(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Now, in John chapter 14, the verse that I wanted to focus on is there in verse 26, where the Bible reads, But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. And what I want to point out this morning is the subject of reading your Bible. And more specifically, I want to talk about the fact that when you read the Bible, you should be reading just the Bible alone. Not with a commentary, not a study Bible, not a devotional booklet. Why it's just so important for you personally, with the Holy Spirit as your teacher, with the Holy Spirit as your guide, should take time every day and just read the Word of God. Just you and the Word and the Holy Spirit without any interference from anyone else. Why it's so important to read the Bible on your own. Now this verse here in verse 26 tells us that the Holy Ghost, which we know today indwells us as believers. Jesus here is talking about it in future tense because this is before He had been glorified and before the Holy Ghost was given. Because the Bible says in John chapter 7 that the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified, it says in John 7. So after Jesus Christ was glorified, after He died and was buried and rose again, believers after that were indwelled by the Holy Spirit and we today as Christians are indwelled by the Holy Ghost. The Bible says if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he's none of His. So we all have the Holy Spirit inside of us if we're saved, if we're believers. And the Bible tells us that the Holy Ghost, halfway through the verse there, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. So flip over to chapter 16. So according to that verse in chapter 14, is there anything, is there any biblical truth, is there any right doctrine that the Holy Ghost will not teach us? No He said He'll teach you all things. I mean anything that there is to learn about the Word of God can be taught to you by the Holy Ghost. And not only that, it says He will bring to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. Jesus Christ is saying He's going to remind you of what I have said. Well Jesus Christ is the Word. The Bible says in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. It says and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Jesus said the words that I say unto you, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. So Jesus Christ spoke the Word of God unto His disciples. We have the Word of God today in the Bible and the Bible tells us in John 14 that the Holy Ghost will teach us these words. He will bring these words to our remembrance, He will show them unto us, He will teach us and guide us into all truth. Look at John 16 verse 12, John 16 verse 12, I have yet many things to say unto you but you cannot bear them now. He's saying, you know, there are things that I have to say to you that you can't handle right now, is what he's saying. How be it when He, the spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all truth. For He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak and He will show you things to come. Now there's a lot packed into that verse, that's an important verse, because when it says He'll not speak of Himself, of there is talking about the source of where His teaching is coming from. He's not going to teach you things that Jesus never taught. He's not going to teach you things that are not in the Word of God. He's not going to teach you new things that you've never heard, that are never in the Bible or in Jesus' teaching, but what He'll do, He'll take of Christ's teachings and show them unto you. He'll take of the words of Jesus and show them unto you. Look at the verse again. It says halfway through, He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine, therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine and shall show it unto you. So He's going to take of Jesus' words and show them unto us, illuminate them for us, teach them to us, guide us into all truth, and again I want to emphasize to you at the beginning of verse 13, it says that when the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all truth. Everything that there is to learn about the Bible, everything that there is to learn about God is taught by the Holy Spirit and it is taught by the Holy Spirit using God's Word. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, 1 Corinthians chapter number 2, because you say, well Pastor Anderson, you know, I'm a new believer, I'm newly saved, how do I learn the Bible? Do I need to sign up for a Bible college class? Do I need to join a Bible institute? You know, do I need to get a commentary? Do I need a devotional booklet? Do I need a study Bible that will explain the Bible to me? Look, the primary way that you as a believer are going to learn the Bible is just by reading the Bible and the Holy Ghost will teach you. The Holy Spirit will teach you. Now you say, well I've never heard that taught, or that's not a very commonly taught concept, here's why. Because people who want you to believe lies, they don't want you to do the reading on your own and rely on the Holy Spirit. They want you to feel that you need them. You need my commentary. You need me to teach it to you. Don't just read it on your own, don't just study it on your own, you know, you need someone to guide you. Let me say this, the unsaved man cannot understand the word of God, like the Ethiopian eunuch, and Philip asked him, saying, understandest thou what thou readest, and he said, how can I except some man should guide me, but wait a minute, that's because he wasn't saved. That's why he needed man to guide him. That's why he needed to be guided to the truth, because he did not have the Holy Spirit, because he was not yet saved. But after we are saved, the Holy Spirit is our teacher, and you know what, I want you to believe the truth today. I don't want you to believe lies, and so I'm very comfortable telling you to go learn it on your own. Get a Bible and read it on your own, study it on your own, and the Holy Spirit will never teach you wrong. He'll never steer you wrong. Now where did I return, 1 Corinthians? Look at chapter 2 verse 9. The Bible says, but as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth, again, look at the emphasis, all things. Oh but wait a minute, if you really want to get into the deep truths, you're going to have to go to the commentaries. You're going to have to get a study Bible, you're going to have to have a Greek or Hebrew expert expound them to you. Is that what the Bible says? No. It says the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God, even the deep things of the Bible are taught to you by the Holy Ghost according to this. For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak, watch this, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Notice that in discussions about the Holy Spirit, whether we're in chapter 14 of John, chapter 16, whether we're in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, do you notice that a major ministry of the Holy Spirit is teaching us the word of God? See how that comes up over and over again? That his job is to guide us into all truth, to teach us the word of God, to show us the truths of God's word, and he can teach us all the truths of God's word. Look at verse 14. 