Now, the part of the chapter that I'd like to focus on is there beginning in verse number
15 where the Bible reads in account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation, even
as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written
unto you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some
things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable, rest, as they
do also the other scriptures under their own destruction.
Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being
led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Give me glory both now and forever. Amen.
And so I want to preach tonight about understanding the Bible.
The Bible tells us here that particularly in the epistles of Paul, but really this could
be said for a lot of places in the Bible, there are some things hard to be understood,
aren't there?
And so what I want to preach to you about tonight is understanding the Bible.
Go to Matthew 13, first of all, and I want to show you a few things by way of introduction.
Now first of all, there are many things in the Bible that are designed to be easy to
be understood.
Now if the Bible tells us that there are some things hard to be understood, doesn't that
automatically tell us that not everything is hard to be understood?
Some things are hard to be understood.
That means that there are a lot of things that are easy to be understood and some things
that are hard to be understood.
Now you say, why is that?
Why would God make some things hard to understand?
God is all powerful.
God is all knowing.
He could have made everything easy to be understood, couldn't He?
But He chose to make certain things difficult to understand.
I'll prove it to you.
Look at Matthew 13 verse 9.
Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Verse 10.
The disciples came and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
And the disciples are wondering here, why are you making it hard to understand by speaking
to them in parables?
Why not just explicitly tell them what you want to tell them?
Look at verse 11.
He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of
the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance.
But whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away, even that he hath.
Therefore speak I to them in parables, because they seeing see not, and hearing they hear
not, neither do they understand.
And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and
shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive.
Now can't you see there that He is clearly saying that some things in the Bible are designed
that certain people will not understand them?
Because He says, unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.
Unto them it is not given, therefore speak I unto them in parables, that hearing they
might hear and not understand.
He's saying the purpose of certain things in the Bible is that certain people will not
understand and that other people will.
See you see the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 2, you don't have to turn there, in fact stay
in Matthew 13, but in 1 Corinthians 2.14 the Bible says, But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know
them because they are spiritually discerned.
So according to the Bible, the natural man, the unsaved man, can't understand the word
of God because it's spiritually discerned.
He said it's foolishness unto him.
You see you have to be saved to understand the Bible first of all.
And to an unsaved person, most things in the Bible are going to go over their head.
And the Bible is purposely written in that way.
Let's keep reading in Matthew 13.
It says in verse 15, For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of
hearing and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted
and I should heal them.
But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears for they hear, for verily I say
to you that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye
see and have not seen them, and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.
So that right there gives us another truth that certain things in the Bible were not
intended to be understood in the past, but were intended to be understood only in the
future.
So there were many people in the Old Testament who wanted to understand certain things, but
it was only given unto the New Testament generation to fully understand those things.
And a lot of righteous men and prophets wanted to understand, but the apostles in their day
understood things that even they did not understand back then.
So there are certain things in the Bible that cannot be understood by the unsaved.
There are certain things in the Bible that could not be understood in the distant past.
The further we get into human history, the more they begin to be understood.
Think if you would at Revelation chapter 2.
Revelation chapter number 2.
So we see first of all that there are some things hard to be understood.
Secondly we saw that it is purposely that way for a few different reasons.
God wants to keep certain people from understanding certain things, and God also wanted people
of different times to understand different things at different times.
Look at Revelation 2.17.
The Bible says, "...he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white
stone and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth
it."
Now manna in the Bible is a picture of the word of God, and the Bible clearly tells us
that.
The Bible says in Deuteronomy 8 that he fed thee with manna, that thou mightest know that
man did not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God
did man live.
The Bible tells us that the manna represented God's word, according to Deuteronomy 8.
And the Bible says that there is hidden manna that we can eat from.
You know when we read the word of God each day, we are eating of the manna of God's word.
And we are getting our daily bread from God's word, but the Bible teaches that there is
hidden manna.
Something that is hidden is something that has been purposely put out of plain sight
or out of plain view, so that someone has to dig deeper and search and find it.
So there are some things that are easy to be understood, there are some things that
are hard to be understood, and you really have to be saved to understand everything.
To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna.
Now that doesn't mean if you're saved, and the overcometh of course refers to being saved,
I've proved that many times in many sermons, I just look up every time it uses the word
overcometh in the Bible, it's pretty simple.
But just because you're saved doesn't mean that the first time you read the Bible you're
going to understand everything, right?
It's going to take time, it's going to take work, it's going to take study to dig out
that hidden manna.
But the fact that you're saved makes you capable of searching out all the hidden manna of God's
word.
It's all there for you and you have the ability to understand it all.
You can understand the Bible if you're saved and you can understand all of it.
I'm not saying you're going to immediately.
You know, what good would that be if you open the Bible, you read it, you understand everything,
it's like why even read it a second time?
You keep reading, you keep learning.
And honestly there's so much truth in the Bible that if you understood it all at once
you'd probably fall over dead.
