave them specific instructions for how to
move the tabernacle, because they had to pack it up, they had to pack up the tent, pack
up all the gear, and move it.
But they had to move it a certain way.
It wasn't just, you know, throw it all in and take it somewhere else, no no no.
They had to, I mean there were certain coverings where when they moved the tabernacle, it was
like you need to cover this with, you'd put the veil over the Ark of the Covenant, and
then you put the beaver skins over that, and then you put a blue cloth over that.
And it was all very specific and detailed, saying do it exactly the way that I'm saying.
Now the way that the Ark of the Covenant was supposed to be transported was that the Levites
would carry it upon their shoulders.
But first it had these coverings, you know, it had the veil of the temple, then it had
the beaver skins, and then it had a blue cloth over it, and it was to be carried on the shoulders
of the Levites like this.
Well what happened is, the Philistines stole the Ark of the Covenant in Eli's day.
You know when Eli was the judge, they stole it.
And when they stole it, God cursed them for stealing the Ark of the Covenant.
So the Philistines said we want to get rid of this thing.
We don't want the Ark of the Covenant, we're getting all kinds of emerods in our secret
parts, we're having all kinds of diseases and plagues, get this thing out of here.
So they said here's how we need to get rid of it.
They went to their religious experts, and they found a Philistine who was an expert
in the Jews' religion, or I'm sorry not the Jews' religion because they hadn't split into
Israel and Judah yet, but an expert in the Hebrew religion, you know.
He was a Hebrew scholar of religion from Arizona State University, and he basically told them,
he said, here's what you have to do to make God happy.
Here's how you make him happy.
Get a new cart and put the Ark of the Covenant on this new cart.
And then get two cows, okay, and have those cows pull the cart.
And then you need to make golden images of mice, five golden mice, and five golden emerods,
okay.
And don't even ask what an emerod is, and I don't know who would want to make a golden
image of an emerod, okay.
But anyway, just add an H somewhere and add an I in there and you might come up with it,
or you know, I've looked it up, it said tumors, or I don't know what it is.
It's something that you don't want in your secret parts, the Bible says.
But anyway, you know, make these five golden mice.
Look, didn't God tell you not to make images of animals and stuff?
But this religion expert says, you know, this is what we do, and that's how they sent it
back to Israel on a new cart.
Well what happened is, fast forward many, many years to when David is reigning as king
over Israel.
He goes to move the Ark of the Covenant, and look what the Bible says in 1 Chronicles 13.6.
Seeing David, the man after God's own heart, is David a good guy or a bad guy?
Good guy.
Does he love the Lord?
Okay, is he trying to do a bad thing by bringing the Ark home, or is he doing a good thing
by bringing the Ark home?
Doing a good thing, he loves God, he wants to worship God.
Look what it says in verse 6, and David went up and all Israel to Beilah, that is to Kirjeth
Jireh, which belonged to Judah, to bring up thence the Ark of God the Lord that dwelleth
between the cherubim, whose name is called on it.
They carried the Ark of God in a new cart.
Is that what God told them to do?
They're supposed to carry it on their shoulders, right?
So what?
It's technology, God.
We've invented the wheel here, you know?
Carry it on our shoulders, that's too hard.
I have a much smarter, better way.
Why would we carry it on our shoulders when we could just put it in a cart and roll it
on wheels?
My God, why didn't you think of this?
And they put it in a new cart.
And David and all Israel, verse 8, played before God with all their might.
Let me ask you this, is David half in and half out in his praise to God, in his worship
of God, in his dedication to God, in his zeal and heart for God, is he halfway about it?
No, he's praising the Lord with all his might.
All Israel has their heart in the right place here, loving God, praising God, serving God
with all their might and with singing and with harps and with psalteries and with timbals
and with cymbals and with trumpets, but look what happens, verse 9, and when they came
unto the threshing floor of Kaidon, Uzzah put forth his hand to hold the ark for the
oxen stumbled and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah and he smote him because
he put his hand to the ark and there he died before God.
Look, this guy died for touching the ark.
And why did he touch the ark?
Because the ark was in a new cart, the oxen stumbled, the cart shook, and the thing was
going to fall off, and he's trying to stop it from falling off.
