February 9, 2021 Show with Dr. Joe Morecraft on “How to Read the Bible Biblically”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation, to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this ninth day of February 2021, and I'm thrilled to have back on the second day in a row, yesterday my guest was on for half of the show, following Gary DeMar of American Vision, but today my guest has the full two hours, and I'm speaking of Dr.

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Joe Marcraft, who is an author and pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia.

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Today we are going to be addressing an extremely vital topic, how to read the

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Bible biblically, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome back one of my favorite guests of all time,

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Dr. Joe Marcraft. It's always a privilege, Chris. And again, for the sake of our listeners who have not yet heard you on the show or anywhere else, tell our listeners about Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia.

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Heritage Presbyterian Church is a small congregation in a small conservative denomination called the

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Reformed Presbyterian Church, Hanover Presbytery. We believe in the inerrancy of scripture.

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We are strict subscriptionists to the Westminster Confession of Faith, larger and shorter catechism.

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We diligently seek to carry out the Great Commission. We enjoy the communion of the saints, and I love being the pastor of this congregation.

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I praise God. If anybody wants to get more information about Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, the website is

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HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com, HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com,

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and hopefully I will remember to repeat that towards the end of the program.

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And this topic that we are addressing today, unfortunately, as you probably know, there may be many

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Christians that would look at this email, this publicity email that I sent out, they might see it in social media, how to read the

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Bible biblically, and they might yawn and just start looking elsewhere for other things to occupy their minds.

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But this is a really extremely vital issue, isn't it? Because it's something that although the vast majority of Christians may think they are reading their

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Bibles in a fine and dandy fashion, this is really one of the most crucial errors in Christendom, isn't it?

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I couldn't agree with you more. In this war between Christ and His enemies, between the

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Church and the world, Christians must know how to wield the sword of the

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Spirit, which is the Word of God. That is our only weapon. And if we don't know how to use it, it doesn't matter how much armor we have on.

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We have absolutely no hope of winning the battle without this offensive weapon. In other words, to put it more plainly, if we don't know how to read and study the

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Bible, we don't know how to use this sword. And throughout the history of the Church, there have been all kinds of wrong ways, unbiblical ways of interpreting the

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Scriptures. And if you approach the Scriptures from the wrong perspective, from the wrong hermeneutics, that's what we're talking about.

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Hermeneutics is a long word, and it simply means principles of biblical interpretation.

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So if you approach the Bible with the wrong principles of interpretation, you're going to get everything wrong, except by God's grace, because you will interpret it from a perspective that is not the perspective of God.

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In the Middle Ages, throughout medieval history, there was a popular way of interpreting the

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Scripture, allegorical, that is, plain since the words weren't that important.

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It was some secret, hidden meaning behind the words that only the priests and the scholars knew, and therefore, the average professed

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Christian couldn't read the Bible on his own, couldn't interpret for himself, without the tyranny of the experts.

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In fact, a modern -day example of that, of somebody, I think, who perfectly fits that description, is the late

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Harold Camping. Yes, sir. And another one is James Jordan. And it has that old medieval allegorical hermeneutic has come back somewhat in the 20th century.

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But what people don't realize is, in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, which is the greatest work of the

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Holy Spirit in history since the days of the apostles, that the

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Protestant Reformation gave us some great things that we just take for granted, that were not for the

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Reformation, we wouldn't have. And of course, one of the most familiar things is justification by faith alone.

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In the Middle Ages, you had to work to merit your salvation, and the great reformers,

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Martin Luther, Calvin, Knox, Zingley, all the rest, thought that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone, apart from the works of the law.

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But there was another gift that Calvin, particularly, and the

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Reformed branch of the Reformation gave to the modern world, to the past 500 years, that has made the

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Reformed faith so powerful for centuries in affecting culture and leading men to Christ and changing things.

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And that is, he showed us, Calvin particularly, but not just Calvin, he showed us how to read the

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Bible biblically, he showed us how to escape the old tyranny of the experts with allegorical interpretation, and showed us how to read and study the

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Bible as individual Christians. And it's called the grammatical -historical hermeneutic.

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That is, the grammatical -historical principle of Bible interpretation.

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Now, he's given us this gift, but in the 20th century, once again, among all the various other things we left in the past, much of the evangelicals and fundamentalist church left that in the past as well, because they developed a method of interpreting the

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Bible that they call a literal interpretation of the Bible. That everything in the

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Bible must be interpreted literally. No figures of speech, no similes, no metaphors, everything must be interpreted literally.

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Oh, I ask people who say that, where do they get that in the Bible? Where in the Bible does it say that we're to interpret everything literally?

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Everything is true. Every word of the Bible is true. But not every word of the

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Bible is literal, some of it's figures of speech. And one of the most important things to bear in mind when we study the

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Bible, and this grammatical -historical approach to scriptures, is to make sure we understand what kind of literary genre it is we're studying.

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That is, what kind of literature is this? Now, I mean, you can finish that thought if you want, but I wanted to ask you a question about that very thing that you were talking about, the literal interpretation.

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Have you completed what you were going to say? Go right ahead. Does anybody, no matter what they claim, does anybody really have that kind of a hermeneutic?

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For instance, fundamentalists, especially when you're considering independent fundamentalist

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Baptists, many of whom are very dear friends of mine, by the way, and some of them have even been guests on this program.

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But they are well -known for being extremely, and rightfully so, very opposed to Roman Catholicism.

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And the Roman Catholics take pride in being, in their minds, the only ones who take literally

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Christ's references to his body and blood in the

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Lord's Supper, or the Eucharist, or what they would call the Mass. And, of course, a fundamentalist, an independent fundamentalist

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Baptist is not going to agree with the Roman Catholics on that. He would agree that that's a picture that Jesus is using.

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So if you could just comment on what I just said there. Well, I agree with you. There is nobody who takes the

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Bible literally. They think they do, not only with reference to that passage you just brought out, but the great passage that says, and I'll come back to this a little later, that the

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Lord covers us with his feathers. What kind of feathers does God have?

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And even in the book of Revelation, I don't know of any independent fundamentalist Baptist that takes all of those bizarre, even, images that John saw in his

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Revelations. I don't know of any independent fundamentalist Baptist who takes those literally.

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Not even Hal Lindsey. But it's important, when we do come to Scripture, because there are some passages that we do take literally.

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For instance, the first kind of literature we come to when we open the Bible is historical narrative.

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You look at Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Luke, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th.

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They look like a history book. Because they are a history book. And so how do you read a history book?

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You read a history book as if it's telling you literally what took place. And so when it talks about Adam and Eve, talks about Abraham, Isaac, talks about Moses, the children of Israel, the

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Exodus, occupation of Canaan, and all the rest, it's actually and literally recording historical events.

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And that's the way you refute, one of the ways you refute the people that come to the first two chapters of Genesis and say it's poetry.

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And therefore, the first two chapters of Genesis are not to be taken literally. They are to be taken symbolically.

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And so they don't really talk about the world created in six days and all the rest. Well, that's imposing a man's view on Scripture.

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It's not poetry. It doesn't have the earmarks of Hebrew poetry. And it's a part of the historical narrative of the

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Old Testament. So it's important to know what you're talking about, what kind of passage it is that you're studying.

