In Psalm 11, the scripture that I wanted to point out is in verse 3 where the Bible reads,
If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
And that's a very profound question, and so we have to ask ourselves tonight,
What is the foundation of what we believe?
What is the foundation upon which we build our lives?
What is the foundation for all faith and practice of our church?
And most people would readily answer that that foundation is the Word of God.
Because the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 3,
It says, Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, that is, Christ Jesus.
You know, the Bible talks very clearly about building your life upon the rock of God's Word.
He said, Any man that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them.
Talk about the Word of God.
He said, If you hear my sayings and do them,
He said, You're like a wise man who built his house upon a rock.
And he said, The rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew, and beat upon that house,
and it fell not because it was founded upon a rock.
He said, Any man that heareth these sayings of mine, doeth them not,
is like unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand.
And the rain descended, the floods came, the wind blew, and beat upon that house,
and it fell, and great was the fall of it.
You see, the Word of God is our foundation, because the Bible says,
Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
And Jesus is the Word.
We were out soloing him today, and we ran into a young guy as we were trying to give him the Gospel.
He basically told us, Well, I believe in Jesus, but I don't believe in the Bible.
You can't believe in Jesus if you don't believe in the Bible.
Amen.
Because Jesus is the Word.
Jesus was the Word made flesh.
The Bible is the written Word.
You can't separate the two.
You can't separate the Word from Jesus, because Jesus is the Word made flesh.
And so this guy said, Well, I believe in Jesus, but I don't believe the Bible.
Well, he's got the wrong Jesus.
He doesn't believe in the Jesus of the Bible.
He believes in his own Jesus.
And so what I'm trying to say tonight is that over and over again,
we see the Bible calling the Word of God a foundation, a rock that we can build upon.
Now, the Bible says here, If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
And there's an attack today on the Word of God.
And if the devil can destroy God's Word,
he puts the righteous in a position where they can accomplish nothing.
Because without that foundation, they can accomplish nothing.
For example, we're not going to get people saved without the Word of God.
Because the Bible clearly says that we are born again, not of corruptible seed,
but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth in a Bible forever.
The Bible clearly tells us that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
The Bible clearly says in Acts chapter 11,
That they shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.
David said, Thy word has quickened me.
The Bible says the Word brings life.
The Word is what brings salvation.
He said, If his own will begat thee us with the word of truth,
that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
He said, Receive what meeteth the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
And so the Word of God is under attack today.
Now, I want to talk about a little bit different of an attack than we would normally think of.
Because normally when I think of the Word of God being under attack,
I think of how people are trying to change the Word of God.
And they're trying to corrupt it, and they're trying to change what it says,
just a little bit here and there, to affect key doctrines.
We think of the modern Bible versions that are out there.
And there are so many modern versions out there, several hundred in the English language.
And they all say something a little bit different.
And some of them remove whole verses.
Most of them remove whole verses.
They remove a lot of powerful words from the Bible,
and replace them with soft language that is not biblical language.
And so we can talk about tonight how the devil has an agenda
of trying to corrupt the Word of God,
and bring in a slightly changed version that says something a little different.
But what I want to talk about is something different tonight.
And what I want to talk about is a different kind of attack
that doesn't change the Word of God itself.
It doesn't change the Bible.
It doesn't give you a new version and say,
well, here's a new version of the Bible,
you know, that calls Joseph Jesus' father,
and that takes out hell, and takes out sodomites, and everything like that.
But instead, an attack that's based upon changing the meaning of words.
You see, if the devil can't get you to get on some phony Bible version
where he changes everything,
well, then if he can get you to change the meaning of the words,
then the words won't mean the same thing to you anymore,
and you'll be completely confused.
You'll be speaking a different language.
And the devil today wants to change the meaning of some key Bible words,
and I want to go over that with you tonight, what those words are.
The first place I want to take you is 1 John chapter 5.
And if these foundations are destroyed of God's Word,
and what the words of God mean,
what can the righteous do?
It's going to be difficult.
For example, I talked about it a little bit this morning,
it's going to be difficult to get somebody saved
if they don't know what the word sin means.
What if they don't know what the word believe means?
What if they don't know what the word hell means, or heaven means?
How are they going to get saved
if they don't even understand the words of the Gospel?
And if the devil can change what words mean,
he can get us to believe a false doctrine,
even if we have the right Bible,
even if we have a King James Bible in our hand,
we can believe a false doctrine
if we misunderstand the meaning of the words.
The first word I want to talk about
is the most important word in the whole Bible, I think,
outside of the name of Jesus,
which would be the word believe.
Now, the word believe is a word
that most people know what it means.
And most people you talk to know what it means,
but I've run into a lot of people these days
who want to change what this word means,
and to corrupt the meaning of the word believe.
And it's not a complicated word, it's not a hard word.
But many have said,
well, when the Bible says believe,
what that really means is how you live your life.
Now, that's not the normal meaning
that we would associate with believe.
The normal meaning
that we would associate with the word believe
would be as if I said to you,
my car is red, do you believe me?
Now, if someone believes me,
they're acknowledging the truth of what I'm saying.
