Application of Scripture

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Welcome back and good evening! We are in session 6 of our Fundamentals of Bible Study class and I want to thank you guys for continuing to stick with us through this course.
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I hope it's been as enjoyable for you as it has been for me.
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It's interesting because every time I teach this class, and this is the first time I've ever taught this textbook, but it's not the first time I've ever taught this class, and so every time I get a chance to teach how to study it amplifies my own study even more.
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So I thank you for giving me the opportunity to make me a better student because that's what this does.
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Now your homework for the last week and what you were supposed to have done prior to tonight's lecture was you were supposed to read pages 289 to 298 in Living by the Book and you were supposed to read over exercise 58 in the workbook.
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There really wasn't any work that you had to do, it was simply reading the information.
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So we don't have a follow-up as we've had in weeks past where you're going to respond tonight.
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However what you read in the workbook is going to apply a lot to next week when we finally get into those nine things that that that's what exercise 58 was, right? It was the nine questions for application and that's really what we're going to do next week.
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Tonight we're going to be asking, we're going to be talking about why application is so critical and we're going to be talking about what people substitute for application because a lot of times people don't apply the Bible, they do other things other than applying the Bible and that's what we're going to talk about.
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And if you read pages 289 to 298 then you're already ahead, you've read ahead and you know what we're going to be talking about.
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However before we get into that, my introduction tonight, I want to give a final thought on the subject of interpretation.
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What are the three things that we have been doing? Our three steps, observation, interpretation, and then tonight is we begin two weeks on the subject of application.
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But before we get there I want to make a note about interpretation because as I was thinking about it, that's the thing that most people focus on.
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Most people don't think much about observation.
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Most people don't think much about application.
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It's all it's all interpretation, interpretation, interpretation.
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What does it mean? What does it mean? What does it mean? And that got me thinking about a few things that I wanted to mention.
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And the first thing is this, one of the things that can affect our interpretation without us even realizing it is a prior commitment to a theological system.
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We see this, for instance, in schools of thought like dispensationalism.
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How many of you know what dispensationalism is? Two of you, that's great, three, okay.
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Dispensationalism is a what we would call a hermeneutic.
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It is a way of reading the scripture and it relies on certain understandings of the relationship between Israel and the church.
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And if you have a dispensational background, such as John MacArthur is a dispensationalist, then you will notice that oftentimes his interpretation is influenced by his dispensationalism.
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I never realized how much until I started really listening to his sermons, especially his sermons from the 70s and 80s.
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I don't know if you know this, but all of his sermons are available for free on gty.org.
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He's a tremendous exegete.
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I'm not saying this in any way to be negative.
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He's a tremendous intellect, tremendous exegete.
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He is a man of God and I commend the listening to his sermons to you.
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Listen to him, he's wonderful.
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However, having said all that, you will note he has an affinity for seeing Israel and Israel's purposes in every passage.
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And he makes a strong distinction between Israel and the church.
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And that is the dispensational view is that God has a separate plan for Israel and the church.
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And so you will hear that very clearly in his teachings.
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The opposite view of that is what is known as covenant theology.
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That again is a hermeneutic.
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It is a way to look at the whole of scripture.
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Covenant theology says that Israel and the church make up one people of God.
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Israel was the church of the Old Testament and the church is the Israel of God now.
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And so there is not a distinction to be made between Israel and the church.
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This is why in classic covenant theology you will see babies be baptized.
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Because they will argue that the sign of the covenant which was given to male children in the Old Covenant which was circumcision, that sign has now been transferred to the New Covenant and the New Covenant sign is baptism.
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And because children of the covenant received the sign in the Old Covenant, children of the covenant should receive the sign in the New Covenant.
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Therefore, children should be baptized.
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And that is an understanding of covenant theology.
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And if you want someone who was a classic covenant theologian to listen to that would be Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul.
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He was a Presbyterian.
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And so there you have two men of God who shared the same chancel, who both shared the same pulpit on many occasions.
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Both having preached at one another's churches.
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Wonderful men, but they both had entirely different hermeneutics when it came to the overall view of God's relationship to His people.
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Does God have two people? Does God have one people? You see? There is a third.
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This would be where I would fall more into.
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And that is called New Covenant theology.
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That would be more where I am.
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And New Covenant theology sort of breaks the balance between the two.
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I do believe that the New Testament church is the fulfillment of the purpose of Old Testament Israel.
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And so that sort of tells you there.
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However, I would see certain things about covenant theology.
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I see the New Covenant as a legitimately new covenant whereas a covenant theologian simply sees the New Covenant as a new administration of the Old Covenant.
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And that's why I would say you don't baptize babies.
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Because I believe the covenant that is the New Covenant is a distinct covenant with its own set of laws and rules.
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We are not under the law of Moses.
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We are under the law of Christ.
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And so that is an entirely different way of understanding the overall view of scripture.
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Now, I am not trying to confuse you and I am certainly not trying to start arguments.
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But where you are on this is probably dependent on what churches you came from.
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If you grew up in a Southern Baptist context, you have probably been taught dispensational theology and you didn't know it.
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If you were brought up in a Presbyterian context, you have probably been brought up in a covenant theology system and you didn't know it.
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Unless, of course, it was taught to you as that language and some people do.
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But that will provide a lens through which you will make some interpretations and some applications.
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So you say, well, Keith, why are you bringing this up tonight? Well, overall, the reason why I am telling you this is because we should try to not allow our systems to make us read into the text things that aren't there.
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That is what I am afraid of.
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If you are so committed to a system that the system causes you to misread the text because you are more concerned about being faithful to the system than you are being faithful to the text.
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For instance, I am what you would refer to as a Calvinist.
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I am not afraid to use that language.
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Some people don't like that language and that is fine.
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I don't call it a big animal with a long face and big black eyes and ears.
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I say it is a horse because it has a name and so I have a name.
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And it is easy enough.
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I am not saying it to be ugly.
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It is just a name.
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Likewise, there are those who would identify themselves as Arminian.
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This is based on the history of two schools of theological thought.
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Calvin was the teacher.
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If you took our history class, you know who John Calvin is.
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Arminius was the student of Theodor Beza, who was a student of John Calvin and took over essentially when Calvin died.
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And one of his students, Jacobus Arminius, became the one who led a remonstrant, or what was known as a protest.
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I couldn't call him Protestant because that was already taken.