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And if it's historical narrative, you take it as actually describing historical events that took place.

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And what I like to do, and it sounds so simplistic, but it is this simple, is when somebody says he takes the

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Genesis not literally, I hold up my Bible and I turn it around and I flip some of the pages in Genesis and Exodus and I say, now does this look like poetry?

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I'm talking about English translation. Does this look like poetry to you? No, it doesn't look like poetry.

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It looks like history. All right, then I'll go to Isaiah or Jeremiah and I will say, now look at this.

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Does this look like poetry? In the New American Standard Version. And they will say, yes, it does look like poetry because it is poetry.

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And so it's important to know that Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, much of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the others is poetry.

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And one of the three earmarks of Hebrew poetry, I love studying

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Hebrew poetry. The earmarks are, and I'll talk about each one of these real quickly, Hebrew poetry did not care whether or not every other line rhymed.

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It had no concern for an ambiguent amateur that it, three things.

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One, it liked couplets, parallelisms. It liked to say two sentences and point out some relationship between those two sentences.

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Let me give you an example, just random in the book of Proverbs. In the book of Proverbs, chapter 12, verse 7, it says, the wicked are overthrown and are no more, but the house of the righteous will stand.

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So there's two lines, and it's the relationship between the two that explains it.

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The first line says, the wicked don't have a future, that they're going to be overthrown.

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But in contrast to that, on the other hand, Christian families will stand and will flourish.

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Or here's another one. Proverbs 14 line, the wise woman builds her house, but the foolish woman tears it down with her own hands.

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So here you see the relationship of the first line to the second line, is the first line makes a statement, and the second line shows the opposite of it.

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Wise woman builds her house, but on the other hand, a foolish woman tears it down.

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And another kind, it says in Proverbs 14, verse 19, the evil men will bow down before the good, and the wicked will bow down at the gates of the righteous.

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So you see what that's saying is that the second line is not in opposition to the first. The second line is an expansion of the first line.

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So what's a great study and a thrilling study is to go through Psalms, or particularly Proverbs, and look and see how these couplets, these parallelisms, explain each other.

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There's three different times. One, the second line is the opposite of the first line.

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Two, the second line is an illustration of the first line. Or three, the second line expands the thought of the first line.

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So Hebrew poetry is parallelism.

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Secondly, Hebrew poetry uses a lot of imagery.

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Similes, metaphors, all kinds of figures of speech.

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Like one we just used just a while ago, the Lord shall cover him with his feathers.

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Now obviously that is a metaphor. God's not a bird, he doesn't have feathers.

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But it's not less true, because it's a figure of speech, than it would be if it were a literal statement.

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It's not just, in other words, figurative statements in the Bible are not less true than literal statements.

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That verse that says the Lord shall cover them with his feathers, what is a literal statement of that?

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It says, the literal statement, God protects his children.

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Well that's a wonderful thought. But how much more vivid is the statement, the

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Lord shall cover them with his feathers. What you have is a picture of an old mother hen.

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And she has all these little chicks and they're running around everywhere. And she looks like she's not paying any attention to them.

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And she has this low cackling sound and they're not paying any attention to her. But then she sees a hawk, the shadow of a hawk.

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And all of a sudden this low cackling turns into a loud squawk. And all these little chicks dive under her wings and she ruffles her feathers and spreads her wings out.

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And it's a ferocious looking sight. The Lord shall cover them with his feathers.

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So you see, a metaphorical statement, a figure of speech, is not less true in the

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Bible than a literal statement. So you have historical narrative, actual literal history.

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You have poetry sections, which is a great section of the Old Testament. And they're marked by parallelisms, a lot of imagery, and thirdly, hyperbole.

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Hyperbole is when you exaggerate something to make a point. And there's a lot of hyperbole in the poetry sections of the

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Old Testament that's exaggerated on purpose to impress you with the point that's being made.

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But that's not the only two kinds of literature. You also have parables. And parables, you've got to know how to interpret the parable, particularly in the

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Gospels. The parables are not historical narrative. Parables are not poetry.

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They're a form of literature called parables. And they take various truths and put them in a homey form that people can remember.

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So Jesus taught in parables. Parables are not usually allegories.

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That is, when you come to a parable, you don't look for meaning in every phrase and every description in the parable.

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Parables, when you come to a parable, you want to consider the particular situation that's being addressed by that parable.

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The actual story of the parable. And then the one point the parable is making.

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Don't look normally for a bunch of points. Look for one point that that parable is making.

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Because those are the rules for interpreting parables. Let's just go to Matthew 13.

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Matthew 13, you have all kinds of Jesus parables. And you could go all day studying this passage of Scripture.

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Not only all day, but years. Understand why Jesus taught parables.

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Jesus is putting the truth in some kind of pithy little statement. Homey little illustration.

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He taught in parables according to Matthew 13, 14 through 15, so that his people would know the truth.

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And those on the outside of his kingdom would not know the truth. And gee, he said to them, you will keep on hearing but will not understand.

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You'll keep on seeing but will not perceive. For the heart of his people has become dull. And with their ears they scarcely hear.

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And they've closed their eyes, left. They should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and return.

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And I should heal them, but blest are your eyes, because they see. And your ears, because they hear.

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So we need to understand why Jesus taught with parables. And that is so that by the power of the

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Holy Spirit, his people would be blessed to understand the truth. And those in rebellion against him would continue to be closed to it.

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Now let me give you another important thing about parables. Most of the parables are about the kingdom of God.

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And they all make one of three points on the kingdom of God. Mark 1 15 says,

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Behold, the kingdom of God is at hand. So the kingdom of God entered history with the entrance of the king of the kingdom 2 ,000 years ago.

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And it's been active and operative in this world ever since Jesus appeared.

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And the fact that we're Christians is proof of that. That our rebel hearts have been transformed by the power of that kingdom.

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And we've been made citizens of it. And most of the parables are about the kingdom of God.

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Either number one, the entrance of the kingdom of God, the coming of the kingdom of God 2 ,000 years ago when

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Jesus came. Or two, the growth of the kingdom throughout history.

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Or three, the consummation of the kingdom at the end of time. Let me give you two little familiar parables.

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It says in verse 31 of Matthew 13. He presented another parable to them saying,

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The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field.

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And this is smaller than all the other seeds. But when it is full grown, it's larger than the garden plants.

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And becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches. He spoke another parable to them.

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The kingdom of heaven is like lemon, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of meal until it was all lemon.

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So there's two simple little parables. But boy, have they been abused and misused throughout the centuries. But it's obvious.

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He says, here's what the kingdom of heaven is like. It starts out like a little mustard seed.

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Unimpressive. It's like Jesus. Birth in Bethlehem. Not too impressive.

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But it started out very unimpressive. But throughout the centuries, it grew and grew and grew and will continue to grow.

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Becomes the largest tree in the garden. Or the kingdom of heaven is like a lemon, some yeast.

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And once you work it in the dough, it's going to continue to affect that loaf of dough until every aspect has been lemon.

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So here you have, you see, two parables illustrating the growth of the kingdom in history.

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The first growth has to do with its size in comparison to other movements and institutions.

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The second parable has reference to the way that the kingdom of God grows and impacts culture and hearts from within.

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So there's just a couple little examples of how you look at a parable.

