How To Interpret The Bible (pt-2)

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about 60 books or something like that, of Don Whitney's books, we ordered 60, we charged less than what we paid, we'll order some more, and you want to make sure you keep reading.
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I met with Dr. Whitney after the service, and he teaches worship as well, and so I said, Dr. Whitney, I know you wouldn't mention anything, because you're gracious, but please critique our worship service this morning, specifically the preaching.
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I said, please critique the worship service, what should we do, continue to do, or not do?
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And he said something very interestingly, interestingly enough, he said, if I were you,
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I would move the right hand of fellowship to either the front end or the back end, because everything you want to do in worship is gazing upon the goodness of God, and then responding to that.
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And so here he said, you're up here, praising God, and scripture reading, and singing, and then all of a sudden it's kind of focused towards each other, and then kind of back at it again.
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He said, why don't you just move it to the front, certainly there's a time to greet one another, move it to the back, and then you just not have to kind of dip down a little bit, and then look back up again.
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I thought that's good, and I want to talk to the elders about doing that. If you see the change next week, it was prompted by Dr.
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Whitney's keen observation. Just to give you an update, Bob Bowman seems to be doing very well, the elders decided to send him a thousand dollars, the church money, a thousand dollars, to help him, because he's got all kinds of medical bills, he's back in the states, not only has he had a problem with his eye, and the earlier issue, but now having his prostate completely removed in a radical prostatectomy, where he wanted to just say, we love you, and that was my email to him, we love you, and use this money to help out in any way, because it must be a strain on the family.
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Keep praying for Bob, and I think you'll hear more from Bob Dunn soon about what to do with missionaries, but I think you'll hear something about what we can do more for the missionaries that we already have, besides adding more missionaries, and Lewis is working with Bob there too.
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If you can't wait for the tapes, last announcement I think, if you can't wait for the tapes on hell, our Don Whitney tapes, if you get on to spiritualdisciplines .org,
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and pull up sermons online, there's about five sermons, and one of those is the reality of hell, Matthew 25, 41, so you can listen to that right now, if you'd like.
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Any other announcements? Alright, well if you have your
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Bibles please, tonight we want to look at part two, of how do you interpret the
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Bible. Several weeks ago we looked at gay bishops, question mark, that's a big issue in churches today, and a few weeks ago we looked at how to interpret the
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Bible, another huge issue in the church, and what does the Bible say, and trying to seek out the truth,
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I think in the weeks to come on Sunday nights, we'll look at some other controversial issues, what about men's roles and women's roles in the church, what about the atonement, what about open theism, what about all kinds of issues, we'll just kind of hit them on Sunday nights, and it'll be provocative, it'll be evocative, and it'll be a time for us to diligently search the scriptures, to see if these things are so.
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And so tonight we want to look at Bible interpretation, part two. If you're taking notes, that's great, if not, you can just listen or get the tape.
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I want to try to encourage you to study the Bible the way it was written. I want you to try to figure out what
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God has said. I said to someone the other day, can you imagine if God wrote you this love letter and this book, we need to know what it says.
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Furthermore, we are able to know what it says. Yes, there are difficult things in scripture, and even Paul says, even
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Peter says, some of the things Paul writes are difficult, but we can know scripture.
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So let me just give you several rules, that if you're a new Christian, will be really helpful, and if you're an old
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Christian, you're a Christian in the Lord for many years, it will be a reminder, and basically that's what preaching is, isn't it?
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You know the truth, I'm going to remind you of the truth, and then encourage you to try to do it. The moment
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I stand in this pulpit and say, I have some new information and new revelation, I've got the cutting edge new stuff that no one else has, that's the time when you want to give me not only water, but something in the water, like a sleeping pill, to just slowly get me out of here and remove me.
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I'm not about new things and novel. We, as the song would say, tell me the old, old story of Jesus and His love.
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God has spoken with finality, with clarity, and He was done speaking in direct revelation almost 2 ,000 years ago.
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Not quite 2 ,000 years ago, the last book of the Bible, written in about 90 AD, the book of Revelation. Some of this will be review, some of it will be new, and so let's just go ahead and start with Bible interpretation rule number one.
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Read the text in context repeatedly. The best thing you can do is read the
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Bible passage that you're studying in context and read it repeatedly. Read some chapters before, read some chapters after.
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You need to ask me a great question several weeks ago. If to understand Matthew chapter 20, you need to understand
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Matthew chapter 19 and 21, then in order to understand chapter 19, don't you need to understand chapter 18 and 20?
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Then to understand chapter 18, don't you need to understand chapter 17? And you can just see where I'm going. And in a sense, that's true.
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We need to understand what the whole Scripture teaches. We call that the analogy of Scripture. What does all the
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Bible say? But a good rule of thumb is when you read Matthew 20 and you say,
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I'd like to get this in context, just read a chapter before and a chapter after, and or read some of the study notes.
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Another way you could go about this is asking yourself this question. Why was this book of the Bible written?
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If you can answer that question, you are on your way to interpreting that verse. And you could even do this with your children around the table or your friends or even yourself.
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Try it sometime. Go to the table of contents in the Bible and next to it write down the purpose of the book of John, the purpose of the book of Revelation, the purpose of the book of Genesis, and just see if you can do it in one or two words.
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And if you don't, the good news is you can find out. So let's just use an example of this.