Okay, is Uzzah trying to do wrong here?
He's trying to save the ark from crashing.
But God killed him.
Why?
Because he's touching the ark.
No one was supposed to touch that ark.
They're supposed to use poles to carry it, so they're not really touching it itself,
and it's only the Levites that are carrying it.
And look what the Bible says in verse 11.
See if David liked this.
And David was displeased because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah.
He thought that it wasn't fair that Uzzah was killed.
Wherefore that place is called Pires-Uzzah to this day.
And David was afraid of God that day saying, how should I bring the ark of God home to
me?
Okay, let's fast forward two chapters and see if David learns his lesson.
First Chronicles 15, 1.
David made him houses in the city of David and prepared a place for the ark of God and
pitched for it a tent.
Then David said, none ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites.
See now he's got it figured out, doesn't he?
Now he's paying attention to detail.
Now that a man has died, he sees, wait a minute, we need to do things God's way.
God already told us how to carry it.
We ignored that detail.
We didn't think it mattered.
We thought it was outdated.
We didn't think it was important.
And so we just ignored it.
But now we're going to do it right.
For them hath the Lord chosen to carry the ark of God and to minister unto him forever.
He says, look, we need to do this God's way.
We need the Levites to carry the ark on their shoulders.
And then they did it right.
They sang all the same songs and God blessed because they did it right.
But see a lot of times we think that details don't matter.
We think, well, just as long as your heart's right, you'll be fine.
Long as you love God, you'll be fine.
Just as long as you just do your best, you'll be fine.
But God says, nope, pay attention to what I said.
Pay attention to every word out of my mouth.
Pay attention to my commandments.
If I commanded you to carry it a certain way, I commanded you to carry it that way for a
reason.
Obey me, is what God is saying.
And thirdly this, we need to have attention to detail when it comes to how we worship
the Lord.
Go to Leviticus chapter 10.
Leviticus chapter 10.
Here's some people who just decided to worship God the way that they wanted to worship God.
And look, this is a common theme throughout the Bible.
God asked for a specific offering from Cain and Abel.
Abel brought the right offering.
He brought the lamb.
He brought the fat of the flock.
What did Cain bring?
Fruits and vegetables.
And you say, well, their heart was in the right place.
Well they're both trying to give something to the Lord.
They're both doing their best.
They both love God.
They're both giving him something.
They're both making a sacrifice, but you know what?
One of them did the sacrifice that God said to the details of what was given.
Another guy just said, well, you know, God asked for something, I'll give him something.
I'll give him what I want.
No, give him what he wants.
The Bible tells you, you know, I've often seen sometimes, you know, drive down the road
you'll see a big rig, like a semi.
And on the back it'll say, attend the church of your choice this Sunday.
Who's ever seen that sign before?
This Sunday, attend the church of your choice.
But you know what?
I'd rather attend the church of God's choice.
You say, well, God doesn't care.
Go to whatever church.
Well look, it better be a church that's preaching the King James Bible.
Didn't we cover that earlier in the sermon?
What's wrong with, you know, these other ones?
That's one verse.
What about all the other mistakes?
Okay.
Uh, you know, attend the church of your choice.
You know what the Bible tells you?
To worship the Lord in the place that He shall choose in the Old Testament.
And it told them, bring the tithe unto the place that He shall choose.
Worship the Lord in the place that He shall choose.
Do offering unto the Lord in the place that He shall choose.
Look, God has very definite ideas about how He wants to be worshiped.
He has very definite ideas about how He wants us to serve Him.
We need to pay attention to the details of what that is, of how He wants to be served
and how He wants to be worshiped.
And right at Leviticus 10, here's a couple guys who didn't pay attention to the details.
It says in verse 1, Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer and
put fire therein and put incense thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord, watch
this, which He commanded them not.
So God had commanded them to burn incense at certain times, certain places, certain
ways.
He told them to offer animal sacrifices.
He told them to offer a meat offering, a fine flour mingled with oil.
He had these various offerings, but Nadab and Abihu just decided to do something extra.
Dude, let's just light up these pipes and just burn some incense, dude.
Let's just burn some incense to God, man.
