Part of the chapter that I wanted to focus on is there at the end, beginning in verse
number 18.
It says, and it shall be, and this is talking about of course, if the children of Israel
ever set a king over them.
Now this was not God's original plan.
If you remember, God's system of government that he gave them was the system under
the judges, where they would basically just appoint men, they would choose from among
themselves, kind of like we have an election today, they would choose leaders, they
would choose people to be over them and to be their judges and their leaders.
And it was a great system, in fact it was a perfect system.
But they looked around at all the other nations around them and said, you know, we're going
to reject God's form of government and we're going to set a king over us so that we can
be like all the other nations.
And you remember how Samuel got up and warned them and said, look, you don't want to
have a king, this is what he's going to do to you, this is what that form of government
of monarchy is like, you don't want it, but yet they would not hearken and therefore
they set a king over themselves.
Well here in Deuteronomy, God obviously, knowing the future, he says, look, you know,
a king is not what I planned for, but he said, if you ever do choose a king, he said, make
sure it's one of your brethren, and he said that this king should not have multiple wives,
he should not be, you know, going down to Egypt and multiplying horses, he's explaining
all these things that the king should not do.
But look what he says in verse 18, it says, it shall be, when he sitteth upon
the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book
out of that which is before the priests, the Levites, and it shall be with him, and he
shall read therein all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord
his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them, look
at this in verse 20, that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that
he turn not aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, to the
end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst
of Israel.
So basically God's explained that the king should write out his own copy of the Bible.
Basically he should take God's word and make his own handwritten copy of it.
He's going to take a book, write it out himself, and then it says that he's
supposed to have that book with him all the time, and he's supposed to read therein
all the days of his life.
Every single day he was to read in God's word.
Every single day he was to have it with him, why?
It said so that he would not be lifted up above his brethren.
So that he would not get too proud or arrogant, but that he would be humble and understand
his place, that he would know how to keep God's commandments, that he would not turn
from them to the right hand or the left, that he prolong his days.
And God's just explaining here the importance of him reading the Bible daily.
Now look at the book of Matthew, chapter number 12.
Matthew chapter 12.
Matthew chapter number 12, and look at verse number 3.
I'm going to show you many different places in the Bible where Jesus is rebuking people
for not reading the Bible, because today we, as the king of Israel did, need to be reading
in this book every single day.
If we're going to know how to live for God, if we're going to know how to keep God's
commandments, we're going to have to read the Bible daily.
Look at Matthew 12.3.
We're just going to blow through a bunch of verses in the book of Matthew.
Look at Matthew 12.3, and he said of them, had he not read what David did when he was
in hunger, and they that were with him.
He's rebuking the Pharisees, he's rebuking a religious crowd for not having read the
Bible enough to know what the Bible said.
He said in verse 5, had he not read in the law, had on the Sabbath days the priests
in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless.
You know, I had somebody recently trying to promote this thing to me of us keeping
the Sabbath.
You know, and today we live in a time, and the Bible said that this would happen in
the last days, where people would come along, you know, commanding to abstain from meats,
and basically trying to bring us back into the bondage of a Jewish system, okay, which
is not what God ever intended, which is preached against in the book of Romans,
Galatians, etc.
But they were trying to tell us that we must keep the Sabbath, you know, and who's
ever heard of seventh-day Baptists?
You know, there's the seventh-day Baptists, and then there's the seventh-day Baptists,
and they try to tell you that you can't work on the Sabbath day and all this kind of stuff.
And they said, you know, oh, I can't believe that anybody would say that Jesus would break
the Sabbath.
You know, the Bible says in the book of John that Jesus broke the Sabbath.
It says that they were angry with him because he had broken the Sabbath, and he said,
my father worketh hitherto, and I work also.
And here he's rebuking them, explaining to them that they don't even understand the
Sabbath, and the person who was trying to promote this to me, I showed them this
birth in Matthew 12.5, and they said, wow, I've never seen that birth before.
Wow, that birth's amazing, but yet if they would have read, they would have known Matthew 12.5.
You know, if they would have read, they would understand what the Sabbath was, and
what it represented, and what it is today.
If they read, but when people don't read, they're carried about with every wind of
doctrine and the cunning craftiness and sleight of men, whereby they line weight to
the sea, and it's so easy to pick up a book written by a man and be deceived.
You know, one that just quotes verses, out of context, a little snippet here, a little snippet.
It's so easy to go on the internet and Google something and be deceived.
We need to be people who read the Bible.
We know what we believe.
We know why we believe it.
We understand these things because we've read, look at Matthew 19.4.
And this is something that Jesus is constantly saying, and I'm just going to show you a
list of a bunch of times.
He said in Matthew 19.4, and He answered and said to them,
Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female?
This is when the Pharisees are coming to Jesus, asking him if it's okay to divorce
their wife, if it's okay to do something.
He said, Look, God made them male and female, and said to this cause shall a man
leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife, and they twain shall be
one flesh.
What therefore God hath joined together, let thy man put asunder.
Haven't you read that?
Look at chapter 22, verse 29.