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. The natural man is the man who is not regenerate, he's not saved. An unsaved man, a man that doesn't have the Holy Spirit, he can't understand the word of God. It's foolishness unto him, it doesn't make any sense to him. Whereas the one who is saved, the Bible says in verse 15, he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judgeth of no man. Now go if you would to 1 John chapter 2. First John toward the very end of the New Testament, 1 John chapter 2. So we're seeing a pattern here that the Bible is telling us that the Holy Spirit will teach us all things, he'll guide us into all truth. If we're saved we can understand the Bible, if we're not saved we can't understand the Bible. What's the difference? The indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Because he is our teacher. He is there to guide us and to illuminate God's word unto us. Now he's not there to say things to us that Jesus never said and the Bible never said. Now a lot of people will just make things up and say, well God told me this. The Holy Spirit just told me, you know, don't go to that church. The Holy Spirit just told me, don't say the Holy Spirit told me and then just make things up. Well the Holy Spirit told me that I should go talk to that person. The Holy Spirit told you to go talk to everybody because it said, you know, go ye therefore into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. But what the Holy Spirit will do is that when we're reading the Bible, the Holy Spirit will teach us the Bible as we read the Bible, okay? And as we read the Bible and we get truth in our mind later on, days later, a week later, the Holy Spirit will bring the word back to our remembrance and teach us even more. Now you say, well wait a minute Pastor Anderson. And look, if you're a new believer, if you're newly saved or maybe if you haven't really read the Bible much, this sermon is really important for you to listen to. I want you to listen to what I'm saying right now. Because you might say, well Pastor Anderson, that's not true because sometimes when I'm reading the Bible there are things that I don't understand. And a lot of people, especially new believers, when they read the Bible there's a lot that they don't understand. You know, they come to things and they don't understand it. And they're like, where's the study Bible? Where's the commentary? Where do I go? But wait a minute. Jesus even told the disciples that there were some things that they couldn't really handle yet and that He would, you know, the Spirit would teach it to them in time. What you have to understand is that even Pastor Anderson, having read the Bible scores of times, memorizing huge sections of the Bible, been saved for, you know, 20 some years, there are things that I read in the Bible that I don't understand. I'm not going to stand up here and say I understand every word of the Bible because no one understands every single word. But I will guarantee you this, I'm not guaranteeing you that you by yourself with the Bible will understand every word, but I will guarantee you that you will understand something when you read the Bible if you're saved. If you're saved and you begin to read the Bible, there will be something that day that the Holy Ghost will teach you that will help you to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I'm not saying you're going to understand every word the first time you read it. If you did, there'd be no reason to read it a second time. Look, every time you read it, you're gaining new things. The Holy Spirit's teaching you something new, something new, and if you read it every day, you're going to learn at least 365 new things. God's Spirit will teach you the Bible and He'll teach you what you need right now. He'll teach you what you need today and He'll help you grow if you do the reading and if you let Him teach you. Look at 1 John chapter 2, it says in verse 26, these things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. Now when you hear the word seduce, what do you usually think of? You probably think of a wicked man trying to get a woman to commit fornication or adultery with him. Or you might think of a wicked woman trying to get a man to commit adultery with her or fornication with her. You think of someone being seductive. So when the Bible here is talking about seducing you, it's talking about someone who's trying to lure you or entice you or ensnare you and in this regard, it's not talking about adultery, it's talking about into false teaching and false doctrine. John is warning that there are people out there who are going to use enticing words. Basically they're going to use words that sound good, that sound appealing. I mean look, if someone is seductive, does it look good? You know obviously there's an appeal there to the flesh, right? So these seducers are false teachers who are going to appeal in some way to you, make the lie look good, make the deception look appealing and attractive, and they will trick you into believing false doctrine. They will lead you down a wrong path. There are false prophets out there and he's going to teach us something in verse 27 that will help us to avoid this false teaching and these seducers. He says, I'm writing these things unto you concerning them that seduce you. Look at verse 27, but, but the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you. And we know that that anointing from the context is the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and you need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things. Now is that consistent with John 14 and John 16 and 1 Corinthians 2 when it said the Holy Ghost was going to teach us all things? He said the anointing teacheth you of all things and is truth and is no lie and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. You know how you're going to abide in correct doctrine? You know how you're going to continue in the truth and not be seduced away into false doctrine when you realize that the Holy Ghost is your main teacher and you realize that I don't need any man to teach me. I am able to get the truth from God's Word on my own by myself with only the Holy Spirit helping me. Because let me tell you something, the Holy Spirit will not lead you into false doctrine. When you look at the false doctrine that abounds today, when you look at the lies and the heresy, you know what? They didn't come, many of them you look at it and you say no one would read their Bible and come up with that on their own. They have to be led down that path by an unsaved man, by an ungodly man, by a man who is speaking lies unto them and then they get tricked, they fall for it. It's not just they read the Bible on their own and that's what they come up with. Some of these doctrines that abound today would be impossible to get from the Bible on your own because they involve people saying oh well in this other language it says this or oh in this archaeological record it does this or oh historically it's this. Stuff that you never even heard of, would never really think of or apply just from reading your Bible. Now go to Ephesians chapter 4 because whenever you preach on this, whenever you show a verse like 1 John chapter 2 verse 27, which is a crystal clear verse, I don't think there's anything ambiguous about 1 John 2.27. He says you don't need any man to teach you, period. The Holy Ghost will teach you everything, period. And here's what people will say, they'll scoff at that verse and they'll basically say something to you like this, oh come on you don't actually really believe that because you get up three times a week and teach the Bible at your church. And that's what they'll say, they'll say so if we don't need any man to teach us then why are you getting up three times a week and teaching the Bible? Why do you get up on Sunday mornings? And if I had a nickel for every time somebody said that to me I'd be a wealthy man. Because that's something that people will constantly say, well then why even go to church? Why even preach the Bible? Some people will misapply 1 John 2 and quit going to church. Say well I don't need church, I don't need a man to teach me, but hold on a second. Let me remind you that the primary reason that you go to church is because you're commanded to go to church. I mean just right out of the gate the Bible commands us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as we see the day approaching. I mean the Bible commands us to go to church. The New Testament's written under the church. I mean all throughout the Bible in the New Testament we see the importance of the church. And I'm not going to preach a whole sermon on the importance of the church, but let me suffice it to say that Hebrews 10 gives some very strong warnings about those who forsake the assembly, okay, forsake the congregation or the church. But they'll say well, you know, you don't really believe that because you're getting up and teaching people three times a week. But here's what I want to emphasize, and if you would look at Ephesians 4, I think this helps illustrate what I'm saying in Ephesians 4. It says in verse 11, and he gave some apostles and he gave and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. So the Bible is telling us in Ephesians 4 that he gave us pastors and teachers, right? Why did he give us pastors and teachers? If the Holy Ghost will teach us all things, why do we have a pastor and teacher? Look at verse 12, for the perfecting of the saints. Now look, does perfecting sound like you're just getting something real basic? You're just getting started? No. What does perfecting sound like? It sounds more like the icing on the cake, rather than the cake itself. You know, if I were perfecting a wedding cake, that sounds like I'm just putting the finishing touches on it, right? It doesn't sound like it's the main part of that cake, okay? Perfecting is a finishing, okay? Now it says, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, under the measure of the stature and fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the slight of man and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Remember those people that want to seduce you and deceive you? Okay, now, this here is talking about perfecting the saints, it's talking about the unity of believers, and it's talking about a defense against false teaching. Let me explain it to you this way. If you come to church and you hear the pastor preach the Bible, and look, God is clearly telling us, he gave us pastors and teachers to help us, to build us up, to perfect us. If you come to church, and if you would flip over to Acts 17, but if you come to church and you hear Pastor Anderson teach and preach the Bible, you're going to learn new things. You're going to learn things from the Bible that are helpful to you. But wait a minute, let me ask you this, is there anything, because remember, we want to help understand 1 John 2, is there anything that you can learn in church that you can't learn at home reading the Bible yourself? Is there anything that you have to have the pastor teach you because you would not learn it from the Holy Ghost in your personal Bible reading alone? No. Because if there is, it's false doctrine. Because every true doctrine is taught by the Holy Ghost. So theoretically, everything I'm preaching to you this morning, am I teaching you something this morning? I'm teaching you about the ministry of the Holy Ghost. I'm teaching you that you don't need man to teach you. And the things that I'm teaching you right now, could you have not learned these things also on your own at home if you were just reading your Bible, reading John 14, reading John 16? In fact, some people that are here today, even before I'm saying this, you already knew that what I'm saying is true because you read it on your own. So you don't need me to teach this to you. It's possible to learn everything on your own. And if there's something that you would have to hear from me, well then it's probably not true because everything that's true can be taught by the Holy Ghost. Look at Acts 17 verse 11, it says, these were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so. So what we need as believers, okay, is a searching of the Scriptures daily with the Holy Ghost alone to figure out whether the preaching that we're hearing is even true or not. Okay? So who's the final authority in your life? Is Pastor Anderson the final authority of what you believe? Or is it the Holy Ghost and your personal Bible reading? It ought to be the Holy Ghost and your personal Bible reading. See according to Acts 17, 11, when you do come to church to get that icing on the spiritual cake, to get that perfecting that you need, okay, you ought to be judging every word that I say for whether it lines up with the Scripture or not based on your own personal Bible reading, okay? So just get the picture. You're reading the Bible on Monday morning, you're reading the Bible on Tuesday morning, you're reading the Bible on Wednesday morning, you're reading the Bible on Thursday morning, you're reading the Bible on Friday morning, you're reading the Bible on Saturday morning. Then when you go to church, you're asking yourself as you hear the Word of God, does this line up with what I'm reading in the Bible? And when you're reading in the Bible, you're searching for the things that you heard from the pulpit to see if they're really even there. Now look, this is what even changed my life as a teenager. As a teenager, I was going to a church that preached a lot of false doctrine and I decided as a 16 year old boy, I'm going to read the Bible cover to cover myself. And I didn't read a study Bible, I didn't read a commentary, I got a Bible that was just the Bible, it was just the Word of God. And I read that Bible and I started noticing the huge difference between what I was reading and what I was hearing at church. And I went to my parents and I said, the Bible says this, this is what we're hearing in church. The Bible talks about this, we never hear about that in church. And my parents said, you're right. You know, and it helped guide us to a church that was actually preaching the Bible. It got us out of that wrong church that we were in because we searched the Scriptures daily and what they were saying wasn't there. And things that they were not saying were there. So you see how I didn't need man to teach me that. I got it from the Holy Ghost. And most of the doctrines I preach, I got from reading the Bible on my own. And a lot of people will say, oh yeah, that's why Pastor Anderson preaches all this crazy doctrine because he didn't study at Bible college and seminary. You know, and that's why he preached all this crazy doctrine. You know what? It's crazy. You know what? It's crazy to the crazy. You know, when you're crazy, you think you're the only one who's normal and that everyone around you crazy, okay? Now let me say this. Faithful Word Baptist Church is a lot different than even most of the independent Baptist churches in this area. Even most of the independent fundamental Baptist churches in this area. Faithful Word Baptist Church is a lot different and there's a simple reason for that. Because I read the Bible on my own with no commentary and no notes and I just let the Holy Ghost teach me and I don't need man to validate what the Holy Ghost taught me. I'm going to let the Holy Ghost validate what man taught me. And it's the opposite with most people. It's like they did something from the Holy Ghost and then it's like, oh, let me get man to validate this. And when they can't find man to validate it, they say, well, it must not be true. But really, I should hear what man taught me and say, okay, let's see if we can get the Bible to validate this. Oh, we can't. That's the difference. You want to know what the big difference is? You want to know why our church is different? And I'm not saying we're the only one like this because there are a lot of other Bible believing churches also where the pastor actually reads the Bible on his own, makes decisions on his own. But you know what, the vast majority are clones walking out of Bible colleges and seminaries brainwashed and they're not even thinking for themselves because they've forgotten that the Holy Ghost is their main teacher. And look, I want to be your teacher. I want to be your pastor. I want to help perfect you. I want to help edify you. I want to help train you. But I don't want to be your main teacher. I want the Holy Ghost to be your main teacher. That's why you need to get your own Bible and read it by yourself with no notes, no commentary, no study guide, and let the Holy Ghost teach you. Now look, that was all an introduction to the sermon. Now let's get into the meat of the sermon. Because the meat of the sermon is why I don't want you to use a study Bible or a commentary. Why I don't use a study Bible or commentary. Why the Bibles that I choose have as little in them as possible except the Word of God. Do you have that sword drill version? Yeah, okay, hold that up nice and high. Brother Fairchild, I love that Bible that he has and I have one just like it that I got from Trent. You can get it online, it's called the, you know, sword drill Bible or something. It's a dark blue, who's the publisher? Holman. It's by Holman and it's called the sword drill edition. And it's a blue hardbound Bible and it's just the Bible. I mean it has no notes, it doesn't even tell you at the top of the page what that page is about. It just tells you nothing except what God told you. That's the Bible I like. And the Bibles that I get, I try to get the ones that have as little notes as possible. I don't want what man said, I want what God said. Now people will often say this, because there's an agenda out there to get you to read a commentary, to get you to read a study Bible, because they don't want the Holy Ghost teaching you because then you're going to end up a crazy person like Pastor Anderson. I mean if you just let the Holy Ghost teach you and get away from all of man's teaching, you're going to end up imbalanced like Pastor Anderson. That's why they want you on all their little commentaries and study guides. What are they so afraid of that the Holy Ghost is going to teach you if you read it on your own? And you know what, I run into people all the time that I've never met, that I've never talked to, that believe exactly the same as I do, and we both got it from the Holy Ghost independently. Because the Holy Ghost is teaching everybody the same thing if they're listening. Now why do I think that you should read the Bible on your own and not have all these study helps? And why do you think you should get a stripped down Bible that's just the Word of God without all the fluff? Well those who want to get you on the commentaries and study guides, here's what they'll say. Well what's the difference between a commentary and preaching? Isn't that what they'll say? I mean preaching explains the Bible, why not have a commentary to read the Bible? Why not have a study guide to explain it to you if preaching explains it to you? Well first of all because God has ordained and God has chosen and elected to manifest His Word through preaching. He didn't say I'm going to manifest it through a commentary, I'm going to manifest it through a study guide. But here's why, let me just give you an illustration of why. Because remember when we go to church we're listening to the pastor or teacher and then when we go home we search the scripture whether those things are so. So we see that we have two elements in our life. We have church and we have our personal Bible reading and personal study and learning time. Well what happens is if you read the Bible with a devotional study guide or commentary you've completely deleted the one on one time with God and now you have a public teaching time at church and then you have a third party with you in the study as well. So in the study you've got a third party with you, at church it's like you're never having alone time with God. Let me explain it to you this way. My wife and I have a wonderful relationship, we have a great marriage and part of the time that we spend together is just alone. Just my wife and I are alone together. And then there are other times when I am with my wife and others. For example the children, they're always around. So there are times when I might go somewhere with my wife and all the children. I might sit down and have a meal with my wife and all the children. Could that be a bonding time between my wife and me if the children are there? Of course. We could go out to dinner and bring the children, we could sit down at the house and play a game together with the children, we could take a walk or a bike ride with the children and that would be a bonding time between my wife and me, wouldn't it? But what if that's all we ever did, we were never alone together, never. First of all, we wouldn't have all these children if we were never alone together. But anyway, that's another story. But what I'm saying is there has to be a time in order to have a good marriage. Even though my marriage can be edified and built up and perfected by experiences that are shared with other people, it is also very necessary that I also have some one-on-one time with my wife that's going to build our relationship. And what do you think probably builds our relationship the most? What do you think is probably the most important time that we have together? Probably the time that we have together alone. Those are probably the times when we're connected on the deepest level. That's probably the time when we communicate the most explicitly or when we're very clear about our feelings to each other or when we actually talk about deep things. You know, if we're going to talk about a really serious, private subject or maybe I'm really going to open up and pour out my heart to her or she's going to pour out her heart to me. Do you think that's going to be in a large group? No. That's going to be when we're alone together. It's private between the two of us. Okay, so think about this. In your marriage, what you're doing basically when you just are turning your Bible reading time into a study guide, commentary, devotional time, what you're doing is you're completely eliminating the chance for the Holy Ghost to tutor you one-on-one and to teach you one-on-one. You're always in a group setting. And you're not getting all that you could be getting. And you're never, you're never going to the Holy Ghost and letting him tell you whether the things you're hearing are so because you're just always hearing from man. Always hearing from man instead of ever going to God and just, okay well let's get rid of Pastor Anderson for a minute. You know, look, and it's not that we don't love Pastor Anderson, but you know what, you don't want him with you 24-7. Okay, do I love my children? I love my children, but I also love when they go to bed at night. And it's not that I don't love them. It's not that I don't want to be with them. It's not that I don't want to spend time with them. But you know what, they need to go to bed at some point so that I can get away from them, okay, and be with my wife alone. Does that make sense? So here's the thing, we love Pastor Anderson. I hope so, you know, but does that mean that Pastor Anderson just needs to be there every time I read the Bible? Every single time I read the Bible I need Pastor Anderson there just to make sure I don't make any mistakes. See how bad of a philosophy that is? But that's what you're doing when you've got Matthew Henry with you every time you read the Bible and you've got Schofield with you every time you read the Bible and you've got somebody with you, you've got John MacArthur, you know, you've got him with you every time you read the Bible. I mean can you imagine how people would say that we were a cult if I said, don't you ever read your Bible unless I'm there with you making sure that you don't misinterpret it. But that's what these study Bibles are basically saying. You can't understand it unless I'm there to guide you every step of the way. It's wrong. Look, come here Pastor Anderson, preach, you'll learn things. But then go read the Bible by yourself and it'll let you basically figure out whether Pastor Anderson is even preaching the truth or teaching the truth or not because it better jive with what you read by yourself on your own without Pastor Anderson there every step of the way. Oh, oh, no, no, let me make sure you understand it my way. See the difference between preaching and a commentary or a study Bible? Now I can't get up here right now, so that's one big reason why you don't want to read a study Bible. I hope you understood that part of the sermon. But not only that, the other reason why you don't want a commentary or a study Bible is that basically virtually or maybe even all commentaries and study Bibles are filled with lies and false doctrine and heresy, all of them. I'd like to get up and say 100% but I haven't looked at them all, so let's say 99%. 99% of all study Bibles and commentaries are filled with lies, heresy, and false doctrine. So they'll help you to understand lies. They're going to help you understand their false doctrine. So I don't have time to preach against every single commentary, study Bible, so I'm just going to preach against the one that has infected independent Baptists more than any other, which is the Scofield Reference Bible. Now just to let you know, who is familiar with the Scofield Reference Bible? Okay, hands all over the building. Because you see, the Scofield Reference Bible is a study Bible, and people often ask me Pastor Anderson, can you recommend a study Bible? I send them their link to that sword drill version. I said here's the study Bible I recommend, the one with nothing and no notes. That's what I send them a link to. When they email me and ask me for a study Bible, I send them that link. Here it is. This is the Pastor Anderson study Bible. No notes. Okay now, but just to let you know how prevalent this is, okay? Before I started this church, are you listening? Before I started this church in 2005, every single church I ever attended that was independent fundamental Baptist used this book. They either, the pastor had it in his hand, they sold it in the bookstore, I mean every church I've ever attended that was independent fundamental Baptist pretty much sold this in their bookstore, the Scofield Reference Bible. In fact, I was recently called up on the phone by the sword of the Lord. Who's heard of the sword of the Lord? Tons of people. It's a ministry that sells a lot of Bibles and newspapers and things. You know what, honestly, the sword of the Lord, while I don't agree with everything about the sword of the Lord, the sword of the Lord is pretty well doctrinally sound on a lot of things. I mean, they're not just complete apostates. They believe right on the Gospel, they love soul winning, they're King James only. The sword of the Lord has a lot of good things going for them, although I don't agree with everything about them. I don't agree with everything about anyone. But let me say this though. The sword of the Lord called me up on the phone and said, hey Pastor Anderson, just want to let you know that we have a sale going on Scofield Reference Bibles. And I told the lady who called me, and she's a very nice lady, I told her, I said, I'm not interested in the Scofield Reference Bible. I said, did you know that the Scofield Reference Bible teaches that the world is millions of years old? I said, did you know that the Scofield Reference Bible teaches that 1 John 5.7 should be removed from the Bible? And she said, really? I had no idea. And I said, well yeah, I mean, you're calling and you're selling me the Scofield Reference Bible. I said, will you just promise me that you're going to actually look that up? I said, when you get off the phone, would you just pull out the Scofield Reference Bible? I just want you to look at Genesis chapter 1 and I want you to look at 1 John 5.7. She said, I'll do that. I'm going to check that right now. I'll be shocked if they stop selling it though, my friend, because this thing, I don't know what it is about this thing that has just entranced the Fundamental Baptist movement, but I'm going to tell you something. This is in virtually every Independent Fundamental Baptist bookstore. Pastors everywhere are preaching from this and teaching from this and it is so bad. It is so filled with false doctrine. This has no place in any Independent Fundamental Baptist church. I'm going to show you some of the lies and false doctrine in this thing right now. But a lot of people will say this, this is what my old pastor used to say. Because I approached my pastor, because he had a Scofield Bible and they were selling Scofield Bibles, and I said to him, I said, why do you sell the Scofield Bible when it teaches X false doctrine, Y false doctrine, Z false doctrine? And here's what he said, oh yeah, I don't read the notes. I don't do it for the notes. I just like the cross-referencing. And in the column it has cross-referencing. I just do it for the cross-referencing. I guess if we caught him with an adult magazine, he's just reading it for the interviews. He's just reading it for the articles. But he says, I'm just only using it for the cross-referencing. But here's what you have to understand. The same guy who wrote the notes is the same guy who gave you those cross-references. And the same guy who is telling you in Genesis 1 for example, let me just read this for you. In Genesis 1, open your Bible if you would to Genesis chapter 1. It's real easy to find. It's the first chapter in the first book of the Bible. So just go to the very beginning of the Bible. Now if you were just reading the Bible on your own like God wants you to, here's what you'd read. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Now does anybody have any trouble understanding that? And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness, and God called the light day. So it's the creation story, right? He's creating light, darkness, day, night, land, sea, He creates the whole earth. Okay, but if you're reading a Scofield reference Bible, it says, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and then there's immediately a note right under that. Earth made waste and empty by judgment. See Jeremiah 4, 23 through 26. So you don't like the notes, but you like the references. Well this reference is sending you to Jeremiah 4, a completely unrelated passage about God judging the children of Judah, and trying to lead you to believe that there was another earth before this earth. Are you listening? Because he's saying, well in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, then it was destroyed, then it was without form and void. It's called the Gap Theory, and it's taught right here on page 1 of your Scofield reference Bible. Not only that, but down in the note, underneath that, here's what it says. Jeremiah 4, 23 through 26 clearly indicates that the earth had undergone a cladoclasmic change as the result of divine judgment. The face of the earth bears everywhere the marks of such a catastrophe. There are not wanting intimations which connected with the previous testing and fall of angels. And listen to this, the first creative act refers to the dateless past and gives scope for all the geologic ages. Translation, the earth's millions of years old. The earth's hundreds of millions of years old, and there's all these hundreds of million year old fossils, and that's because God created the earth millions of years ago, and then he destroyed it, and then he created Adam and Eve. Look, that's a lie. The Bible says in 6 days, in Exodus 20-11, 6 days God created heaven and the earth and all that in them is. Exodus 20-11 proves this wrong. But look, do you think if we went around and asked every independent fundamental Baptist in the state of Arizona, think about this now, are you listening? If we went to every fundamental Baptist and said, do you believe that the earth is millions of years old, do you know what they'd all say? No. Every single independent Baptist, I bet you every staff member at the sword of the Lord would all say the earth is not millions of years old. But yet they all have this book on their shelf. And when they do their personal Bible reading, this is what they're reading from. So let me ask you this, if the Scofield reference Bible is wrong on page 1 verse 1, what else is it going to be wrong about? I mean this is the first verse, and it's telling you, well that wasn't really the beginning. There was another earth before this and that's why it's millions of years. So right out of the gate you see, now here's the other thing. You'll hear these same people that love the Scofield Bible, they'll get up and say, stay away from the new Scofield Bible, because the new Scofield Bible changes the King James. And I even, you know, there's this website called JesusIsSavior.com, okay, and he has an article on there, beware of the new Scofield, and he says, Scofield would roll over in his grave if he knew that they had changed the King James. Okay, but wait a minute. What changes the King James, the whole book? Listen to this. This is from the introduction of the Scofield reference Bible. After mature reflection, it was determined to use the authorized version, the KJV. None of the many revisions have commended themselves to the people at large. The revised version, which has now been before the public for 27 years, gives no indication of becoming any sense the people's Bible of the English-speaking world. We're using the KJV because it's the one that's the most popular. We would use the revised version, but it's not popular. It's not the people's Bible. Listen to what he says next. The discovery of the Sinaiticus manuscript and the labors in the field of textual criticism of such scholars as Griesbach, Lackmann, Tischendorf, Tragellus, Weiner, Alford, and Westcott and Hort have cleared the Greek text as receptors of minor inaccuracies while confirming in a remarkable degree the general accuracy of the authorized