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You consider the situation that's being addressed. You try to understand the best you can the parable.

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And then you look for one main point. So there's historical narrative.

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There's poetry. There's parables. There's prophecy. In fact, let's pick up like we left off there on prophecy because we have to go to our first break.

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If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -C -E -N at gmail .com. Please, as always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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And we do open up the ability for our listeners to ask pastoral questions of a guest when we do have a pastor on the program.

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So we will accept questions outside of the scope of exactly what we're talking about, but we hope to primarily get questions about the subject today, how to read the

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Bible biblically. chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages with more of Joseph C.

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Moorcraft III and how to read your Bible biblically. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and always.

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Are you tired of looking for the silver bullet when it comes to health and wellness? Are you frustrated with the medical status quo which masks symptoms and doesn't treat the root problem of sickness?

36:00

More importantly, are you looking for one of the most unique books ever written which gives you safe, low -cost, and proven options to regain your health the way

36:09

God intended? Then look no further than my new book, Health for All of Life, a medical manifesto of hope and healing for the nations.

36:16

Hi, I'm Jason Garwood, and I'm a husband, father, pastor, and writer whose passion for helping people led me to write this book.

36:23

If 2020 has proven anything, it's that big pharma, big tech, and big government knows nothing about how to treat people naturally without poisoning them with synthetic drugs and experimental vaccines.

36:34

But what if God has given us a better way? What if we can take the Christian worldview found in the Bible and apply it to health and wellness?

36:40

My book, Health for All of Life, does just that. You can find this exciting new book on Amazon. Pick up a copy for yourself and for your friends and family.

36:48

Give the gift of health and don't be a dead end to truth. And Jason M. Garwood is going to be our guest again for Part 2 of his discussion on Health for All of Life, a medical manifesto of hope and healing for the nations, this

37:03

Friday, right here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio. So mark your calendars and tune in and send in questions for Dr.

37:11

Jason M. Garwood on Health for All of Life this Friday. We are now back with Dr.

37:17

Joseph C. Moorcraft III, and we are discussing how to read the

37:22

Bible biblically. If you have questions for Dr. Moorcraft, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

37:29

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

37:38

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. And Dr.

37:43

Moorcraft, right before the break, you reached the point where you were giving another thing that the

37:51

Holy Scriptures contain as prophecy. Yes, sir. We were making the point that one of the first things you've got to bear in mind when you read the

37:59

Bible is that it all depends upon the nature of the literary genre of the passage you're considering as to how you interpret it.

38:10

We've talked about historical narrative, we've talked about poetry, we have talked about parables, and now we're about to talk about prophecy.

38:19

How do you interpret the prophecies of the Old Testament? And there's three things to bear in mind.

38:26

Number one, you go through these prophecies and you'll notice that over and over the prophet is calling

38:32

God's people back to the law of God and Moses, calling them to repent and to return to obedience to that law.

38:42

Second thing is they always point to a glorious future of the people of God, saying, in fact, if you return to that law, if you conform your life to it, if you believe in the

38:53

Messiah, then there is a glorious future awaiting you. And then also on earth and after this history in eternity.

39:03

And then thirdly, the prophets write in such a way that they could communicate to the people of their day.

39:09

So they used imagery and idioms that the people to whom they were writing would understand.

39:19

And so when we come to a prophecy in the Old Testament, we ask ourselves, how did the people that heard this, how did they understand it?

39:29

And then we seek to apply that to the future, for instance. There are prophecies in the

39:34

Old Testament that says that there's going to be the rebuilding of the temple. But when we get to the

39:41

New Testament, we find that the prophecies are the destruction of the temple and the destruction of Jerusalem.

39:49

And now the temple of God is the body of Christ, the covenant community, the church of the

39:55

Lord Jesus Christ. So all those prophecies in the Old Testament that talk about the rebuilding of a temple doesn't mean there's going to be a literal rebuilding of a temple in Jerusalem.

40:06

Isaiah, etc., had to use words they understood to explain the future.

40:11

So that's where the dispensationalists and even the historic premillennialists are taking something literally from the

40:18

Old Testament or the Hebrew scriptures that should not be taken literally. That's exactly right.

40:24

They should be taken the way the New Testament interprets them. So that we see these prophecies, and then we see how are they interpreted in the

40:33

New Testament. And over and over again, for instance, Jesus said that his body is the temple of God and those that believe in him are part of that temple.

40:47

So the temple now in this earth that God has built is the church of the

40:52

Lord Jesus Christ. And a lot of the names for Old Testament Israel are now given to the church in the

41:00

New Testament. So remember those three things when you read the prophecies of the Old Testament. They're calling people back to the law of God, calling people forward to a great future for the kingdom of God as they live in conformity to God's word.

41:16

And then they make these prophecies with ideas that any of the people of the

41:22

Old Testament would understand. And then we look to the New Testament to see how we're understanding today.

41:28

Then there's another kind of literature in the Bible. And it's law. It's not historical narrative. It's not poetry.

41:33

It's not parables. It's not prophecy. It's law. Like in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

41:39

So how do we interpret that law? Well, we understand that the Ten Commandments are foundational law to everything that God has instructed his people to do in terms of right and wrong throughout the history of the world.

41:54

Every law, every proverb, every historical example, every prophetic exhortation, every teaching of Jesus, every encouragement and admonition in the epistle of the

42:07

New Testament, everything is based upon those ten great weeping universals that are never to be disobeyed and that are to be applied and lived by in every generation.

42:21

Then, in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, there are a host of little laws called case laws.

42:29

And these case laws are practical applications or illustrations of one or more of the

42:36

Ten Commandments to show how you apply them. Because remember, the Ten Commandments are broad principles.

42:42

And God didn't leave us to interpret those principles without practical illustrations. So he gave us this host of little laws to show us exactly how they are to be obeyed.

42:54

We call them case laws. And how do you interpret those little case laws?

43:00

Well, the best way I know to explain it is to remind you of 1

43:05

Corinthians 9, which is one of my favorite passages of the Bible because it says, pay the preacher.

43:11

And in that passage of Scripture, Paul says, allow a preacher to live by his preaching.

43:20

For it stands written, and it's in a perfect tense, which means it was written in the

43:26

Old Testament and it still stands to the party to this very day. It stands written in the

43:32

Old Testament Deuteronomy. Do not muzzle an ox while it's threshing. Well, that's one of those little laws.

43:40

So when it comes to those little case laws, you ask yourself, what exactly is being forbidden here? And secondly, what commandment is it an illustration or an application of?

43:54

So what in the world does don't muzzle an ox while it's threshing have to do with allowing a preacher to live by his preaching?

44:03

And here's how you do it. What's being forbidden? You have oxen that are grinding out the wheat, add a corn, and you don't put a muzzle on them.

44:20

So they can eat some of the flour, some of the meal, some of the wheat, some of the corn, and are able to live by their labor, so to speak.

44:31

And you put a muzzle on an ox, you're not allowing it to live by its labor.

44:38

Hence, you're stealing from the ox. So the commandment, thou shalt not steal, is illustrated in the little case law, don't muzzle an ox while it's threshing.

44:50

Now the point is in 1 Corinthians, that if it's stealing from the ox not to allow him to live by his work, how much more is it stealing from the preacher not allowing him to live by his preaching?