He said in Matthew 22, 29, Jesus answered and said to them, Ye do err not knowing
the scriptures, nor the power of God.
And look at verse 31, but as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read
that which was spoken unto you by God, saying?
Look at the book of Mark, chapter 12, flip over to Mark.
Look at Mark, chapter 12, it says in verse 10, and have ye not read this scripture?
The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner?
Look at verse 26, and as touching the dead that they rise, have ye not read?
This is Jesus speaking.
In the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of
Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
Look at Luke, chapter 6, verse 3, Luke 6, 3, next book of the Bible.
And Jesus answering them said, have ye not read so much as this?
He's saying, did you not even read this far in your Bible?
Have ye not read so much as this, what David did when he himself was in hunger,
and they which were with him?
Look at Luke 10, 26, you're in Luke 6, just a few pages over.
Luke 10, 26, he said unto them, what is written in the law?
And here's a great question to ask you this morning, how readest thou?
How is your reading, would be the question I would ask for you today.
It's the question that Jesus asked,
it's the question that he confronted the religious leaders with.
How readest thou, how have you read, haven't you read, didn't you read,
why aren't you reading?
God expects us to read his word daily.
That's the only way we're going to know what we believe.
That's the only way we're not going to be deceived.
We must read the Bible.
It's not enough just to go to a church that preaches doctrine.
It's not enough to go to a great church that preaches you everything you need.
I can't preach you everything that you need.
The Bible is a big book, you need to get into this book daily,
searching the scriptures whether these things be so,
instead of just blindly coming to Faithful Word Baptist Church or any church,
and just believing what you hear.
Don't just believe it.
You know, you've heard people say,
well, don't believe everything you read.
Well, when you're reading the Bible,
you should believe everything that you read.
But when you're coming to church,
don't believe everything that you hear.
You know, and I'll be the first one to say
that if I preach something that doesn't line up with this book,
then go with what the Bible says and forget what I said.
If I preach something that you don't think is scriptural,
but here's the thing,
you've got to do enough reading
to where you can either judge
what I'm saying is scriptural or not.
You see, some people come in here,
they've never even read the Bible one time cover to cover,
and they just say, oh, this isn't right.
Oh man, I can't believe what, you haven't even read.
And that's what they did with Jesus.
Jesus came on the scene, started preaching,
sound doctrine, righteousness, God is,
and they hear what he's saying.
They say, this is totally different
than what the rabbi has told me.
This is totally different
than what the Pharisees are telling me.
This is totally different
than what the Sadducees are telling me.
Jesus must be wrong.
No, you're wrong.
You need to read the scriptures,
and you'd know that everything that Jesus said
lined up perfectly with what the Old Testament taught.
He didn't come to destroy the law
or the prophets scheme to fulfill.
They didn't comprehend that.
They didn't understand that because they had not read.
You know, it's funny,
I was talking to somebody not too long ago,
and this guy was going back to the Greek.
He's going back to the Hebrew,
and yet it came out in the course of the conversation
that he had never read the Bible through
even one time cover to cover.
I mean, he came out and said that,
that he had not ever read certain books of the Bible.
And yet he's going to the Greek,
he's going to the Hebrew,
he's going to Josephus, he's going to history.
That is such nonsense.
You know, you're going to some foreign language
that you don't even speak,
that I don't speak, that none of us speak,
that I don't want to speak,
and you haven't even read the book once.
You know, and people will say,
well, the Bible doesn't really talk about this
in that subject, and they've never even read it once.
Maybe you just didn't get to that part yet.
You know what I mean?
And so I challenge you today,
if you've not read through the Bible cover to cover
one time, I challenge you, start today.
Start today and read it cover to cover.
And you know what, when you're done reading it
cover to cover, read it a second time.
And you say, what do I do next?
You never guess, read it a third time.
You know, if you're ever going to preach a pastor,
you must read it again and again and again
and again and again, so that you're not a novice,
so that you're not unstable and unlearned,
as the Bible says.
People who twist the Bible,
people who misuse the Bible,
it's because they're unstable and unlearned.
You say, oh, but this guy has a BA and a BS
and an MA and an MS and a PhD.
That doesn't make you learn
when it comes to the scriptures.
Because it's one thing to study about the Bible,
and it's another thing to study the Bible.
We got all kinds of people today
who know all kinds of things about the Bible,
and they can get up and take you to the Hebrew
and the Greek, and they can draw a picture for you
of what the clothing looked like back then,
and they can tell you about a bunch of Greek philosophers
and what their dress looked like back then,
you know, as a man, and they'll tell you
all these things, but do they know the scriptures?
That's all I want to know.
That's all I care about.
I don't need all this commentary in my library.
I don't need some pictorial Bible dictionary in my library.
This is the only book I need,
and there's only one person I need to explain it to me,
and that's the Holy Spirit.
Look at 1 John chapter two.
Look at 1 John chapter number two.
1 John chapter number two,
and here's a great scripture that you should learn.
Let's look at verse 25
while we're waiting for people to turn there,
just because it's such a great verse,
and this is the promise that he had promised us,
even eternal life.
Well, that's a great soul body verse right there.