They're trusting what I'm saying that is accurate.
Because they've never seen my car,
but I'm telling them it's red, they believe that.
Whereas, if they did not believe that,
they are saying that I am a liar.
So we all understand what the word believe means.
But what I want to show you tonight
is why it's important to let the Bible define every word.
Let the Bible itself be your dictionary
because there are people out there
who want to twist and corrupt the meaning of words.
Many will go to an English dictionary
and make that the final authority of what a word means.
But wait a minute, the dictionary is made by man.
And man is a sinner, man is imperfect.
And so the dictionary is not a perfect book.
However, the Bible is a perfect book.
The dictionary might have mistakes in it,
I'm sure it does.
It's made by human beings.
Others will go a step further
and not make an English dictionary their final authority,
but they'll go to a Greek dictionary
and go to the original language as the final authority.
This is even more dangerous
because they're going to a foreign language
that they don't even speak fluently
and so now they have no way to verify
that what they're looking up is really accurate.
I mean, if I look up a word in an English dictionary,
at least I have some inkling of,
hey, this definition is right
or this definition is wrong or this makes sense.
When you're going to a foreign language
that you're not fluent in, that you didn't grow up with,
that you haven't spoken enough to be an expert on,
you're going in even more dangerous territory.
That's why it's best to just let the Bible define itself.
And here we get a great definition of believe
from the Bible itself.
Go to verse 10.
It says, he that believeth on the son of God
hath the witness in himself.
He that believeth not God had made him a liar
because he believeth not the record
that God gave of his son.
So here the Bible defines believing on Jesus Christ
as believing the record that God gave of his son.
And he says that the opposite of believing
is making him a liar.
Now that's exactly what we just talked about,
the basic definition of believe is.
Now this guy today that said I don't believe the Bible,
that means he don't believe the record
that God gave of his son
because this is where the record of God's word is.
He doesn't believe it, he doesn't believe on the son.
And the Bible says this is the record
that God hath given to us,
eternal life and this life is in his son.
That has nothing to do with the way you live your life.
That's just whether or not you believe
that salvation is a gift through Jesus Christ.
He said that God has given to us,
not he has made us work for it or made us pay for it.
No, he just gave it to us.
It's a gift, the gift of God's eternal life.
And he gave it to us through his son Jesus Christ.
That's what you have to believe to be saved.
It has nothing to do with the way you live your life.
And people will try to mix in works, salvation.
When the Bible says by grace are you saved through faith
and that not of yourselves is the gift of God,
not of works, let's say he managed to boast.
Other people, I was out soul-willing just a week ago
and I told a guy, you know,
it's just believing, it's not works, it's believing.
And he said, well, he said believing,
I understand believing, it's just when you just trust
what somebody's saying that it's the truth
and put your faith in that.
But he said, you know, having faith in God,
doesn't that involve more?
But really faith is just the noun to the verb believe.
It won't mean the same thing.
And all throughout scripture, he says,
we're saved by faith, not of works.
So if faith had to do with how you live your life,
that'd be like saying you're saved by works,
but it's not of works.
That makes no sense, it's nonsense.
And so you gotta be careful
that people don't twist the word believe on you,
what it means.
Go to Ephesians 1.
This wasn't in my notes,
but this verse just popped into my mind.
Hopefully I can find it.
I believe it's in Ephesians 1.
Let's see if I can find it,
how good my memory is here.
Does anybody know where I'm going?
Verse 13.
Where'd you think I was going?
13.
Well, let's look at 17 too.
Here's 13.
It says, in whom ye also,
what's the next word?
Trusted.
In whom ye also trusted,
after that ye heard the word.
Again, salvation comes through the word of God.
In whom ye also trusted,
after that ye heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your life.
The gospel of your salvation.
In whom also that after that ye believed,
ye were sealed with that holy spirit of promise.
So here he uses the word believed
and trusted interchangeably.
Do you see that?
He says after you trusted
and then he says after you believed.
Because believing is when you're just trusting
in the truth of what someone else is saying.
You're putting your faith in what they're saying.
Not putting your faith in what you think
or not putting your faith in your own lifestyle
or your own good works,
but you're trusting the fact that Jesus
died for our sins
and was buried according to the scriptures
and rose again.
And that's where all your faith is.
That's what that means.
Now, other people will try to attack another word.
Not only do they attack the word believed,
but they'll attack the word eternal.
Now, in 1 John 5,
go if you were to John 10.
Turn to John 10.
In 1 John 5, the Bible said,
he that believeth on the Son of God
hath to witness in himself.
He that believeth not God hath made him a liar,
because he believeth not the record
that God gave his Son.
And this is the record
that God hath given to us eternal life.
And this life is in his Son.
So the very thing that we have to believe
to be saved,
the very record of Christ,
that one profound statement,
he said, this is the record
that God hath given to us eternal life
and this life is in his Son.
Many people don't believe that record.
Because they think he's given us life,
but they don't think it's eternal life.
Because they'll say,
well, you're saved,
you're alive in Christ,
but if you sin or fall away
or quit going to church,
you could lose your salvation.