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Let's turn to 1 Timothy chapter 2. Look at, to some, a very controversial verse. And then find out why the book's written and it just opens it up and you say, oh, now
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I get it. Why was this book written? Well, if it was written for this purpose, now I can see these other verses in light of it.
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And oh, it makes so much sense. Why was this certain book of the
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Bible written? Was it written like Romans just to show us the faith? Was it written to warn against false teachers like Jude and 2
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Peter? Was it written to show what God has done in creation and how He's providential over everything else?
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Why was this written? Now let me read you verse 10, verse 11 in 1
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Timothy 2. Of course, in evangelical churches and liberal churches, this is bantered back and forth and it's very easy to understand.
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It might be harder to submit to in our culture today, but let's just read these verses. 1 Timothy 2, 11.
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Let a woman quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.
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Why? Two reasons. For it was Adam who was first created and then Eve, so creation order one. Secondly, and it was not
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Adam who was deceived. Eve was deceived. Adam wasn't deceived. He just went along with his wife and should have led her.
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But the woman being quite deceived fell into transgression. But women shall be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctify with restraint.
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We don't have time to get into that verse very much, but I will say that in 1 Timothy 2, 15, he's talking about women will be preserved through the bearing of children, specifically
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Jesus Christ. Eve was preserved by bearing children because out of her own body one day the
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Messiah would come. And you can study Genesis 3. But let's not get into that verse 15.
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Certainly you're not saved by having children. If your womb is barren, you're not going to heaven. That's not what it teaches. But what about verse 11?
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Quietly receive instruction. Verse 12, can't teach men. They have to be quiet. What about all those college professors?
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What about when you had driver's education lessons and there was a woman teaching you? What about women who are senators?
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What about women teaching children? What is going on there? But if you ask the question, why was 1
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Timothy written? You will have pretty much the answer to your question. Who can tell me why 1 Timothy was written and prove it scripturally?
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Everybody kind of looks down at their Bible. Well, here's the neat part. Some books of the
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Bible don't tell you why they were written. This one does. Go down a chapter. 1 Timothy 3 .15
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How wonderful. Maybe put a big P or something in front of this verse for purpose.
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Maybe you want to use a different color or something. So, if you find the purpose of a book, just note it. Maybe you go back to 1
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Timothy 1 .1 and right above the heading of 1 Timothy you say the purpose, 1 Timothy 3 .15.
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Paul is writing to Timothy, who's an elder, who's a pastor, and he says, but in case I'm delayed, I write so that you know how one ought to conduct himself in the
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United States government. This just opens the whole thing up. How do you conduct himself in the household of God?
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Which is the church of the living God and the pillar and support of the truth. This has nothing to do with women senators.
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It has nothing to do with women bosses over you in the workplace. This has to do everything with what? How does the church operate?
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And so you say, oh, now it makes so much more sense. How should the church operate? Well, women are no worse, are no better than men.
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In God's eyes, we're all his children. Nobody's better. Nobody's worse. Galatians 3 says we are equal in Christ.
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But there are just different roles. There's a different role between husband and wife, different role between president and vice president.
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There's different roles with women in the church. And so you say to yourself, okay, I get it. It has nothing to do with government or anything else.
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It has to do with the church. So I think if you answer this question, why was that book written?
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You are going to get a lot of answers. I could even go further. If I gave you the test, 66 questions, how many do you think you could get right?
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Why was Titus written? Why was Hebrews written? Why was
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Matthew written? Why was Leviticus written? Why was
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Hezekiah written? Hezekiah wasn't written. Why was
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Third Assumptions written? You know, they're not written. And so that would be a good exercise. Dr.
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Whitney spoke a lot about how you really get in and study and say, I need to understand this book. The number one thing you can do is read the
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Bible in context. And you don't know the context until you say, here's the purpose.
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Let's find another easy one. This just came to my mind. 1 John. Who can tell me the purpose of 1 John? So you can read everything in 1
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John under this umbrella, under this rubric. You say, I know why this book was written because it tells me.
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Who can tell me 1 John? At least a partial reason why this book was written. Doug. That's excellent, and that's the
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Gospel of John in John 20, 31. So that Gospel was written so you might believe that Jesus is
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God. If you have an unbelieving friend, read the Gospel of John. How about 1 John? Well, certainly that would be a sub -purpose.
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Let's go back a little bit earlier. And sometimes you can go to the front of the book or back, and it may help. Look at 1 John 1 .4.
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The first letter of John. If you're a new Christian, or you haven't studied the Bible before, it's 1 John.
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1 John. 1 John 1 .4. These things we write so that our joy may be made complete.
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And so you can put that under the umbrella of, here's this faithful apostle, dear beloved apostle, writing because he wants to have joy in the
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Lord because of your obedience. So just an easy way to do that. Furthermore, if you read the text in context over and over and over, you will not isolate texts.
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Let's go to James 1 .5. And I would say with authority and boldness that most cults do not take
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Bible verses in context. They use them as an isolated text. If I'm a cult leader,
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I'm not going to come up and say, here's Spiritual Strict 9, please come over to our barbecue on Sunday night and I'm going to teach you damning doctrines so you can go to hell and bust it wide open.
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Unless you're Anton LaVey in San Francisco in the werewolf satanic Bible kind of deal, you're not going to do that.
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Typically, you hear people in cults. Well, the Bible says, of course. And wasn't that an excellent illustration this morning or yesterday about here's the glass of water and how many drops of aid -infected blood would it take before you would say no to drinking it?