And they light up their incense, and God's just like, I didn't tell them to do that.
Look what it says.
And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord.
These guys are trying to do right.
They're trying to offer God a sacrifice, but they're not doing it the way that He said.
And you know what, there are a lot of sincere people in this world that are worshipping
God in a way that He did not command and that He does not want.
There are people today, let me give you some examples.
There are Roman Catholics today in the Philippines who crawl on their knees through broken glass,
literally.
There are Catholics in the Philippines who nail themselves to crosses every year.
There are Catholics today who beat themselves with a whip.
There are Catholics, and you ask them, why are you beating yourself?
Why are you crawling on your knees through glass?
Why are you being crucified?
And you know what they're trying to do is make an atonement for their sins.
Look, they think that they're doing right.
They think that they're serving God.
They think that they're earning their way into heaven, and what they need to understand
is that Jesus already did all that.
Jesus already paid it all.
He was already sacrificed.
Look, they're going through physical pain and suffering because they think that it's
pleasing to God and God is looking down and He is not pleased.
He is not pleased at what they're doing.
He is not pleased at them crucifying themselves or crawling on their knees.
He is not pleased, and in fact they will go to hell.
Because they are not trusting in the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
They have not followed God's simple instruction that said, for God so loved the world.
Look, it's the most famous verse in the world.
It's the most famous verse in the world.
It's held up at football games, it's on the bottom of the cup at In-N-Out Burger.
You see it everywhere you go.
Almost everybody, when you start quoting it to them, they'll quote it right back to you,
but they are missing the detail.
It says, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, and then this
is where people cut you off.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, who's going to believe in them, it's not Paris, but I have everlasting
life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard that.
Oh, what do you have to do to be saved?
Live a good life, get baptized, go to church.
Here's somebody who's not paying attention to the detail.
Because that one verse, that detail, slow down folks, quit, you know, you're trying
to give somebody the gospel, they finish that verse for you and they're not even listening
to themselves.
Oh, yeah, yeah, who's going to believe in them, it's not Paris, but I realize, yup,
know that verse, yup, I know it, yup, yup, as they tell you, you have to work your way
to heaven.
And then you slow down with that verse and say, wait a minute, what does the verse say?
That whosoever believeth in him.
What does whosoever mean?
Anybody who does what believes, should not perish, but have everlasting life.
You go down two more verses.
He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already
because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
I mean, you look at that, it's so clear.
Look, let me just explain to you what whosoever believeth means.
That means that if there's one person in this world who truly believes on the Lord Jesus
Christ and that person goes to hell, that verse is a lie.
That's what it means.
Because if God said whosoever believeth shall not perish, you say, well, it says should
not perish.
No, no, no, you just don't understand English grammar.
He did it so that whosoever believeth in him, our modern vernacular would say would not
perish but have everlasting life.
It's the king's English from a few hundred years ago.
But let me say this.
How about this?
Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
How about whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
Look, that means if there's one person who truly believes on the Lord Jesus Christ and
God sends them to hell, that verse is a lie.
But how many people have even held it up at a ballgame, didn't even believe it?
I guarantee you there are people who have held up a sign at a ballgame that said John
3.16 that didn't even believe John 3.16 because they didn't even pay attention to the biggest
important detail that said whosoever believeth.
Not whosoever joined a church, not whosoever repented of all their sins, not whosoever
turned over a new leaf, not whosoever got baptized and got catechized and got sanctified
and got, you know, mesmerized, whatever.
He said look, whosoever believeth.
How many people have passed over that detail?
It cost them their soul.
Cost need happen to buy you their lives because they just said you know what, we're just going
to do it our way.
Look God never told you to crucify yourself.
He never told you to crawl your knees through broken glass.
He never told you to walk around the church with a dust bust, emptying out a dust buster
like these Catholics, you know, their little powder puff thing, you know, the little powder
puff, you know, cleaning out of the dust buster.
He never told you slap people on the forehead in the name of Jesus.
And you know what, my wife was confirmed in the Catholic church as a child and literally
the priest walked up and slapped her in the face and said receive the Holy Ghost and slapped
her in the face.
Isn't that true?
Zuza, did he slap you in the face?
He slapped her in the face and said receive the Holy Ghost.