45:08

So that's one of the most important things we can learn about the law of God. Ten broad generalizations that apply in every situation and a host of these case laws that are practical applications of one or more of the

45:23

Ten Commandments. Now what you are saying reminds me of a very humorous occurrence that I can remember.

45:33

The radio station where I worked for 15 years, part of the largest

45:38

Christian radio network in the world, Salem Communications, or Salem Media, as it's sometimes called, they used to have events that frequently included pastors and churches and ministries that were on the polar opposite end of the theological spectrum where I am.

46:01

And I would often feel frustrated, embarrassed, or I could go on and on with adjectives.

46:08

But I remember one of our major events that we had where there were a lot of different preachers invited to speak.

46:17

One of them was a dear man. I really enjoyed him. He has since gone home to be with the

46:24

Lord. He was a Jewish believer, but charismatic and very egalitarian in his understanding of authority in the church.

46:35

He believed that women had just as much right to be pastors and preachers as men.

46:41

And in order to convey that idea, he did it in a way that I think must have highly offended every woman in the audience when he was speaking.

46:52

He said, I'm so sick and tired of all these really right -wing conservative preachers out there who are saying that women have no business preaching in the church.

47:04

Oh, come on now. God made Balaam's ass speak. Oh, no.

47:13

I'd shoot a hole in my cheek trying not to laugh. But that would be an improper way of using an

47:22

Old Testament story. Yeah, correct. There's one other type of literature

47:31

I want to talk about, unless people have questions, and that is the book of Revelation.

47:37

Gary DeMar talked about this yesterday on your program. But the book of Revelation, people are scared of it.

47:43

It just seems so mysterious. Of course, everything about the Bible is a mystery because the word mystery in the

47:51

Bible, mysterium, means something that's completely unknown except by divine revelation.

47:59

So the Bible is mystery. That is the infant mind of God revealing what this finite mind would never know had

48:09

God not revealed it. And the book of Revelation is mystery in that sense.

48:15

But it's not incomprehensible in the sense that it can be interpreted. It was given to us to read and to study and to live by and to rejoice in.

48:27

Yes, the average person today wants the book of Revelation about. And he'll tell you it's about the

48:33

Antichrist. I've had that said to me many, many times. And then I love to point out to them that the word

48:39

Antichrist never occurs in the book of Revelation. That's right. Not even once.

48:46

And that the basic hermeneutic principles, remember that word, hermeneutic principles of biblical interpretation, the basic principles for interpreting the book of Revelation are found in the first three verses of the book.

48:59

And if we would just take seriously what the book of Revelation itself says how it's to be interpreted, then the book of Revelation would be open to us and could thrill our souls.

49:11

Let me just show you. The first three verses of Revelation chapter 1. The revelation of Jesus Christ.

49:19

That's the first thing. That the book of Revelation is about Christ. Who would want to know about Christ if they loved

49:25

Him? It's not some mysterious chart or chronology. It's a revelation of Christ and who

49:30

Christ is. Which God gave Him, that is

49:36

Christ, Christ to show to His bondservants the things which will shortly take place and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bondservant

49:48

John. Now it's that word communicated that I want to point out. The King James has signified.

49:56

And let's mispronounce signified and we'll see what that word communicated or signified means.

50:01

Signified. So the word signify in the King James, the word communicated in the

50:07

New American Standard means to write in signs and symbols and figures of speech.

50:15

So right from the very beginning it tells you don't take the book of Revelation literally. It talks about the seven spirits before the throne.

50:24

Does that mean there's God the Father, God the Son and seven Holy Spirits? No. That the book of Revelation is to be interpreted truly.

50:32

Every word of it is true. But it's not to be interpreted literally. It's written in metaphors and signs and figures of speech and thrilling imagery.

50:44

So when you come to the book of Revelation bear that in mind. That look for figures of speech.

50:51

Most of which figures of speech and metaphors are used previously and explained somewhere else in the

50:58

Old Testament or the New Testament. So you can't read the book of Revelation by itself. In fact we're going to have to pick up right where you left off there.

51:06

We have to go to our midway break and I hope that you all will be patient because as you know if you listen to this show every day our midway break is longer than the other breaks in the show because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

51:18

FM in Lake City, Florida requires a longer break in the middle of our show. They air this program twice in the pre -recorded format and they are required by the

51:28

FCC to localize Iron Trump and Zion Radio and all of their programming to Lake City, Florida geographically so they air their own public service announcements and other local things during the middle break in our show.

51:42

While they do that we simultaneously have our globally heard commercials aired.

51:48

And so therefore I'm asking you please don't fast forward if you're listening to this on a recording.

51:55

Don't fast forward through all the commercials every day. I can understand that. Maybe if you do that most of the time, that's okay.

52:01

But please don't do it every day because we only exist other than by the grace of God we only exist through the financial support of our advertisers.

52:15

So please make our advertisers want to remain our advertisers by patronizing them as much as you can.

52:22

And the way that you will most frequently and successfully do that is if you have the information they provide in their advertisements.

52:29

So please write down as much of the advertising information as you can for as many of our advertisers as you can.

52:41

And respond to them and patronize them. And even when you can't patronize them in the literal sense by purchasing their products using their services visiting their churches and other things please at least respond to them if you love this show and thank them for sponsoring this show.

53:00

That may go a long way even if you can't actually purchase their products, use their services or visit their churches.

53:07

So please at least thank them for sponsoring the show. Also send in questions for Dr.

53:13

Joseph C. Moorcraft III on our topic today which is How to Read the

53:18

Bible Biblically and send them to chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back with Dr.

53:24

Joseph C. Moorcraft III and more of our discussion on How to Read the Bible Biblically.

53:33

Here's what Gary DeMar, President of American Vision, had to say about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio recently.

53:40

Good to be back Chris, I always enjoy our time here. I have to tell you, you're one of the better interviewers out there and I've been doing this for 30, more than 30 years.

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Wow, that's some compliment. How much do I owe you for that? You don't have to owe me anything.

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We're in good shape. I'm glad you said it on the air so I don't have to brag about myself.

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Tell your friends and loved ones about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio airing live Monday through Friday 4 -6pm

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Long Island Youth for Christ has been a stalwart bedrock ministry since 1959. We have a world -class staff and a proven track record of bringing consistent love and encouragement to youths in need all over the country and around the world.

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Help honor our history by becoming a part of our future. Volunteer, donate, pray, or all of the above.

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For details, call Long Island Youth for Christ at 631 -385 -8333 that's 631 -385 -8333 or visit liyfc .org

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that's liyfc .org Was your business shut down during the

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It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people in healing.

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We're a diverse family of all ages. Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ. In fellowship, play, and together.

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Call Linbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402 That's 516 -599 -9402

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Or visit linbrookbaptist .org That's linbrookbaptist .org Iron Sharpens Iron Radio depends upon the financial support of fine

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Christian organizations to remain on the air, like the Historical Bible Society. The Historical Bible Society maintains a collection of Christian books, manuscripts, and Bibles of historical significance spanning nearly a thousand years.