I mean, it'd be like on the ping pong, or not ping pong, what's that game called where
you pull back the thing in the spring?
Pinball!
That's the word I was looking for.
It's like the pinball machine where it's just like tilt.
You know what I'm talking about?
It's just overload.
It'd be like when you try to run too many applications on your computer at once and
the whole thing just shuts.
I mean if we were to just even understand everything about one book of the Bible, our
head would probably explode.
It's just too much information because there's so much information in the Bible you can't
understand it all the first time around or you're going to go nuts.
Your head's going to explode.
You have to digest it in portions that you can handle, right?
So every time you read the Bible you're learning something new.
And don't worry about the part you don't understand, worry about the part you do understand.
And it's going to take a lifetime of ingesting the Word of God.
And then even beyond your lifetime, when you're in heaven, you're going to keep learning and
learning and learning and learning and learning and learning because the Bible is an infinite
book.
So let's start out with just some basic principles of how to understand the Bible and particularly
what do you do when you run into hard to understand things in the Bible, difficult things in the
Bible, things in the Bible that are confusing or that seem to contradict or they're just
hard to wrap your mind around.
Well number one, go to Hebrews 11, here's the first and most important principle for
understanding the Bible.
And I've got some sub-points under this, but the first thing is that you must believe that
every verse in the Bible is true.
Now if you don't believe that every verse in the Bible is true, you will never understand
the Bible.
Because that has to be the first thing that you start out with, that's your foundation,
that's your basis, and of course that ties in with being saved.
You know, you've got to be saved to understand it, the Holy Ghost will illuminate.
But not only that, you have to just really come to grips with the fact that every verse
in the Bible is true.
Now if you go into it thinking maybe some of it's not true, you're never going to understand
it.
It's never going to make sense to you.
The Bible says in Hebrews 11-3, through faith we understand.
I mean that right there is the thought of this point.
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things
which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
So faith is the key to understanding.
You must believe the Bible in order to understand the Bible.
Let me give you an example of this.
Go to Mark chapter 16, Mark chapter number 16.
You see, if I believe that every verse of the Bible is true, because that's our foundation,
that's the first thing we're laying out.
I believe every verse in the Bible is true.
And that means if I come to two verses that appear to contradict each other, the first
thing that I have to realize is that they're both true.
Does everybody understand that?
If I run into two passages or two scriptures or two verses that appear to contradict one
another, the first thing I need to understand is that they're both true.
Because if they're both God's Word, they both have to be true.
Therefore I must find a way to understand that scripture whereby both can be true.
Now here's a perfect example of a scripture that is often twisted, often used to teach
a false doctrine when it really teaches no such thing.
Mark 16, 16.
I was out soul winning yesterday and somebody just believed that you had to be baptized
to be saved.
Look at Mark 16, 16.
It says, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not
shall be damned.
Now this verse right here says that if you believe and you're baptized, you'll be saved.
And he that believeth not shall be damned.
Now some people have struggled with this verse, they've had a hard time with this verse.
They say, Pastor Anderson, I don't understand this verse.
It seems to be a contradiction in the Bible.
Because we have all these other scriptures, don't we, that just say believe and they don't
mention being baptized, right?
John 3.15, John 3.16, John 3.18, John 3.36, John 5.24, John 6.47.
I mean how many of you want to quote, whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have
eternal life?
What must I do to be saved?
They said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
And you literally could easily, right now, I mean we could just have people start popping
up all over the room and easily reach a hundred verses that say that if you believe you'll
be saved.
Then you come to this and it says if you believe and be baptized you shall be saved.
And people think, well there's a contradiction there.
Well wait a minute, let's start with our first principle.
Both are true.
Everybody got that?
So John 3.15 says that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal
life.
Mark 16.16 says whosoever he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.
How can both of those be true?
Well it's very simple.
Both can be true if you believe that the only thing you have to do to be saved is believe.
The only thing you have to do to be saved is believe.
Both are true.
Because by that method of interpretation, is John 3.15 true?
If the only thing you have to do to be saved is believe?
Is Mark 16.16 true?
That if you believe and you're baptized you'll be saved.
You see, if you believe and stand on your head you'll be saved.
Because if you believe you'll be saved.
So there's no contradiction at all here, okay?
Because notice in the next statement he says, but he that believeth not shall be damned.
Does it say if you're not baptized that you'll be damned?
No.
Now then we'd have an issue here.
Then we'd say, okay wow, this looks like a contradiction.
If it said if you're not baptized you'll be damned.
That would give us pause.
But here he's not saying that at all.
He's saying that if you don't believe you'll be damned.
And in fact, there is no verse anywhere in the Bible that even comes close to saying,
hey, if you're not baptized you're not saved, or you're damned, or you're going to hell.
Find me a verse that says anything remotely near that.
It's not there.
Okay, you want to see some verses that say if you don't believe you'll be damned?
Where do you want to start, right?
We got a ton of them that'll tell you that.