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There's just a bunch of truth and it's mixed with error. Look at James 1 .5.
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This is one of the key texts for the Mormons when Joseph Smith back in 1820 said he received direct revelation after reading this.
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And to make a long story short, if you meet a Mormon, they'll tell you to read the Book of Mormon and see if there's kind of a burning in your what?
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Bosom. And that your conscience and your spirit identifies with what the Book of Mormon teaches.
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Therefore, you agree. And that proves Mormonism. But this is an isolated text and you need to understand that.
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What's the first word of James 1 .5? How can you just yank that out?
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And I loved it this morning that Dr. Whitney, even though his sermon was on one verse, what did he do before he even preached it?
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Read the whole thing in context, didn't he? James 1 .5. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of the
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God who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
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This is not some kind of validation of subjective experiences. This is saying,
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God, when we're in a what, give me wisdom to not mess it up even more. Give me wisdom to learn as I'm in this.
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In what? Answer? A trial. When you're in a trial, you say, Oh God, I'm in a trial.
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This is an ordained trial, but would you give me wisdom? You're a liberal God, a good God, a giving
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God. I'm asking you for wisdom, and you'll give me wisdom if I ask properly. Does this have anything to do with the burning in your gizzard?
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Not at all. When was the last time you heard the word gizzard? I'm not sure either, but you never know what pops into your mind up here.
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So, what you want to do is not isolate a text. Let's give you another example. 2 Peter 2 .20. This is going to be kind of like classroom.
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Who can tell me why 2 Peter was written? If I could program your mind in a way to study the
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Bible, when the pastor says, Please turn to the book of Ephesians, you would say the very first thing as you're turning there.
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The book of Ephesians is written because... and you would answer that question.
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When you're flipping through the Bible and you don't know what to study and you're not sure what to read, but you know you want to, and you turn it to Jeremiah, you say to yourself before you read one verse in Jeremiah 9 .23
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and 24 about we're not going to boast in brains and brawn and bucks, but I'm going to boast in the Lord alone. When you answer this question,
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Why was Jeremiah written? Look at 2 Peter 2 .20.
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Why was it written? Yes, Bill? Yeah.
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Here's this kind of red alert. Red alert. There's a siren going off. There's false teachers. What do you do about it?
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Many Christians use this verse to teach that you can lose your salvation. And if you isolate this text, and of course there are other texts that they may or may not use, but for sure this verse does not teach you can lose your salvation.
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Let's read it. 2 Peter 2 .20. For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, and the last state has been worse for them than the first.
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And I've heard people use this to say if you're a Christian and you kind of backslide too far,
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I don't know how far that is, but too far, you can't come back. And it's worse now for you.
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What would you say in response? Pardon me? That's not the context.
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Go back up to 2 Peter 2 .1. I said kind of read the chapter ahead, but false prophets, 2
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Peter 2 .1, also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you.
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Certainly they wouldn't come to a Sunday night service, would they? Who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the
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Master who brought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. They'll follow their own sensuality, because of them the way of the truth will be maligned.
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Go down to verse 10. Boy, these are people who are bold. And especially those who indulge in the flesh and its corrupt desires and despise authority.
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They can't stand any authority, let alone this next one. Daring, self -willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties.
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Not everybody who does this is a false teacher, but they're the ones who say, you know what? I bind you.
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I send you to Toledo, Satan, and all these kind of things. And they're talking to Satan when we're not even supposed to be doing that.
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Verse 11, Whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before God.
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And then some of the most amazing language I've ever read in Scripture, verse 17. These are springs without water.
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Have you ever seen one of those things in the desert? What's that called? A mirage? The guys are crawling through the sand and going up there, and they finally think they're going to get there.
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And what's there? Can you imagine? A spring without water. That's a false teacher. They say, yes,
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I'm teaching the right stuff, but they're totally dry.
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And driven by a storm, for whom, listen to this, the black darkness has been reserved.
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For they speak out arrogantly words of vanity. They entice the fleshly desires by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error.
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Promising them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of corruption. They're just slaves to their own sin. For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.
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These false teachers don't want to be polluted and don't want to have moral consequences, but they don't know how to get out of it themselves.
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And here, the text says in verse 20, after they've escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord, it's certainly intellectual knowledge, they are entangled again in them and are overcome.
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For the last state has become worse for them than the first. And it's far worse for them to kind of construct a system of morality and being good and doing better and teaching other people to do that and they think they're getting relief when it's even worse for them at the end.
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Because it doesn't work. Verse 21, For it would be far better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than have known it to turn away from the
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Holy Command and deliver it to them. Too much is given, much is required. Alright, we need to keep going.
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That was a long review. Rule number one, read the text in context repeatedly. Rule number two, for Bible interpretation, seek what the author intends.
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Seek what the author intended. In other words, don't try to make the
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Bible say what you want it to say. I've done this before, have you? When I was a brand new
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Christian, I thought I could lose my salvation and I would look through every verse that I could find to somehow back up my support.
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Now that in itself is not bad. But it's bad when you twist the
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Word of God to fit your system, isn't it? It's not your system. And let's show you one example.
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Let's go to Jude, verse 17 and following. We want to find out what the Bible... Let's go to verse 20.
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There's no chapter there. If you have a computer Bible like I do, it says Jude 1 .20, but actually it's 20.
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By the way, what is Jude's real name? But you would even not call your dog this, so the King James translators changed it to Jude.