These things have I written unto you, verse 26,
concerning them that seduce you.
So there are people out there, deceivers.
In 2 John, just a few chapters later in your Bible,
John's going to tell us many deceivers
are entered into the world.
He's going to warn us about the deceivers and antichrists
and false teachers that are out there.
He said, I'm writing to you
concerning them that seduce you,
and here's the number one thing that you should know
to help you not be deceived,
not be lied to, not be seduced.
He said, but the anointing, verse 27,
talking about the Holy Spirit,
but the anointing which he had received of him
abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you.
But as the same anointing teacheth you of all things,
and is truth and is no lie,
and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
So the most important thing to know
concerning them that seduce you
is just to know that you don't ever need anyone
to teach you the Bible.
That's what he just said.
And he said, wait a minute, Pastor Aniston,
I thought he gave us teachers,
and we come to church,
do you hear the Bible taught and preached?
Yes, you do come to church
to hear me teach and preach you the Bible,
but you don't need to understand the Bible.
I mean, do you understand the difference?
If you come to church and I teach you something
and preach to you something,
I can help you learn faster.
I can help show you things that you didn't know
because I've studied the Bible longer, maybe,
or just have seen more,
and so I can show you something that you haven't seen,
but if there's something that I would have to teach you
that you would never get on your own,
it's not true, it's false.
And there are so many people
who will try to show you some doctrine,
they won't just say, well, read the Bible,
you'll see what I'm saying.
They'll say, no, you got to read this book
by so and so.
Or I've got to sit down and explain it to you
and draw it out on a piece of paper.
If you have to have someone else teach it to you,
then it's not even true.
Because you have the same Holy Spirit living inside you
if you're saved that I have.
And so both of us should be able
to just pick up the Bible separately,
read the Bible and understand the Bible
without having to have someone explain it to us.
You don't need someone to explain to you the Bible.
You can pick up the Bible on your own
and read it and understand it if you're saved.
This is the whole thing that the Catholic Church used
throughout the dark ages to deceive people
was to tell them, you can't understand the Bible.
You need us to interpret it for you.
Isn't that right?
You need us to interpret it.
And I've even heard Catholics, even today,
in 2010, I sat on the airplane recently with a Catholic
and he told me, well, you know,
we can't understand the Bible on our own,
the Church has to interpret it for us, he said.
You know, and you know what?
The Catholic Church is the biggest cult in the world.
If you'd say the definition of a cult
is somebody who's following a man
and worshiping that man and giving him a godlike status.
Because the word cult is even used outside of religion.
You know, you remember in the Soviet Union,
they called Joseph Stalin,
they called it the cult of personality.
You know, it wasn't a religious worship,
it was just a cult-like following of the man.
You think of basically cult-like followings of rock stars
and other type people.
A cult is someone that's following man
and worshiping man and lifting him up to a godlike status.
Isn't that what the Pope is?
When he's called Holy Father?
When they kiss his big toe?
When they cheer and bow down and worship
and sob, you know, the man.
And where he can speak ex cathedra
and what he says supersedes what the Bible says?
It's a cult.
And that's why the Seventh-day Adventists are a cult.
Because they're a cult following of Ellen G. White.
And even on their website,
they'll say that her writings supersede the Bible.
You know, she spoke for God.
You know, and by the way,
why would you follow a religion started by a woman?
When it's, and I have nothing,
I'm not some kind of a pig up here, so you know.
But let me tell you something.
I'm not gonna follow a religion started by a woman.
When the Bible says, oh, have you not read?
Oh, I can't believe he's here.
Have you not read what the Bible says
about women teaching the Bible?
In First Timothy 2, when he says,
let the woman learn in silence with all subjection,
but I suffer not a woman to teach,
nor do you serve authority over the man
but be in silence for Adam's first form, then he,
I didn't write that, that's in the Bible.
And the Seventh-day Adventists are a cult.
And David Koresh, you know,
who broke off from the Seventh-day Adventists,
you know, the Seventh-day Adventists
paid millions of dollars to make sure
that their name was not mentioned in the media,
that David Koresh and the branch of Indians
was the Seventh-day Adventists.
They went to court, they spent tons of money
to make sure that nobody made that connection.
I remember my dad at the time watching the news.
You know Waco?
My dad at the time watching the news,
like, why don't they ever say
he was a Seventh-day Adventist?
And they fought not to have that mentioned in the media,
that it was a Seventh-day Adventist cult.
But the Seventh-day Adventists themselves are a cult.
You know, the Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult.
The Mormons are a cult.
They got their prophet, they worship their prophet,
and Joseph Smith, and Brigham Young,
and all those other bunch of pedophiles
and polygamists and weirdos.
You know, they worship those people,
and they follow them, and they believe things
that are so strange that no one would believe them
unless they're just looking to man
and just saying, whatever they tell us with this believing.
You know, they didn't get that stuff from the Bible.
You think they got from the Bible
that there's all these other planets and everything
with people living on them?
That didn't come from the Bible.
There's only one God.
God said this.
He said, I'm the Lord, there's none else.
He said, before me, there was no God for me.