And then look, Benny Hinn does the same thing.
Guess what Benny Hinn, the Catholics were doing that before you were even born.
When you weren't even a gleam in your mother's eye or father's eye or however that expression
goes.
Look, they were already slapping people in the face in Vatican City before you were ever
even thought of.
And we have all this slapping and Pentecostals slapping people in the face and the Catholics
are slapping people and I'd like to slap them all and tell them that God never told
you to slap anybody.
It's not biblical.
And how many things are there?
There's a lot of slapping going on, there's people being crucified, there's people rolling
in the aisles, there are people who are doing all kinds of weird things that God never told
them to do.
And everything we do at this church should be based on what the Bible said.
Why do we sing hymns?
Because the Bible told us to sing hymns.
Why does everybody sing?
Why don't we just have a few performers?
Because the Bible said that everybody's singing.
He said, in the midst of the church, I will sing praise unto thee, not I'll listen to
someone else.
Why do we pray?
Because God told us to pray as a group.
God told us to pray publicly.
God told us to do it.
Why do we have preaching?
Because God told us to have preaching.
Why do we read a chapter of the Bible before the preaching?
Because God said, till I come, give attendance to reading, to doctrine, to preaching.
Look, everything we do is based on what God said.
We don't need to just add a bunch of things in to our service that God didn't tell us
to do.
What did God say?
Do a play to act out the Gospel.
You know what I mean?
It just shouldn't be part of church.
I mean, let's just do stuff that God told us to do.
You say, why do you have musical instruments?
That's not biblical.
Hogwash, the book of Psalms, tells us all about using instruments to praise God and
commands us to use instruments to praise God.
Look, everything that we do, we strive to obey the Lord in our service for God.
He told us to go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in.
He told us daily in the temple and from house to house they cease not to teach and preach
Christ.
He told us that He sent them out two by two.
He told us to go out in the highways and say, look, we strive to be patterned after God's
Word even to the detail.
We strive to obey Him.
It's important, my friend.
Let me show you one last thing that's interesting.
Go to Numbers 15.
Numbers chapter 15, I thought this was something I just learned from another pastor recently.
Verse chapter 15, I thought this was pretty interesting, you know, because we're talking
about little details.
Little things that people look at and they say, that doesn't matter.
That's not important.
But I say it does matter.
I say it is important.
I think we should be careful about details, especially when it comes to the Word of God.
That's number one.
But number two, when it comes to commandments of God, let's pay close attention to what
He commanded.
Let's pay close attention and not come up with man's commandments, man's doctrine, man's
wisdom.
You know, when it comes to clothing, let's see what the Bible says.
When it comes to covering your nakedness, let's see what the Bible defines as nakedness.
You know, not just, well, I think this covers my nakedness.
Your string bikini.
No, what does the Bible say covers your nakedness?
He said it needs to reach from the loins to the thighs.
He says your thighs are your nakedness.
So you expose your thighs and say, well, this is roughly covering my.. no, no, what
about the detail?
You know, you say everything in the Bible that's a detail, we should pay attention to
it, you know.
And when God tells us His doctrine on marriage and divorce, pay attention to it.
Read every word of it.
And you know what?
Guess what?
Fornication and adultery are two different things.
Just a small detail, I know, but maybe you should pay attention to that detail.
You know, maybe you should pay attention to every detail in the Bible because everything
in the Bible is exactly the way that God wants it to be.
So we need to pay attention to it.
Pay attention to the commandments.
Pay attention to what He's telling you to do, pay attention to what He's telling you
not to do.
And thirdly, pay very close attention when it comes to how you worship the Lord.
Even the way that they built the tabernacle was important.
Why did He spend all those chapters telling us how to build the tabernacle?
We're looking at that in 2013, why do I need to know this?
It matters.
Now here's a little detail that you read in the Bible that's pretty easy to pass over
this passage and pretty much ignore this passage, okay?
And part of the reason why people might ignore this is because, you know, this isn't one
of those Old Testament carnal ordinances that were not imposed upon us today in the New
Testament.
But in the Old Testament, this is something that they were commanded to do.
This is something that the children of Israel were commanded to do in the Old Testament.
Something that we in the New Testament doesn't apply to us, but wait a minute, it's still
profitable for doctrine.
We should still learn from it.
Look what the Bible says in Numbers 15, 37, and the Lord spake unto Moses saying, speak
unto the children of Israel and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their
garments throughout their generations and that they put upon the fringe of the borders
a ribbon of blue.
So what is the Bible teaching here?
He's saying look, on the borders of their clothing, the children of Israel, they're
supposed to have on the fringes of the borders a ribbon of blue.
What color?
Blue.
Okay?
And he says, and it shall be unto you for a fringe.
So what color is the fringe supposed to be?
Blue.
A blue ribbon for a fringe.
It shall be unto you a fringe that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments
of the Lord and do them and that you seek not after your own heart and your own eyes
after which you used to go a whoring.
He said look, on your clothing, on your garment, the border, you need to have a fringe of blue
ribbon and you're going to look on that fringe and I want that fringe of blue ribbon to remind
you to remember all the commandments of the Lord and not to go a whoring after your own
heart and after your own eyes.
Verse 40, that you may remember and do all my commandments and be holy unto your God.
I am the Lord your God which brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God.
I am the Lord your God.
Now I know there are those that practice the religion of Judaism.
I don't know about you but I've never seen this blue fringe on their clothes.
I mean correct me if I'm wrong.
Now I've seen some of them have like a shawl that has like a blue stripe on it but is that
what this says?
Put a blue stripe on your shawl?
It says the border of your garment, put a blue fringe on that garment just to remind
you.
I don't really see that but then again, they don't even believe any of the book of the
law.
I mean they don't believe in Christ and Jesus said if you believed Moses, you'd believe
in me for he spake of me.
So obviously I don't see them sacrificing an animal either.
I mean I don't see them doing a lot but what's interesting about this blue ribbon and we
might look at this and say what's the significance?
What does it matter?
What's the importance?
Okay but here's what's interesting.
If you study throughout Exodus and Numbers, when God is talking about building the tabernacle
and also transporting the tabernacle, you'll notice that always the same colors keep coming
up.
Let me just show you a couple examples real quick.
I'm almost done but look if you would at Exodus 28.
I'm just going to show you a couple examples but if you're one who reads your Bible, as
soon as you see this, you're going to be like, yep, I've seen that a ton of times because
this is something that's in the Bible.
I don't know the exact number but I'd have to say that these colors have to come up at
least probably 30, I don't know, 30 times.
I mean that's just off the top of my head.
Seems like 30 or so times God just keeps bringing up these colors over and over again and as
soon as you read it, you'll be like, yep, I remember that.
He says in verse 5 of chapter 28 of Exodus, and they shall take gold and blue and purple
and scarlet and fine linen and they shall make the ephod of gold, a blue, a purple,
a scarlet, and fine twine linen with cunning work, and look, you know that if you read
the Bible and you're reading Exodus over and over and over and over again, He says blue,
purple, scarlet, and fine linen and blue, purple, scarlet, fine linen, blue, purple,
scarlet, blue, purple scarlet, blue, purple scarlet, blue, purple scarlet, blue, purple
scarlet.
I mean look, it's repeated.
Next time you read it you'll notice it because you're paying attention to it.
And notice, he says here, gold, blue, purple, scarlet, finally.
A lot of times it's just the blue, purple, and scarlet, but the whole building's overlaid
with gold.
So those are the four main colors.
If you walk into the tabernacle, you walk into God's house, you look at the curtains
surrounding God's house, you look at the veil in front of the most holy place, if you look
at that tabernacle, these are the colors that are going to stand out to you.
There's all the golden stuff, there's all the golden implements, and then you've got
the blue, the purple, and the scarlet.
The blue, the purple, and the scarlet.
Those are the main colors that keep coming up.
You know, look at Exodus 36, because a lot of the accoutrements are gold, and then you
got the blue, purple, and scarlet, and those are the main colors.
That's what you see over and over again.
Look what it says in Exodus 36, verse 34, it says, and he overlaid the boards with gold,
and made their rings of gold to be placed for the bars, and overlaid the bars with gold.
And he made a veil of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, with cherubims
made here of cunning work.
The cherubims are made of gold.
And he made there unto four pillars of shittim wood, and overlaid them with gold.
Their hooks were of gold, and he cast for them four sockets of silver.
And he made a hanging for the tabernacle door of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine
twined linen of needlework.
Now look, we could go on and on and just keep showing you over and over again, but you get
the idea, don't you?
And if you've read the Bible, this is already ringing a bell.
But go to Revelation 17, because Revelation 17 is the passage about the great whore.
And Revelation 17, when we look at the great whore, if we compare Revelation 17 to Revelation
21, there are a lot of similarities.
John is carried by the Spirit into the wilderness and shown the great whore.
He's also carried by the Spirit into the wilderness to see the bride of Christ.
So there's a lot of the same wording between chapters 17 and 21 between the bride of Christ
and the great whore.
Why?
Because the bride of Christ is the opposite of the great whore.
The bride of Christ is made up of all the saints.
The great whore is false religion, you know, apostasy, false doctrine, people who do not
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, but they have a religion, but it's a false religion.
So we see the bride of Christ, which is the saved, we see the great whore which is composed
of people that are unsaved.
We see the bride of Christ which has a city associated with it, the heavenly Jerusalem.
We see the great whore has a city associated with it, Babylon.
So we have the great whore of Babylon and we have the bride of Christ of the heavenly
Jerusalem.
And we see them compared, they're opposite.
We see that the bride of Christ is arrayed in pure white, you know, the great whore is
arrayed in scarlet color.
But here's what's interesting about the great whore.
Look at Revelation 17.
This is a false religion.
This would be phony Christianity, false Christianity, apostate religion, ungodly religion that perverts
doctrine.
Look what it says in verse 1, and there came one of the seven angels which had the seven
vials and talked with me saying unto me, Come hither, I will show unto thee the judgment
of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters.
Jump down to verse 3.
So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet
colored beast full of names of blasphemy having seven heads and ten horns.
Verse 4, and the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color and decked with gold and
precious stones and pearls having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness
of her fornication and upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery Babylon the Great,
the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.
Now keep your finger there in Revelation 17.
Go back to Numbers 15.
Go back to Numbers 15, and let me just tie this together here.
Now look, the devil is the ultimate counterfeiter.
We saw some of his counterfeit Bibles a little bit earlier in the sermon, didn't we?
He's got counterfeit Bibles, he's got counterfeit religion, true religion, the bride of Christ.
You know, those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
False religion personified in the great whore.
And you say, well why the great whore?
Why Babylon?
Because you know what?
Babel is where false religion got started after the flood where they all joined together
and tried to work their way to heaven, tried to build a tower to heaven.
That is the root of false doctrine and false religion is there at Babel.
Babel becomes Babylon, Babylon becomes Rome, Rome becomes the Roman Catholic Church.
The Roman Catholic Church becomes today's modern apostate movement, whether it be, you
know, the New Evangelical movement which, you know, some of them, a lot of people are
saving the New Evangelical movement, but a lot of this charismatic Evangelical movement
is just a works-based salvation just like Babel, just like Babylon, just like Rome,
just like Roman Catholic.
Look, a lot of them are using a bunch of Roman Catholic Bibles.
You know, the Christian bookstore today sells Roman Catholic paraphernalia and we see today
that modern Protestantism is just Catholicism-lite.
You know, so we see today this spirit of Babylon, this spirit of false religion, the spirit
of Antichrist, my friend, that, you know, that goes from Babel to Babylon to Rome to
Roman Catholicism and to all the false religion of today, to all the false religion that abounds,
of a works-based salvation and a universal church doctrine, okay?
So it's all called the great whore, right?
Well here's what's interesting.
In Numbers 15, remember when he told them to put that blue fringe on their garment?
And look what that was supposed to be a reminder of in verse 39, the ribbon of blue.
It shall be unto you a fringe that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments
of the Lord and do them and that you seek not after your own heart and your own eyes,
after which you used to go what?
A whoring.
So what is the blue supposed to remind you not to do?
You see the blue, you don't go a whoring.
And often in the Bible, when the Bible talks about a whoring, yes it talks about physically
going a whoring, but often it talks about going a whoring after other gods.