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Judas. There are different Judases and of course this is not Judas Iscariot. This is not the bad Judas.
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I've heard people call their dogs Diabolo before. I had a friend who called their dog Devil. He got saved and he changed his name to what?
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Jack McCrae? Gabriel. So... I think
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I met someone else, maybe in this church, who has a dog named some kind of non -Christian name.
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What's yours? Oh, Angel. Okay, well... Louis, would you talk to Mark after this service?
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And I think even if you have a spirit -filled study Bible, it will say the wrong thing in this one.
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I believe I've read it. Jude 1 .20 or Jude 20. But you, beloved, building yourself up on your most holy faith, praying in the
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Holy Spirit. I am not going to talk about tonight whether speaking in tongues is true or not.
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You know our position here that that gift has ceased. It was a real language and it has ceased. But I will say this.
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Does that verse, even if speaking in tongues are for today, does that verse teach that you should speak in tongues?
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What's the answer? Well, you say, I have my own ideas, like Whitney was saying,
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I loved it. Forget what you think. What does the Bible teach? How would we find that out if we had no other tools except the
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Scriptures for now? What we just learned last one. Why was Jude written?
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Why was Jude written, anyone? Because it's a preventative for false teachers.
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Matter of fact, here's what happened. 2 Peter said, you know, in the future, you're going to have all kinds of false teachers that are coming, they're coming, they're coming, and like that one movie that was around 20 years ago,
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Jude's answer is the false teachers are here. They're here. Remember that movie?
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Don't go see it. Don't check it out. But it's just in my mind. You can't unknow what you already know. What was it? Poltergeist or something?
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Something stupid? Have you ever noticed, by the way, when you watch a movie a long time ago, this isn't the case with Poltergeist, and you watch it and you think, oh yeah,
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I see it at the video place, that was a good movie. And then you rent it again and it was horrible, and the language and everything else, and then you think, what is going on?
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Two things should affect you. Number one, you should say to yourself, I really need to have discretion.
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But number two, God thank you that you're growing me. I wasn't affected back then like I am now.
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We did that with the movie a while ago. We thought, well yeah, this is just a nice movie. It's kind of an Indiana Jones type of movie.
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Let's just rent that. And all of a sudden, after five minutes, we're like, glad I didn't invite the Jeffreys over to watch this one.
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I mean, turn this off. You know, if you ever think, you know, I'm watching this movie,
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I'm glad Pastor's not showing up at the door. It's just a good time to turn that movie off. How did
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I get here? I don't know. But Jude is saying, the false teachers are in your midst.
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Peter was saying, they're coming. Jude says, they're here. Matter of fact, in verse three and four, he's writing, and then it's almost as if he stops and he's interrupted by saying, you know,
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I was going to write to you about salvation. I've got to change my mind because now the false teachers are here. Verse 120, but you beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the
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Holy Spirit. So first, why was it written? Second of all, I see the first word in English in the New American Standard in verse 20, but you.
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So what should we do? Let's read a little bit before and read a little bit after. Verse 17, but you beloved, he was talking about the false teachers and now he switches.
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He said, false teachers do this, this, this and this. Watch out for them. But you, what do you do in the midst of false teachers?
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But you beloved, you can just almost hear him. He wants them to do the right thing, just this pastoral intent.
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Ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. He said, men and women, readers, don't get caught off guard.
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Don't just be living your life and somehow think, I can't believe, you know, that there's false teachers here. He said, they're going to be here.
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Don't be taken by surprise. Verse 18, that they were saying to you in the last times, there will be mockers from the time of Christ's resurrection to the time
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He comes back. That's what the last time is. Maybe we're in the last, last time now, who knows?
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But there will be mockers following after their own ungodly lusts. This is a preliminary warning.
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Who are the false teachers? These are the false teachers. What else do they do? These are the ones who cause divisions.
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They split the church. They don't grow the church. Worldly minded, not scripturally minded.
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Devoid of the Spirit. They do not have the Spirit of God dwelling in them. They're not regenerate. They might have all the right talk, but they're not
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Christians. Then he says, verse 20, but you, beloved, building yourself up in your most holy faith, praying in the
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Holy Spirit, keep yourself in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.
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So, let's picture it again. There's false teachers are here. What are we going to do? Well, one thing, don't get shook by it, because we've already told you.
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Another thing, you can identify them. See? They're those kind of people there that do those kind of things.
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And then next, almost as a positive preventative, it tells us to do this. Now, this wasn't in my notes, but it's important.
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When you read the Bible, one of the best things you can do in the New Testament especially is look for verbs. What does the verb tell me to do?
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Yes, it's an action word, isn't it? What is the verb? Who's the object of the verb?
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Is the verb active or passive? You can ask yourself all these questions. And I tell people that I can influence, if you want to go take a college class and refresh your class, there's one class you should take above all other classes.
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And that is what? English. Because you can interpret the
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Bible better when you understand an object, a direct object, an accusative, a genitive, you can understand it better.
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Matter of fact, I could ask you the question, can you diagram? Remember that in the old days? Do they diagram in school anymore?
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Yeah, diagram. Here's the subject, here's the verb, here's the participle, and all these things.
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So you say, I'm going to look for verbs. There are also verbs with ING endings, which aren't as important, which modify the verb.
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And ING ending words are called what in English? Gerunds, and are called what in Greek? I guess they're called this in English too, participles.