So they don't believe it's eternal.
They don't believe it lasts forever.
And I've heard people attack this word eternal
and this is what they say.
Well, if you go back to the Greek,
they say,
that word eternal comes from the word eon.
So when he said you have eternal life,
he's just saying like eons,
like it's a really long life.
Like it's a really long time.
Now what's so foolish about that
is that these people will turn around
and use that as proof
that you can lose your salvation.
Well, first of all,
if I were to lose my salvation,
it wouldn't be eons from now.
I mean, wouldn't people be losing it in this life?
So that makes no sense at all.
But it sounds convincing
to the unlearned and unstable
and unsaved when they're,
oh, okay, eon,
oh yeah, that's just a really long time.
They don't speak Greek,
they're not fluent in Greek.
A lot of words in foreign languages
are what's called false friends.
Now here's the thing.
I speak a lot of foreign languages,
so I've noticed this a lot.
You'll run into a word in a foreign language
and you think you know what it means.
But it turns out it means something totally different.
Like you'll see eon,
oh, eon, okay, I know what that means.
It's a long time.
For example, there's a word in German,
sensible, okay?
And the word sensible,
who thinks they know what it means?
What does it mean?
Sensible.
Sensible, right?
Now is it good to be sensible?
If you say he's a sensible guy,
is that good?
That's a compliment, right?
But no, in German that's a derogatory word
because it doesn't mean sensible.
It means that you're overly sensitive.
Like somebody who's just way too sensitive,
they wear their feelings on their sleeve,
has nothing to do with being sensible.
The word for sensible is a completely different word.
Fair enough, totally different word.
But yet a lot of people will think
that they know what a word means.
Here's another word in German,
bikomen.
What do you think that means?
Bikomen.
Bikomen, yeah, bikomen.
No, it has nothing to do with that.
It means to receive something.
It's totally different.
So when I was in Germany,
this teenage girl told me,
you know, for Christmas I will become a cat.
Okay, and I went, what?
She's like, I'm going to become a cat.
And I'm like, what are you talking about?
But she meant I'm receiving a cat,
like I'm getting a cat for Christmas
because that's what it means.
And so that's what I'm saying.
People can go to a foreign language
and they start thinking that they know what stuff means.
And that's how preachers are when they go to the Greek.
Like they think they know what stuff means.
But in a foreign language,
things have a totally different meaning.
And become and sensible are totally different things in German.
It's a completely different language
and you have to learn that language
and you have to be fluent in it.
You have to speak it and understand it.
So you can get a bad idea.
So let's let the Bible define a term.
Is it just long?
And I've heard a lot of other preachers
give other definitions for eternal.
He's just saying you're going to have an abundant life
or it's going to be a fulfilling life
or it's going to be a life that's in Christ
and that's why it's eternal life.
It's the right kind of life.
No, if we let the Bible determine the word eternal for us,
because I'll tell you what eternal means.
It means forever.
It means it never ends.
It doesn't mean a long time.
It means it never ends.
It means never ending.
It's the same as the word everlasting,
which means that it lasts forever, hence everlasting.
But look, the Bible defines it for us right here.
The Bible is its own dictionary in John chapter 10
when Jesus said this,
for all those who don't think eternal is really eternal.
He says in John 10 28,
and I give unto them eternal life, watch this,
they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
So right there, he's saying that eternal life
means live forever, which means that you never die.
See how simple that is?
Go one page over to the right, John 11 26.
I'll read for you 25.
It says, Jesus said unto her,
I am the resurrection and the life.
He that believeth in me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live.
Watch this, verse 26.
And whosoever liveth and believeth in me
shall never die.
Believeth in this.
So when Jesus said that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish but have eternal life,
you know what he was saying?
That if you believe on him, you'll never die.
You'll have eternal life.
You'll live forever.
Sure, the body's gonna die,
but the body is not really who you are.
I mean, the soul is what goes on after the body dies.
And after your body physically dies,
the soul is still alive
and you're still living on in heaven.
You have everlasting life.
I will never die.
I will never perish.
I have eternal life.
This body will die, but it's just a shell
and I will be gone.
I will still be alive in heaven.
I will not experience death.
There will be never a time
when someone could say Steven Anderson is dead.
It would not be true
because I would still be alive in heaven.
And so only the body would die.
So you can see there
how the Bible defines that word for us,
but there are people out there
who want to twist with that word.
You know, I think of the word baptize.
Go to Matthew 3.
I was talking to my father-in-law,
and he doesn't speak...
He's here tonight.
He doesn't speak English.
But we were talking about...
He's learning a lot, though.
My son John is a great English teacher.
He's been teaching it for me.
But basically, I was talking to my father-in-law,
and I was showing...
We were going through the Hungarian Bible,
and I was showing him a lot of scriptures in Hungarian
because I'm learning how to speak Hungarian.
I was showing him a lot of scriptures in the Hungarian Bible.
And I came to this verse,
and I showed him.
I said, see, right there...
Because we were talking about the saints.
We were talking about who is a saint and who is not.