Neither shall there be after me.
I am the Lord, and there's none else
beside me, there is no Savior, he said.
There's one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all,
and these cult leaders, you know,
deceive and lie and seduce and say,
you need us to teach you.
You see, Mormonism's a new religion.
Joseph Smith is a new religion.
Stephen Abbott's a new religion.
Somebody coming along saying,
well, everybody else is wrong,
but I know the truth, follow me.
If the people who got sucked into these religions
in the early days would have known 1 John 2.27,
they never would have been sucked in.
Are you listening to me?
They never would have been sucked in,
because they would have said,
you know, I don't need you to explain this to me.
I mean, can I get this from the Bible myself?
Why does no one else in the world get this?
You know, and thankfully, today,
as Bible-believing Christians, we're not alone.
There are people all over this world,
by the millions and millions,
who have the same book that I'm holding in my hand,
the same Holy Spirit living inside,
and believe the same doctrines that we believe,
because they didn't get it from me,
and they didn't get it from some other pastor somewhere.
They got it from the Bible.
They got it from God.
I mean, how many times I run into people
who I've never met before, never had any contact with,
and they believe the same things I believe.
Same God, same Holy Spirit, same Bible.
But we have a tendency to want to rely upon
and lean upon man for our understanding.
People are too lazy to read the Bible themselves,
so they want to find a man to follow.
Even if it's this man, or some other man.
Just, they want to follow a person,
instead of learning it on their own.
And look, it's a sin not to go to church.
I'm not telling you, you know,
you don't need church, we go to church.
The Bible says not to forsake
the assembling of yourselves together,
as the matter of some is,
but exhorting one another,
and so much the more, as we see the day approaching,
be in church.
But see, we come to church not to learn something
that it would be impossible for us to learn elsewhere.
Because we could learn it elsewhere.
We go to church to get the unity,
to get the fellowship, to get in a group of people
who believe like we believe, to get motivated,
because if we get out there in the world,
we'll start to cool off, we'll start to get apathetic,
we'll start to relax.
We come to church, we get our batteries charged,
we get fired up, I preach to you,
somebody else preaches behind this pulpit to me.
Whatever the case may be, we come to get stirred up,
to learn even more, to grow even more,
to sing the songs, to sing out in the midst
of the congregation as the Bible commands.
There are a lot of reasons to come to church,
but it's not so that we can find out the big secret
that Pastor Anderson has for us
that nobody else can tell us.
Because you should be learning 90% of what you learn
on your own with the Bible.
And 10% should be learned right here in church.
But you see, people are deceived today
because they'd rather have it spoon-fed to them
than to read it and get it on their own.
And that's why they're deceived.
Because they're looking for somebody
who will just spoon it into their mouth,
and they'll just blindly follow,
instead of digging in deep
and finding the answers for themselves in God's Word.
Look, if you want to grow up and be a,
well, turn if you went to Hebrews,
Hebrews chapter five, just a few pages back in your Bible.
Just a few pages to the left, you'll find the book
of Hebrews, look at Hebrews chapter five.
And again, we're talking about the importance
of reading the Bible, the importance of knowing the Bible.
It says in Hebrews chapter five, in verse 12,
for when for the time ye ought to be teachers,
ye have need that one teach you again,
which be the first principles of the oracles of God,
and are become such as have need of milk,
and not of strong meat.
For every one that uses milk is unskillful
in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.
But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age.
Even those who by reason of use
have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Let me explain to you the difference
between milk and strong meat.
Now, babies drink milk, don't they?
That's all, they don't eat meat.
They are on a purely milk diet.
Now, let me ask you something.
Does the baby feed themself milk,
or is the milk fed to them?
It's fed to them, okay?
Maybe you've never had kids, you know what I'm saying?
It's definitely just their mouth is put right up to it,
and there it is, shoved right in their mouth, okay?
And so, yeah, it's fed to them.
But you know, when it comes to strong meat,
and here, by the way, when you know that it's time
to start giving your baby solids
is when they just start to reach out to the table
and grab it and shove it in their own mouth.
I mean, that's about the time
that you start giving them solids.
Because, you know, they're just being nursed,
they're being nursed exclusively, just breastfed,
that's it, and then all of a sudden,
you know, you're at the table,
and all of a sudden, the hand reaches out and just,
you know, and their first food ends up being
like a french fry or something like that, you know?
It gets shoved into their mouth,
and that's when you know, okay,
it's time to move on to some solids.
But some of you may be in that stage
where you're just like a baby.
You know, you just come to church,
woo, woo, woo, you know, just waiting for somebody
to just put it in your mouth for you.
You know, grow up.
Grow up and feed yourself.
But let me explain something to you.
If you only get your meat of God's word from church,
you're a baby.
You're a spiritual baby.
I mean, can you imagine if Brother Stuckey this morning
were brought up here, and I put a bib on him
and just started to spoon food into his mouth.
Wouldn't that be a ridiculous sight?
I mean, think about it.
What if I just, I got a little blender,
I got a little processor and put in like squash and plums.
You know, it's like, it seems to be what it always is,
somewhere, or turkey dinner, turkey and rice dinner.