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Here's the main verb, the participles help. Let me give you an example before we look at this one. Make disciples by going, teaching, baptizing.
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What's the key verb in all that? Make disciples. Now let's look at this one.
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Who can find the main verb and who can tell me the three participles? Anybody out loud, in verses 20 and 21. Okay, the key verb is what?
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There's one key thing that you underline when you're going through your Bible. It's the key out of all these words.
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Keep, that's right, it's keep. Keep yourselves actually would be one Greek word,
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I suppose, I haven't looked at it lately. Now give me the three ING words. How do you keep yourself?
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We are to keep ourselves in the love of God. Okay, here are all the false teachers, they're here, you can identify them.
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You Christians in the midst of that, keep yourself in the love of God. And you just go, okay, um, keep myself in the love of God.
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I mean, what do you do? Keep yourself in the love of God. What does that look like? Wasn't Don Whitney excellent in his practical application and illustrations?
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So what does keeping yourself in the love of God? You may say to yourself, love of God, I can't be separated from.
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He's put me in there, I mean, but now there's this responsibility. So what is your responsibility to keep yourself in the love of God?
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How do you do that? And ING words are how words, so there's three how words. What's the first how word?
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Building, there it is. Keep yourself in the love of God when there's all these false teachers. One, by building yourself up on the most holy faith.
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If I could be simple about it, study the truth. Be fed by the word. It is easy to see error when you know the truth, isn't it?
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I remember Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, Ann, I think is his daughter, right?
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Ruth, she would say, what do the mints do in the United States? In the treasury? Well, they don't go around studying all the different counterfeits, they study the truth and the counterfeits are easy to see.
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So first is build, second is what? Praying in the Holy Spirit.
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Let's skip that one for just a moment. And then thirdly, it's what? Waiting anxiously for the mercy of our
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Lord Jesus Christ through eternal life. So you're saying, I'm going to build myself up with the word because there's false teachers around here and I'm going to long and wait and one day there'll be no false teachers.
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Can you imagine no false teachers in heaven? I'm going to long and wait and say, oh, what did
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Don Whitney say something about? Yearning for heaven. And there's one other thing.
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If in fact this is speak in tongues, how does that make sense with false teachers?
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The false teachers that Peter said were going to come are here. You study the truth, you speak in tongues and you long for heaven.
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And I would propose to you besides any other passages about cessation of those gifts or the promulgation of those gifts, that is not what the text is saying.
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Who could tell me what it means to pray in the Holy Spirit? Pardon me?
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Okay, give me a synonym for that. Give me a phrase that's similar to that phrase praying in the Holy Spirit that we would understand much easier because we use the terminology more.
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Pray according to the will of God? Okay, is there another thing that we can do here? Maybe you can even look at your own study notes.
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Pray in the name of Jesus Christ? That's exactly what he's saying. Just like you would pray in the name of Jesus Christ, what's that mean?
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You have to say Jesus Christ at the end of your prayers to make sure it happens? No, you say pray in the name, the name, his wisdom, his glory, his mercy, his honor, his sovereignty, his will.
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I'm going to pray. When you say in Jesus' name at the end of your prayer, this is what you're praying. God, I pray these things for the honor and glory of your son
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Jesus Christ that by answering these prayers your son would be magnified. And that will take away all the
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Cadillac prayers and stuff like that. If you need a new car, certainly that's fine. But you're saying according to all your attributes.
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Tongues, yes. They were to judge unbelieving Israel. They were to edify other members.
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They were a sign. But they were never a defense mechanism for ungodly professors, ungodly false teachers in the church.
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So if you believe in speaking in tongues, that's one thing. But do not go running around looking for all the evidence so much that you force other passages.
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Yes, look for all the evidence. You should. But not to make
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Scripture say what it doesn't say. Let me give you another example. Go to John 14, 14.
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Now this time, I'm going to ask you the question to see how quickly you learn. And this is all kind of what we call proof texting.
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You're not looking for authorial intent. You're not answering the question, why was this written? You're not trying to say, what does
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God say? You're trying to say, what do I want Him to say? John 14, 14.
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I'll read it, and you tell me how you typically have heard this verse used. If you ask anything in my name,
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I will do it. Where is that typically used? Name it and claim it.
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That's right. Where if I... What did you say? Blab it and grab it? Okay, well I'm glad you said that, not me.
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Alright, let's answer the question. I don't think it's going to help us much if we say, well, why was John written?
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Because we're going to have to ask more questions. But let me ask you this question. Is there anything else in the
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Bible that teaches us something about this passage? Is there something else that we should add?
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Is this... First of all, is this true? If you ask anything in my name, I will do it, yes.
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Secondly, what do we know about asking me anything in my name? How might that contradict some of these people who go around saying you can ask for anything you want and God has to answer you?
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Well, I just said it, right? I'm asking God that you be glorified and that your name would be exalted and you are going to be praised because you give me these things.
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Well, James chapter 4 says we've got to ask with the right reasons and without selfish motives. 1
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John 3 says we've got to pray with an obedient heart. 1 John 5, 14 says we've got to pray according to God's will.
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You have to be very careful because you are looking for authorial intent. What does the author mean?
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Okay, we've just got to keep going here. Alright, this will be a fast one. Number three, make sure you study both
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Old and New Testaments. In other words, make sure you study all of the Scripture. We've already talked about this and the importance of a book that's called
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Systematic Theology. If you can understand Leviticus, you're miles ahead when it comes to Hebrews.