Because, you know, the Catholic Church
has specific people that they elevate as saints.
Whereas the word saint is used in the New Testament.
Scores of times
just referred to all believers.
Just calls them all the saints.
The brethren, the saints.
He uses the word saints
more than he uses the word Christians.
The word Christians only used three times.
The word saint is used in scores of times
in the New Testament.
So I was trying to show him some scriptures
on the fact that everybody who's saved is a saint.
So I was showing him a lot of scriptures on that.
And he was kind of giving me a confused look,
you know, when I'm explaining this to him.
And I said to him,
I said, don't you see it right there?
Where it says that, you know, you're a saint
just by calling upon Jesus Christ and this and that.
And he said, well, right there it says being baptized
is what makes you a saint.
And I'm like, what are you talking about?
I said, where do you see baptism in this verse?
But what it was was that there was a word in the verse
that is our English word sanctified or made holy.
And he says you're sanctified and you're called to be saints.
And the thing is that he had the impression
and the idea that that word meant being baptized
because I guess in his native country
the Catholic Church used that word
and then hijacked it and used it for being baptized.
And I knew the Hungarian word and I told him,
I said, yeah, that's not what that word means.
That word means sanctified.
That has nothing to do with being baptized.
It's about, you know, being saved.
And it's about being holy.
It has nothing to do, there's no baptism in that verse.
But see, when somebody tells you
that's what that word means, right,
you can have a different meaning.
And the word baptism today has been changed
and hijacked to mean a lot of different things.
You see, baptism in the Bible is immersion.
That would be the synonym.
It's immersion, that's why the Bible says
we're buried with him by baptism and is dead.
That's why the Bible says in Matthew 3, are you there?
Go to verse number 16.
And Jesus, when he was baptized,
went up straightway out of the water.
So you see that?
He was down in the water.
He came up out of the water.
And lo, the heavens were opened unto him,
and he saw the Spirit of God
sending like a dove and lighting a pot.
So the Bible says we're buried with him by baptism.
The Bible says that he was
straightway coming out of the water.
It says in Acts 8 that when Philip baptized the unit,
that they went down, both of them,
down into the water, and he baptized them.
Both of them went down into the water.
And so baptism is immersion.
When the Bible talks about
them being baptized by the Holy Ghost
and baptized by fire,
the Bible says that there were flames,
clove and tongues like the fire,
that sat upon each of them,
and the Bible says that the Spirit came in
and filled the room where they were sitting.
So there was an immersion that takes place.
But people today,
they'll sprinkle somebody and call it baptism.
How do you get baptism out of sprinkling water on somebody?
There's nothing like that in the Bible.
Or pour a little water on their head.
And they'll call that being baptized.
They'll call that baptism.
And you'll even ask people,
have you been baptized?
And they'll say, I was baptized as a baby.
You know what? You weren't baptized at all.
You were not baptized as a baby.
Unless they took you as a baby
and dumped you underwater.
And there are some religions that do that.
I think the Greek Orthodox do that.
Unless they took you and dumped you underwater as a baby,
which that doesn't sound very safe, I don't know.
I've done that a few times by accident
about bathing myself.
And they cried a lot, you know.
And no tears, shampoo didn't help at all, you know.
Kids hate getting water in their eyes.
But honestly, you didn't get baptized at all.
But you see how a word can become completely twisted.
Where just having somebody just lick his finger to,
you know, sprinkle you.
All of a sudden, that's baptism?
You were not dumped in anything.
You were not immersed in anything.
And part of the split that even came
from the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church,
obviously they're both false.
But part of the split was over the fact
that the Orthodox, they knew the Greek language.
They knew that baptism means to immerse underwater.
And then the Roman Catholics
were doing all the sprinkling, whatever.
That was part of what led to the rift there.
And so they can change the meanings of words today
and completely change the meaning.
Go to Proverbs 6.
Proverbs chapter 6.
Let me give you another one
while you're turning to Proverbs 6,
another word that gets changed.
So far we looked at belief
and saw a biblical definition of eternal.
We saw baptized
and it's definitely going down in the water.
Pretty clear, buried with him by baptism.
I mean, how are you buried by getting sprinkled?
You know, when you're buried,
you're going all the way under.
It represents the burial of Christ.
That's the whole reason why you're dunked under.
But while you're turning to Proverbs 6,
I'll go over this one with you, conception.
You know, we say life begins at conception.
Amen.
Somebody sent me some questionnaire in the mail.
I think it was like the Republican Party or something.
Sent me some questionnaire.
They're like, hey, we want you to fill this out
so we can know what's important to you or something,
you know.
And so I filled out this thing and said like,
do you believe life begins at conception?
I said yes.
Because of course, that's what the Bible teaches.
The Bible says that Mary conceived
and brought forth a son
and then it quotes that in the New Testament as
she was with child.
Okay.
And so, a virgin shall conceive,
virgin shall be with child.
Not with a blob of tissue,
not with a, you know, a fetus,
but with a child.
But many people will change the meaning of the word conception
and they'll try to say,
well, conception is when the pregnancy starts.
That's two weeks later.
Therefore, the morning after pill is fine
or this other pill is fine.
When in reality, the Bible says in Hebrews 11-11
that when Sarah, through faith,
received strength to conceive seed.
That shows that the seed is what brings conception.
And there's two places in the Bible that use that.
Hebrews 11-11 is one of them.
The seed from the man.
The seed of copulation, as the Bible calls it,
is what brings conception.
Not something that happens weeks later,
but it's when that seed hits that egg,
according to the Bible.
That's conception.
And yet, I've seen dictionaries today,
the Webster Dictionary,
the final and all be all,
to some people,
said that it could either mean
when fertilization of the egg happens
or it could be weeks later.
See how they're trying to change the definition there?
Yep.
And so, you can't just go to a dictionary.
And I've seen some people where,
if you go to the Webster's 1828 Dictionary,
that settles it, buddy.
End of story.
I mean, I've seen somebody,
somebody showed me a definition
from Webster's 1828 one time,
and they're like,
case closed, buddy.
Like, this is solved.
But first of all,
the funny thing about that is,
they act like this is the original thing.
It's like, well, if the Bible was written in English
in the early 1600s,
and you're pulling out a dictionary from 1828,
that's not even from the same time period,
number one.
It's still hundreds of years later, okay?
And number two, Webster is not God.
It was written by one man,
and are you saying he was just right about everything?
He never made mistakes?
Did he also walk on water?
That's what I'd like to know.
Did he turn water into wine?
Did he heal the blind and cleanse the lepers
and raise the dead
as he was producing his marvelous 1828 Dictionary?
Okay.
But anyway, that's another one where conception,
you'll get a wrong definition from the dictionary,
in some cases.
Sometimes you'll get the right definition,
sometimes you'll get the wrong.
But the Bible gave a clear definition
when it said Sarah can seed seed.
Well, the seed's gone two weeks later.
Newsflash, okay?
But if you would, look at Proverbs 6.
I thought this one was especially funny,
because I was speaking down at the college over here,
at the Heathen College.
This is a public college,
so it's just an ungodly institution
as far as I'm concerned, okay?
But I was speaking down there.
Somebody called me a hypocrite for speaking there,
because I said that it was an ungodly place.
But they said, well, why are you here?
And I said, because when I'm here,
I like what's being taught.
Amen.
Because I'm teaching it, you know what I mean?
I said, I don't come here to listen.
I said, I'm not going to come here
and listen to these bunch of burned out hippy professors
that are down here.
I said, I'm coming down here to talk,
to preach the Bible.
I'm here to preach the Word of God.
And so, you know, I don't know.
By some act of...
I don't understand.
I guess that somehow the planets align just right
and somehow God, like,
performed this Red Sea type miracle
where I'm allowed to go into a public college
and preach whatever I want from the Bible
with no rules.
So somehow, God has performed that miracle.
I don't know how long it's going to be
until the Red Sea comes crashing down again.
But hey, every time they ask me to come,
I go down there and I preach, you know?
And I don't really understand
why I'm allowed to go down there.
Because I've talked to other people
who try to get into colleges and speak
and they have all these rules.
You can't say this, you can't say this, you can't say that.
So anyway, I'm down there
and I was preaching the gospel.
I was preaching about salvation
to this class at the college.
And basically, people are trying to...
It seemed like everything I said,
they said,
well, doesn't that word really mean this?
It's like they tried to change the meaning of every word.
Like I said, I quoted John 3.16.
The first thing, somebody says,
well, doesn't believe there,
if you go back to the Greek,
isn't that how you live your life?
You know, I'm like, what in the world?
And then I said,
and I said something about being saved.
I talked about heaven and hell.
People say, yeah, but don't those words mean something?
It seemed like everything I said,
they tried to change the meaning of the word.
So inevitably, they started talking to me
about the Sodomites, the homos, you know?
Which is not my favorite subject,
because it's not a very pleasant subject.
But they just want to bring it up.
They, you know, it's just,
our culture is obsessed with it.
And if I preach a lot about it,
it's because it's being crammed
down my throat everywhere I turn.
And so keep your finger there in Proverbs 6
and go to Leviticus 20.13.
Keep your finger in Proverbs 6.
And so these students at the college
were asking me my views about,
about what the Bible calls sodomy,
which our culture calls being queer or,
you know, I don't use the word gay
because that's a Bible word
that means happy and cheerful and joyful.
So I don't like to use that word.
And don't use that word around me
because it offends me, by the way.
But anyway, you know,
what the world calls being a queer or a lesbian
or a sodomite or whatever you want to call it,
you know, inevitably comes up.
And they were asking me my views about it.
And so I gave them my view
straight out of the Holy Bible,
which is Leviticus 20.13.
I said, well, here's my view on it.
Here's what I believe.
And I read this verse to the class.
I said, if a man also lie with mankind,
as he lieth with a woman,
both of them have committed an abomination.
They shall surely be put to death.
Their blood shall be upon them.
And it seemed like everybody,
when they heard that verse,
it's like all these wheels in their mind
started turning of how they could try
to figure out a way to make that verse
not mean what it says.