You know, it's just all mixed in.
And it's just a brown sludge.
You know, I'm like, okay, Brother Stuckey,
open your mouth, say ah.
You know, I'm spooning it in,
half of it's drizzling down the side of his mouth,
and it's all over his shirt, and I'm crazing him.
Oh, you're such a good boy.
You're eating so nicely today, Matt.
Good job, Matthew.
Good boy.
Now look, if I did that with a small child,
it would seem normal, right?
If I just had a little baby in the high,
duh, duh, I'm selling food in the mouth,
and it's drizzling out the corners and all this stuff.
But you know, wouldn't it be disgusting
just to see a grown man eating it that way?
You know what I mean?
And that's what church is today.
You know, you come and just get some,
oh, we have to really,
that's why we have to soften it up so much.
Because you know, you can't really handle
the Tebow steak of preaching, you know.
You're not ready for the real preaching
of a baked potato,
so we're just gonna give you a little mushy sermon.
And that's what most churches, it's like,
mush Baptist, you know.
You go and you get your little mashed up banana sermon.
And that's what people want to hear today.
And you preach them anything real, you know.
You put in front of them a filet mignon,
and they're like, they don't know what it is.
They pick it up and throw it, like a baby.
If you've got that filet mignon
that has so much value and nutrition and taste,
they pick it up and they're like, yeah.
Give me Christ Community Church, yeah.
I want to go to the Life Center Fellowship, yeah.
I want Christian rock and roll and contemporary service,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, give me a mashed up, sweet, slimy sermon.
No!
You know, and you ought to come to this church
with a knife and a fork in your hand if you've been saved.
Now look, if you're a new believer,
you know, we'll throw a little something
in the food processor for you each sermon,
and you'll be able to chew it up and swallow it.
But you know what?
You ought to be feeding yourself.
You've been saved for three years.
You've been saved for five years.
Even if you've been saved for one year.
Why haven't you read the Bible cover to cover?
It'll only take you 15 minutes a day
to read it in one year.
You know, you've got to grow up.
You've got to feed yourself.
You've got to pick up the 49.
And listen, it tastes better to feed yourself.
Amen.
You get better selections.
And so, feed yourself.
Learn to feed off of the strong meat of the word,
but you've got to read.
In order to feed, you must read.
Okay?
So let's go ahead and turn to 1 Timothy chapter four.
And while you're turning to 1 Timothy four,
I'll read you another scripture.
And by the way, Mr. Greek Hebrew scholar
who hasn't read it cover to cover is a baby.
Sorry.
And look, I have nothing against babies.
Oh, how dare you call somebody a baby?
Look, everybody starts out being a baby, don't they?
I was once a baby.
I was once a baby physically.
I was once a baby spiritually.
And look, I would never look down
on any person who's a spiritual baby.
But I just don't want them to come to me
and try to tell me what the Greek says or something
when they're the baby.
You know, I don't let my babies
and my toddlers teach me about life.
You know, I don't sit down at a table
with Becky and Miriam
and have them give me a lesson in etiquette.
Table etiquette.
You know, I'm going to give them
a lesson in table etiquette.
And see, the thing is, you know,
let's just get to the lie
where I'm getting a little too carried away
with the illustration.
But before we read 1 Timothy four,
I'll read you from Hosea 4.6.
Listen to this.
Hosea 4.6, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Where does the lack of knowledge come from?
It says this.
Because thou hast rejected knowledge,
I will also reject thee,
that thou shalt be no priest to me,
seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God,
I will also forget thy children.
So God's explaining that, you know,
people aren't hearing God's word taught.
Back then, you know, the priest was the one
who would preach to them and teach them.
Today we have the pastor in the church
that preaches and teaches, other preachers and teachers.
And basically, they're not teaching knowledge.
People don't want to hear knowledge.
People don't want to read the Bible
and get the knowledge on their own.
And it causes destruction in their life
and it causes their children to go astray,
is what we get from Hosea 4.6.
But look at 1 Timothy chapter four.
You see, we need to have churches that emphasize reading.
Look at 1 Timothy 4.13.
This is a verse written to a preacher,
written to a pastor by the man who won him to Christ,
taught him everything, which is Paul.
1 Timothy is written to this young preacher
that he's giving advice to.
He says this in verse 13,
till I come, give attendance to reading,
to exhortation, to doctrine.
These are the three elements
that we must have in church today.
Three elements of which preaching should consist.
Three things you should be getting at church.
You should be getting reading.
You should be getting exhortation.
That's what we think of more commonly as preaching.
Exhortation is like motivating you to do what's right,
trying to get you to get fired up
and serve God and go out and win souls
and trying to get you mad about sin,
to get the sin out of your life and so forth.
And he says into doctrine,
which is just teaching you the Bible,
just causing you to learn
just the basic principles of the Bible,
line upon line, precept upon precept.
These are the three things
of which preaching should consist.
Reading, exhortation, doctrine.
I love what it says.
Put your finger there.
Turn to the front page of your Bible.
And I don't know if it says this on your Bible or not.