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The mission of HBS is the preservation and public display of ancient Scripture, dissemination of Scripture, to provide tools equipping believers in Christian apologetics with evidence for the

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today. Thank you, Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law, for your faithful support of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:00:13

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries and the Dividing Line webcast here. Although God has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach, preach, and debate at numerous venues, some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with Pastor Rich Jensen and the brethren at Hope Reform Baptist Church, now located at their new, beautiful facilities in Corham, Long Island, New York.

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I've had the privilege of opening God's Word from their pulpit on many occasions, have led youth retreats for them, and have always been thrilled to see their members filling many seats at my

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New York debates. I do not hesitate to highly recommend Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, to anyone who wants to be accurately taught, discipled, and edified by the

01:00:54

Holy Scriptures, and to be surrounded by truly loving and caring brothers and sisters in Christ.

01:00:59

I also want to congratulate Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham for their recent appointment of Pastor Rich Jensen's co -elder,

01:01:05

Pastor Christopher McDowell. For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net

01:01:13

That's hopereformedli .net or call 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 consider

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Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions, while always defending the key doctrines of the

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Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet where folk won't be led astray.

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I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise and yet God has raised

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Chris up for just such a time. And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

01:04:41

I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

01:04:46

Iron Sharpens Iron financially. Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

01:05:25

The church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

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Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshipped and how he shall be represented in the world.

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They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship

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God in spirit and truth. Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a

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God -centered focus, reading, preaching, and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

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Baptism and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy, and sobriety.

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Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace

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or call them at 908 -422 -4222. That's 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654.

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Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Are you tired of looking for the silver bullet when it comes to health and wellness?

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01:07:05

God intended? Then look no further than my new book, Health for All of Life, a medical manifesto of hope and healing for the nations.

01:07:12

Hi, I'm Jason Garwood, and I'm a husband, father, pastor, and writer whose passion for helping people led me to write this book.

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If 2020 has proven anything, it's that Big Pharma, Big Tech, and Big Government knows nothing about how to treat people naturally without poisoning them with synthetic drugs and experimental vaccines.

01:07:30

But what if God has given us a better way? What if we can take the Christian worldview found in the Bible and apply it to health and wellness?

01:07:37

My book, Health for All of Life, does just that. You can find this exciting new book on Amazon. Pick up a copy for yourself and for your friends and family.

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A Declaration of Love, Classic Exposition of John 3, 16, and that's by Samuel Davies.

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And this modern edition has a preface by my dear friend, Dr. Michael Haken. So if you go to solid -ground -books .com,

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solid -ground -books .com, and if you type in the search engine Davies, D -A -V as in victory,

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I -E -S, both of those books and others will come up. And please always remember, whenever you order books from solid -ground -books .com,

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to mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Truckman's Iron Radio. They are a premier, a primary, a vital sponsor of this program.

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Without their financial support through their advertising campaigns, we would likely not exist, barring a miracle from God.

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So please support them as often as you can, and purchase frequently and generously from solid -ground -books .com.

01:12:48

Before we return to Dr. Joseph C. Moorecraft III with more of our discussion on how to read the

01:12:54

Bible biblically, we just have a few important announcements to make. Tomorrow on this program, our guest is going to be a very close friend of our guest,

01:13:05

Dr. Joseph C. Moorecraft III. In fact, Dr. Moorecraft is the one that referred me to this individual whom

01:13:12

I had never heard of before. I have already interviewed him since that introduction by Dr.

01:13:19

Moorecraft to him, but now we have him returning for the second time to discuss biblical romance.

01:13:26

What does the Bible say about finding a spouse? And this is none other than the author,

01:13:33

Philip Kaiser, of whom I speak. Philip Kaiser is our guest on the program tomorrow just in time for Valentine's Day to discuss biblical romance.

01:13:43

What does the Bible say about finding a spouse? Then on Thursday, we have returning to the program,

01:13:52

Jim Osmond, and he is going to be addressing Part 2 of a discussion he began a number of weeks ago,

01:13:59

God Doesn't Whisper. This is a book that refutes, as a non -biblical way of understanding

01:14:08

God's truth, the reliance upon, in our modern day, extra -biblical revelation, still small voices, and other things that we do not believe, those of us who are cessationists, that is, do not believe, are a continued way that our

01:14:26

Lord communicates to his people. So I think you should listen to this program on Thursday, especially if you are among those people that still believe in ongoing extra -biblical revelation.

01:14:42

The foreword was written by none other than Dr. John MacArthur, so I think that if he put his name on this, it is well worth your getting a hold of yourself.

01:14:53

And then on Friday, we have returning to the program, somebody I already mentioned, and whose ads you've been hearing,

01:15:00

Dr. Jason M. Garwood, he is going to be returning for Part 2 of his discussion on Health for All Life, a

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Medical Manifesto of Hope and Healing for the Nations. Also, folks, if you love this show and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, please go to www .irontropensironradio

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.com, click to donate now, and donate as generously as you possibly can, and as frequently as you can.

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Those two things are commands of God to provide for your church and to provide for your family. Providing for my radio show is obviously not a command of God, but if you love the show, you don't want it to disappear, and you are blessed financially above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, providing for church and family, and you have money that you use for recreational purposes, you have money that you use to go to concerts, to go to the movies, to go to theatrical performances, to go to Bible conferences, to go out to fine dining, to go out to fast food restaurants, and on and on and on I could go, to go to your favorite sporting events.

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click support, then click click to donate now. If you want to advertise with us, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

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So send me that email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. I certainly could use your advertising dollars in a big way.

01:17:27

Lastly, if you are not a member of a local Bible believing church, a biblically sound church, no matter where in the world you live,

01:17:34

I may be able to help you find a church because I have lists of biblically sound churches all over the planet earth, and I have helped many people in our audience all over the globe find churches near them, sometimes just a few minutes away from their own houses that they didn't even know existed or they didn't know were biblically sound churches.

01:17:51

So you might be one of them if you send me an email with I need a church in the subject line, I may be able to help you find a church.

01:17:57

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line. It's also the email address where you can send in a question for Dr.

01:18:05

Joseph C. Moorcraft III on how to read the Bible biblically. Dr. Moorcraft, before I go to any of our listener questions, you were just beginning to discuss how we are to read the book of Revelation before we went to the break.

01:18:22

If we're going to understand the book of Revelation, we've got to read the first three verses of the first chapter.

01:18:31

It says it's the revelation of Jesus Christ, not of a chart, not of a chronology, but the revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which

01:18:40

God has communicated to John, the word communicated, the new

01:18:46

American standard version, which is signified in the King James, meaning to write in symbols and figures of speech.

01:18:54

And then the third thing to bear in mind is verse three, blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it for the time is near.

01:19:12

And then in the first verse, it said the revelation of Jesus Christ, the things which must shortly take place.

01:19:21

Now, you and I as constitutional conservatives believe in interpreting the

01:19:26

Constitution of the United States according to original intent, that we don't read our thoughts back into it.

01:19:32

We take the words of the Constitution of the United States and interpret it according to the original intent of those who wrote it.

01:19:39

And that's the only way to honestly read any historical document. So when we come to the book of Revelation or Romans or John or whatever book in the

01:19:48

Bible, we come to a book, the first thing we want to ask is not what does this mean to me? But the first thing to ask is what did this mean to the first century readers?

01:20:00

In fact, I have seen on quite a number of occasions, my dear friend, Dr. James R.