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So he led the remonstrant, which essentially means a protest against the teachings of Calvin.
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And there became a divide between those who saw free will, that would be the Arminians, and those who saw the determined will or the sovereign will of God as the determiner of all things, that would be the Calvinists.
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Now the Calvinists won the day because they were more in power.
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There was a synod that was called the Synod of Dorchek, sometimes called the Synod of Dort.
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And that synod was the place where Arminianism was condemned as heresy and Calvinism ruled the day.
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And so, does that make it right? No, because there were a lot of councils that messed up.
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So I can't say because we won the day that we were right.
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But based on my understanding of the scripture, I would come at the Bible from a Calvinistic perspective.
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I'm not afraid to say it, but here's what I am going to say this.
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There are times where the text challenges me and it will knock me right out of my tulip bulb.
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If you're a Calvinist, you know what that means, because the tulip is the five point acronym for Calvinism.
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And so I don't mind getting knocked out of my tulip bulb if the Bible is challenging me.
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I do not want to interpret the Bible according to my system.
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I want my system to be subservient to the scripture.
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Does that make sense? So whether you are dispensationalist or covenant theology or new covenant theology, whether you're Calvinist or whether you're Arminian, whether you're a Baptist or a Methodist, by the way, it's all just names for systems.
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Methodism is based on a method of holiness.
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That's where the word Methodism comes from.
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Baptist is because of their view of baptizing believers only.
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All of these have names and have meanings and they have histories and they're all systematic.
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And systematic theology is good.
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But you've got to start with the text.
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What does the text say? For instance, I could spend all night on this and I don't want to, but let me just ask you.
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I'm not going to ask for a show of hands.
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I don't want a theological debate to break out in this very small room.
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But in your heart of hearts, answer this question.
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Can a person lose salvation? I'm not asking you to answer.
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What I'm asking you is will your answer to that question influence how you interpret certain texts? Absolutely.
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And by itself, that's a system, isn't it? Even if that's all you have.
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What I call OSAS.
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Once saved, always saved.
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If all you had was OSAS, the and when you get to Hebrews 6, you're going to have to interpret Hebrews 6 in light of your system.
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When you get to Hebrews 10, you're going to have to deal with that.
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When you deal with some of what Jesus talked about in the Gospels, you're going to have to deal with that.
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So we try to approach the scripture.
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The Latin phrase was tabula rasa.
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It means a blank slate.
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Try not to bring in your preconceived beliefs.
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Let the scripture speak.
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Now if you know the scripture says something else elsewhere, what do we do? What we talked about last week.
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We compare scripture with scripture.
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And yes, we have to do that.
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But don't compare scripture with system.
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Compare scripture with scripture.
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Let your system be subservient to the Word of God and you'll be better off for it.
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Sound good? I thought that was important to say, especially in regard to interpretation.
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Well, let's move on now to tonight and our application.
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Why is application so critical? Why is application so critical? Well, I'll say a few things from my notes.
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Even if you know exactly what the Bible says and you are confident that you understand what it means, it is of no value if it does not produce change in your life.
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Dr.
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Hendricks said this in his book.
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Application is the most neglected, yet the most needed stage in the process.
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Too much Bible study begins and ends in the wrong place.
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It begins with interpretation and ends with interpretation.
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We just want to know what it means.
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We don't want to apply what it means to ourselves.
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He goes on to say this.
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The Bible wasn't written to satisfy your curiosity.
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It was written to transform your life.
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We could stop right there and just meditate on that for an hour.
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The Bible was not written to satisfy your curiosity.
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It was written to change your life.
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That's a powerful thought.
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How many people just want to know what it means? There's a great video.
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I wish I would have had it queued up tonight.
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I would have showed it to you.
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It was based on an illustration that Francis Chan gave.
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It was a little girl sitting on her couch.
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The father comes in and he says, Honey, did you clean your room today? I told you you were supposed to clean your room today.
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She said, Well, Dad, I studied what it means to be clean.
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I looked up the Hebrew root of the word for cleaning.
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Did you know in Spanish it's blah, blah, blah.
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She said it in Spanish.
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He's looking really confused.
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He said, Yeah, but did you clean your room? She said, You know what else I did? I had a study group come over and me and three other girls sat around the table.
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We looked up the meaning and the history of cleaning.
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We went through all of it.
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He said, Yeah, but did you clean? Let me guess, what else we did? We went and surveyed the room and talked about what would be the best way.
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But did you clean? No.
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It's a great video.
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You can find it on YouTube.
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I don't know how you'd find it, daughter not cleaning your room or whatever, but I've seen it several times.
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It really is true to life.
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You can tell me all the Greek and Hebrew.
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You can tell me the history of the text, survey of the geography.
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But if it doesn't change us, if there's no application, no real application and not just application for other people.
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I always love that when I get done with a sermon and somebody walks up to me and gives me a hug and whispers in my ear, I really wish my husband would have been here to hear that.
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Or I really wish my brother would have been here to hear that.
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You know, that's applying it to someone else.
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And we're pretty good at that.
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But have we applied it to ourselves? Without application, the Bible may penetrate the mind, but it will not make its way to the heart.
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When I preach, I become pretty repetitive in some of my prayers.
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I try to beat the repetition sometimes, but I always pray a certain number of things when I'm praying to preach.
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One, I pray that God would keep me from error.
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And what I've started to lend to praying is that God would take the word past the ear, into the brain and down to the heart.
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Because so much of it does stop in the brain.
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And we don't apply it to our hearts.
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Now, a thought that comes to mind that I want to add, and if you want to make a note of this, this is helpful.
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Application is a work of the Holy Spirit of God.
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Application is a work of the Holy Spirit of God.
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Several times in our study, we have talked about 1 Corinthians 2.14.
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I mentioned this the first night we did this class.
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1 Corinthians 2.14 says this, The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
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And remember what I said in the first class.
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I said this text doesn't mean that an unbeliever can't understand anything about the Bible.
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The unbeliever can understand a lot about the Bible.
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He can understand language.
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There are scholars of Greek and Hebrew that are unbelievers, and they know more about the language than I ever will.
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There are archeologists and scientists who know much more about the history of Rome and Jerusalem than I'll ever know.
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So they can have some understanding that I don't have.
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But what this text primarily means is that you cannot provide true application to your life without the Holy Spirit living in you.
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It's part of the reason why we ask for people before they come to this class to give a confession of faith.
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We have an application process.
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We say, Please write here how you came to know Christ.
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I can't confirm you're a believer, but I can at least ask.
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It's not like I can go by and lift up your shirt and there's an E tattooed on your back for elect.
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I don't know.
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But I can take your word and your confession.
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If somebody said, I'm not a believer, I would say, Well, this class probably isn't for you.
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I'm not saying you couldn't come in and sit in, but this class is for believers.
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This is what this is for.
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Primarily because this is about discerning the Word of God, and those things are spiritually discerned.
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They're spiritually understood.
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They're spiritually applied.
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For a person to truly apply the Scripture, he must have the Holy Spirit.
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Now, I want to add another thought to that.
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I mentioned Dr.
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John MacArthur.
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Dr.
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John MacArthur is a tremendous preacher, and he has said something that I am not certain I agree with, but I want to tell you, and you can have fun agreeing or disagreeing with Dr.
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MacArthur if you would like.
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In referring to teaching how to preach, and he teaches wonderful classes on how to preach, he says that it is not his job to apply the text.
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He said it is his job to explain the text and to exhort with the text, but ultimately the Holy Spirit will apply the text.
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And his point is simply this.
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He's saying that if I make an application, let's say, on something that affects you, it may not affect you.
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But if I simply exhort the text, the Spirit will apply how He wills.
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I think it's an interesting thought.
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I've never fallen quite in lockstep with Dr.
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MacArthur.
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I still try to make certain applications when I preach.
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But his point, though, the reason I'm bringing this up is because his point is this.
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The Holy Spirit will apply the text to your need.
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And He can't see your need.
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He can't see the situation you're in.
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So He doesn't try to play detective and try to figure out where everyone is.
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And so He just simply doesn't seek to be an applier when He preaches.
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And so where I would say preaching is read the text, explain the text, apply the text.
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You've heard me say that's what preaching is.
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Read, explain, apply.
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He would say preaching is read, explain, and exhort, and let the Spirit apply.
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So it's an interesting thought as to how preaching should be done.
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Doesn't really affect this.
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Yes, ma'am.
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Exhort would be if there's a command, I'll express the command here.
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You know, if there's some...
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I think, honestly, it might just be his being semantical a little because there is a certain sense in which exhortation is a practical application.
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But exhorting would, I think, pretty much allowing the...
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the way he's explaining it is allowing the commands to be commands and make the command.
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You know, if the text is calling us to repentance, then he would call them to repentance.
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If the text is, you know, is calling you to live a certain way, he would say live this way.
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But he would not seek...
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I think the point is this.
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A lot of times, they'll say, well, now, if you're having money problems, here's how you'd apply it.
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I think that's the way he's saying he wouldn't do that.
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He wouldn't try to impose an application simply to make it work because he would say the Spirit's going to do that.
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I'm just going to say what it commands and what it says.
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Let the Spirit, if it's a money thing or if it's a...
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if it's a whatever, let the Spirit be the one who does that.
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Yes, ma'am.
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Thank you.
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That's a good question.
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Thank you.
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So, I just thought that was interesting to share with you because when you apply the text, you're liable to apply it differently than I will.
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In fact, that's what makes application and interpretation different because there is only one right interpretation.
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Remember we talked about there's only one right understanding.
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By the way, take a step back for a second.
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I want to say something about that.
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When I say there's only one right understanding, I might be wrong.
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I'm not about that.
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But what I mean is I may have an understanding of the text that's wrong.
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And if you and I have different understandings, one of us is wrong.
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We might both be wrong.
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But here's what's important about that.
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We talked about there only being one right understanding of the text.
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There can be 50 applications of that one understanding.
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It could hit each one of us differently where we are in our walk.
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You know, all of us are walking up the mountain.
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We're all following Christ.
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Some of us are a little further along.
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Some of us have been Christians longer.
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Some of us have studied a little more.
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Some of us lived it a little harder.
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And we're all at different places.
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And so, you know, how we apply the text, like I said, there's 30 of us in here.
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There's going to be potentially 30 ways to apply the text.
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Last week, and this is not a negative, but I want to throw this just to mention it.
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Last week when I asked how you understood the interpretation and we went around, a lot of it was application.
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You had kind of jumped ahead.
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Not that it's necessarily bad, but it was because it was, and this is how I see it.
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And this is how it affects me.
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That's stepping into the realm of application.
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And like I said, it wasn't bad.
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It was just where we were.
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You know, you understood it.
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Now, how does this affect me? And so, that's what application is.
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I'll give you an example from my sermon last Sunday.
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Last Sunday, I preached Daniel chapter 12 in verse 2.
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And Daniel 12 in verse 2 says this, and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
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That's the passage that I preached on Sunday.
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I'm preaching a series on heaven and hell called Our Final Destination.
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I just realized that's a movie.
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Probably shouldn't have titled it that.
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I didn't mean for it to be just like, I didn't, I wasn't, it's not summer at the movies here at Sovereign Grace, I promise.
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But it was just entitled Our Final Destination.
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And I was looking at that text because it's in the book of Daniel.
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And that means it's in the Old Testament.
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And I was trying to show that the idea of life after death, eternal rewards and punishments are not just New Testament concepts, but that they are Old Testament concepts as well.
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Now, there is some argument over how to interpret Daniel 12.
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And I talked about that in my sermon, because there's a question as to whether or not this is referring to the final resurrection, or if this is referring to something that happened in the first century.
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You know, when Jesus died on the cross, a resurrection occurred.
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It says that the tombs were open and many came out of the tombs.
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And so some people interpret Daniel 12 to be referring to that particular resurrection, not the final resurrection.
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And I made the point that there's two ways to understand it, only one of them's right.
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Right, there's only and I said, I'm I believe it's the last I said, but if you happen to believe the other, here's the point, I can still make the application.
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Because here's the application I drew from the text.
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And it's very simple.
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Death is not the end.
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And there's only two destinations.
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Death is not the end.
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And there's only two destinations, there is the destination of life, and the destination of shame and everlasting contempt.
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That's what Daniel shows us.
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And then I took them into the New Testament.
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And I compared what Jesus talks about in his parables, you know, the drag net, when they dragged the net in, and they took the good fish and put them in the pail, and they took the bad trash, and they threw it away.
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And I looked at the parable of the wheat and the weeds and how the was all gathered in and the wheat was placed into the barn and the weeds is placed into the into the fire.
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And I said, and here's the picture of the application.
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The application is there's only two destinations, not a third, there is no purgatory, there is no reincarnation.
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There's only heaven and hell.
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Where are you going? I mean, that was really that's the application, right? That's the that's the final exhortation.
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You are going to go somewhere 125 years from now, we're all going to be dead.
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Where are you going to be? See how you apply the text you bring it home? Where does this affect me? And that's just a simple application from the text there.
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There are others that you could draw.
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What does it mean to be raised to shame? Did you know shame didn't exist before sin? And shame was the first thing that was experienced after sin.
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It says when Adam and Eve sinned, the first thing they did was cover themselves because they felt shame.
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You could spend an hour talking about the idea of shame and how Christ covers our nakedness.
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See the application there? See, you could take that text and you could apply it in several different ways.
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But I again for the sermon, I only needed one because that was the point I was drawing to and that was the exhortation I wanted to make.
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Do you know what your destination is? Right.
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But you see how there could be many.
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There could be many applications.
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And again, not every text is that straightforward.
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But I will say this, in most of what you study, you're going to come to what I call the therefore I should moment.
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I'm gonna write that down.
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As you're studying, you come to the place where you realize, as a result of what I understand, therefore I should.
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Or therefore we should.
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Therefore the church should.
30:33
Yes, sir.
30:40
Exactly.
30:43
Yeah.
30:48
And that's exactly it.
30:49
So what now? Are you just going to place it in your mind and say, well, now I know.
30:55
But it didn't affect me.
30:56
You know what? In the grand scheme of things, if we don't apply it, we really don't know it.
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We may have an intellectual knowledge, but we haven't really learned it if we haven't applied it.
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Therefore I should.
31:20
Therefore I should.
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You know, just like going back to Daniel chapter 12 too.
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Death is not the end.
31:25
Resurrection is reality.
31:26
Therefore I should live with an eye to eternity.
31:29
There are only two destinations mentioned.
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Therefore I should figure out where I'm going.
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There's a positive and a negative expectation.
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Therefore I should seek to find out what makes the difference.
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Why would somebody go to heaven and why would somebody else go to hell? Therefore I should.
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Again, it's not always that easy.
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Not every text lends itself to such a straightforward application.
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For instance, Jesus went into the temple and he overturned tables because of the money changers that were there in the temple.
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And he took a whip that he fashioned out of cords and he chased them out of the temple.
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And some people would say, therefore I should go into a church and fashion a whip and go running those fake Christians out of the church.
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I'm going to tell a funny story.
32:32
I don't know if I've ever told Brother Mark this, but this will be interesting.
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The first guys from Set Free to ever visit here was Duncan and a group that was going around to churches that was interrupting worship services and calling the churches to repentance.
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But what they were doing was they were interrupting worship services and they were really just being obnoxious and they were yelling at the pastor and yelling at the people during the worship services.
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And again, when I saw Duncan and two guys I'd never met before and the back of the shirt said, Jesus Christ or hell, which is a pretty serious statement.
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I said, well, I honestly didn't know.
33:29
So I said, I wonder if these guys are part of that movement.
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And thankfully it wasn't and we got a good relationship after that.
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And I even told them that day, I said, I wondered if you guys were from that group because they go into churches and they just stop worship and start yelling and they've had to be removed by force.
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They stand outside with signs.
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And again, they would say, well, Jesus went in and whipped people and such.
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So, so should I.
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Therefore, therefore I should.
34:00
And that's the attitude.
34:01
Now, having said that, let me add a I do think that there may be a time to overturn a table within the church, but, but I'm not Jesus.
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So I have to be careful how I would apply that particular thing.
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And so what do we learn from that text though? What do we learn from that text? What's the, what's the, what's the thing that we should really learn from that text? I know you're all thinking something probably different.
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It actually tells us, it says the zeal for my father's house was upon me, that he was zealous for the house of God.
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Therefore, I should be zealous for the house of God.
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I should be zealous for the holiness of God.
34:56
You know, how that looks might be different, but therefore I should.
35:03
So, so that's, I just say there's a moment in your study where when you've understood the text, you say, now what? Like you said, why does it matter? Therefore I should.
35:12
What? It's not always easy.
35:15
It's not always straightforward.
35:18
And sometimes it's easy to mess it up.
35:21
Like for instance, David and Goliath is a story that's often applied personally with great vigor.
35:32
David stood up to his giant.
35:34
Therefore I should stand up to my boss and tell him I want to raise, you know, whatever, you know, that's always the, it's always about me rather than seeing David as a picture of Christ who stands between us and sin and slays our greatest enemy.
35:52
See, oftentimes we're not the hero.
35:54
Christ is the hero.
35:56
And so that's another way to see it and another way to apply it, isn't it? So again, looking at the text, how are we applying this? Where is the moment when we say, therefore I should.
36:11
All right.
36:11
Let's look now at five substitutions for application.
36:15
There are five things that people do to substitute application.
36:21
And this is all in your book, but I'm going to add my two cents as I often do.
36:25
If you've read ahead, you should have read these and you don't have to write if you don't want to, because they're in your book.
36:31
Just make note of the make note of them.
36:34
What page is this on? Does anybody have their book open? 291.
36:38
Thank you.
36:40
Five substitutions for application.
36:42
The first one, we substitute interpretation for application.
36:48
He tells the story of Kitty Genevieve.
36:52
I don't know how many of you read that in the book.
36:54
This was a woman who was beaten, raped and killed with over 30 people who could hear her screams for help.
37:05
No one called the police except one person.
37:10
And it was after the situation had ended and they could not come to her rescue and she died.
37:17
This is what happens when knowledge does not translate into responsibility.
37:23
I'll carry that illustration a little further.
37:25
Years ago, I was certified with the National Rifle Association to teach handgun classes because I like to shoot and I wanted to become an instructor.
37:35
And I had to take a first aid course, as well as a range safety course to be a range safety officer.
37:44
So I did.
37:46
During the range safety officer course, we talked about what would happen if somebody was injured on the range.
37:53
What's the first thing that you do when somebody's injured on the range? You point to someone and say, call 911.
38:07
It's your job.
38:10
Because if all you do is say, call 911, everybody's going to assume everybody else is calling 911.
38:17
You call 911, then you go to work.
38:20
But you assign someone.
38:23
Because if you don't, it just becomes somebody else is going to do it.
38:28
Somebody else will apply this, not me.
38:31
Same idea with the Kitty Genovese situation.
38:34
Somebody must be calling the police.
38:37
So I'm not going to do it.
38:40
Somebody must apply.
38:41
Somebody must have a way to apply this text.
38:43
It's not going to be me.
38:44
And I can apply this to other people, but I'm not going to apply it to myself.
38:48
I know what it means.
38:51
But I don't want the responsibility for what it means.
38:54
Consider the failure of Matthew 722.
38:57
What does Matthew 722 say? Did we not say, Lord, Lord? And he said, depart from me.
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I never knew you.
39:11
You workers of lawlessness.
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But we did all these things.
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Did you? They knew the Lord, but they didn't know the Lord.
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They knew him by name, but they did not know him in their hearts.
39:29
And more specifically, he didn't know them.
39:34
Knowledge without obedience is sin.
39:38
Knowledge without, we want a verse for that, James 4, 17.
39:43
Knowledge without obedience is sin.
39:45
Somebody got their Bibles open? Let's read that.
39:48
James 4.
39:50
Thank you.
39:51
Yeah.
39:52
Yeah.
39:53
He who knows what is right and does not do it, it is sin.
39:59
All right.
39:59
So we substitute interpretation for application.
40:02
I know what it means.
40:03
Therefore, I have applied it.
40:05
No, just because you know what it means doesn't mean you've applied it.
40:09
Second thing, we substitute superficial obedience for substantive life change.
40:19
This is a person who applies the truth in an area where he's already applying it, but he doesn't apply it to the areas that it's needed.
40:29
For instance, a man who reads a passage about honesty is satisfied that he's honest with his wife and children and even with his church life, but he's unwilling to address the dishonest areas of his life.
40:40
I talk about this in some of my sermons in the past.
40:42
Talk about people who have a closet where they don't think God can see.
40:48
And they say, well, I'm good over here and I'm good over there, but God doesn't look here.
40:55
One of my students years ago became a soldier in the army and he was stationed in a place called Bahrain over in the Middle East.
41:05
And he came back and he told me these stories.
41:07
He said, he said, Keith, Bahrain is really a neat place.
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He said, they do everything there.
41:12
They have gambling and alcohol and prostitution.
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I mean, you know, not good things.
41:17
He said, they do everything.
41:18
And I said, really? I said, but it's Muslim.
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He said, yeah, but they don't.
41:22
It's so small.
41:23
They say Allah doesn't look there.
41:27
You know, that's sort of the way they justify.
41:29
He just doesn't look there.
41:33
Now, again, people would justify it's not because they're Muslim.
41:37
Christians do it too.
41:38
They find justification for their sin.
41:42
And they, they said, well, I'm being obedient.
41:45
I'm obedient when I go to church, but when I'm at home, all bets are off.
41:57
I'll give you a quick illustration of this.
42:00
Some of you've heard this before.
42:02
So if you've heard it, don't answer because I want to give the class a chance to answer if they haven't heard this.
42:06
There was a father who was dying and his son came to him and he had instructions for his son.
42:16
And he said, I want you to sell our property that we own over on the other side of town.
42:22
And I want you to take that money and I want you to put it into an account for your mother to live on after I have passed away.
42:29
And the son said, dad, I think that's a great idea.
42:32
I'll do it.
42:33
And so he goes and sells property, puts money into account, puts it in the mother's name all as well.
42:38
A little while later, the father calls him the second time and says, okay, son, we've got some stocks into a company.
42:44
I don't think the company's doing well.
42:46
The son said, yeah, I really don't think so either.
42:47
He said, I think we need to go ahead and sell that.
42:49
And he said, I'll tell you what, take that money and put it into an account for your children.
42:53
That way when I'm gone, my grandchildren will have an inheritance.
42:56
Sounds good, dad.
42:57
I love that idea.
42:58
I'll do it.
43:01
A little while later, he's called back again.
43:04
The father said, okay, I have one last thing I want you to do.
43:09
I have some money that I've set aside and I have some heirlooms that I've set aside.
43:16
I want you to liquidate everything.
43:18
I want you to give the money to the church.
43:21
The son didn't really like that idea.
43:24
And he said, okay, I'll do it.
43:25
Do what you say.
43:26
But he didn't do it.
43:29
And the father never knew because of course he just trusted the son to do what he was supposed to do.
43:34
Now, here's the question.
43:36
And again, if you know the answer, don't holler it out.
43:39
Give the people who haven't heard this a chance.
43:42
How many times was the son submissive to the father? How many times was the son submissive to the father? Take a stab.
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Zero.
44:01
Here's why.
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The son only did what he agreed was right.
44:08
Therefore, he never really submitted to the father.
44:12
He only did the first two because he agreed.
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And he didn't do the third because he didn't agree.
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He only submitted when he thought it was right.
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Therefore, he really wasn't submitting to his father.
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He did his will in his father's name.
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Are you doing your will in God's name or are you seeking to do God's will? That's the difference between superficial obedience and substantive life change.
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Are you submissive to God's word? That's a very serious question.
44:46
I deal with that myself.
44:48
The areas that I'm not submitting in are the areas where I'm really saying to God, I'm not submitting at all.
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Tough to hear, but important to hear.
45:04
So we need to seek for substantive life change, not just superficial obedience.
45:10
Third thing, we substitute rationalization for repentance.
45:16
This is an all too common dilemma for many of us.
45:18
Instead of simply doing what God says, we find some way to rationalize what we want.
45:28
How are some of the ways, and this is you can answer if you'd like, how are some of the ways you have heard people try to rationalize sin? Oh man, you don't even got to explain it.
45:40
That was really good.
45:41
Yes, we're going to be married, so why does it matter? That's great.
45:46
Wow, and how many times have I heard that? What's another way? What's that? Everybody else is doing it.
45:56
Why is it wrong? Hey, if everybody's going to hell, I guess I'll just go with them.
46:02
Anybody, yes? It's a new generation.
46:04
It's a new world.
46:06
It's a brave new world.
46:10
Yes, that's what, yeah, it's legal.
46:13
It's got to be right, and by the way, we are doing ethics next semester, and that's one of the first things we're going to say about ethics, is the law and ethics don't go hand in hand, because just because it's legal doesn't mean it's ethical.
46:29
And by the way, and just because it's illegal doesn't mean it's unethical, but we're talking about that too, because there are some things that are unethically illegal.