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If you can understand the Psalms, you are miles ahead of understanding some of the things in Acts.
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If you read the Old Testament, you can understand Revelation much more clearly for all the illusions there.
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There's a little book called Bite -sized Theology by Peter Jeffrey. It's excellent, Bite -sized
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Theology. I think we have it upstairs. Okay, four. This is a new one. Four, avoid spiritualizing.
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Avoid spiritualizing. Read the text in context. What does the author intend? Study everything.
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Third, avoid spiritualizing. Mike Locke said this, quote, To spiritualize or allegorize is to go beyond the plain meaning of the passage in search of a deeper or hidden meaning.
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The danger with this method is that there are no checks for fanciful interpretation. The only standard becomes the mind of the interpreter.
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Stick to the intended meaning of the text. This is the worst one I've ever heard in my entire life for spiritualizing.
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1997, KKLA. How many people have ever heard of KKLA? It's the largest radio station in Los Angeles.
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Largest Christian radio station, I believe, in the country. A Christian psychologist got a phone call.
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There's many of these shows. And a lady called in and said she had a problem with bulimia and binging and purging and she did it for 18 years.
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So she was self -conscious and she would eat and then she would throw up. Self -induced vomiting. She wanted to know if they could give her a good
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Bible verse that would help her. Good motives, right? We need the Lord's help. I can't stop this on my own.
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Hold on to your horses. Get ready for this one. What would you say, by the way? I would ask you another question.
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If somebody has problems with anorexia and bulimia, can you help them or should you send them away from the church right away?
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It's not a spiritual problem. I think you should send them to the doctor, yes. But I think the church can help.
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I think God can help. Isaiah 41 .13
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Before the psychologist asked her to read this verse, he asked if she ate with her left hand or her right hand.
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She replied she was right -handed. He told her to memorize Isaiah 41 .13 For I am the
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Lord your God who upholds your right hand, who says to you, do not fear, I will help you. And he said that verse will help you as God will hold back your hand from bringing the fork to your mouth.
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I mean, you want to help somebody, don't you? But you don't talk the scriptures to do it.
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I just thought, I can't believe this. That's in my file on my computer in Word XP under H -O -R -R -I -B,
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Herm. Horrible hermeneutics. That's what that's under. Please, that's not right.
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So, we don't want to try to spiritualize. Let me give you another illustration. Turn to Mark chapter 1.
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Remember our test several weeks ago? That one pastor said that the raven, excuse me, the dove coming down on Jesus in the inauguration of his public ministry was symbolizing
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Jesus. It symbolized prayer. What do things symbolize?
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Let's not spiritualize it. Let's just think a little bit harder. This is a really neat passage and if you haven't thought about it, you may be spurred on to study tonight.
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Mark chapter 1. We looked at a test a couple weeks ago that someone said the dove represented
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Jesus in the ark. And well, let's see what the dove really represents here. Or at least ask an educated question.
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Mark chapter 1 verse 9. I think I'm just going to do this the rest of the night. Why was Mark written? So we know that Jesus actually was a servant.
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He was a suffering servant and he was fully man. Besides God, he was fully man. Okay, good. What do they call
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Mark, by the way? What kind of gospel? The go gospel. He is on the go all the time.
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Look at verse 9 and it came about in those days that Jesus came about from Nazareth in Galilee. He came from there. He was baptized by John in the
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Jordan. And immediately coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opening and the spirit like a dove descended upon him.
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And a voice came out of the heavens saying, Thou art my beloved Son and thee I am well pleased.
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Why did Jesus get baptized? Was he sinful? Obviously not. We've talked about that. He was identifying with sinners though, wasn't he?
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Even John said I have need to be baptized by you and you come to me?
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I'm the sinner. You need to baptize me. Jesus said, You know, we have to do this to permit all righteousness.
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Let's go back to verse 10. Immediately coming out of the water, he saw the heavens opening and out comes a spirit like a dove descending on him.
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The word to open up the heavens is to have a schism, a rip, a tear. Here comes the heavens.
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They're ripped open for a minute. Sounds like Isaiah 64. Oh, that thou would rend the heavens and come down.
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What did Christ see? Heavens are opened and what did Jesus see?
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Well, the text says, like a dove. What do we do with that? Luke 3 .22 says, the
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Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. Mark 1 .10
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says, the spirit like a dove descending literally into him. Our text says, upon him.
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It's into him. And in John 1 .33, he whom you see the spirit descending and remaining upon him.
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This is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. Why did the Holy Spirit come down in bodily form like a dove and descend onto him and then into him?
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Two answers. One's for sure and one I think I believe.
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What's the first reason? Why did the Spirit of God come down and go into Christ?
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Show the Father's approval and to say, it's time for public ministry. Here comes the inauguration of your public ministry.
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You are going to be my servant now and everyone would know. But I've got another question.
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Why wasn't the Spirit of God descending like an ostrich down out of the sky? We had the test a few weeks ago on the ostrich.
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I mean, excuse me, the dove. It's like prayer. It's like Jesus. Why not an ostrich? Why not a vulture?
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You know, we always talk about we're lifted on eagle's wings in Isaiah. You have to study sometimes. It's usually the word vulture but you can study that another time.
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Why was it not a woodpecker? The Spirit of God is ascending in bodily form like a woodpecker.