Turn to the cover page in your Bible
where it just says like the Holy Bible
containing the Old and New Testaments.
Is everybody on that page?
Okay, now mine says it.
I don't know if yours says it or not.
I'm gonna ask for a raise hand.
Who says appointed to be read in churches?
Who says that?
Who sees that?
One, two, three, four, five.
Anybody else see that?
Mine says the Holy Bible
containing the Old and New Testaments
translated out of the original tongues
with former translations diligently compared
and revised by his majesty, special command,
appointed to be read in churches.
Anybody see that?
One, two, three, four, five.
You know why it says that?
Because back when they actually printed this book,
the King James Bible in the English language,
that's what they would have at church.
People would read the Bible to them.
It wasn't this thing
where maybe you'd get one verse
or one part of a verse,
and that's the sermon.
Now, in the same way
when Paul is preaching to this young man, Timothy,
look at 2 Timothy 4.
You're in 1 Timothy 4.
Just flip over a couple pages
to 2 Timothy 4.
He says in 2 Timothy 4, verse 2,
he says, preach what?
Preach the word.
What word is he talking about there?
He's talking about the word of God, right?
So shouldn't a preacher be preaching the word?
Not just preaching about the word,
not just preaching one little verse
and then maybe 30 minutes of his own opinion.
You know what I mean?
Or one little part of a verse.
And that's what these daily little devotional books are too,
by the way.
You know what?
That is like the equivalent of eating a Twinkie
for breakfast.
It is.
You know what I'm talking about?
These little devotional books,
Our Daily Bread,
and what are some of the other ones?
Somebody help me out.
R.P.G.
What is it?
R.P.G.
Isn't that a rocket problem?
R.P.G.
Okay, I don't even know what to say.
It's like, why don't you just call it what it is?
Ho ho.
Why don't you call it?
Little Debbie, devotionals with little Debbie.
You know, little Debbie oatmeal cream devotional.
That's what it is,
because it's literally so devoid of nutrition.
Because you read one half a verse, dot, dot, dot.
You know?
And then it's just a whole page of just
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
When in reality,
you have to get something that has a little more protein
in it first thing in the morning.
You know, when I wake up in the morning,
I want to have a breakfast like my wife made me
this morning.
Which was a half brown casserole, scrambled eggs,
and homemade sausage.
Now that sounds like something I could sink my teeth into.
I don't want to get up and just see,
well here honey,
Zuzo, what's for breakfast this morning?
Oh here honey,
here's two little Debbie's and a little hug.
You know, that was for you brother Brett.
You know, these little hug drink boxes
that are zero percent fruit juice.
I looked that up on the internet by the way Brett.
It said it was diabetes in a bottle.
That's what I described it as.
It said, oh you remember these from when you were
a little kid?
It said it's basically diabetes in a bottle.
And they said it's this giant factory,
huge factory,
and they just make a sugary,
it's not even sugar, I'm sorry,
a high fructose corn syrup water.
It's just like a sugar water, okay?
It's made in the laboratory.
And he said every product they made,
and they had just all these different lines of drinks.
Every product they made was just the same sugar water,
not even sugar though.
You know, fake sugar, high fructose corn syrup.
And it was just,
they just added a different artificial color
and a different artificial flavor.
And put it in different packets.
You know, so okay honey,
here's your breakfast.
It's a little hug juice drink.
Probably going to be sued by a little hug or something.
Little hug juice box.
And here's two Twinkies and a Ho-Ho for breakfast.
Yeah, that's not what it's, sorry honey.
She's got morning sickness.
She doesn't like to hear about weird food.
But yeah, that's not what you need for breakfast.
What you need is something with some nutrients.
Like how about this?
Save your money too on your little subscription
to RPGs and,
I thought it was role playing games.
I thought it was Markiplier days,
but apparently it's read, pray, grow.
You know, save your money on your subscription
to our daily bread.
All you got to do is just,
this is a one-time subscription fee.
Amen.
You know, it just costs about $3.95 or whatever.
Get a gift and award Bible.
Or I'll give you one.
Talk to me, I'll give you one for free.
We usually have them out there.
We'll give you one for free.
Take it with you.
And it's a one-time fee
and you got your daily bread for the rest of your life.
Read this every day.
Get the straight meat of the word,
not after it's been ground up and processed
and chewed up and spat out
and put in front of you by man.
I want to get it straight from God.
And so we got to read the Bible.
Nehemiah 8.8, you don't need to turn there,
but it says,
so they read the book and the law of God distinctly
and gave the sense and caused them
to understand the reading.
That's what preaching was in Nehemiah chapter eight.
That's what kind of preacher Ezra was.
He took the Bible.
He read it.
He expounded it.
He explained it.
And that's what preaching was.
He preached the word.
He didn't preach man's word.
He preached God's word.
And we need to get a revival in this country
of preaching scripture,
using the Bible in a sermon.
It's a shame when a sermon has three verses in it.
And that's why we read the whole chapter
at the beginning.
We read the entire chapter at the beginning
and there are a couple of chapters of Bible mixed in
throughout if you added up all the verses
that are used in the sermon.