46:40
For instance, if they tell me I can't preach, that's unethical, and yet it might still be legal if they say it.
46:49
So we're going to talk about that, but it's a different class.
46:52
Here's some, here's some, anybody have anything else they want to add for ways people rationalize sin? Oh man, and you know what? I always answer, yes, he does.
47:03
It's desperately wicked.
47:05
Yeah, he tells us that in scripture.
47:06
God knows your heart, and it's desperately wicked.
47:10
Here's, here's, anybody have any extra? Yeah, lesser of two evils.
47:15
Yeah, that's right.
47:16
Yeah, and you know, that's when we talk about ethics, we're going to talk about that too, because it really does become a question of, of must we sin? You know, Jesus never took the lesser of two evils.
47:35
He never, he never sinned, so he never took the lesser of two evils.
47:40
That's, that's, again, that's for a different class, but it really is a, that's difficult to hear.
47:51
Here, here's a few I had.
47:53
That person is dishonest.
47:54
He doesn't deserve to be treated honestly.
47:58
This makes me happy.
47:59
God wouldn't want me to not do it.
48:00
It makes me happy.
48:01
I had that one directly.
48:04
I said, you know, you're, you're, you're living in sin, but, but God gave me this person.
48:08
He would want me to be happy.
48:11
I said, no, he wants you to be holy.
48:13
Nowhere in scripture saying one should be happy, one should be holy.
48:17
Can you be happy in holiness? If somebody's ugly to me, I'll be ugly right back.
48:25
I tell my kids, if somebody hits you, you hit them twice as hard, right? They don't teach to turn the other cheek.
48:31
We turn to throw the other elbow.
48:34
You know, that's, that's, I'll quit cheating on the governments with my taxes when they quit giving money to abortion clinics.
48:47
And I'll quit, I'll give to the church when they quit spending money on that frivolous building.
48:54
Whatever, right? It's always justification.
48:59
So when we're rationalizing, rather than repenting, we're not really applying the text.
49:06
Yes, sir.
49:07
Yeah.
49:08
YOLO.
49:09
I changed it to YOLF.
49:12
You only live forever.
49:14
You better live in the right place.
49:16
I didn't want to make a shirt that said YOLF.
49:19
People are not going to know what it means.
49:23
YOLF.
49:24
You only live forever.
49:25
You will live forever.
49:27
All right, number four, we substitute an emotional experience for a volitional decision.
49:35
We substitute an emotional experience for a volitional decision.
49:40
I'll tell you this, this happens every time the pastor gives a moving message and people are changed for a hot minute because the message was enough to stir the emotions, but it did not really change the heart.
49:57
People are ready to make a change.
49:58
That is until they get to the cafeteria or to the restaurant or when they get home for lunch.
50:06
That's sad.
50:07
I tell you what, why is it that so many churches have people that rededicate themselves every week? Because nothing's really happening.
50:19
This is why, and I'm not here to start a fight, I'm just throwing this out as a thought.
50:24
This is why I've always been very leery of conversions which happen in conjunction with crusades, camps, VBSs and everything else.
50:33
I was part of Judgment House.
50:35
I played the devil in Judgment House.
50:38
And I remember people going into the hell scene that I was the devil and I was screaming and walking around like the devil I thought.
50:49
And then they'd go into the little room and they'd come out with a conversion card, you know.
51:01
There was a church up north that built a baptistry in the shape of a fire truck so that at the end of their vacation Bible school they could invite the children to come and be baptized.
51:17
And the fire truck had bells and whistles so that when a child was baptized and they came up out of the water, it would go and the bells would ring.
51:29
And you tell me what seven-year-old doesn't want to go get a fire truck.
51:39
What seven-year-old doesn't want to get in the fire truck baptistry? So again, are we replacing or substituting an emotional experience? I'm not saying we should not have emotional experiences.
51:53
I cry sometimes when I'm preaching.
51:56
I don't try to, but sometimes it's just preaching on the Word of God and thinking about the weight of what I'm saying, it just overwhelms me.
52:06
And so I'm not opposed to the emotion.
52:09
But when we substitute the emotion for the real application, the emotion is the application.
52:19
I grew up going to holiness churches with my mom and my mom would take me to these churches where from the moment it started, it was really exciting.
52:32
The music was very loud and very fast and people were running around and doing jumping jacks.
52:40
And one time the pastor comes walking by on top of the pew, you know, I see his little brown patent leather shoes and he's pointing at people as he goes by and, are you going to heaven? Are you going to hell? You know, he's really very into it.
52:56
And yet when the emotion is gone, does the application last? Serious, important question.
53:07
Number five, and then we'll take our break.
53:10
We substitute communication for transformation.
53:15
What does that mean? Well, a person may be able to fully articulate what it says and its meaning and even its application.
53:25
But if all it is is talk, then it's not application.
53:32
He's not having a life change.
53:34
He's just moving air.
53:37
Think about the narrative of David and Nathan the prophet.
53:42
Remember the story of Nathan the prophet? King David, there was a man who had a lamb and a rich man came and stole his lamb away.
53:52
And what should be done to that man? Oh, he should be brought here before me and he'll be punished.
53:58
And then Nathan took that, I just imagine a little crooked finger and you are the man.
54:11
David knew what the punishment should be.
54:15
He articulated it, but he wasn't yet willing to apply it to himself until that little bony finger said, you are the man.
54:28
Try as best we can when applying the text, not to point at others, but to point at ourselves.
54:37
Remember this, when your one finger points forward, three point back at you.
54:43
How should I? Yeah, we can do this.
54:49
How should I be moved by this text? Not just can I communicate it to others, but has it been communicated to my heart? And am I not just talking the talk, but am I walking the walk? All right, that's the end of this section.
55:06
We'll take a break.
55:07
When we come back, we're going to go to James chapter one.
55:10
We're actually going to do a little Bible study together as the end of tonight.
55:13
So see you in just a minute.
55:23
For our last portion of the class tonight, we have an opportunity to look at a text of scripture in regard to application.
55:33
We're going to go to James chapter one and go to verse 22.
55:46
We're going to read verses 22 to 25.
55:50
Now, again, I'm reading from the English standard version.
55:53
You may be reading from a different Bible, but they should be similar.
55:57
If you have something that's really different though, and you have a question, feel free to ask, because this is a time for us to learn together.
56:06
We're going to, we're going to apply the principles of observation and interpretation, but we're going to do so sort of briskly, simply for the fact of time.
56:15
The text says in verse 22, but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves.
56:28
For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror, for he looks at himself and goes away at once, excuse me, and at once forgets what he was like.
56:49
But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
57:07
All right, we'll stop right there.
57:10
For the process of application, we should begin with, of course, observation and interpretation.
57:17
Let's make a few observation or make a few observations.
57:22
The first, we would notice that it begins with a transitionary word.
57:28
The word is but.
57:29
Is there anybody whose translation uses anything different? Okay, what does but indicate? A change, a contrast.
57:39
What came before it? What does yours begin to the word do? Okay, in verse 20, verse 22, what translation are you in? The NIV.
57:52
Okay.
58:02
Okay.
58:02
No, that's fine.
58:04
Do not merely listen to the word.
58:06
That's, yeah, that's an interesting way of saying it, but it is what he is saying.
58:13
What does he say in verse 21? You may have your 21 say.
58:28
Okay.
58:29
So in verse 21, we have the exhortation to receive the word implanted, but, well, why the but? Because if you receive it, but don't do it, then you haven't really applied it.
58:50
So the but there, that transitionary word is saying, yes, receive it.
58:55
That's verse 21, but be doers and not hearers only.
59:02
What's the word there? That's an interesting question.
59:06
What is the word? This is an observation question.
59:12
What's the word? Yes.
59:17
Read verse 19 for me.
59:19
Um, to speak in slow to anger for all anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God, where then it goes into 21 says, therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive uniqueness of the word.
59:41
Yeah.
59:41
Yeah.
59:41
I mean, that's the, it is the same because it's, it's in the same context, the word, but what's the word it's referring to? Do you want to say something, brother? What's okay.
59:51
Verse 25.
01:00:01
Yeah.
01:00:01
So the word would refer to the law.
01:00:04
I think that's, I think that's true and that's accurate.
01:00:07
Yeah.
01:00:08
The word is scripture.
01:00:09
What's one of the things that we know about this text when it refers to the word, this text is not referring to the new Testament because the new Testament is not written yet.
01:00:26
James is one of the earliest books of the new Testament written.
01:00:30
And so when he refers to the word, he's referring to what we would classically refer to as the old Testament.
01:00:37
So when you refer to the perfect law, yes, he is looking to the law for morality and the way we ought to behave.
01:00:46
Now we could, in our ethics class, we're going to talk about what laws in the old covenant do not transcend into the new covenant, such as the laws of sacrifice and the laws of food and things like that.
01:00:59
But ultimately there is an ethic that transcends the old covenant and the new covenant.
01:01:06
And by the way, when I said, he's not talking about the new Testament, I'm not saying that we shouldn't think about the new Testament.
01:01:11
I'm saying he's not because again, we got to remember who's writing, when he's writing, who he's writing to and what he's writing about.
01:01:17
And that's how we do observation.
01:01:19
So when he says be doers of the word in his context, that would mean be doers of the law, be doers of the ethics, which transpire out of the law and are taken from the law.
01:01:32
And he tells us this, he says, if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks intently at his natural face and a mirror, for he looks at himself and goes away.
01:01:47
And at once forgets what he was like.
01:01:50
What's he referring to? Well, imagine you get up in the morning and you walk to the mirror.
01:02:01
You notice in the night that your hair has become quite disheveled, as it often does throughout the night.
01:02:08
Your eyes have become crusted over with that nice goop that God has provided for you.
01:02:14
And yeah, I know it's so nice to think about.
01:02:17
Your teeth are feeling a little funky on the end of your tongue.
01:02:22
And your breath probably doesn't smell super wonderful.
01:02:26
And you look at yourself and you say, wow, there's a lot of things here that need to change.
01:02:32
I need to comb my hair.
01:02:34
I need to wash my face.
01:02:36
I need to brush my teeth.
01:02:38
And then you walk away from the mirror and you don't do anything.
01:02:45
That's the picture that James is drawing.
01:02:50
The picture of someone who sees themself in the mirror and walks away unchanged.
01:03:00
Okay, so there is the observation of the text.
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And I've also provided a slight interpretation.
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Now let's move further in the interpretation, because what James is giving us is a metaphor.
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Would you agree? The mirror is a metaphor.
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What is the mirror a metaphor for? It's for the word, right? The mirror, I mean, this isn't a hard one.
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The mirror is the word.
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The metaphor is there.
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So what is the picture of what's happening? The word of God shows us ourselves.
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You ever done that? You ever been reading the Bible and say, wow, there I am.
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I'm standing right there on the page.
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I'm the one who is weak.
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I'm the one who is doubting.
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You remember the story of the man who came to Jesus and he said, heal my son.
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And Jesus said, if you believe, I will.
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He says, I believe, help my unbelief.
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There's never been a guy in history I've been more connected to emotionally than that man.
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Absolutely.
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You're sitting there and you're like, why did anybody else even come? He's not talking to nobody else.
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He's talking to me.
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And honestly, as a preacher, we never know.
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People will come up and say, pastor, how did you know I was going through that? I didn't, but now I do.
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But it's very, it's good to know because that means the spirit is working in that moment.
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And so this is the metaphor.
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The metaphor is the word of God is like a mirror and the mirror shows back what we have that is a need for change.
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And so what then becomes the application taken straight off the page? What's the application? Therefore, I should make the change.
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If I see what is needed to change and I walk away, what have I become? A hearer only.
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And what am I doing to myself? Deceiving or deluding myself.
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I mean, all this is from the text.
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We're not introducing anything new.
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We're just pulling out.
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He says, if you hear it and it doesn't change you, you're deceiving yourselves.
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And the word is like a mirror.
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You go to the mirror, you look in the mirror, you see the need for a change, you should make the change.
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And if you don't, you're just a hearer and not a doer.
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I think this is one of the great passages of application in the Bible when it comes to how and why should we apply.
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I think this text is a very important one.
01:06:04
And again, he compares the perfect law or the mirror to the perfect law, the law of liberty.
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And he mentions the word perseveres.
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He says, we look into the law and we persevere, meaning not only do we make the change, but the change becomes effective and long lasting.
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It's not as if we simply make the change and go right back to our vomit, like Jesus talked about the dog returning to its vomit.
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No.
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And what does that mean? This is digging a little deeper in application.
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Do you believe that as a Christian, repentance is a one time thing or a daily thing? It's both, right? Yeah, I just talked about this yesterday.
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Okay.
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And then God leads you to repent.
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I'll give you a scripture.
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And you may have mentioned this.
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I don't know.
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I didn't get to hear the lesson.
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I'd love to hear it.
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But here's a scripture that I think about when Jesus was washing the disciples feet.
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And Peter said, you'll never wash my feet.
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And Jesus said, if I don't wash your feet, you have no place with me.
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And Peter said, well, then wash not only my feet, but wash my head as well.
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And Jesus said, he who has been clean needs not be washed again, but only to wash his feet.
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That is a picture.
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Once we have been clean, the big our repentance, that's the picture of salvation.
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We don't need that again and again and again and again, but we have a daily need to wash our feet.
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That's the daily repentance, right? And so there's an application drawn from a different text, but we see that that's us.
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You know, that's why I say these people come forward every Sunday need to be saved.
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No, no.
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I know why you're coming because you're struggling.
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Maybe you aren't saved.
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Maybe that is a decision situation, but sometimes it's just they're struggling and they don't know how to deal with it.
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You live a life of repentance after you have turned from your sin and come to Christ.
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And I think that's in this text, going back to the James text, because he says he uses the word persevere.
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Perseverance is the daily mirror.
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That's why daily Bible reading is so beneficial because daily we're looking at the mirror.
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We're seeing the places that you ever come to a Bible verse and say, you know, I didn't even know I needed to change that.
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I didn't even know I needed to do that.
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I didn't even realize that that was an area of my life that's outside the will of God.
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Thank you, God, for showing me something that I didn't know.
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The law of God, like a mirror, shows us ourselves.
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And so we go to it and be willing to repent rather than justify, rather than try to rationalize.
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We simply seek to repent.
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Did I see a hand up? Did I see somebody? Okay, I thought somebody wanted to add.
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I want to give you a thought from Leonard Ravenhill.
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Now, I don't know if you've ever heard of him.
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Leonard Ravenhill is a powerful preacher.
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Actually, the person who brought him to my attention was Paul Washer.
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As Paul Washer quotes from Leonard Ravenhill's psalm, I listened to Leonard Ravenhill's sermon on hell this week.
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I've been just preparing for my sermon, which this week, the title of my sermon is The Destination of the Damned.
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So it's been a tough week in preparing for that sermon because I'm preaching on heaven and hell.
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And Leonard Ravenhill said this in that message, the Bible is not just meant to change belief.
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It's meant to change behavior.
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It's not just meant to change belief.
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It's meant to change behavior.
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And as simple as that is, I think we ought to consider how that would apply to us.
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If all we're doing is changing what we think, but not changing how we live, then we're not really applying the scripture to our lives.
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I'll add one thought to that since I have an extra minute.
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Christianity is not all about behavior modification.
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And that's where you have to be careful, because there's another side to application that's dangerous, and that is legalistic behavior modification.
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If you change your behavior, you're saved.
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It's not always the case.
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You can go through 12 steps and still be lost.
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You can go through all kinds of programs and still be lost.
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The first step in all of this is understanding our wretchedness and need for a living every day in grace.
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But that doesn't mean that we live continually in sin.
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That means that we seek to live a life of repentance.
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So there is a balance.
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We do not want to be legalistic and simply say, if I do this, that, and the other, I'm right.
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And we don't want to be licentious, saying that because I have grace, I have no responsibility.
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We want to find where does grace save me, and how does grace continue to keep me saved, and how do I live in light of that grace? Any questions? All right.
01:11:55
Well, let me say this last thing and we'll close.
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That was the end of the lesson, but I want to add a thought.
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I've mentioned a couple times that the next course is going to be Christian Ethics.
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Right now, the schedule for the next course, we've got two more weeks in this class and then we're taking a month off.
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The month of August will be off.
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And then when we come back in September, Christian Ethics, I brought with me tonight a sheet.
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This is all of the things I'm researching for the class.
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I'm going to distill this down to probably two resources that you'll have to have.
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One of them is in the ESV Study Bible.
01:12:40
Now, I think this is a good thing.
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How many of you actually have the ESV Study Bible? Okay, it's not as many as I thought.
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Okay, I don't want to make you buy it because even though it's really good, it is an expensive, if you buy a good one, you're going to spend upwards of $50.
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If you buy the hardback, you can get them for $20 or $30.
01:13:06
But again, there's, huh? Oh, okay.
01:13:14
Really? There's two study Bibles.
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There's the student Bible.
01:13:26
Yeah.
01:13:26
Well, here's the reason why I In the ESV Study Bible, there is about a 60-page set of notes on Christian Ethics.
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And I think it would be a good foundation for the course we're going to do.
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It's just enough to where everybody could read the whole thing through during the eight weeks and get a lot out of it.
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But I don't want to force you to have to buy a study Bible.
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So I'm still working on that.
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If I could figure out a way to get the information.
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I thought it was free online.
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But Pastor Mark, it's not.
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If you can find it, it's online.
01:14:07
Yeah, it's the ESV Study Bible Ethics section.
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And like I said, it's like 60 pages.
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It's really good.
01:14:15
And it would be a good foundational starter for us.
01:14:17
But again, that's one of the but the other one is a course.
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It's a book by Tom Schreiner on the law of God.
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And even though it's not an ethics book, it's the foundation of how we understand the application of law.
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And I think it's a really good tool.
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So those are the two I'm looking at now.
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But don't go buy anything yet.
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Because if I change my mind, I'll feel bad if you've already invested.
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But I will have that information out to you by the end of this course.
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By the end of this course, you will know exactly what you need for the next one so that you can spend a month if you need to save up a little money or whatever to buy whatever we're gonna have to buy.
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You'll know what you got to have.
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And you can already read ahead.
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So hopefully we'll have you'll have everything you need by the end of this course.
01:15:03
And if you have any thoughts, like I said, there's all kinds here.
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I'm actually going through a textbook from a guy from Biola University, but it's huge.
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I didn't think we could get through any, any meaningful way in eight weeks.
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But I'm using that to build my own knowledge up and so that I'll be ready to teach.
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So there's a lot out there.
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If you have any recommendations, I'm certainly willing to hear them.
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But right now, that's the direction we're looking.
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All right, God bless.
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Have a good night.