01:20:05

White of Alpha Omega Ministries, when he has been involved in debate with people who use the argument that the

01:20:12

Bible is a living book and therefore the meaning can change or at least the emphasis can change throughout the centuries.

01:20:21

And in our modern day, it could be saying something to us that it didn't say in the

01:20:27

Hebrew scriptures, original audience, etc. And he has said to these debate opponents, what would you do if I took your book, if they had written a book and began to interpret it in a way that you never dreamed or intended it to be interpreted?

01:20:44

That is good. So the question we ask is, what did John mean, intend for his original audience to understand by what he wrote?

01:20:55

And who was his original audience? It says in verse 4, John to the seven churches that are present in Asia.

01:21:02

So the 22 chapters of the book of Revelation were written to seven little congregations in Turkey.

01:21:10

And those congregations are mentioned in chapter 2 and chapter 3. And they were in existence in the early part, in the middle part of the first century.

01:21:19

And so when John says the churches, seven little churches, in the first half of the first century,

01:21:30

I'm going to write about things that must shortly take place. And the time is near.

01:21:38

Now, if I were to write to you a letter and I were to say, I'm going to write to you things that are surely take place.

01:21:44

You don't hear me say that I'm writing about things that are going to take place 2000 years in the future. I'm writing about things that relate to your life.

01:21:53

It'll take place in your lifetime or shortly thereafter. And so that's what he's saying to these people, to these seven churches in Asia Minor.

01:22:01

He's saying, I'm writing about things that must shortly take place with reference to you because the time is near with reference to you.

01:22:11

And so we ask, what did these signs and symbols mean to those seven churches in the first century?

01:22:20

And only then do we ask therefore what they mean to us. Now, the book of Revelation is about Jesus, the great victor, the great conqueror.

01:22:30

And he is conquering the two, in the book of Revelation, the two greatest enemies of the church in the first century.

01:22:38

And the two greatest enemies of the church in the first century were apostate Judaism, the first people to persecute the church.

01:22:45

And then later, the second great enemy of Rome, which is Rome. And so you have after an introduction in the book of Revelation, you have the first part of the main section about how

01:22:57

Jesus destroyed apostate Jerusalem. And then in the second part, you have Jesus destroying anti -Christian

01:23:05

Rome. So we ask ourselves, how does this relate to us now? Any religion, any apostate church that treats the church the way apostate

01:23:15

Judaism will have Jesus to answer to. And any anti -Christian tyrannical state that treats the church like Rome treated the church, particularly the first two and a half centuries, will face the same judgment that Rome faced at the hands of Jesus in the first century.

01:23:33

So that's where we start. That's how we read the book of Revelation. Rather than looking at everything relating to the second coming, you know,

01:23:42

Gary pointed out yesterday how the book of Revelation ends, even so come

01:23:48

Lord Jesus. And when the Greeks wrote something in the present tense, that denoted continuous action.

01:23:58

And so the way the book of Revelation ends is, we pray that you not only come and destroy

01:24:04

Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD, but we pray that you would keep on coming continuously

01:24:10

Lord Jesus throughout history. So that there are two physical comings of Christ.

01:24:16

The first physical coming was 2 ,000 years ago in Bethlehem. The second physical coming is at the end of the world.

01:24:23

In between, Christ intervenes into history providentially and by his spirit to judge his enemies, to judge his church, and to save his church, to exalt his church.

01:24:35

And so we've got to make sure that when we read the Bible, we define biblical terms biblically.

01:24:42

For instance, if you ask the average person today, do you believe we're in the last times, they would say yes.

01:24:49

And by the last days, they mean by that, that time period right before the second coming of Christ or the rapture at the end of the world.

01:24:57

But that's not the way the phrase the last days is used in the scriptures. Remember on the great day of Pentecost when everybody spoke in tongues, tongues of fire, came upon people's heads, the

01:25:08

Holy Spirit was poured out. Their critics laughed at them and said they're drunk. And Peter came up and defended them and said they are not drunk.

01:25:17

And then he says this, quote, this is that which is prophesied in the book of Joel, quote, in the last days, my spirit shall be poured out.

01:25:30

So Peter is saying that the last days were in effect on the day of Pentecost.

01:25:37

And then you have the writer of the book of Hebrews who says God spoke through the prophets a long time ago in bits and pieces.

01:25:47

But in these last days, he has spoken to us in his son.

01:25:54

And the writer of the book of Hebrews wrote that before 70 AD. And he believed he was in the last days.

01:26:02

So the last days is not a phrase that relates just to a short period of time at the end of the world.

01:26:09

The last days were already in effect in the first century and they continue to the second century.

01:26:15

Now some people believe the last days just mean the last days right of the first century, except there's prophecies in the

01:26:22

Old Testament too big to be fulfilled in those last days in the New Testament.

01:26:28

The Bible says in Isaiah 2 that in the last days they shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks.

01:26:35

They shall remember war, no war no more. The nation shall flood in the church and beg the church to teach them how to govern.

01:26:43

When did that happen? When did the lion lay down with the lamb in the first century in the Roman Empire in the Pax Romana?

01:26:49

It didn't, but it's going to. So we've got to make sure that we define biblical words biblically.

01:26:58

Now there's one other important thing that we have to do when it comes to understanding the scriptures.

01:27:04

And I tell people, you can't understand the English Bible unless you know

01:27:10

English grammar. And it is astounding to me how little

01:27:17

Americans know about English grammar. I think not only do we fail to understand the scriptures, but some of the false doctrines that are around today result from not understanding grammar, not understanding subject, predicate, tense of the verb, propositions, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives.

01:27:40

I'll give you one example. The classic verse of the charismatic movement in defending their case is

01:27:50

Acts chapter 5 verse 32, which says in the

01:27:57

New American Standard Version, and we are witnesses of these things. And so is the Holy Spirit whom

01:28:03

God has given to those who obey him. And they say, there's the verse.

01:28:10

There is the verse where it says that God will give the Holy Spirit to those who obey him.

01:28:18

As a matter of fact, it doesn't say any such thing. They don't even see the grammar.

01:28:26

It doesn't say, so is the Holy Spirit whom God will give to those who obey him.

01:28:33

The first verb is a past tense. The next verb is a present tense. So is the Holy Spirit whom

01:28:39

God has given past tense to those who obey present tense him.

01:28:45

So it's not that you have to obey the Holy Spirit in order for God to give you the

01:28:50

Holy Spirit. The point is, you can't obey God until, first of all,

01:28:56

God gives you the Holy Spirit. So it says exactly the opposite of what the charismatic says it says, because they don't pay any attention to the grammar.

01:29:08

So we've got to watch out for past tense, present tense, future tense. We've got to know about pronouns.

01:29:16

I'll give you one in Romans 8. A pronoun stands in the place of a noun.

01:29:23

So when you see a pronoun like he, us, them, she, it, whatever,

01:29:29

I, you look somewhere earlier for a noun that that pronoun represents.

01:29:38

So here's a verse that Armenians use to defend the fact that Jesus died to save everybody in the whole wide world.

01:29:45

But as a matter of fact, it says exactly the opposite. In verse 32 of Romans 8, it says, he who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all.

01:29:58

Us all. That's everybody in the whole wide world. Well, you can make all the assertions you want to make, but you have to ask yourself, to whom does the pronoun us refer?