Look at Proverbs chapter six, if you would.
Proverbs chapter number six.
Of course he said in Joshua 1.8,
this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth,
but thou shalt meditate therein day and night.
We think of Psalm 1, blessed is the man
that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful,
but his delight is in the law of the Lord
and in his law that he meditate day and night.
That's where the Christian ought to be.
If they want to be planted like a tree
planted by the rivers of water
to bring forth his fruit and his season.
If they want whatsoever they do to prosper.
They've got to read the Bible.
And today we're just inundated with just computers
and video games and TV and magazines
and everything else to suck away your time and energy
from the one thing you ought to be doing,
which is reading this book, reading the Bible.
Reading the Bible.
You know, and people today, especially children,
cannot sit down and read this book
because they'll start reading it and start fidgeting.
You know, they have ADD and ADHD,
and now they grow up and have adult ADD, you know,
and they're bipolar.
You know, bipolar sounds pretty good.
It sounds like you're balanced.
You got both sides going.
I'd rather be bipolar than unipolar.
You know, yeah, it balances out, exactly.
Today I'm mad, throwing things.
Tomorrow I'm in a good mood.
It's a good balance.
I'm bipolar.
So what?
Try to put me on some drug.
You know, and today everybody's on drugs.
Today everybody's all doped up
because they got to have one to make me happy.
Then I got too happy.
Yeah, you know, I had to take another one
to slow me down a little bit, you know?
And then I just started shaking.
I didn't know why.
I took another drug to control the shaking, you know?
That's where we're at today.
And you get to where you have this cocktail of drugs.
You can't even fit food in your stomach anymore.
You're just metabolizing pills.
You know, and I don't know what that has to do
with the sermon, but I'm sick of it.
Dude.
What does that have to do with the sermon?
Better go, where did I have to turn on violence?
See, I told you I'm mentally in an office.
Anyway, look at Proverbs 6.20.
It says this.
Oh yeah, I remember now.
It's kids who won't sit still and read the Bible.
It's not because they're bipolar.
It's not because they have ADD.
It's not because they have ADHD.
It's because they're just addicted
to flickering lights and flashes and explosions
of TV, video games, movies, fun.
They can't sit down and have somebody say,
shut up and read this book.
In school, they don't read a book.
In school, it's a big play time.
And we go, oh, we gotta spend millions more dollars
to make it fun.
When in reality, it doesn't cost anything to learn.
They spend all kinds of money and don't learn.
Because you know what it takes to learn?
Work.
That's what it takes to learn.
I mean, you can have all the frills and the gadgets.
It's funny, whenever somebody wants to learn
a new language, they go out and they buy
some $600 software.
You know what I'm talking about?
Oh man, this is gonna make me learn.
That $600 software will not teach you that language.
You just have to study.
I mean, hey, if you use the $600 software, great.
But you're gonna have to study that software.
You're gonna have to put work into it.
You're gonna have work.
Even our Spanish class on Sunday mornings at 9.45.
We're teaching people how to speak Spanish
so that they can go out and win people
to Christ in Spanish.
And we get criticized for that all the time, by the way.
Oh, how can you teach people Spanish?
This is America.
You know what?
We, look, I don't care what you believe about immigration.
If somebody's on their way to hell who speaks Spanish,
I'm gonna go give them the gospel and get them saved.
You know what I mean?
You just have to hate somebody
because they're just speaking a different language.
And it has nothing to do with politics.
It just has to do with giving people the gospel
no matter what they are.
No matter what they believe.
No matter what religion they are.
No matter what race they are.
No matter what language they speak.
Hey, if there's millions of people in this city
speaking Spanish,
and I'm not offering a church service in Spanish,
but I'm gonna go give them the gospel
and get them saved in Spanish.
I don't care what you say.
But you know what, the people who come to the class
on Sunday mornings and don't do the studying
are never gonna learn Spanish.
You could come to our Spanish class till doomsday.
You will never learn the language
unless you study outside the class
because it takes work to learn.
It takes work to read your Bible.
It takes work to learn the Bible.
It's not just easy to just,
oh, I'll just sit down and listen in church
and I'll learn it all.
Oh, I'll sit down and listen to Spanish class,
learn it all.
Oh, I'll buy the software, I'll learn it all.
Oh, buy the Bible software, $200.
The Bible Institute online training program.
No, buy the Bible and read it and do the work.
Do like David did.
Do like all these other kings were supposed to do
where they copied it out by hand.
Let's see if he learned something.
My son right now is copying the book of Proverbs by hand.
What chapter are you in, son?
Chapter 11.
You think he's learning anything?
He's learning more than these bunch of dumbed down
public schools are teaching him
by copying the book of Proverbs.
In fact, let's look at Proverbs chapter six, verse 20.
It says, my son, keep thy father's commandment
and forsake not the law of thy mother.
Bind them continually upon thy heart
and tie them about thy neck.
Now here's the thing.
Yes, this is talking about your physical father
and mother on this earth,
but this could be applied to our heavenly father.
God is our father.
His commandment is more important than any command
we've ever received from an earthly parent.
He says this.