So you see how that helps you understand the Bible when you just realize, okay, how can
both of these be true?
It's perfect sense.
It's not a problem at all.
Now do we know that there are people out there who believe, because then the next breath
somebody will say, well, you know, everybody who believes is going to be baptized.
That's the other way to make them both true, is if everybody, I mean, you know, I'm just
for sake of argument, if both are true, well then everybody who gets saved must automatically
be getting baptized.
But here's the thing, we know that that's not true.
First of all, we can see examples in the Bible of people who believed but were not baptized,
like the thief on the cross, or like a great big group of people in the book of John who
believed on Jesus Christ but refused to confess him openly for fear of the Jews.
So that's an example of people who believed, but they didn't want to make that public that
they believed, because they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
That was wrong of them, that was sinful of them, and even you and I both know just in
our own lives we've seen people get saved without getting baptized.
Now we don't always know who's getting saved, but we've probably seen so many examples of
people who get saved and don't get baptized, and we've known people, like Brother Dave.
How long was it after you got saved that you got baptized, Brother Dave?
Did you hear that?
Brother Dave got saved, he got baptized seven years later.
I got saved and got baptized three years later, okay?
So that right there shows that you don't always get instantly baptized when you're saved,
and some people never end up getting baptized.
Now it's a command to be baptized, but it's not required for salvation.
So when you've got two verses that appear to contradict, or some people think they appear
to contradict, you always have to start out by saying both are true, but even though both
are true, here are three principles to help you synthesize the two, or to help you understand
how both of them can be true.
First of all, always use the clear scripture to interpret the unclear scripture, okay?
So if you've got two scriptures that you're looking at, and now that doesn't really work
with Mark 16 because both of those are clear, but sometimes you have vague scriptures, you
have unclear scriptures, you have foggy scriptures or dark sayings.
When you've got a clear scripture and an unclear scripture, which one do you think you're probably
interpreting wrong?
Probably the unclear.
So always use the clear to interpret the unclear, or let the clear outweigh the unclear, but
they're both true, don't get me wrong.
But always start with the clear, and say well this is clear, let me use that to interpret
the unclear.
That's the first principle.
Use the New Testament scripture to interpret the Old Testament scripture.
Go to Daniel 12, Daniel chapter 12, because you see this kind of goes back to what I said
a little earlier about how Jesus taught in Matthew 13 that there were certain things
that they did not understand in the Old Testament, but they did understand in the New Testament.
You see in the Old Testament they really saw through a glass darkly.
In the Old Testament did they have more knowledge or less knowledge than we have today?
They didn't have the whole scripture, so they understood less than we understand.
And things in the Old Testament are of necessity more unclear than things in the New Testament.
The New Testament is more clear, and the New Testament contains more information, and the
New Testament is more up to date of information.
So when you've got two scriptures, if one of them is from the Old Testament and one
is from the New Testament, I would start with the New Testament scripture and let
that interpret the Old.
But they're both true, they need to both add up.
Here's a great example of why.
Look at Daniel 12 verse 9, and he said, Go thy way, Daniel.
And by the way, this is in response to Daniel hearing the vision and saying that he does
not understand it.
I'm not turned to that passage, let me turn there quickly.
It says in verse 8, And I heard, but I understood not.
See, Daniel didn't understand everything he heard, did he?
And I heard, but I understood not, then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these
things?
And he said, Go thy way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of
the end.
So are they sealed forever?
No.
But they're sealed till the time of the end.
He says, you don't understand and you're not going to understand, because the words are
sealed up till the time of the end.
Many shall be purified and made white and tried, but the wicked shall do wickedly.
And watch this, this goes back to what I was saying in the introduction.
None of the wicked shall understand.
Who believes that that's true?
None of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand.
Now at this time Daniel didn't understand, but he's being told that in the future the
wise will understand, the wicked will not understand.
So that is part of why we should use the New Testament scripture as our primary source
of authority, not to say the Old Testament isn't true.
Every word of the Old Testament is true, but let the New Testament guide you and interpret
the Old Testament and to clarify the Old Testament.
You see, in contrast to what you're looking at, in Daniel where he says it's sealed, look
at the end of verse 9, sealed till the time of the end, right?
The book's sealed Daniel, listen to what it says in Revelation 22.10, and he saith
unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand.
So at the end of Daniel he says, it's sealed Daniel, you're not going to understand it.
At Revelation 22 he says, Seal it not, the time's at hand.
Whoso readeth, let him understand.
Now that tells me that if I'm dealing with Bible prophecy, what's the clearer book, Daniel
or Revelation?
I think that's why it's named Revelation.
It doesn't sound like God's trying to hide anything, does it?
Because Revelation comes with the word reveal, revealed.
So if we're studying Bible prophecy, what do you think should be the main book that
we park it in?
What's our main clear, crystal clear scripture when it comes to Bible prophecy?
Revelation.
It's going to be clearer than the epistles of Paul.