01:30:10

But he says, he did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all. Verse 31, he uses it again.

01:30:18

What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? We go up to verse 29.

01:30:24

For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

01:30:32

And whom he predestined, these he also called. Whom he called, these he also justified. Whom he justified, these he also glorified.

01:30:40

If God is for us, who is against us, he who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all.

01:30:47

The us. Are those whom God foreknew, God predestined, God called, God justified, and God glorified.

01:30:55

So that verse, gave himself, delivered his son up for us all, is not supporting that idea that Jesus died for everybody.

01:31:04

But that he was delivered up by God on the cross for all of us, whom

01:31:10

God foreknew and predestined and called and justified and glorified.

01:31:17

Now, the other point is, the word foreknew.

01:31:23

Our Arminian friends like to say, see here, here is the proof of Arminianism.

01:31:30

Verse 29, for whom God foreknew, he also predestined. And so therefore,

01:31:36

God's predestining people is a result of God foreknowing who would believe and who wouldn't.

01:31:45

So that God foresaw into the future who would believe, and then based upon what he foresaw they would do, conditioned upon what he foresaw they would do, he predestined them to be his children.

01:32:02

Well, that is a perversion of scripture. That's taking Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary and defining words by it, rather than defining the words biblically.

01:32:14

For whom he foreknew, what does the word know mean in the Bible? Intimacy? Yes, sir.

01:32:21

It's almost synonymous with love. For instance, in Genesis, I think it's chapter 4, it says, in the

01:32:29

King James Version, which although I like the New American Standard better, King James is more accurate on this verse. It says,

01:32:36

Adam knew his wife and she conceived. Now, if all that word know means is that Adam intellectually comprehended his wife, she would never conceive.

01:32:52

It means more. It means Adam knew his wife, Adam made her the object of his loving affections, and she conceived.

01:33:01

So the word know in the New Testament is not to be defined according to Greek philosophy, but according to the

01:33:09

Hebrew of the Old Testament, which informs all the thoughts of the New Testament. So what it really says here in verse 29, is whom

01:33:17

God foreknew, that is, whom God set his love upon from all eternity, those he predestined to become conformed to the image of his

01:33:29

Son. Yes, and just like in Matthew, where you have Christ saying to false converts, be gone,

01:33:39

I never knew you, you workers of unrighteousness, if you were to take it the way an

01:33:45

Arminian takes knowing, that would mean that Jesus Christ had limited knowledge.

01:33:52

Right, and to me that's one of the most solemn verses of the Bible. Jesus said,

01:33:58

Lord, Lord, did we not perform miracles in your behalf? And Jesus said, depart from you, me,

01:34:04

I never made you the object of my loving affections. So we've got to make sure we define biblical words biblically.

01:34:14

And so you watch for verbs, you watch for subjects, you watch for pronouns, and you watch for conjunctions.

01:34:20

And we have to go to a final break, and when we come back, you can finish your point, and we should take some listener questions before we go off the air.

01:34:29

And our email address, if you'd like to join us, is chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:34:35

Don't go away, we're going to be right back, right after these messages from our sponsors. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

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Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

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If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe ten minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio depends upon the financial support of fine Christian organizations to remain on the air, like the

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Historical Bible Society. The Historical Bible Society maintains a collection of Christian books, manuscripts, and Bibles of historical significance spanning nearly a thousand years.

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And don't forget, folks, with a donation to the Historical Bible Society of $35 or more, you will receive absolutely free of charge a 44 -page book, 9x12 in dimension, that are prints, each page is a print directly from a first edition 1611

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historicalbiblesociety .org. We are now back with Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III.

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We are discussing how to read the Bible biblically, and if you want to pick up where you left off, Dr. Moorcraft, then we'll take some listener questions.

01:44:38

Just very quickly, I want to talk about conjunction. Conjunctions are connective words, like but, that, therefore, wherefore, thus, for, etc.

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And I would encourage your listeners tonight to go to the Romans, the 8th chapter. Almost every verse, but one or two, begins with a conjunction.

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So that if you don't observe the conjunctions, the but, therefore, for, there's no way you're going to understand the 8th chapter of Romans.

01:45:15

So there's more I could say, but I want to go to the questions. All right, we have

01:45:20

Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, and Bobby says, I was wondering if you agree,

01:45:27

Joe, with your host, Chris Arnzen. Chris has said on a number of occasions that he believes that Arminians misunderstand the references in the scripture of God's love toward the world, because they are not understanding the fact that in the day the scriptures were written, the people of God were nearly exclusively from the nation of Israel.

01:45:52

And therefore, it was a startling and alarming and amazing thing that the gospel was being extended to the

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Gentile nations as well, and that the Gentiles were being added in to the body of Christ.

01:46:07

Therefore, they don't understand that that is what is being most often referred to when it is referring to Christ's love for the world, not that every single person is equally loved by God or has an opportunity to be saved because he died for each and every one of them.

01:46:22

Yeah, that's pretty accurate in the way he described my view. Yes, sir, I would say the word world throughout

01:46:28

John's writing predominantly means mankind in rebellion against God without any reference to Jew or Gentile.

01:46:36

If they're more than Jew, they're Gentiles, but it's society in rebellion against God. And the problem with Arminianism at root is it has an unbiblical view of God, and therefore, it's going to misunderstand

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John 3. They say, see how big God's love is, that it is big enough to embrace every single person on the planet

01:46:58

Earth. Well, if that's what John 3 .16 says, it doesn't say a thing. That's like saying, come and watch the world's strongest man as he proves to you how strong he is by bending over and lifting up a toothpick.

01:47:15

And so John 3 .16 is not about the quantity of God's love, it's about the quality of God's love, and you can see that if you just move around the word so.

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You don't say to your wife, I so love you. You say, I love you so. So for God loved the world so that he gave his only begotten son, it's talking about the quality of God's love that is able to embrace something as filthy and as vile and as undeserving as this world with no reference to numbers.

01:47:53

And just to further clarify, the listener, I believe he was saying that most people, and that would be

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Arminians especially, get this wrong because they are reading the

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Bible purely from a modern context, especially in a place like America where we are all about equal rights and all kinds of things.

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We don't typically understand the origins of the church, how at the time when the

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Gentiles were being added, this was an amazing thing. We don't see the amazing aspect of Gentiles being included in the church today.

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We see it, I mean, praise the Lord. And the reason we don't is because since he made those words 2 ,000 years ago, the church has been largely composed of Gentiles.

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And we assume that the history of the early church was just like we are today. America thinks the past and Christianity has always believed what they believed.

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Whereas American Christianity by and large is a stagnant, shallow pool. And they don't realize that it is a river that has been flowing for thousands of years.

01:49:03

And we have been sidetracked and we have become arrogant. We've seen the democratization of Christianity with the emphasis put on human autonomy rather than on God's sovereignty.

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And so we've lost the idea that God is sovereign, that he has mercy on whom he has mercy, he has compassion upon whom he has compassion, and he hardens whom he will.

01:49:26

That's a direct quote out of Romans 9. Well, guess what,

01:49:32

Bobby in Hartsdale? You have won, and this is going to take a while for you to get it, but our friend

01:49:38

Tim Renshaw at Comprehensive Christianity is providing the promise of free copies of this book that we are addressing,

01:49:47

How to Read the Bible Biblically, but they're not in print yet. So you're going to have to be patient and wait a month or two, maybe a little bit more.