Bind them continually upon thy heart
and tie them about thy neck.
When thou goest, it shall lead thee.
Speaking of what?
The commandment, God's word.
When thou sleepest, it shall keep thee.
And when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.
This is what the Bible should be in our life.
This is what it said in Deuteronomy 17
where it said the king was supposed to have it
with him everywhere he went.
So he could open it and read it all the days of his life.
Well, you ought to get you a pocket New Testament
and stick that thing in your pocket,
stick that thing in your purse.
You ought to take that with you everywhere you go.
You ought to get the CDs for your car.
You could get the Alexander Scorby reading the Bible
and listen to God's word as you drive.
You ought to have it with you.
It will lead you, it will talk.
Look, I go on a lot of long trips by myself.
Long, long drives by myself.
Thousands and thousands of miles of driving
on a weekly basis.
Sometimes I have Scott with me
and he talks my ear out the whole time.
But other times I'm just by myself.
You know what?
And the Bible is what talks with me.
You know what I mean?
It talks to me, literally.
I mean, I push the button on the stereo
and the Bible's in there, the Bible being read on CD
and it talks with me.
Or I can memorize the Bible, I can quote the Bible.
It is my best friend that goes with me everywhere I go.
The Bible.
Everywhere.
It's in my heart.
It's around my neck.
It says in verse 23,
for the commandment is a lamp and the law is light
and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.
This should be your way of life.
God's word, the Bible.
To keep thee from the evil woman.
And boy, that's where we're at today.
She's everywhere, isn't she?
The Bible even said in Proverbs chapter six,
another part of Proverbs,
that she lies in wait at every corner.
Die in the desert, everywhere you look.
The evil woman.
From the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.
Lust not after her beauty in thine heart,
neither let her take thee with her eyelids.
You know, that's a difficult command to obey,
but God's word is what's gonna empower you
to obey that command.
God's word when it's with you,
when it's in your heart,
when it's around your neck,
when you wake up and it talks to you,
when it keeps you while you sleep,
when it guides you, when it directs you,
when it's a light to your,
when it's a lamp to your feet
and a light to your path,
it will preserve you,
it will keep you,
it will protect you,
it will instruct you,
it will teach you,
it will motivate you,
it will be your friend.
We need to be a church that has God's word
in our hearts and in our minds.
Not a church where the past,
well I love Faith for Baptist Church
because the pastor really knows what he's talking about.
It ought to be,
you know what I love about Faith for Baptist Church?
Everybody in that church knows the Bible.
And if Pastor Anderson's gone
or if somebody else preaches,
you know, and I'm never gone by the way.
Sorry if you wish I'd be gone,
no I'm just kidding.
But anyway,
if I'm not preaching and somebody else is preaching,
it ought to just be like wow,
everybody in that church knows the Bible.
That's a church where they read the Bible.
That's a church where it's not about man,
it's about God's word.
I remember I started going,
I'll close with this point.
I remember when we first started going
to Regency Baptist Church in Sacramento, California
back when I was a teenager,
just turned 17.
And we started to go to the church
and we'd been in a lot of liberal, watered down churches.
We started going to the church,
and this is when I was a teenager of course, 17.
And the pastor became ill.
And the pastor was out for weeks.
And he was not there at all.
He was too ill to even preach.
And he was bedridden and so forth.
And basically all different men in the church
were rotating in and preaching.
And you know, there were other men
that were filling the pulpit while he was out.
So we had just started going to this church.
And I remember my dad saying this.
He said, you know what I love about this church?
He said at other churches we've been to,
boy, the pastor was right on.
You know, he was just straight down the line doctrinally.
But then the people in the pew,
they believed all kinds of crazy stuff.
They weren't on board.
They didn't agree with things.
They had all different versions of the Bible.
They have all different doctrine.
He said, what I love about this church
is that it's not just the pastor that's right.
That's what my dad said.
He said, what I love about this church
is that it's like all the men in the church,
they know the Bible, they're preaching right.
And that's what settled our decision
to plant it in that church.
Because we said, well, here's not just one guy
that we like.
Here's a church that we like.
Here's a group that we like.
You, if you're ever going to pastor a young man,
you must consume large amounts of the Bible.
You've got to read and read and read.
And even if you're never going to pastor,
if you're going to be a great soul winner,
if you're going to be a great husband,
if you're going to be a great wife,
if you're going to be a great soul winning lady,
soul winning man, you need God's word.
It needs to be a part of your life.
And if you're messing around with everything else
more than God's word,
if you're listening to whatever else,
whatever radio program more than God's word,
if you're watching TV,
don't even watch TV at all,
because it's all garbage, by the way.
It's all straight out of hell.
But if you're doing anything,
if you're reading all these books about history,
I'm all for reading books about history,
but you know what?
You should be reading more Bible than anything else.
Shouldn't be you read history for three hours
and then the Bible for five minutes.
You got the wrong balance in your life, my friend,
because you know what?
History is going to crumble and pass away
and not matter.
This is what matters.
This is what ought to be your focus.
Not politics, not science, not games, not fun.
The Bible should be the focus.
Fire hasn't had word of prayer.