It's going to be clearer than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
It's going to be clearer than the Old Testament because it is the Revelation.
It is where it's all exposed and not sealed and laid bare for us.
So look, when you're reading stuff about Bible prophecy, some things seem to contradict each
other sometimes, or some things about Bible prophecy are hard to be understood, so what
are we going to do?
Well, we're going to use the clear to interpret the unclear, and we're going to use the New
Testament to interpret the Old Testament, and we're going to use Revelation to interpret
anything else, and not say, well, you know, I've got the clearest passage right here in
Zechariah 14.
No you don't.
You need to get in the New Testament and let the New Testament tell you what Zechariah
14 even means.
You need to let the New Testament tell you what Ezekiel 38 and 39 mean.
You need to let the New Testament tell you what the book of Isaiah means, and whenever
you have false doctrine about end times prophecy, it always wants to contradict Revelation
with some unclear scripture, or some Old Testament scripture, and that's just one example.
But not only that, use the majority of scripture to interpret the minority of scripture.
Let me put it another way.
If you have one verse saying one thing, and a hundred verses saying something else, which
one do you think you're misinterpreting?
You're more likely to be wrong about one verse than to be wrong about a hundred.
So if you've got one verse that says in James, faith without works is dead, and can faith
save him, and then you've got a hundred verses that tell you that salvation is by faith alone,
you know, which one do you think you're probably mixed up on?
And I've preached a whole sermon where I just destroy the myth that James 2 is teaching
works salvation.
But that's a whole other sermon of itself.
But you know, when I was a child, I did not understand those doctrines that I laid out
in that sermon where I just demolish the myth, and you know, by the way, I did it by looking
up Old Testament passages that are quoted in James 2, and it becomes crystal clear.
But when I was a child, listen to me now, when I was a child, I read James 2 and it
totally confounded me.
Anybody else have the same experience?
You got to James 2 and you're like, what in the world?
It doesn't seem to fit with everything else I've been reading.
And you know, I didn't know all the doctrines, I still don't know all the doctrines of the
Bible, but I read James 2 and it honestly confounded me, and I didn't understand it.
But you know what I did?
I said to myself, I've seen a hundred clear scriptures that tell me it's by faith.
I'm not going to let this one bother me, because I probably just don't understand this one.
And I'm probably not wrong about the hundred, I'm probably wrong about the one.
And I turned the page and I read 1 Peter and I just didn't worry about it.
Because I figured, you know what, I'll understand it later.
And guess what, later I did understand it.
So when you've got a hundred scriptures saying one thing and one saying something different,
use the majority scripture to interpret the minority of scripture.
And then fourthly, let the statements outweigh the questions.
You'll see a lot of false doctrine that's based on questions that are asked in the Bible.
You know, Calvinists love to go to questions, you know, what if God willing more abundantly
to show unto the best of his, you know, and they go to Romans 9 and they use a question
to teach their doctrine.
Or James 2 is based on a question, can faith save him?
You know, they love that question and they'll use a question to contradict a statement.
If you've got a question in the Bible and you've got a statement in the Bible, let the
statement teach you what to interpret from the question and not vice versa.
Don't base everything you believe on a question based on a statement, okay.
So that was all, believe it or not, that was all one point, sorry.
You've got to believe that it's all true and you've got to make it fit.
It's all has, you know, both are true when you come to apparent contradictions.
And the sermon will speed up at this point.
Number two, when you're studying the Bible, and go to Ephesians 5, when you're studying
the Bible, you've got to differentiate between different things.
You've got to rightly divide the word of truth.
The Bible says, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be
ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
So the Bible says that we need to rightly divide the word of truth, meaning that we
need to differentiate between different things.
There's three ways we need to divide it.
First of all, we need to differentiate between the Old Testament and the New Testament, right?
Because there are differences between the Old and New Testaments.
So when we're studying our Bible, we need to differentiate, wait a minute, is this a
New Testament passage or is this an Old Testament passage?
Now here's how we rightly divide.
Wrongly divide, well first let me tell you how we wrongly divide.
Wrongly divided says, oh it's Old Testament, I don't want to hear it.
That's the wrong way to divide, and believe me there are a lot of people who think that.
Throw out the Old Testament, that's wrongly dividing.
Here's rightly dividing, understand that God has made specific changes in the New Testament
and that if something in the Old Testament has not been specifically changed and specifically
altered and specifically repealed, that it is still enforced today.
Did you get that?
If God didn't repeal it, it's still there.
Unless God specifically said, hey we're not doing this anymore, you better be doing it.
Now what are the specific things that God repealed in the New Testament?
Well he mentions in Hebrews a list, he says, meats, drinks, divers washings, carnal ordinances
imposed on them until the time of reformation, but Christ being come, and on and on.
So he says there were certain things that were only imposed upon them until the coming
of Christ.
The meats, the drinks, the divers washings, and the carnal or fleshly ordinances, the
rituals if you will.
Also in Colossians 2, he has a similar list where he talks about those things and he includes
the Sabbath days, the holy days, and the new moons.
So we don't celebrate those holidays and those feasts and those new moons and so forth that
were all symbolic and they were things that were specifically for that time.
God has specifically repealed the dietary laws of the Old Testament.
He has specifically told us in numerous New Testament passages, and again, here's where
you can have two verses that seem to contradict.
You've got one verse telling you do not eat the shellfish, do not eat the pig, or swine
as the Bible calls it, and then you've got a New Testament passage saying every creature
of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving.
And all kinds of scriptures that say, like in Genesis 9 where the Bible says everything
that liveth and breatheth shall be meat for you.
So we've got scripture saying that we can eat everything and then scripture saying don't
eat certain meats, well rightly divide.
That's a specific thing that's been repealed in the New Testament.
That is a difference there.
And so if it has not been repealed, it's in force.
So when God said the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to a man, neither shall
a man put on a woman's garment for all that do so or an abomination unto the Lord thy
God.
Tell me, has cross-dressing, the prohibition on cross-dressing, has it been repealed in
the New Testament?
Did Jesus say, well in the New Testament, cross-dressing is now permitted?
No.
But when you try to show people that passage, what do they say?
Oh that's Old Testament.
What are you going to say next, that we can't eat shellfish?
What are you going to say next, that we can't wear cloth that's of a diverse mixture of
woolen and linen together?
Look, we're not talking carnal ordinances.
We're not talking meats and drinks.
We're not talking about holidays and Sabbaths and new moods.
We're talking about a principle that runs throughout the entire Bible that a man should
look like a man and a woman should look like a woman.
And that principle is taught in the New Testament when he says that a man should have short
hair and a woman should have long hair in 1 Corinthians 11.
And so, you know, by the way, the prohibition on marrying your sister, that's still in place
too.
But yet people think, oh if it's in the Old Testament I don't want to hear it.
Listen thou resident of Kentucky, you know, or thou resident of West Virginia, sorry about
the people that are from there, you know, that is still in place.
These states need to get into the Old Testament Scriptures and figure this out.
I'm just kidding, I'm just picking on them.
But anyway, so we've got the, if it's not been repealed, it's still in place.
Let me give you a great example of this.
You might have never heard of this, but there's a doctrine out there, believe it or not, it's
all out there isn't it?
There's a doctrine out there that says that it's wrong for us to use musical instruments
in church.
Now who's heard of that before?
Can anybody tell me what denomination that is because I forget.
Well, I'm sorry, Danny?
I think it's Church of God maybe or something like, I don't know.
I'm not sure, do you know?
Amish and Mennonite also.
So the Amish and the Mennonites, okay, and perhaps Church of God or whoever, they teach
that it is wrong for us to use musical instruments in church.
Now here's their justification for that.
They say well, you'll never find an example of it in the New Testament.
Never in the New Testament will you find God telling us to use musical instruments, therefore
we're not going to use it, it's not in place.
But here's the thing, are there examples in the Old Testament of God commanding us to
use musical instruments?
But that's the Old Testament.
See that's wrongly dividing because was that repealed?
No.
Now let me prove to you beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Amish and the Mennonite are
wrong about this doctrine.
Look down at your Bible at Ephesians 5.
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody
in your heart to the Lord.
See, no musical instruments.
But wait a minute, wait a minute, does that tell us that we should be singing psalms?
It says, speaking to yourselves in what?
Three types of music, right?
Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
Go to Psalm 150.
So God is commanding us here, and by the way, it's a New Testament scripture, Ephesians 5.19.
And by the way, it's taught to a church, the church at Ephesus, is it not?
And what's he telling them to sing?
Psalms.
Sing psalms, okay?
How about this psalm for example?
Did he say sing certain psalms?
No, sing psalms.
The book of Psalms, look at Psalm 150.
Verse 1, praise the Lord.
And by the way, that's a command.
Praise ye the Lord.
Praise God in his sanctuary.
Praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise him for his mighty acts.
Praise him according to his excellent greatness.
Praise him with the sound of the trumpet.
Praise him with the psaltery and harp.
Praise him with the timbrel and dance.
Praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
Praise him upon the loud cymbals.
Praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.
Praise ye the Lord.
So how about this?
Why don't we sing that song, but let's sing it a cappella, because it would be sinful
for us to actually use a trumpet as we sing a song that tells us to use a trumpet.
So God wants us to sing that in the New Testament.
Is everybody understanding the logic here?
So in the New Testament church at Ephesus, we're supposed to sing a song about trumpets
and stringed instruments and cymbals sounding, but don't do it.
Don't use them.
And if you do, you're sinning.
See that's teaching for commandments, the doctrines of men.
There is no command in the Bible that says don't use musical instruments.
There is a teaching in Psalm 150 and many other places telling us we should praise him
on these musical instruments, and then he tells us to sing these.
That's what always cracks me up when I show people something out of the book of Psalms
and they say that's Old Testament.
We're supposed to sing it in both Testaments.
We're supposed to sing all 150 of these in both New Testament and Old Testament.
So that falls apart pretty fast.
So if it hasn't been repealed, it's still in place.
The second thing we need to differentiate, not only between New Testament and Old Testament,
my wife predicted that at this point in the outline I would be 30 minutes into the sermon,
I'm actually 45 minutes into the sermon, so you were right honey.
The next thing we need to differentiate is between clear statements and parables or stories.
If it's a parable or a story and then there's a clear statement, this kind of goes back
to the other point, we need to let the statement lead.
Perfect example, there's a story where Jesus turned water into wine, but then there's a
statement that says don't even look at the wine when it's red.
You say, well is that a contradiction?
No, but if we use all the statements in the Bible, we can easily ascertain that there
are two different types of wine talked about in the Bible.
One that's an alcoholic beverage and one that's just grape juice or any kind of juice.
That's why he doesn't just say look not on wine period, he says look not on the wine
when, and then he describes a certain type of wine that we're not supposed to look upon.
I'll blow past that point, but he says also the next point is that we should differentiate
between the statements of God and the statements of man.
Go to Luke chapter 2.
These are all just principles to help you understand your Bible.
First of all, you've got to believe the whole thing's true.
Every verse must not contradict another verse, and if you have two verses that seem to contradict,
you're understanding one of them wrong.
If two seem to contradict, you're wrong about one of them.
So then the question becomes well which one am I wrong about?
Well probably the one that there's a minority of, not a majority of.
Probably the one that's unclear as opposed to the one that's clear.
Probably the one that's Old Testament as opposed to New Testament.
Probably the one that is a question mark and not a period.
Pretty easy to understand.
But secondly you've got to rightly divide.
How do you divide?
Notice I didn't say divide into seven dispensations.
That's not biblical.
Divide into two testaments, old and new.
Divide into clear statements and parables and stories.
Divide it.
Base what you believe not on a parable, my friend.
Don't base what you believe on a story.
Base what you believe on a statement and then use the statement to interpret the story.
If the only evidence you have that your doctrine is true is a story, you've got the wrong doctrine.
A story should reinforce what you believe.
A story can illustrate what you believe and illuminate what you believe, but it should
not be the foundation of what you believe.
Everything I believe, listen to me now, every doctrine that I believe is based on a clear
statement in the Bible and if you can't think of a clear statement in the Bible to back
up your doctrine, you've probably got the wrong doctrine.
It's that simple.
But we need to differentiate between the statements of God in the Bible and the statements of
man in the Bible.
You see, a lot of people say a lot of things in the Bible that aren't true.
For example, the devil speaks in the Bible and we know there's no truth in him.
Here's a perfect example.
In Luke 2.33, the Bible reads about Jesus and Joseph and his mother marveled at those
things which were spoken of him.
So the Bible is very clear here that Joseph and his mother, and notice it doesn't say
his father and mother because Joseph is not Jesus' father.
The Bible says Joseph and his mother.
So you try to show people that have these modern perversions of the Bible like the NIV,
the New American Standard, the Living Bible, the RSV, the ASV, the HIV, the SUV, whatever.
They got the wrong Bible and you try to tell them, look, your Bible is calling Joseph Jesus'
father.
That's wrong.
That's blasphemy.
That's a false doctrine.
The King James has it right.
Your Bible's got it wrong.
And you know what they'll say to you?
And I've had many say this, what about in verse 48 where the King James says that Joseph
is Jesus' father?
And they'll say, you fool.
In verse 48, the KJV says Joseph is Jesus' father.
Read for me, Brother Garrett, Luke 2.33 in the New American Standard Version.
And his father and mother were amazed at the things which were being said about him.
So there you go.
So there's the New American Standard calling Joseph Jesus' father, the King James just
calls him Joseph.
Now look at Luke 2.48 and let's see if these modern Bible people are right.
Let's see if the King James Bible says that Joseph is Jesus' father.
It says in verse 48, and when they saw him they were amazed and his mother said unto
him, Son, why hast thou dealt thus with us?
Behold thy father and I have sought thee sorry.
Is that God talking?
Listen Roman Catholic, Mary isn't God.
Somebody needs to tell these bunch of Roman Catholics who are defending these modern versions
that Mary isn't God.
And so if Mary says he's the father, she's wrong.
And get this, it gets even clearer.
He corrects her in the next verse.
He tells her she's wrong.
Look at the next verse.
And he said to them, how is it that ye saw me?
Because when you're going to say, behold thy father and I have sought thee sorry, Jesus'
answer is, how is that even possible?
How is it possible for my father to be seeking for me when my father's in heaven and knows
everything?
He's not looking for me.
He knew exactly where I was.
And that's why she says, behold thy father and I have sought thee sorry.
Is that true?
Is it true that Jesus' father and her and she had been seeking?