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I mean, I had for years of my Christian life never asked that question. Why would it be a dove? Anyone? If it was biblical,
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I said it. If it wasn't biblical, I didn't say it. Well, this isn't a...
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You know what? That's exactly right. Let me say this before I answer that question. Additionally, to interpret the
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Bible, I didn't put this in here but you can add this one. Think like a Jew. Think like somebody in those days.
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Even if you're Greek, you say, I don't want to think like I'm a Jew. Well, think like you're a Samaritan living 2 ,000 years ago. Think like you're a
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Gentile. Think like you're someone who's involved with the culture and here, John the
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Baptist is there. Jesus is there. There are many other Jews. Why were the Jews even coming out to him? Looky -loos were coming out to check it out and some of the
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Romans and some of the Mucky Mucks and the Pharisees, they were sending their people out to look. But the typical Jew was coming out to get baptized.
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Why? He was getting baptized and it was a repentance baptism and he was saying, the Jewish system is corrupt, it's inadequate the way it is now and I'm repenting and I'm abandoning
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Judaism. Now, you've got all these Jews out here that are getting baptized and you see this dove coming down and come sit on Jesus and somehow go into Jesus.
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He sits upon and goes into and they're just looking around. Why dove? If you were a Jew, you would say dove and what would you think of?
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Automatically. Inevitably. You would not be thinking about Noah's Ark and the dove and the raven and the twig and this and that.
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You would be thinking of and Jonah was exactly right. Let me read you some of these verses. This is a bird of sacrifice.
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You can't afford a lamb, you can afford a bird. Verse 7 of Leviticus 5
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But if he, a person of sins, cannot afford a lamb, then he shall bring to the Lord his guilt offering for that in which he has sinned two turtle doves, two young pigeons, one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering.
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Here the significance not only is the anointing for Jesus and his ministry but secondly what kind of specific ministry?
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Substitutionary atonement ministry. Redemption. Ransom. Leviticus 12 .8
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If she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtle doves or two young pigeons. Luke 2 .21
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And when eight days were completed before his circumcision, his name was then called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
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And when the days for their purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the
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Lord and to offer, verse 24, a sacrifice according to what was said in the law of the
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Lord. A pair of turtle doves are two young pigeons. So this kind of puts all our
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Bible and hermeneutics together. What's the passage talking about? What was said before? What was said afterwards? What was said in the context of all the
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Scripture? How to think like a Jew? Well, we did that test a few weeks ago. The dove is not prayer.
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At worst, you have to say the dove is just a bird and it's kind of... Well, I don't know what you think of when
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I think of a dove. If I'm not thinking like a Jew, I'm thinking about something kind of floating down gently.
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Aren't you? What do you think of when you think of a dove? Pardon me? Peace? Okay, that would be good, yes.
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But I would say that you should also be thinking about what would the Jew think about a dove? And I think the
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Jew would think of sacrifice. This is ministry. God says, I affirm you, I inaugurate you,
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I anoint you for the ministry of the substitutionary atonement. All right, well, let's just do...
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Let's do a couple more. Rapid fire. And you said it's all been rapid fire.
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You know, did you notice Dr. Whitten, he speaks fast. He speaks quickly and so I thought that's good.
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Another rule. I think I gave you a think like a Jew so this should be six. Remember that eschatology or end times prophecy is tricky.
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Be careful. I am not a prophecy expert. I am not the most godly person here nor am
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I the most knowledgeable. I think I have the most training, at least school education. And if you ask
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Louis, if you ask Mark, if you ask Scott and Bob and Dave, we would all say there are issues of eschatology that are still difficult.
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Yes, we are pre -mill at this church. But when you have eschatological issues, be humble and be teachable.
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Don't be proud and don't be divisive. It's very important. Furthermore, when you first get saved, you'll do two things if you're like the typical
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Christian. You'll study the cult or the group that you came out of, if in fact you did, that was not
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Christian. Secondly, you'll study the book of Revelation. Would you please study another book or another system of theology concurrent with your study of Revelation?
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Because how can you understand Revelation if you don't understand a lot of the other books of the Bible? This is just food for thought.
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But the book of Revelation could have been given as the very first book. I think there's something to be said as there's this accumulated knowledge and allusions and verses and quotes and understanding the system and burning bronze judgment of the
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Old Testament and that's Christ's feet over here. You need the Old Testament. You cannot understand the book of Revelation unless you somehow know an idea, or have an idea of the first 65 books of the
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Bible. So when you're studying eschatology, ology means a word, escha means eschat, means last, the last word, the last word from God, study things with humility, study them with pride, without pride, and don't get your end -time theology from a book or a movie.
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For me, my day, it was Frank Peretti. And everybody had end -time theology because of this present, what?
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Darkness. If you want to read left -behind series, fine. But if I were you, I'd read left -behind series and then when something comes up, you can just check it with Scripture.
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And if end -time, with the, the Hay book is right, then great, affirm that.
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And if not, you need to ask yourself that question. Let me give you another one and this one's a fast one too.
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Seven, avoid numberology or numerology. Avoid that kind of stuff.
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Remember our test a few weeks ago, that pastor preached a sermon that said eight represents renewal and Genesis 8 is all about renewal.
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There's a new book out by the way, the old Bible code books were more evangelical.
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The new book out is not evangelical. It's called the Da Vinci Code and you need to run from that book.
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It talks about an illicit sexual relationship between Mary, Magdalene and Jesus and it is just garbage.