You know, because it says what it says.
It's pretty clear.
But all, I could just almost just hear
the wheels turning,
just trying to find some way
to make that verse say something.
Just like when you show people
verses on eternal life
and they don't want to accept it.
And you show verses on believe
and they want to trust works
that their wheels are turning.
But wait a minute, don't,
maybe he meant this.
Maybe it means that.
And so I can hear all the wheels turning.
Finally, one student pipes up and says,
but didn't abomination mean
something different back then?
And I said, I said, I don't think so.
But I said, even if it did,
I said, did put to death mean something different?
And she said, and she said,
yeah, that's a good point.
What did you say?
Okay, let me back up and tell the story again.
It's worth telling again.
I'm just kidding.
But anyway, I said that,
she said didn't abomination mean something else?
And I said, well,
did put to death mean something different too?
You know, are we going to change what that means?
I'll explain to you later.
But anyway, I said,
how do you change the meaning of that,
of death?
Does death not really mean death?
You know what, I mean,
where do you stop with that logic?
I guess heaven doesn't mean heaven.
You know, you talk to Calvinists
and they'll tell you all doesn't mean all.
You talk to Jehovah's Witnesses,
they'll tell you hell doesn't mean hell.
They'll tell you it's just a grave.
You talk to somebody
who wants to trust in their works for salvation.
They'll tell you believe doesn't mean believe.
You tell them it's eternal life.
You can't lose it.
They'll tell you eternal doesn't mean eternal.
And you see how you can have no foundation,
my friend,
when you change the meanings of words.
You can just change their meanings away into oblivion,
to where the Bible is left with no meaning.
It's just hollow.
Because every word can be twisted to mean
whatever people want it to mean.
That's why we have to let the Bible define itself.
So I got a good definition for abomination for you.
It's in Proverbs 6, 16,
because God gives us a definition of abomination.
But it's funny when people strive
and they struggle to twist what God says.
We have not had that attitude.
We need to just go to the Bible
and just read it and take it for what it says.
Not try to twist it.
And you can see when people hear a scripture
and they don't agree with it,
the wheels are turning.
How can I change the meaning of these words?
And how can I twist that to mean something different?
But it says in Proverbs 6, 16,
these six things that the Lord hates,
yea, seven,
are an abomination unto him.
Now, the way that's worded there is a restatement.
He says, these are the things that the Lord hates.
He's saying, yea.
He's emphasizing it again.
Saying, yes, these are the things that are an abomination unto him.
So you see, things that are an abomination
are things that the Lord hates.
It's just things that he's disgusted with.
You know, if you really want to know what abomination means,
instead of looking it up in the dictionary,
what I would recommend,
look up every time it occurs in the Bible.
Let the Bible be your dictionary.
Instead of a dictionary, get a concordance.
A concordance is a book where you can look up
every time a word is used in the Bible.
Today, you just do it with a computer.
You know, you do it with software, you do it with e-store, you know.
But, for example, you look up the word abomination,
and it will be really clear to you
that it's something that people want nothing to do with.
It's something that they hate.
It's something that they don't want around.
And that's what God is saying.
God's saying that those who commit acts of sodomy, men with men,
he says, that's an abomination.
Now, we could debate all day long what an abomination is,
but he says, they shall surely be put to death.
Well, what does surely mean?
Isn't that a girl's name?
You know, I mean, you can sit there all day long
and twist what words mean
until you're left with nothing to believe in.
And we need to be aware of this.
We need to be aware of people manipulating us
by changing the meanings of words,
because words are important,
because words make up the Bible,
and the Bible is everything we believe from the Bible.
And so, if we're basically changing what these words mean,
we're left with nothing to place our faith in.
Here's another word that is changed in meaning.
Inspiration.
Go to 2 Timothy 3.16.
2 Timothy 3.16.
We believe that the Bible is inspired by God, right?
And we'll say that to people all the time.
We'll say, hey, the Bible is inspired by God.
And you'll see a lot of statements of faith
where they'll say, we believe in the inspiration of the Bible.
But a lot of people will change the meaning
of the word inspiration.
And so, when you ask people today,
I talked to a guy one time, and I said,
hey, do you believe the Bible is inspired by God?
And he said, yes.
But it was clear from other discussions
that I'd had from this guy
that he did not believe that every word of the Bible
was accurate,
and that every word of the Bible
came directly from the mouth of God.
Well, that's what I mean when I say inspiration.
And I'm going to give you
a biblical definition of inspiration.
It says in 2 Timothy 3.16,
let me turn there myself.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof,
for correction, for instruction, and right to it.
What does that mean?
That all the Scripture...
Scripture is something that's written down.
Like, that's where we get our word scribbled, you know?
If all Scripture, or all of the written word that we have
was given by inspiration of God,
what does that mean?
We'll go to 1 Peter...
or 2 Peter, I'm sorry, 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 20.
Great Scripture on how we got the Bible.
But even more than that,
I like to point to Exodus 20, verse 1.
You don't have to turn there.
But in Exodus 20, verse 1,
right before God gives the King of Ammon,
he says,
And God spake all these words, said it.
The inspiration of the Bible
is the thought and the belief
that God spake the words of the Bible.
They weren't spoken by man's heart
or written out of man's imagination.
They were spoken by God.
That's what inspiration means.
And we've got tons of Scripture on that.
Look at this great Scripture.
It says in 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 20,
Knowing this first,
that no prophecy of the what?
Scripture.
Scripture is of any private interpretation.
For the prophecy came not in old time
by the will of man,
but holy men of God
spake as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost.
So man was not speaking his own word,
but he was speaking as he was moved
by the Holy Ghost.
And this is even more clearly illustrated
by the fact that when the New Testament
is constantly quoting the Old Testament,
that God will constantly make statements like,
The Holy Ghost spake by the mouth of David
the prophet saved.
And then he'll quote Psalms.
So he doesn't even say
David's doing the speaking.
He says, The Holy Ghost spake
by the mouth of David, saying.
Or, Well spake Esaias the prophet.
But then other times,
he'll say that God spake
by Esaias the prophet.
See, it's God's word.
God's the one doing the speaking.
He's using a human being
as the mouthpiece.
Go to Hebrews 1-1.
You're in 2 Peter.
It's just a few pages to the left
in your Bible.
The inspiration of the Bible,
when we say that the Bible
is inspired by God,
we're saying that the words
came from God.
That God spake the words.
Okay?
Now the word inspiration,
it's very similar to our English word
respiration.
Okay?
To in aspire means to breathe in.
Like respire is talking about the process
of repeatedly breathing in and out.
And so when the Bible says
that it's inspired by God,
it's saying that the words
came out of God's mouth.
He breathed out the words of God.
And so God's spake all these words.
Exodus 21.
Holy men of God's spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Well spake the Holy Ghost by David.
God's spake by Esaias.
All these scriptures
that say those type of things.
Look at verse 1 of chapter 1 of Hebrews.
God, who at sundry times
and in diverse manners
spake in time past
unto the fathers by the prophets.
Who is doing the speaking in this verse?
Who is the subject?
God.
What is the verb?
The subject is God.
Okay?
What did he do?
He spake.
And who did he speak by?
The prophets.
They were his instruments.
They were his mouthpiece.
God was doing the speaking
but he spoke by the prophets.
Maybe he spoke through the prophets.
Okay?
It would be like
if I were appearing today
not in the flesh
but what if I were appearing by satellite?
By satellite uplink.
And instead of Pastor Anderson being here
because he's an important guy
who's traveling all over the world.
So, you know,
we're going to just set up a big screen tonight
and we're just going to project
Pastor Anderson's image.
You know, actually a hologram.
In fact, I am a hologram.
I'm not really here tonight.
You know, Pastor Han threw me right now.
I'm not really here.
But I'm saying,
if I were here by a satellite
you know, and you know,
you've seen these things
where, oh, they went to this special meeting
with President Obama
but he wasn't really there.
It was just by a satellite.
Or by, you know,
they just put up a screen
and he's like,
hi everybody.
It's good to see you.
Even though I can't see you
because I'm talking on a screen.
So, what I'm saying is
that if I were appearing by satellite
or if I were speaking by telephone
or if I were speaking by radio or by TV
it's not the radio or the TV
independently producing my word.
It's me producing the word.
I'm doing the talking.
I'm just using the radio
or the TV or the satellite image
as a way to project my voice
and my message.
That is how God spake the word.
That's how he got the Bible.
God spoke through man
but it was God doing the talking.
But he used the prophets
as his human instrument to speak
his word.
The prophecy came not in old time
by the will of man
but holy men of God spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
They did not speak their own words.
They spoke God's words.
Even tonight if I read the scripture
from the page
it's not me that's speaking.
It's God speaking through me
if I'm quoting the Bible directly.
Now, a lot of my sermon
is my own words tonight.
As I preach
part of what I'm saying
like right now
I'm speaking in my own words.
But in a moment
I'm going to be quoting the Bible.
That's no longer me that's speaking.
That's God that's speaking through me
because it's God's word that I'm quoting.
Like if I say as it is written
there's none righteous, no, not one.
That's not me that said that.
That's God that said that.
I'm just quoting.
I'm just an instrument.
I'm just repeating it.
I'm just letting that word down tonight.
But that is not
something that is my word.
For example
what if I were preaching
and I preached that verse
and then somebody attributed that quote to me.
They put that in quotes.
As it is written
there's none righteous, no, not one
dash Steven Anderson.
Like that were my quote.
Well I heard him say it.
But would that really be fair
for me to take credit
for Romans 3 10 as my word?
No because it's God's word.
And you know Paul couldn't take credit either.
If we said as is written
there's none righteous, no, not one.
Paul, no it's God is where that came from.
Paul was just repeating it.
Paul was just speaking
as he was moved by the Holy Ghost.
But you know how some people
will twist the meaning of the word inspired?
They'll use the word inspired like
well I was really inspired by that sunset
to draw this painting.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
Like oh what gives you inspiration?
Oh well you know I'm in a rock band
and my music was really inspired
by the music of you know Elvis
and the Beatles or something you know.
If I'm looking to some past influence
to draw inspiration.
Or people will talk to an artist
and say where do you get your inspiration from?
Does anybody know what I'm talking about?
So the same guy that I spoke to
that said oh yeah I believe the Bible
is inspired by God.
I asked him I said do you believe
the hymns and the hymnal
are inspired by God?
He said yeah absolutely.
Because he doesn't believe
that God wrote the hymns folks.
But he believes they're inspired by God
because he believes that the people
who wrote the hymns
they got their inspiration from God.
Just like your favorite rock band
got it from the Satan worshiping Led Zeppelin
or Satan worshiping the doors or whatever.
Okay so they mean inspiration as in
oh I feel so inspired.
Like sometimes people will walk out of a sermon
and say your sermon really inspired me.
It wasn't a faithful word balance church
or some other church that makes it.
But anyway they walked out and said
well that sermon was really inspirational.
They're not saying that I'm the author
of their word.
So we have to be careful
when people use words
that we understand the meaning of the words.
When I say the Bible's inspired
I'm not saying it's inspired
like Shakespeare is inspired
and like the hymns are inspired
and like that painting is inspired.
I'm saying it like the Bible says
that the holy men of God spake
as they were moved by the Legos
and that the words were breathed
out of the mouth of God.
God breathed word.
That's what I believe.
I don't believe that it's just inspired
in a loose sense.
And so we have to be careful
when people are changing
the meanings of words.
I've got a whole list of words here
and I'm not gonna go through the entire list
but you know another word is sin.
You know sin's a really clear cut word
to most of us.
It means transgressing God's law,
breaking God's law,
disobeying one of his commandments.
But some people will say
well sin is just when you just
basically missed the mark
of God's best in your life.
It doesn't really mean you did anything bad.
It's just like
you didn't do the very best.
So they try to downplay sin
like well sin is just kind of like
well it's just not the best thing in the world
when you commit murder.
You know it could be better.
You know you could do better
than than aborting your child
or you could do a little better
than you know being a home home or whatever.
You know and they say like
you know it's just coming a little bit short
of God's best for your life.
No it's it's breaking the law.
It's breaking God's law.
It's disobeying him.
It's violating his word.
And so we ought not soften that up.
There's nothing about sin that's acceptable
or well you know sin is sort of like
getting a B plus in life.
Sort of like getting an A minus.
You know you didn't get an A plus
but you know you did pretty good.
That's not what sin means.
That's a weird definition
but I've heard that definition
over and over again for people.
It's not true.
And so we need to be careful tonight
that not only should we stand up
for a pure Bible
and not let people put all these
new faith Bibles in our hands
that change things
but not only that
we need to understand what the words
of our pure Bible mean
and not let people twist them on us.
And the way we're going to know that
is by reading the Bible itself
because the Bible is a very good
dictionary of itself.
Whenever there's a word in the Bible
that I'm going to understand
if I look it up in the context
it comes clear.
You just you read the context
and it makes sense.
And then if that doesn't clear it up
I like to go to the first time it's mentioned
and look at every time it's mentioned
and it becomes clear and obvious
and God defines what he means
by words as he goes.
And so starting at the beginning
and reading to the end
you learn what a lot of words mean.
Beware of people who try to change
the definition of words.
I mean words that you grew up with
you know what they mean.
Believe, eternal, everlasting.
I mean I know okay
the gobstopper it didn't last forever.
It only lasted for a really long time.
But you can't let them ruin
that word for you, okay?
Everlasting means everlasting.
Believe means believe.
All means all.
Love means love.
Hate means hate.
Save means saved.
Hell means hell.
Heaven means heaven.
Don't let people twist words on you.
And if there's ever any question
or doubt in your mind
about what a word means
let the Bible itself
be the final authority
and end all discussion.
Not a dictionary.
Not Webster.
Especially not the internet.
You know and just Google
will solve it for us.
We need to make sure
that we understand the words of the Bible
and that we let them keep
their original true meaning.
You say well how do we know?
Well we got it.
We can only compare scripture with scripture
because this is the only perfect book.
I'm not perfect.
If I give you a definition of believe
you might ask me
what does believe mean?
I can explain it to you
the best I know how
but that's not the final authority.
My explanation of the word believe.
Okay I tried to explain to you
the best I could with illustrations
about my car and so forth.
But really the scriptures I showed you
should give you the clearest definition
of what believe means
from 1 John 5.
That's where the final authority
has got to come from.
Let's bow our heads in the word of prayer.
Father we thank you so much
for your word tonight dear God
and we know that the word
is our foundation.
We know that Jesus Christ
was the word made flesh.
We know that
if we don't have that foundation
of your word
we're going to be like those
who have built our house upon
the shifting sands
of people who changed
the meaning of things.
And God help us not
to let the foundations
be destroyed around us.
Help us to be founded upon
the rock of your word
and to not try to pick it apart
and change words.
Help us to just go with
a clear definition from your word.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.