No.
So look what she says.
He said to them, how is it that ye sought me?
Wish ye not, that means did you not know, that I must be about my father's business.
So right there he's saying, wait a minute, this is my father's business.
You're talking about my father as being this carpenter.
This carpenter is not my father.
I'm about my father's business right now, which is preaching and teaching God's word.
That's the business that my father is and that's the business I'm about.
That's why I don't like this bumper sticker that says my boss is a Jewish carpenter.
Because there's no evidence in the Bible that Jesus was a carpenter.
And so we see evidence here that he's saying this is my father's business, preaching and
teaching God's word.
Now I'm not saying that he was for sure not a carpenter.
I don't know.
Perhaps he did carpentry.
I'm not saying that he didn't or did, but I'm not going to put a bumper sticker on my
car just assuming something that the Bible never teaches one time, because the Bible
never teaches one time that he's a carpenter.
The only time we see him building anything is that he's going to prepare a place for
us in heaven.
But I don't think wood is going to be the building material.
I'm hoping for something a little more sturdy than that, if it's going to last for all eternity.
Gold, silver, precious stones, something like that, granite, some kind of masonry or something.
So anyway, what I'm saying is, you need to differentiate between when God's talking and
when man's talking.
You know, when man speaks in the Bible, what he says may or may not be true.
A lot of things that Mary says in the Bible are great things that are true.
Other things that Mary said were not correct, as in the case in point here.
So always differentiate when you're reading the Bible, wait a minute, because a lot of
times the verses that people struggle with the most, I can't understand this.
It's like, God didn't say that.
That's quoting man there.
That's not quoting God.
But see, in Luke 2, 33, the narrator of the book is speaking.
That's the Holy Ghost speaking.
So in that New American Standard, the Holy Spirit is calling Joseph Jesus' father.
In the King James, the Holy Spirit doesn't make mistakes.
He gets it right.
Joseph and his mother.
Mary, on the other hand, can make mistakes because she's not perfect.
So that's another important differentiation.
And lastly this, when you're struggling with a passage in the Bible, you've got to try
to put away preconceived ideas.
So the number one enemy to understanding the Bible is preconceived ideas.
You know, you get an idea stuck in your head and it stops you from understanding the passage.
You know, you'll start out by saying, well we know this, well we know this, you know.
And then you don't understand anything after that because you started with the wrong assumption.
The only assumption I start with is that every verse in the Bible is true.
And you need to put aside preconceived ideas when you're understanding the Bible.
Like for example, Simon the Canaanite, I preached about it several weeks ago.
Well we know Simon, we know all the disciples were Israelites, so there's no way he could
have been a Canaanite.
You know, it's like, well how do you know that when the Bible said he was a Canaanite?
You could go on and on, you know, well we know that this means this, we know that this
and that.
You know, when you get to a passage that you're struggling with, put aside preconceived ideas.
Put aside what you think you know and just say, wait a minute, what are these two verses
actually saying?
Not what I'm assuming.
Well we know that the tribulation is the time of Jacob's trouble, you know, it's like what?
Where do you know that?
Where'd you get that?
You know, whatever the example you want to give.
And then lastly this, when in doubt, take the Bible literally.
Always assume things are literal unless it's obvious that they're symbolic, right?
Now you say, well where do you derive that?
Well you know, that's just common sense right there.
I mean, if I'm talking to my wife, shouldn't she assume everything I say is literal?
Or should she just assume that most of what I'm saying is going to be symbolic?
You know, honey, when the service ends tonight, I would like to go home right away.
I want to go directly home, I don't want to spend a lot of time hanging around after church,
you know.
We need to get home, I want you to pack the kids up, and I want to go home right after
church tonight.
You know, what did he mean by that?
You know, I wonder if he means that, you know, we're entering a new phase in our marriage.
It's like, what?
Shouldn't she just assume it's literal?
But if I tell her like, you know what, you know what, Juja, it's raining cats and dogs
outside.
Then, okay, that's symbolic.
Or if I say, you know, Juja, I've told you a million times, you know, x, y, and z.
She's probably going to assume, okay, that's figurative because he didn't really say it
one million times.
So you've got to use a little common sense when you're studying the Bible and realize
that you know what, unless it's obvious that it's symbolic, take it literally.
You know, because when you start thinking everything's symbolic, you get into a lot
of false doctrine.
For example, I was out soul winning yesterday, and we knocked on the door of, uh, Gabriel
Massaros and I knocked on the door of a Mormon lady.
And she's just like, come on in, you know.
And she's there with her five children, and I'm speaking to this Mormon lady, and they're
all listening in, and I'm just showing her scripture after scripture after scripture.
First I went through the plan of salvation with her, but she wasn't getting it.
So then I just showed her a bunch of scriptures proving a bunch of things about Mormonism
to be false.
And I mean, this must have come out of her mouth on every point.
That's symbolic.
Symbolic.
You know, oh, here's hell, symbolic.
You know, lake of fire, symbolic.
Drop of water on my tongue, I'm tormented in the flame, symbolic.
You know, the broad is the way that leads to destruction, so most people aren't saved,
symbolic.
Well, the Bible says here we're not all God's children, because it says, as many as received
them, to them gave you power to become the sons of God.
That's symbolic.
Something else.
I mean, Gabriel, didn't she say to us, that Mormon lady, didn't she say the word symbolic,
like 20, you know, everything was just symbolic, symbolic, you know, 20 times, it's symbolic,
it's symbolic, it's symbolic.
I kept talking to her, part of the reason why, because usually I don't want to spend
a lot of time with somebody like that, but the kids were really listening, so I was hoping
to plant some seeds with them, you know, as I'm showing her all these Scriptures.
I show her how before God there was no other God formed, neither shall there be any God
after him.
And what's funny is that when you really get them to admit what they believe, they get
mad at you.
Because I was being very friendly and nice, and it was a very friendly conversation, but
I just kept asking her, you know, well how many gods are there, and it just, finally
she just is angry, like, yes, there are other gods out there, you know, it's like, well,
you know, why are you mad about that?
I mean, when people ask me what I believe, I'm not trying to hide it, I'm not ashamed
of it, but it's like they want to hide what they believe.
And I say, well, you know, are there other planets with people living on them?
Why are you asking me that?
I say, I'm just asking.
I'm just trying to understand what you believe, you know, do you believe there are other planets
with people living on them?
I never said there are other planets.
I'm like, well are there though?
And you know, she's just like, well we know that there's Kolob.
We know Kolob is out there, you know.
And so I thought that was kind of cool, because who's ever seen that Mormon, that anti-Mormon
cartoon?
You know what I'm talking about.
There's a cartoon, there was a documentary from the 1980s called The God Makers, whoever
saw that back in the 1980s, and it was a documentary exposing Mormonism for the cult that it is,
because when they come up to your door, they don't tell you all the weird stuff.
They start out with the mild stuff, and then it gets weirder as you get into it.
Well in this documentary there's a little cartoon that shows you everything about what
the Mormons really believe on this cartoon.
And in this little 10 minute cartoon, it goes through, and Mormons will say, oh that cartoon,
don't listen to that cartoon, that cartoon's wrong.
But if you ever ask them to pinpoint for you what in the cartoon is inaccurate, they can't
tell you.
Because everything that's in that cartoon, in all the years I've been out soul winning
and talking to Mormons, everything in that cartoon, they'll admit that it's true.
If you just home in on one point of it, they'll eventually admit, yes we do believe that.
So what's inaccurate about the cartoon?
The cartoon's dead on with what they believe.
But the cartoon just looks so stupid, when you look at what they believe all in one 10
minute segment, it's so ridiculous, they don't want people watching that cartoon.
But that cartoon is as true as days long, because look, in all my years of being out
soul winning, I've never had one of them bring that out to me about Kolob.
Because in the cartoon it starts out, Mormons believe in trillions of gods on other planets
and that our god came from a planet by the distant star of Kolob.
And this woman literally brought that up to me.
We know there's Kolob, we know that's out there, and then she said this to me.
She said, you know, one day I'm going to be a goddess, someday, if I'm worthy, I can
be my own goddess someday.
I'm not saying it's going to be on another planet now, but I'm going to be a goddess
ruling and reigning somewhere as a goddess, and that our god is the same way.
You know what?
That's the type of people that want to say everything in the Bible is symbolic, symbolic,
symbolic.
So what I'm saying is, if you're going to call everything in the Bible symbolic, you
can pretty much even start believing in other planets and space aliens and stuff like the
Mormons believe in, because they believe in space aliens.
God is a space alien, according to the Mormons.
God is a space alien, not from Krypton, but from Kolob.
You know, they both start with a K. So what I'm saying is, if you're going to make everything
in the Bible be symbolic, you can pretty much believe anything and still claim to be a Bible-believing
Christian.
What separates the Baptist from the Mormon?
What separates the Baptist from the one who is a liberal?
This is what separates.
We take the Bible literally.
Literal interpretation.
This is the core doctrine of our church, of Christianity, is that we take it literally.
We believe what it says, Jesus says what he meant, he meant what he said.
That is called literal interpretation.
That is a key to understanding the Bible, because when you start saying everything symbolic,
who knows what you're going to end up with.
So when in doubt, it's literal.
Unless it's just clear and obvious this is symbolic, go with the literal interpretation.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, I pray that these points would help those of our church as they read their Bible
and as they study the Bible to understand it.
And I pray that as a result of hearing this sermon, people would maybe understand some
things that in the past they struggled to understand.
And I pray that everyone would just start out with that one assumption that every word
of the Bible is true and to put away all other preconceived ideas.
The only preconceived idea that we should have is that it's all true.
And thank you that it is all true.
Thank you that you are the faithful and true witness.