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I mean, what could be worse? But numbers are very difficult. Let me give you an illustration.
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John 21, 11, Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of fish, 153, but there were so many, the net was torn.
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Now why was there 153 fish? Do you know there's all kinds of answers? Cyril of Alexander in the 5th century said 100 is the fullness of the
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Gentiles, 50 is the remnant of Israel and 3 of course was the Trinity. That's right.
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Augustine's theory in the 5th century, he's a little more complicated. 10 commandments and 7 is the perfect number of grace, that's 17.
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Now if you add all the numbers from 1 to 17 together, you know 1 plus 2 plus 3 plus 4 plus 5 all the way up to 17, you'll get 153.
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And not only that, but if you were to arrange them with 17 fish in the first row, 16 in the next, 15 in the next row, all the way down to 1, you'd get a perfect triangle that represents the
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Trinity. that's pretty crazy. Jerome lived in the 5th century, he suggested there were 153 different types of fish in the sea, it was symbolic of the church reaching all the peoples and the nations.
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Ask any mermaid, I guess, is that kind of theology. J. Segal said, statistics of the
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Bible like the calculations of the great pyramid of Egypt have a fatal attraction for cranks and crackpots, even for wise men in their less guarded moments.
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If I were to ask you, does the Bible teach that number 1 is significant for anything? 2, 3, 4, 100, 8, what would you say?
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The Epic of Gilgamesh said 7 was symbolic of completeness. Ugaritic text, symbolic of completeness.
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Egyptian text, symbolic of completeness. Middle Ages, 1 was unity, 2 was diversity, 4 was duality, 5 was flesh, 6 was earthly perfection, 7 was universe of spirit and matter.
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I agree with J. Davis, John Davis. If you want to study numbers in the Bible, there's one book to get. It's called
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Biblical Numerology by John Davis, faithful scholar at Great Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana. He said this, quote,
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The only number used symbolically in the Scripture to any degree with discernible significance is the number 7.
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Why, he said, it is the only number which appears to be used symbolically with any consistency in contemporary extra -biblical literature.
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It should be remembered that the Bible was not written in a cultural or literary vacuum. Jacob, 7 years of service for Rachel, 7 years of plenty, 7 years of famine, 7 day marriage feast, 7 daughters of Jethro, 7 sons of Saul, 7 unleavened days feast, 7 feast of the tabernacle, 7 thyr dip in the
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Jordan, 7 times of Naaman, 7 altars, 7 bullocks, 7 rams, 7 fold curse for the murder of Cain, 7th day was sanctified, religious observances on the 7th day of the 7th month, of the 7th year, on the 7th times 7th year.
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David said, The system of symbolic numbers as used in the Christian church must be regarded as a post -apostolic development.
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All the number stuff, what represents what was after the church, after specifically the apostles.
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Most of the meanings adopted today for the symbolic numbers are those proposed by the church fathers.
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He said in conclusion, listen, it's important, numbers should always be taken at face value and understood as conveying a mathematical quantity, unless there is either textual or contextual evidence to the contrary.
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The number 7 should be regarded as a literal math value unless the context by obvious repetition of the number or specific reference indicates that the number conveys the additional idea of complete.
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In other words, when you read 7, you not automatically think of completeness unless the context talks about that.
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Last one, and I'm just going to say it for one minute. Don't forget the Bible was written, your translation is in English.
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So why don't you get yourself a Greek and Hebrew word study Bible and it will help you. If you look up the word justification, in English, it comes from a
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Latin term and it turns into Roman Catholic justification, make righteous. When we know justification is to declare righteous.
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When you see the word love in the Bible, it could mean brotherly love, phileo. It could mean erotic love, eros.
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It could mean storge, family love. There's no love in the end times, 2 Timothy 3.
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Or it could mean agape love, which is what kind of love. In the little vines dictionary, there's a master key study
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Bible or even Zodiaty's book on different languages would help. Okay, that's
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I think enough for tonight. So my challenge to you this week, if you'd like some homework, some people love it when
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I give them homework. There will be no test or anything like that. Why don't you find out the answer to these 2 questions.
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Why were the first 5 books of the Bible written? The Torah, the law of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
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Secondly, why were the 4 different Gospels written? Matthew, Mark, Luke and Peter.
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Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Ask yourself those questions. Just think if you did 4 or 5 books a week, in 3 months you would know why every book of the
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Bible was written. And if you can't remember things like I can't remember things, then on the first page of Ezra, where it says Ezra chapter 1, why don't you just write up here purpose.
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The purpose of the book is to fill in the blank. And every time you study you can just go, yep, that's why it was written.
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Okay, I see it underneath that framework. And then I would challenge you to read one book on Bible hermeneutics or Bible interpretation a year.
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There are many good ones and you can talk to Nate. Alright, let's pray.
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Father, we thank you for this night and it is certainly just a night of X's and O's, some challenging texts that we would look at just briefly.
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But we are thankful that without your spirit, we are thankful that with your spirit rather, we can't understand your word.
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And this is not some kind of Easter egg hunt where we are getting closer. But you are illuminating our minds. You are teaching us your truth and you are our teacher.
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And you use men, yes, and acquaintances, and women and children to proclaim your truth.
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But we know it is your spirit, your Holy Spirit, who does that. May your spirit help our minds today.
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May you protect this pulpit from error. May you protect these dear people from error as they go out this week.
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And would you help us learn the purposes of the words so we might know them better, Father, in Jesus' name.