version of the text. Such emendations of the text as scholarship demands have been placed in the margins of this edition which therefore blah, blah, blah. So what are they saying? Well we're just going to put in the column every time the King James is wrong. We're going to use the KJV because it's most popular, but then we're going to keep telling you it's wrong over and over again. Like for example, how about in 1 John 5.7 when the note in the Scofield reference Bible and you say, well what's 1 John 5.7? The Bible says, for there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost and these three are one. Here's what it says in the Scofield reference Bible. It says, it is generally agreed that verse 7 has no real authority and has been inserted. It's generally agreed that verse 7 has no authority and has been inserted. So even though it's a King James, all throughout the book, for example, one funny place is in Isaiah where it says remove the word not from this verse. So when you remove the word not, you get the exact opposite of what was said. So all throughout he goes with, and I don't care what Greaseback and Laughman said, Greaseback, Laughman, and Weiner are not going to tell me what the Bible should say, I'd rather just read the King James in the sword drill edition. But anyway, Westcott and Hoard are wonderful, but we've got to use the King James. That means if Scofield were alive today his version would appear in the NIV, because that's the most popular today. He's not rolling in his grave, he's rolling in hell. But anyway, the point is all throughout this book there's false doctrine. Could it be partially because Scofield was not a Baptist? Or was a Baptist? Why do Baptists make this guy their study Bible of choice? It makes no sense. It's tradition. You know what it shows me? That they have not done their own study, because look, there's no way that my pastor would have chosen this book on his own, because he didn't believe any of these things. But you know why he used this book? Because it was handed to him by someone else and he's not checking it out on his own. And he's selling this and giving it out and putting this in new believers' hands and they're getting inundated with this kind of false doctrine and lies. I mean some of the notes in this are so weird. For example, the note on Genesis 12, I'm just going to show you like two more examples and then we'll be done. I just want to show you a few examples, but the note on Genesis 12 says this, the descendants of Abraham had but to abide in their own land to inherit every blessing. Did you hear that? All the descendants of Abraham had to do to inherit every blessing, all they had to do was just stay in their own land, that's it. They don't have to obey any commandments, they don't have to worship the Lord, they don't have to serve God, just stay in the land and you'll inherit every blessing according to Scofield. That's the dispensation of promise. But in Egypt they lost their blessings, but they did not lose their covenant. The dispensation of promise ended when Israel rashly accepted the law in Exodus 19-8. Now correct me if I'm wrong, I don't remember God giving them a choice. When they rashly accepted the law in Exodus 19-8, the dispensation of promise ended. Grace had prepared a deliverer, provided a sacrifice for the guilty, and by divine power brought them out of bondage. But at Sinai they exchanged grace for law. What? I mean, this has got to be the stupidest book ever written. I mean some of you that might be going over your head, but anybody who understands that, what I just read, probably agrees this is the stupidest book ever written. Like what, God was there tricking them at Sinai? Hey, sign right here. Sign right here onto the Old Testament. Sign here. Haha, suckers! Now you've got to obey everything I say. All you had to do before was just sit in that land and you'd be fine. Haha, I should have read the fine print in Deuteronomy before sighting onto it. I mean this guy is nuts. This book is nuts, I'm telling you. You say, but Pastor Anderson, I need a study Bible to help me understand it. Good night. Just get a King James and read it, let the Holy Spirit teach you. But I don't understand everything. Neither do I, join the club. Let God teach you and look, over time you will understand. Can I make a promise to you, the second time you read the Bible, you'll understand it more than the first time. You're not going to understand it all the first time, but the second time you will. I mean is this who you want teaching you? This is probably, you know, and the funny thing is the Scofield Bible probably has less heresy than any commentary I've ever seen. I mean most commentaries are way worse than this, the kind of doctrine that they teach. Okay, there was one other example I want to give. Oh yeah, the note on 2 Corinthians. This just blows me away. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, 1 Corinthians chapter 3, this is the last one I want to show you. While you're turning there, let me say this. My brother Clint was telling me this week, I was talking to my brother Clint and he said, you know, that he had looked at some commentaries and he just told me, he's like, every commentary is bogus. He said they're all, he said I went to John chapter 3 and he said every commentary said born of water was baptism. And no Baptist will tell you that, but all these commentaries that he looked up, he looked up like the mainline commentaries, I'm not talking about study Bibles, I'm talking about commentaries now. He looked up all the mainline commentaries and they all mentioned baptism as born of the water. He said 100% of the ones he looked up. I think he was downloading the most well-known on Esort and looking at them. And then he said this is my acid test for a commentary and he said every commentary fails. He said I look up leviathan and he said every commentary said leviathan's a crocodile. I mean if you read the description of leviathan, that's not a crocodile, right? So he said therefore ergo, commentaries are a croc, you know, is what he said, because they're all saying that leviathan's a croc, you know what I mean? And then you know the Schofield Bible says behemoth is an elephant. Yeah, it says in Job that behemoth's tail is like a cedar tree. Have you ever seen an elephant's tail? It doesn't look like a cedar tree. I mean who knows what an elephant's tail looks like? Does it look like a cedar tree? No. But if you look like a brontosaurus, you know like an artistic drawing of what they think a brontosaurus looks like, you know that's like a big robust tail like a cedar tree, some kind of a creature of that nature, right? So that's the kind of thing we have. An elephant and a crocodile are behemoth and leviathan. You can go to the zoo and see behemoth and leviathan. I mean it's a joke. But anyway, last place I want to show you is in the introduction for 2 Corinthians. You're in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, okay? In 1 Corinthians chapter 3, I'll read it for you so that you'll know what he's talking about. He says in verse 3, For you are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envy and strife and divisions, are you not carnal and walk as men? For while one sayeth, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are you not carnal? Who then is Paul? And who is Apollos by ministers by whom you believed, as the Lord gave to every man? So he's explaining the problem with just dividing over which man they're following, whether it's Apollos or Paul. Go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, just a few pages to the left in your Bible, and he says in verse 10, Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you sayeth, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius. So what's he saying there? There are factions developing where some people want to follow Peter, some people want to follow Paul, some people want to follow Apollos, some people are saying they're there of Christ. He rebukes the people by saying, hey look, was Paul crucified for you? And what he's saying is, we're all following Christ. That's who we should all be following. We shouldn't be following man. We shouldn't get baptized in the name of Paul. We shouldn't lift Paul on two eye of a pedestal. We shouldn't lift Cephas on two eye of a pedestal. We shouldn't lift Apollos on two eye of a pedestal. And that shows we're not talking about scripture because Apollos didn't even write any scripture. We're just talking about men, personalities, leaders. Now listen to what Scofield says in his note. It is evident. Now tell me if you think this was evident when you just read that. It is evident that the really dangerous sect in Corinth was that which said eye of Christ. That was the really dangerous. I mean the people that said eye of Christ, they were the most dangerous. I mean what in the world is he saying? They rejected the new revelation through Paul of the doctrines of grace. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. What do you mean the new revelation of grace through Paul? You know what? People say, well Paul taught salvation by grace through faith. Okay, because Jesus didn't say for God so loved the world that whosoever, they gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Isn't that salvation by faith? Okay, what about when Jesus said he that believeth on the son hath everlasting life? That he that believeth not the son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him. Was that a new revelation from Paul? That's Jesus talking. Jesus said, verily I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. Jesus said, verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is past and dead in the life. Jesus said, I am the resurrection of life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. That is the teaching of Jesus Christ, that salvation is by grace through faith. Why are the best verses on salvation by faith in the book of John spoken by Jesus? If that was some later revelation that Paul taught. You know why? Because this book is a crock. That's why this Scofield book, this Scofield book is filled with lies and heresy. I mean when somebody's telling you, yeah the most dangerous doctrine is the one that says I'm of Christ. No the most dangerous is the guy who says I'm of Scofield. That's the danger. And I'm telling you I didn't have time to show you all the garbage in that book. Did you really want to see the garbage on every page? No. That should be enough just to give you a little taste of the fact that that book is teaching that the world's millions of years old. It's teaching that somehow the Mosaic Covenant was optional. The Ten Commandments were optional. You know, the Old Testament was optional? And they just signed it on before they really had a chance to think about it? I mean what? Not to mention, you know, he tells you that there's a difference between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven. Not to mention that he tells you that, you know, all the everything that will lead you to believe a pre-Trib rapture is all in that Scofield book. Everything that leads you to Zionism. I mean we don't even have time to go into all of it. But that should just show you the kind of a book you're dealing with. So look, you say, I didn't understand everything in the sermon. You're not going to understand everything when you read the Bible either, but I'm sure you understand. Who understood something that I said that you can apply to your life? Then that's all that matters. You need to walk away from the sermon with the biblical truths that I gave you that said, hey, I need to get my own Bible, and if you don't have a Bible, you need to get a Bible. You need to get a King James Bible, and you need to read it every day, and you say, well I go to church, that's enough, it's not enough. You need seven days a week to read that book on your own, and if you read that book and that book is teaching something completely different than what I'm teaching, you need to go to a different church that actually preaches and teaches the Bible. Because that book is the final authority, not Faithful Word Baptist Church and not Pastor Anderson. I don't believe that's the case. I believe that this is a Bible-believing, Bible-preaching church. But you know what? You know who the final judge of that is? You and the Holy Spirit. You and the Holy Spirit are the final judge. And when the whole world around you is doing wrong, and the whole world around you is going into sin, and the whole world around you is going into false doctrine, and the whole world around you is doing wrong, you should stand on what you read in the Bible if it's clear. If it's clear and the Holy Ghost shows it to you and it's right there, it doesn't matter what anybody else is doing. Because this is the boss. And notice I'm not holding a Scofield reference edition. I'm holding a stripped-down, text-only King James, and I'm saying this is the boss. Is this your boss? Do you read it every day? Do you even know what it says? If not, you're leaning on man. It's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and we thank you for the Holy Spirit. What a great gift is the Holy Spirit that we're not just reliant on man to teach us. God, I thank you for all the great men that have taught me. I thank you for my former pastor and other pastors that I've had that have taught me the Bible. I thank you for my parents that taught me the Bible. I thank you for brothers and sisters in Christ who have shown me things in the Bible over the years. But Father, I thank you most of all for the Holy Spirit that has never guided me wrong, that will always guide me into all truth. Help us all to let your Spirit be our primary teacher and the Holy Bible to be our only textbook and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.