False religion.
That is called going a whoring.
So God says you look at the blue on the border of your garment, it reminds you not to go
a whoring.
Now look, when we look at the whore in Revelation 17, which color is missing?
The scarlet's there, the purple's there, the gold is there.
What's the one color that's missing?
The one that tells you not to go a whoring.
You think that's a coincidence?
No way.
The one color, you know, so basically look, if you look at the whore, it looks like the
right religion.
Hey, scarlet!
I'm used to that.
That looks right.
Hey, purple!
That looks right!
Gold!
That looks right!
But there's just one thing missing and I just can't quite put my finger on it.
Blue.
So what?
You know what that tells me when I compare Numbers 15 and Revelation 17?
When I see that blue tells you not to go a whoring, the whore's missing blue, but other
than that, really resembles what God started, really resembles biblical religion, with just
a little tweak.
That tells me that false religion will try to look a lot like the real deal.
False religion will pattern itself after God's word even, and pattern itself after something
that God made, the tabernacle, but just tweak it.
And you know what, in Galatians, he warned of another gospel.
He said that there's another gospel, but he said, which is not another, but there be some
that would pervert the gospel of Christ.
So the other gospel is not just a completely different gospel.
No, it's the true gospel perverted.
It's purple, scarlet, and gold, but let's leave out the blue.
It's Jesus died on the cross and was buried and risen again, but let's just change it
from whosoever believeth to whosoever does penance.
And by the way, read some Catholic literature on penance, you'll think you're in a Baptist
church telling you to repent of your sins, it's like the same thing.
You know what I mean?
It's like, you can see where it's just something's missing, you know what's missing?
The grace of God.
You know what I mean?
You see what's missing?
Believe.
You see what's missing?
You know, the truth.
And look, you can say, oh, you know, the Catholic church is Christian.
No, the Bible says the bishop must be the husband of one wife.
They say the bishop cannot have a wife.
You know what?
That's just a little unimportant detail though.
But you know what?
God says beware of people who look like Christianity in some ways, pattern themselves after Christianity
in some ways, but there's just a little difference.
Just a little bit different.
We just forgot something.
We just added something.
We just left something out.
Bibles that just kind of add something and leave something out.
And you know what?
Honestly, probably most of us don't really think the color blue is really that important.
You know what I mean?
We just think, you know, mainly the main verse we think of as being important is that blueness
of the wound verse.
You know, that's important.
The blueness of the wound cleanses the way evil, so do stripes, the innermost parts of
the belly.
You know, okay, but most of us, you know, we probably say that the color blue is probably
the most insignificant color, you know, because we, as far as the tabernacle, because we look
at the tabernacle and we see the scarlet, what do we instantly think of with the scarlet?
And we instantly think of the blood of Christ.
When we see the purple, what do we just instantly think of?
Royalty.
And we think of, you know, Jesus the King of Kings, you know.
We think of gold.
We think of what?
Riches.
Wealth.
Christ, you know, basically lives in a place that's paved with streets of gold.
And he owns the cattle on a thousand hills and the wealth in every mine.
You know, we think of gold and we understand that it represents the unsearchable riches
of Christ.
The purple represents his royalty, the fact that he's King of Kings.
The scarlet represents his blood.
The blue represents... but it matters.
You know what I mean?
And we just think, oh, I don't even know what that's for.
What's that blue about?
Just forget it.
Leave it out.
I don't, you know, forget it.
I don't need it.
You know what?
Every detail matters.
Let's pay attention and let's realize that God said things for a reason and we need to
keep our eyes wide open.
Look, I know we're not carrying the ark of the covenant around today.
I know we're not putting blue borders on our garment today.
I understand the difference between Old Testament and New Testament.
But let me tell you something today.
We need to pay as close attention to the New Testament as these people were told to pay
attention to the Old Testament.
And we need to use the New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as our sole authority
in all matters of faith and practice and that's the King James Bible.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word and we thank you so much for giving us so
much detail about how to live our lives, how to worship you, how to keep your commandments.
God please just help us to pay attention and to do right and help us to study, to show
ourselves approved, and to read your word every day and to pay attention to the details.
And we love you and in Jesus' name, amen.