01:49:54

But as soon as these are in print, you will get a free copy because of your question today.

01:50:01

And we thank ComprehensiveChristianity .com, ComprehensiveChristianity .com and Tim Renshaw for providing these books or at least for the time being promising to provide these books.

01:50:13

And we thank CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service will be the one shipping the book out to you.

01:50:19

We have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, and he asks the question, you were referring to the use of the term last day as not being something future, but would you not believe that John 6, 40, where it says, everyone who looks to the son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day, is a future context of the future and final resurrection of the dead at the final coming of Christ?

01:50:50

I preached on that very text two weeks ago. I didn't say last day.

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I said the last days, plural, is a phrase that does not in the

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New Testament refer to a period of time before the last day. The last day is when

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Jesus Christ comes back to earth. But the last days, according to Hebrews 1 and Acts 2, were already in place on the day of Pentecost, and when the author of the book of Hebrews wrote his book.

01:51:25

But you're right about the last day. It is the second coming of Christ. Great, and guess what,

01:51:32

Ronald? You've also won a free copy of the book, or at least you're being promised to receive it.

01:51:37

So be patient, and CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service will ship that out to you.

01:51:43

We have Joseph in south -central Pennsylvania, and he says,

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Do you think that a part of the reason why so many fundamentalists and more conservative folks among us don't interpret the

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Bible accurately is because they have a false understanding of the sufficiency of Scripture, something that we wholeheartedly believe as Reformed Christians, but at the same time we do not believe in solo scriptura.

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In other words, we make use of the writings of godly men and brilliant sages and scholars and oracles of God throughout history to better understand the

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Bible. We don't just pick up the Bible and go off into the woods with it, or just let our pastor alone interpret it for us.

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We consult even our brothers and sisters in Christ from all ages who have had wisdom in areas that we lack.

01:52:39

Is this not some of the problem in misunderstanding the Bible from our conservative and fundamentalist brethren?

01:52:46

We would consider ourselves conservative too, but we do not typically fall in the error of discounting books outside of Scripture.

01:52:54

I would agree with that 100%. I have about 7 ,000 books in my library.

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They are my friends, they're my teachers, and I praise the

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Lord for those great people of God that have received this. In fact, I've had all my life a practice if I'm exegeting a passage of Scripture, and I think

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I know what it means after doing all the hard work of studying the grammar, studying the historical context in which this takes place, and all the rest.

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Even though I'm sure my interpretation is right, if I can't find some

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God -owned commentary or preacher in the past that has that same interpretation,

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I will not preach that interpretation on Sunday. I don't want to be the first person to believe something.

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I don't want to be the only person to believe something. I still may think I'm right, but I take seriously the work of the

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Holy Spirit in teaching the Church for 2 ,000 years. Well, thank you,

01:54:07

Joseph. You've also won a copy of the book, and as soon as it's in print, cvbbs .com,

01:54:12

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service will ship that out to you. We have an anonymous listener who asks,

01:54:19

What do you think are the most common misinterpretations of the

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Scripture made by those who agree with us on the inerrancy of Scripture? I'm remaining anonymous because I believe that my church is misinterpreting some very crucial areas of the

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Word of God, but they are not so serious that I am ready to leave yet. I didn't understand what you said.

01:54:42

Read that one more time to me, please. He was basically saying, What are the most crucial areas that you believe people who believe along with us in the inerrancy of Scripture get wrong?

01:54:55

We don't even have to go into the liberals right now. He means Reformed churches.

01:55:02

Or any conservative, I think, where he's coming from. Any conservative

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Bible -believing church that claims to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, just like we do, but they get things wrong because they're not reading the

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Bible properly like you have been discussing. I think they have a low view of God.

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I think that's the basic root of most of our failings as a church, that our God is too small.

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And as a result, we just can't find it in ourselves to believe what some of these verses are really saying.

01:55:34

For instance, I was on a radio talk show in Connecticut one time, and a lady called in, and she was angry.

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And I'm sure she was already upset because of my West Virginia accent. But she asked me this.

01:55:54

She said, What do you believe is the relationship of God and natural disasters?

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So I simply read to her Isaiah 45 or 46, which says, I am the

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Lord, I create good times, and I create calamitous times.

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I am the Lord who does all these things. And she said, That's just your interpretation.

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And I said, Ma 'am, I didn't interpret anything. I just read to you the Bible. They really can't believe what's in the

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Bible. And another doctrine in the church which gave birth to socialism is the idea that God loves everybody the same.

01:56:38

God loves everybody the same. Which is not true. And for instance, the

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Bible says, Jacob, I loved, but Esau, I hated. There's one person we know God didn't love. But I would encourage you to go to a concordance and look up the words hate, loathe, and despise and see how many times

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God is the subject of those verbs. And you'll see that God hates far more people than we realize.

01:57:09

And I like what Spurgeon said about that verse in Romans 9. Jacob, I loved, but Esau, I hated.

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He was talking to a man, and the man said, Mr. Spurgeon, I have a real problem with that verse.

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And Spurgeon said, What's that? And the man said, I can't see why God hated Esau. Spurgeon said,

01:57:29

Well, I have a problem with that verse, too. I can't see why God loved Jacob. By the way, the very same thing happened to me as far as the illustration you gave before about not interpreting anything that you were just reading the

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Bible. Somebody who despised Calvinism approached me to vent on me about why he hated it so much.

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And I said, All right, I'm going to read something here, and I want you to just comment to me on what you think it means.

01:57:57

And I read Romans 9, and he said, You know who believes that? The biggest growing cult and false religion in the world, the

01:58:06

Muslims. I said, You know, I just read right from the writings of the Apostle Paul, don't you?

01:58:11

And he said, Yeah, but it's what you read into it. I said, I didn't read anything into it. I just read it. Unbelievable.

01:58:18

One time I pastored a church years ago in another state, and there was a godly elder who wasn't reformed in any way, shape, or form.

01:58:26

I never had a reformed pastor. And we were good friends, but whenever I'd preach on a subject on Sunday morning, the next

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Sunday in his Sunday school class, he'd take the same text and say the opposite of what I had just said the

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Sunday before in my sermon. So I decided I would really test him. So one

01:58:44

Sunday I preached on the verse in Romans 9. Jacob, I loved it, but he saw I hated it, just to see what he would do.

01:58:51

The next Sunday I sat in his Sunday school class, and he said this, and this shows you how presuppositions can blind you.

01:58:58

He said, my text today is, Jacob, I love it, but he saw I hate it.

01:59:03

He said, now, I don't know Greek. But since we know that God doesn't hate anybody, hate can't mean hate.

01:59:14

Well, we're actually out of time, and I want our listeners to know, or remind my listeners, that you can find out more about Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia at HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com

01:59:30

HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com And also, don't forget about the publisher of the book that we have been discussing.

01:59:39

That wonderful publisher is ComprehensiveChristianity .com ComprehensiveChristianity .com

01:59:45

Please, Dr. Morecraft, stay in the line, because I want to schedule Part 2 of this discussion with you. And I want all of you to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater