That Does Not Mean What You Think It Means

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide Biblical interpretation and application.

01:08

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org

01:19

Well, welcome to The Wrap Report. I am your host, Andrew Rappaport, here for another episode to join with, here by my trusty sidekick, trusty sidekick bud,

01:35

The Wiser. Oh my goodness. You called me crusty, though. Did I?

01:40

Well, that would work, too. I said trusty. I aspired to trusty, but crusty's probably good.

01:47

Yeah, I should say, you know, I forget, someone had pointed out on one of the previous episodes, oh, what was it that I had said?

01:53

I think it was Chris Honhold. Someone had, I said something and said a completely different word, but it sounded similar.

02:00

And I was like, no. Almost like, you know, I don't know if you've seen this thing with Biden where Dan Bongino made a joke that, and when you listen to it, it sounds like Biden walks up to a reporter and says,

02:14

I've wiped my butt. And it does. It literally sounds like that's what he said. And I was trying to read his lips to see what he was actually saying, and I just couldn't see the angle.

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But Dan Bongino made a joke of it, and he goes, watch, watch. The fact -checkers are going to fact -check this and say that's not what he said.

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The irony was that he was right. They did fact -check it. They did say that that's not what he said, but the interesting part of the article was the fact -checkers couldn't figure out what he did say.

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That's so sad. You're so judged. Yeah, it's elder abuse, clearly elder abuse.

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Yeah, I mean, I don't know what to say. Well, I think that's better than what we have to start off with here.

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Bud, what do you, you know, folks, you don't understand. Let me give you a little background on how this show starts.

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So Bud and I will discuss things throughout the week, what we're going to talk about sometimes weeks ahead of time.

03:16

We start preparing and we research. When we record, we record on Saturday mornings, and when we record,

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I will get a list of things from Bud. And these are things that just, how else can

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I say this? It hurts. It makes your head hurt. I don't even know if I want to put this in the show notes,

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Bud. So this is what I get this morning just before recording. Hey, check this out, right?

03:44

Your personalized Bible. That's what he sends me. Your personalized Bible. Now, folks, if you have a

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Bible handy, I'm going to give you a little bit of time. You're going to need a Bible, by the way, for this episode. So if you have a

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Bible handy, if you wouldn't mind getting it out and reading along with me.

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Actually, Bud, I think since you put my name in here, maybe it would be better if you read some of these.

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I'll tell you what, let's do this. You read the ones you sent me on this, your personalized

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Bible, and then I could read what the

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New American Standard says for these to see how close it is. But this is a

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Bible you can actually purchase, but don't. And it is interesting.

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When you go to the About Us, here's what it says about this. This is just so scary, but our vision is to help others gather a deeper understanding of God's promises to them personally and a deeper understanding of the depth of God's love for each of us because he is a personal

04:58

God. There is nothing more personal or endearing than being called by your name and a transformation taking place as you read

05:15

God's word personalized with your name. Your Bible is printed using state -of -the -art equipment at satellite offices set up in the homes of homeschooling moms.

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The personalized manuscript is then sent to a commercial binder that specializes in Bibles.

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The result is a beautiful, personalized Bible that you and your loved one can enjoy for years.

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So it's personalized, bud. Now this is the thing. Earlier this week I had someone call up to ask a question.

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They were kind of confused because they've always been told that everything is about having a personal relationship with God.

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And they were confused because they listened to a lot of Ray Comfort, and Ray doesn't talk about having a personal relationship.

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He talks about repentance. And this person wanted to understand why.

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And I said, because the Bible doesn't talk about a personal relationship. In fact, all of Israel talks about a national relationship.

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So it talks about us needing repentance. It talks about us being in a state of being an enemy of God and then being adopted by God.

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So yeah, there is a personal element to it that we can call him Abba Father. But people have gone so overboard with it.

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What I had said to this person is you end up seeing that people end up focusing on the me. This is about me and my relationship with God, not my need for God.

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Not the fact that I'm a wicked sinner in need of God. That's been what's been so prevalent in Christianity.

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And it really comes from a gospel tract that we're going to bring up later is where a lot of this came from, which we're going to talk about.

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You don't get your theology from a gospel tract. You get your theology from the Bible, and it's much better that way.

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Don't get it from novels either. Left Behind series is not a good theology book. Bud and I can both agree on that, even though we have differing views of end times.

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But you look at this, and you look at this, your personalized Bible, and this is the epitome of this idea of having a personal relationship with God that we're going to replace

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Scripture with your name. So why don't you read Psalm 43, which you sent me?

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Psalm 43, yes. This isn't hermaneutics. It isn't hismaneutics.

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This is youmaneutics. It's youmaneutics, yeah. All right,

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Psalm 43, your personalized Bible. Vindicate, Andrew, O God, and plead,

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Andrew's cause, against an ungodly nation. O deliver, Andrew, from the deceitful and unjust, for you are the

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God of Andrew's strength. Why do you cast Andrew off? Why does Andrew go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

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O send out your light and your truth. Let them lead, Andrew. Let them bring

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Andrew to your holy hill and to your tabernacle. Then Andrew will go to the altar of God, to God of Andrew's exceeding joy.

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And on the harp, Andrew will praise you, O God, Andrew's God. Why are you cast down,

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O my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for Andrew shall yet praise you, the help of my countenance and my

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God. Psalm 43. Really isageded.

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The thing with that is out of the three you sent me, that's actually the best one. Oh, yeah, that would be.

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That's the closest to Scripture. I mean, it's really kind of sad, but let's, this is so bad.

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This is painful. Please go to the next one, to First Chronicles, folks.

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If you have your Bible, turn to First Chronicles. This is one you're going to want to read along. First Chronicles 4, 9, and 10.

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If you could please read this in this wonderful personalized, and by the way, folks, we did try to figure out what translation is this?

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And, you know, we couldn't figure it out. It says, according to the, at least a picture we see, it says it is built or based off of the modern

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English, was it modern? The world English, yeah. The world English. I'm not familiar with the world

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English translation. I actually don't even have it in Lagos. The world English Bible translation,

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I don't know anything about that. If you folks do, you can email me at info at strivingfraternity and tell me anything about that translation.

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I'm just not familiar with it. So that right there gives a concern. But we even looked it up, and some of these aren't even from there.

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But let's start with this one. Bud, I cringe, but go ahead.

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In your personalized Bible, First Chronicles 4, 9, and 10.

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Go for it. Yeah, yeah. Now, Andrew was more honorable than Andrew's brothers and sisters.

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And Andrew's mother loved Andrew, saying, because the pain in which

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I bore Andrew was worth every minute. And Andrew called on the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying,

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Oh, that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my influence, that your hand would be with me, your servant

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Andrew, and that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain.

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So God granted Andrew the request. So in Hebrew, is Jabez Andrew?

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Yeah, this is what many call the prayer of Jabez. With the actual text,

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I'm sorry, I'm laughing so hard at this. The New American Standard says Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother named him

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Jabez, saying, because I bore him with pain. Let me just stop there.

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You know what the name Jabez means? To be born with pain. And, you know, mother loved you, saying, because the pain in which

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I bore you. So this is like completely, so Jabez, which is a text of scripture dealing with a person named

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Jabez. This is probably because of that book, The Prayer of Jabez, that they rewrote this one to write you in, but the worst offender of the three you sent me.

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Oh, oh, bud, we have to do this, and it's painful. Could you please read in this wonderful translation,

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Jeremiah 29, 10 to 14? Yeah, I can, and just realize now, we didn't understand that there are all these multiple levels of interpretation that are possible with especially this scripture.

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Jeremiah 29, 10 through 14. Thus says the Lord God, After you have been disciplined and purged,

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Andrew, I will visit you and perform my good work toward you and cause you to return to my side.

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For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, Andrew, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope.

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Then, Andrew, you will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

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And Andrew, you will seek me and find me. When you search for me, Andrew, with all your heart,

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I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your discipline. I will gather you from all the places where I have driven you, says the

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Lord, and I will bring you to the place where you belong, Andrew. I don't even know what to do with this.

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This is the one where he said what translation is this based out of because we couldn't figure it out because Jeremiah 29, 10 makes this explicitly clear that this is not dealing with us.

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This is one of the passages we'll look at later, but it says Jeremiah 29, 10, for thus says the

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Lord, and you know in this translation it says thus says the Lord God, so that's pretty close.

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But where this one says after you have been disciplined and purged, Andrew, with the actual text says when 70 years have been completed for Babylon.

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When were you in Babylon last? Yeah. I didn't know you'd been. I went through every translation that I have here in Logos, and I can't find a single one that even comes close.

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We even looked the message. I mean, you figure the message, that would be the most liberal, right? Even the message says this is

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God's word on the subject as soon as Babylon's 70 years are up and not a day before.

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So even the message doesn't come close. This is so— That's not an endorsement, by the way, just so I can insert that.

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Yeah, well, who does endorse it? Let's look at some of the endorsements. You have a Brian Houston. I'm not talking about the message. You're not endorsing the

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Message Bible by saying— No, no, no, no. The Message Bible would be—I'm saying it's about, you know, we went to the message because we thought, what would be the worst translation that they could have used?

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I got you. I was just clarifying for the sake of— But this, your personalized Bible, let's look at who does endorse it.

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We have Brian Houston, a senior pastor at Hillsong Church. Oh, yeah, that's—yeah.

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So that's a problem. Oh, who's the second one they have on there? George Pearsons, senior pastor of Eagle Mountain International Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

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Well, if you don't know who that is, that is Kenneth Copeland. So there you go there.

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Oh, but we have a woman, and I first thought maybe it would be a woman pastor. No, it's a woman author. What did she write?

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Sex Traps. Well, there's a book just from the title I think I don't want. So this is who endorses this.

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I mean, I'm sorry if this has been painful for you. This is what counts for Christianity these days.

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People think that this is something that is worthy of being called Christian, that this is going to help people in their spiritual growth.

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This should give a true Christian a headache, and I'm sorry for giving you the headache, but I'm just passing along to you what

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Bud, thankfully, passed along to me this morning. Yeah, and really,

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I mean, the point is not to mock. This is just an abomination, I mean, completely.

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But there are people out there who think that they are Christians who don't understand that this is completely egregious.

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This is not at all sound doctrine. This is not even sound reading of Scripture. So we're not mocking them.

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This is completely wrong. When we look at the message, okay, why do we say it's not a good translation?

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It's one man's paraphrase. So when you have a person that is translating the

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Bible, remember, he's translating it for his young children. He's trying to make it as easy as possible for children to read.

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That's why it's an easy -to -read third -grade level. But the thing is, it's one man's interpretation, and so you have to look at it that way.

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So if you look at the message translation as more commentary, I'm okay with you viewing it that way.

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Don't think of it as God's Word, but as a commentary. It's one man's paraphrase, one man's explanation to his children.

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What we just read is far worse. It's completely changing the meaning of the

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Bible. It's taking an actual person, Jabez, and fitting you in there as if that's for you.

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Putting something in for those who live through the Babylonian captivity and putting it in for you.

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Now, they do that because, verse 11, and we're going to look at that, but why in the world don't they?

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I'd love to know. Bud, maybe you could look this up while we're reading. What do they do with Jeremiah 29, 17, and 18?

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Maybe they read it this way. Maybe they read it this way. I'll read your name in. Thus says the Lord of hosts,

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Behold, I am sending upon you, Bud, the sword and famine and pestilence, and I will make

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Bud split open like figs that cannot be eaten due to rottenness.

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I will pursue Bud with the sword and famine and with pestilence. I will make

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Bud a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, a horror, a hissing, a reproach among all the nations that I have driven

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Bud. Do you think that they did that? Something tells me that's not the way they translated that. No, and apparently the little demo doesn't let you put in which text you want.

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They've got some pre -assigned text there. But how about this from Isaiah 53, verse 4?

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No, oh, no, no. Don't tell me that they're going to replace Christ with people's pain. No, no.

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Surely he has borne Andrew's sickness and carried his suffering, but he was pierced for Andrew's transgressions.

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He was crushed for Andrew's inequities. The punishment that brought Andrew peace was on him.

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So they've got selected ones that they go through, and apparently 7 ,000 places in Scripture you can have your name inserted.

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See, it's just painful. This is painful. And, folks, why would we bring this up?

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Because what we wanted to is go through other passages that are actually just as painful when you start to know what they mean in context.

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Basic hermeneutics, and hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation. It's how we understand things. When you hear me saying something to you, you're practicing hermeneutics.

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You are interpreting what I am saying and understanding the meaning because there's certain rules to hermeneutics.

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And the most important rule is not to take out of context. None of you like to be taken out of context.

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Guess what? God doesn't like to be taken out of context either. In fact, John Calvin said, and I'm going to obviously paraphrase this because he said it in a different language and I'm going to say it in English.

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But he basically said that if you take God's Word out of context, you no longer have God's Word but man's

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Word. And that's the reality is when people are going to twist

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God's Word, knowingly or unknowingly, you no longer have God's Word. You have your own.

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The thing is you and I need to be honest and recognize we need to have

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God's Word. We need to let Him speak. The Bible is God's self -revelation.

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If we do not allow it to be that, then it is not going to communicate to us everything we need for faith and practice.

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So let's look at some key passages that many people get incorrect. And the reason we want to do this is so that you will learn to start studying the

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Bible in context. You will learn some of the passages that you've often thought aren't the way you meant them or the way you thought them.

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We're going to discover that those passages, even pastors will use passages, and you're going to discover today it doesn't mean what you think it means.

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That's going to be the theme today. So the first one is going to seem strange. And the reason it's going to seem strange is because I am a big proponent of gospel tracts.

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And you know that, bud. I was just out last night, went down to South Philly, and handed out gospel tracts and sharing the gospel.

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But there is sometimes where gospel tracts are a problem. I mentioned it earlier. There is a gospel tract that a lot of people get this idea that God wants us to have a personal relationship with Him.

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In fact, the way that the four spiritual laws gospel tract is written, if you've read it, you know.

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In fact, the author of that tract, who I happen to know personally, calls it the four spiritual flaws now.

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Really? Yeah, because what was written there is not good theology. But in there it talks about the fact that God created us because He has a need.

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He needs a personal relationship with us. So stopping with that,

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God doesn't need anything. God did not need to create us for any kind of lack that He has.

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He had fellowship within the triune deity. They have three separate persons.

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They have fellowship. And so what you end up seeing is God did not need us.

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God chose to create us. But that gospel tract would say that. But one of the other things that it does is what is very commonly known is

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Revelation 3 .20. And what it talks about is, from this passage, you see it talking about God standing on the door of knocking on the heart of man and asking to be welcomed in.

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And if you just open the door and welcome Him in, you can be saved. And so many people use this as God knocking on the door of your heart.

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And a lot of this is where many people get the idea that you see more of an Arminian or semi -Pelagian view of things where God is just trying.

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I mean, He's knocking. Hello, will you let Him in? He wants to come in, but no one's opening the door.

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He's trying really hard, but just no one's there. No one's giving Him a chance.

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And so this passage is one that's used to argue that God is knocking on the door of your heart.

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Well, let's look at what the passage says. This is Revelation 3 .20. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

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Well, so far it sounds exactly like the tract says, right? I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door,

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I will come into him and dine with him and he with me. So people take this and say, well, see, this is salvation.

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Okay, who's He writing this to? Well, verse 14 tells us. To the angel of the church of Laodicea.

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Oh, wait, bud, this is written to a church, not unbelievers. Yeah, this is written to those who are believers.

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In fact, it's amazing that people do this. Just go one verse earlier.

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We're going to see this a lot, bud. Just one verse earlier. Verse 19, Revelation 3 .19.

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Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. Therefore, be zealous and repent.

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So those whom He loves, He's, oh, so these are believers already.

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So this isn't knocking on the door of your heart so that you would be saved. It's knocking on the door of a believer's heart that you would repent of things that you need discipline for.

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Yeah, your sin. You're repenting of sin. It's not salvific at all. This is not a soteriological passage.

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Yeah, so this isn't us coming to salvation. This is the last of seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 where He's commending some of them and condemning some of them and others

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He has a little bit of a mixture. And so what you end up seeing here is that this is a case that you have

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Him saying, you want to be? You want your candlestick removed? Do you want to have that name that you're a church in the name of God removed?

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Or do you want to welcome God into the church? It's not talking about people coming to Christ.

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And so many people use this and have no idea that it comes from a gospel tract, not from the scripture.

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And people use it unknowingly. And so looking at the context, we immediately see this is written to believers.

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So this is dealing with sanctification, not regeneration. The tract actually says that, though, and that's part of the deception.

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It's very common in evangelicalism at large, this notion of relationship with Christ, relationship with Jesus.

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But the tract says, quote, We receive Christ through personal invitation.

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And then it cites that Revelation 3, verse 20. Not at all. You couldn't be farther from salvific truth than to put it in that context.

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Christ owns that door. If He wants in that door, He's going to blow it off the hinges, and you will repent and believe.

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It's not about you inviting Him to do anything. He is Master, Lord, King, Sovereign.

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Are you saying we don't need God's permission? Or that God doesn't need our permission, I should say? Yeah. I mean, that God needs our permission to do things?

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But, Bud, why is this a problem? Well, this is a problem because what you end up seeing is so much of our culture,

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Christian culture, gets their theology from things like this gospel tract. And because it's repeated so often, this is why there are many, many people that because they got saved through this gospel tract, they look at this and start to believe the gospel tract over the scriptures.

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And so they talk about their experience. And when we look at how we got saved, experientially,

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I chose God. Theologically, God chose me. But when we focus everything in our

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Christian life on experience, which is what that Bible, your personalized Bible we mentioned earlier, that's what it's all about.

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God's promises for you. That's why they're writing this.

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So you, you're the center of it all. Well, when Christianity makes you the center of it all, it loses focus that God is the center of it all.

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And now you're off on a bad tangent. And when people do that, they're going to focus more on their experience over the theology.

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And that's why there's such a struggle for some people when it comes to discussing issues of, say, Calvinism or Arminianism.

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Many people struggle. Why? Because they know what they experienced. They know what the gospel tract says.

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They know what so many people say. And they look at a passage like this and say, well, God's inviting me. He needs my permission.

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Folks, God created the universe with a word. Do you really think

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He needs your permission to do anything? He is the Lord.

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He's the King of kings and Lord of lords. He does whatever He wants. And He will always do and is capable of doing anything

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He wants because it's going to be by His nature. So God can't do certain things. God can't lie because that's outside of His nature.

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That's what makes that a sin. So you look at a passage like this, Romans, Revelation 3 .20,

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and the way so many people use it, it's completely out of context, but they give it a totally different meaning.

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Now, we've dealt with this before, but it's a key thing that we have to address, the difference between regeneration and sanctification.

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Because when we talk salvation, that's a general term. I'm teaching in my church.

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I'm teaching through Peter, 1 Peter. And we had someone that commented, and they're basically saying how 1

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Peter contradicts other books like, you know, from Paul or James. There's no contradiction.

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In fact, what most of the passages he's struggling with is he doesn't understand the difference between salvation, past, present, future, because he's disagreeing with passages in 1

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Peter that talk about glorification, which is future. But the word is salvation.

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The term salvation is a general term that can refer to three separate things, regeneration, sanctification, glorification.

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Those are past, present, future. Regeneration is that point in time when we went from being an enemy of God to a child of God.

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It's when we're converted. But once that happens, the next part of salvation is our sanctification.

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That process from regeneration until the moment we die, that's the process we're made more in the image of Christ.

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That is where works, yes, works do come in, in our sanctification process, not our regeneration process.

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And almost every cult, every works -based system confuses those two for that purpose so that they can add human effort into regeneration.

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There's no human effort in regeneration. There is human effort in sanctification. And the moment we die, glorification.

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There's when we completely change. There's no more sin indwelling within us, and we are glorified.

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That's salvation future. So, regeneration leads to sanctification, leads to glorification.

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Three separate ideas of salvation. And what you see here is people confusing regeneration with sanctification, just like the cults do when they want to try to make it works -based salvation.

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What this does is confuse people's theology. And this is why so many people start to say, but I choose

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God, I invited Him into my life. You only did that because God worked in your life.

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In fact, if you look at Philippians 1 .29, it says here, for it has been granted for Christ's sake, has been granted for you, so in the personalized one

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I would say, for to Andrew it has been granted, but for to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but to suffer for His sake.

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So, our belief has been granted. The word for granted there is the idea of being forgiven.

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We've been forgiven. It's been forgiven us. So, this salvation that we have when it comes to regeneration, it's been granted to us to believe.

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That comes from God. But the struggle is that people have this experience, and because so much of current

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Christianity is focused on experience, that's the struggle. Just think about most songs.

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I have an opportunity, many don't. I travel to many different churches to speak at churches, and when

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I go to churches, I hear the songs that they sing in many churches, even good solid churches, and yet most of the songs they sing, bud, they're all about me.

32:08

I mean, it's just like that personalized Bible. So much of the song is about experience. Even when it is about what

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God did, it's about what God did for me. And they even, unbeknownst to many, end up teaching, you know, when you have

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Hillsong and Jesus culture and Bethel music, they end up teaching heresy that people don't realize.

32:32

When they start teaching that Jesus on the cross had no other thought than you. That's not true.

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His thought was of the Father, and what he was doing is a payment for sin. It's not about you, it's about God.

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The focus completely changes. Now, where does that come from? Genesis chapter three. What did the serpent say to Eve?

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It's all about you, girl. It's all about you. No, we're not gonna sing that song. It's not about me.

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But isn't that what the serpent said? Oh, God is trying to keep something from you.

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It's about you, not God. Well, that is unfortunately the same line that the current church is being taught, and it gets it right from the, when people get saved, right from this gospel track out of Revelation 3 .20.

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And it's everywhere. I mean, I, you know, I know, I watch these things and I just grieve over pastors.

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I've seen one, he'll get up there to baptize someone, and, you know, this is

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Southern Baptist Church, and, you know, they don't believe in infant baptism, they just practice it. So you'll see these little kids up there, and his question is gonna be, every time, invariably, have you invited

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Jesus into your heart? Okay, yeah. Well, you know, and if it's a six -year -old, well, why don't you ask them if they invited

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Santa Claus into their heart? Same kind of thing. But the fact is, this is prevalent everywhere.

33:56

So we understand salvation is monergistic. God alone acts. Sanctification is synergistic.

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We're commanded to work our salvation out with fear and trembling. So we are active in that.

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But it is interesting, and people need to understand this, even Spurgeon, quoting

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Whitman, or Whitefield, George Whitefield, said that we're all born -again Armenians.

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Because of this issue of experience, it seems like we did something, but it's actually all of God.

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So what happens is that the Holy Spirit indwelling you, as you begin studying Scripture and being discipled in Scripture, being taught the

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Word, you come to understand all the glory is God's. All the power is

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God's. All the salvation is God's. Jesus saves. I didn't do anything. In fact, I don't deserve it, because it is grace.

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So if you're at the point in your Christian life and you think that you're bound by a decision that you've made, you need to be discipled.

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You need to be in the Word and studying it with sound teachers and sound preaching so that you mature in the faith.

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Otherwise, you're going to be tossed about. I mean, this is what Scripture tells us. This is the reason this is so important.

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Your theology can be all messed up if you start taking things out of context and just basing it off what you've always heard rather than what the

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Scripture actually says. Let's look at the next passage, one we looked at earlier, and that's Jeremiah 29 .11.

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This is replaced John 3 .16 as the most quoted, most favored verse for many.

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And people know Jeremiah 29 .11. They have it on their refrigerators and their backpacks and their mats entering their house.

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For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope.

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And people hold this as a promise, just like that, I can't even say it's a Bible that you sent, but that personalized translation where they have to totally mess this up.

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Why? Because they want to make this a promise for you. It's all about you.

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And yet as we looked at this already, verse 10 tells us who this is meant for. It's meant for those who live through the 70 year

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Babylonian captivity. Now, no one holds verses 17 and 18 that I read earlier as a promise for them.

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I mean, who reads it that way that the Lord is sending a sword to us and famine and pestilence, that the

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Lord is going to pursue us with a sword and famine and pestilence. No one wants that as a promise.

36:33

But yet that's in the same context. Yeah. Well, I mean, you can even back up further and expand your context a little bit more and go to verse one of the entire chapter where it says, now these are the words of the letter which

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Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exile, the priests, the prophets, and all the people who

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Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. See, now that's...

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It's all about you. This is a historical narrative. And that right there is the purpose of this though, right?

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Because all we have to do is from Jeremiah 29, 11, back up one verse. Again, back up just one verse.

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And the context makes it clear this was not for us. It was for those who went through the Babylonian captivity. And what you see in verse one, what's the purpose of this?

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Why would Jeremiah write this? Well, he's writing this as he's saying, hey, God gave judgment.

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We're going into 70 years of captivity. The nation of Israel is going to be captive 70 years, okay? But guess what?

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When you come out the other side... So he's writing this to those who are going into that captivity that are being taken exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

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That's who he's writing it for. And he's saying when these 70 years are up, God knows the plan he has for you.

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So the thing that people have to realize is he's saying he will be faithful to those who live through the 70 -year captivity that when they come out the other side, he has plans for welfare and he's got a future hope for them, but he's also going to drive them with things like a sword and famine and pestilence as well.

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That's also a promise that he has for those who live through that. And so the thing that we learn from that is the same thing they learned from that.

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God is faithful. Picture going through the 70 -year captivity. Think of being born during that 70 -year captivity and just hearing the stories of what it was like.

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I mean, Bud, just think about it. In 20, 30, 50 years from now, we'll be talking to people saying, you know what it was like before COVID when we didn't have to wear masks everywhere and stay in our homes because the government wanted control over us and talk about the triple delta variant because by then it'll probably be that.

38:56

Maybe quadruple, octoctol. The reality is that these people that were born in the captivity are going to hear the stories of the past being in Jerusalem.

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They don't know what it's like. They never experienced it. Those who did experience it are going to be going, when, oh Lord, when do we go home?

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You're going home in 70 years. There's a timetable here, but there's going to be those that would question

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God. There's those today who question his second coming because it's been 2 ,000 years.

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They go, is he really going to come? Some just say, no. We're not going to have a millennium.

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Some will say all millennial. Some will say post -millennial. Those that won't be faithful to scripture will say me. I'm thinking ahead of you right now, so carry on, get through this.

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But the reality is that what you end up seeing is that people who live through this were going to need to know that God is faithful, that the 70 years, this wasn't something that caught

40:00

God off guard. And so he's saying that after 70 years, this is what he's going to do. That is a promise, but not to you and I.

40:07

It's a promise to those who live through that. However, the lesson that they have, that God is faithful, also applies for us.

40:15

That is something we could take with us. And so this is a passage so many people take as a personal promise.

40:22

And if you just go back one verse, this passage isn't for you. Yeah, and it's interesting, and you brought it up earlier.

40:28

If you want to discuss the notion of scripture contradicting scripture, if that's what you understand this scripture to mean, it's a personal promise to you for your prosperity, for your health, for your blessing.

40:45

If that's how you take this, then when you go back over to Philippians, which you read earlier, where it says that, you know, it was granted to you for Christ's sake, not only to believe, but wait, what else?

40:57

Also to suffer for his sake? How are you going to put those two things together? Something's wrong.

41:02

There is a contradiction there. Well, the contradiction is not biblical. The contradiction is your theology is wrong.

41:08

You misinterpreted a verse. That's why you can't make those two things fit together.

41:14

And that's why so many people right now are struggling in America with American Christians because they have this notion of God's going to give me everything

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I want and everything's the way I want it to be. He's going to give me comfort. He's going to give me welfare and all this stuff.

41:29

And all of a sudden, we're seeing a government that's turning against Christians. And they're going, wait a minute, what's going on here? God has this promise.

41:36

The promise wasn't few. People are starting to question God's word rather than their theology.

41:41

And that's the problem with this. The promise is not for you. This promise is not for America. Sorry. It doesn't have application.

41:50

The application is God is faithful. That's the principle. And, you know, one of the things that we end up seeing in the next passage, this is one of these ones where two verses right next to each other, two completely different meanings that people use for them out of context.

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And so let's look at Matthew 18. If you have your Bibles open to Matthew 18, let's first look at verse 19 and see how many use this.

42:15

And I should say, I should have said this at the outset, one of the reasons the problems people have with this, I'll say this while you're turning to Matthew 18, the reason people have a problem with this is because of the fact that we look at verse numbers and we read a verse of Scripture and it was never meant to be read that way.

42:34

In fact, many of you may not realize that the chapter breaks and verses weren't added for 700, 800 years.

42:40

And so for many years, you didn't have that. Why were they added? It is easier for me to say, turn to Psalm 22 and give you a verse number.

42:50

It's easier for me to number it, Psalm 22, and give you a specific verse number rather than the way they would have done it, which is to say, my

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Lord, my, you know, my Lord, my Lord, how have thou forsaken me? Which is what Christ said on the cross.

43:06

Why did he say that? He was referring to the very first line of Psalm 22 because that's how you would refer to Psalm 22.

43:13

And this is why you'd have someone say, well, as David says, where did David say it? It's hard to know.

43:19

You're going to read everything David said? You've got to go find that. Well, the reason that they put chapter breaks in, verses, is to make it easier for us to find things.

43:30

They're not inspired. And the problem with verse breaks is that people read just a verse out of its context.

43:38

And that's what we don't want you to do. We want you to learn to read in context because when you read in context, you get totally different meanings sometimes.

43:46

Let's take a look. Matthew 18, now that you're there. Verse 19. Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by my

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Father who is in heaven. Now, when I do my Bible study, my seminar, my weekend seminar,

44:08

Bible Interpretation Made Easy, one of the things that I end up talking about there is the fact that I had a friend in college who wanted a new car, or a used car.

44:20

He didn't care, actually. His parents, he asked his parents if they'd co -sign a loan for him, and they wouldn't.

44:26

He asked me if I would go along with him to look at a car. And when I got there, he then said he wanted me to co -sign the loan for him.

44:34

I'm like, well, why don't you ask your parents? He's like, I did. And they said no. Now, first off, I'm Jewish. I'm not giving away money.

44:41

Let's be honest about this. You picked the wrong guy for help. Yeah. You don't pick a Jewish person to co -sign a loan.

44:47

Unless you're going to give me an interest rate far above what their interest rate is, right? Oh, usury is forbidden, brother.

44:54

You can't be doing that. So what you end up seeing is, I'm like, your parents aren't going to co -sign.

45:01

I'm not going to co -sign. So I think his ploy was to get me there. I didn't realize

45:07

I was there to help co -sign a loan. So the next day he tells me he's getting a brand new car.

45:14

Brand new? What changed? Did your parents change their mind? He goes, oh, no. I got another

45:19

Christian brother to pray with me, and we asked for a new car. And I said, what do you mean?

45:25

And he said, Matthew 18, 19 says, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that we may ask,

45:35

God's going to give it to us. Now is that what this is talking about, right? I mean, that seems, if I just read that, it looks like what it's talking about.

45:43

But then you get to verse 20, the very next verse. This is used for every small Bible study.

45:49

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst. This is the most used passage for Wednesday night

45:58

Bible studies when there's a few people, right? I mean, if you were to go, bud, to Matthew, maybe you should turn here,

46:06

Matthew 28 and 19 and 20, verse 20 specifically. But this is the

46:11

Great Commission. Now, bud, let me ask you, and folks listening, this is a question for you as well.

46:17

It says, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the

46:22

Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I command you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the earth.

46:34

So according to this passage, bud, do we need two or three for God to be present in the

46:39

Bible study? I mean, does this say that how many Christians are necessary for God to be present according to this passage?

46:45

This is so bad. Right? People want to say the answer is one, right? Because lo,

46:51

I am with you always. Who are the you there? Yeah, but now here's the thing.

46:57

Here's the thing that we do with this because people will say one, and it's a trick question, isn't it?

47:03

It is. It's a trick question because yes, you're pointing out the you is plural, but here's the thing more importantly.

47:09

God's omnipresent. If there's no Christian there, God is present. God is present everywhere.

47:16

The reason he is with you always is because he's everywhere always. Right? So when we look at theology, we realize the way some people interpret that, that's not the way it should be interpreted.

47:30

So what does… Well, I was just going to insert, you know, this is not really driven by our desire for experience.

47:38

Really what you're doing here is injecting mysticism into, you know, this text,

47:43

Matthew 18. I mean, you're making it some sort of mystical thing that we get together and suddenly, wow, here's the presence of Christ with us.

47:53

Yeah. Wow, that's absurd. Or it's a reassurance that, hey, we have

47:58

Wednesday night Bible study. There's only three or four of us here or two or three of us here. But God is with us.

48:03

God's with you when you're alone in prayer. Guess what? God's everywhere. So when there's no one in your home,

48:09

God is there. I mean, he's everywhere. So what does this deal with? Well, let's read the context. Let's start in verse 15 and see what both of these passages are referring to.

48:19

If your brother sins, go and show him his fault.

48:26

In private. That's a key word. Right? It doesn't say go to your friends, go tell your best friend, hey, this is what someone did to me.

48:34

No. If your brother sins against you, go to him in private. If he listens to you, you've won your brother.

48:42

But if he does not listen to you, take one or two with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed.

48:53

What is that? That's going back to the Old Testament. This is a legal thing. That you have to have two or three witnesses to witness, in this case, the unrepentance.

49:02

So that's who the two or three are. The two or three are the witnesses to unrepentance. If he refuses to listen to them, who's the them?

49:09

The two or three witnesses. Tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, then let him be as a

49:20

Gentile or a tax collector. So if you have these two, you go to a brother, there's a sin issue, they're unrepentant, you bring one or two others so that there are two or three witnesses to the unrepentance.

49:33

In other words, it's not we disagree on the facts, it's there's the acknowledgement, yes, there is a sin here, and this person is unrepentant of it.

49:42

And it's a sin. Not, you know, I don't like the way you dress. You know? It's not like, yeah, that t -shirt, bud, you know?

49:52

Bud's looking at us. It's the five solas, bro. Yeah, it's the five solas, so it's got to be good. You know, people make things a sin.

50:00

That's a personal preference. I don't like the music you listen to. It actually has to be a sin. And it says, truly

50:06

I say to you, whatever you bind on earth has been bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth has been loosed in heaven.

50:13

What's that referring to? It's referring to the person you're putting out of the church. This is someone who they ignored the one -on -one confrontation.

50:21

They ignored the two -or -three confrontation. They ignored the entire church confrontation. So what do you do?

50:27

If they've ignored the entire church coming to them, calling them to repentance, you have to assume they're not a believer.

50:34

So you treat them like a Gentile or tax collector, like they're not a believer. You put them out of the church. That's not easy to do.

50:40

So there has to be some, so what you have here is Matthew giving some, or really Jesus, because he's saying, giving some encouragement that when you have to go that far, just know that what you're doing on earth by doing this, it's already been done in heaven.

50:53

And that's why he says, again I say to you, again what? The again refers to verse 18. What he just said, what's bound in heaven is bound on earth.

51:02

What's loosed in earth is loosed in heaven. God's already done this. It didn't, this, when you have to put someone out of the church, it did not take

51:11

God by surprise. He's omnipotent. He's omniscient. He's omnipotent, omnipresent.

51:18

He's everywhere present. So he knew what was going on. He knows everything. So he already knew this would happen before the foundation of the earth.

51:26

And by the way, he's all powerful. He's capable of stopping it if he so desired. But he didn't. He let this happen.

51:33

And it's not easy to do it. So what is he saying? Again I say to you, if two or three, what are the two?

51:39

Sorry, if two of you agree, what are the two? The two witnesses. If you agree, then

51:46

God's going to give it to you. Why? What are you asking for in this context? You're asking to put them out of the church.

51:52

You're going to be asking for some comfort on your own for having to do this. God's going to give that to you.

51:58

It's already been done in heaven, right? That's why it could be done on earth, to be then put out.

52:04

Verse 20 now, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst. What is that? That is an encouragement to those two or three witnesses that had to stand before the church and say, yes, we are witnesses to this person's sin, to the point that they have to be put out.

52:17

They need that encouragement. Why? Because they didn't want to have to do that. Nobody likes doing that.

52:23

And so this is the difficulty. And so when you look at this, this is a hard thing to do.

52:28

And so this becomes one that they need that encouragement. So this is not you ask anything, you get, you know,

52:36

Bud and I asked for something, God's obligated to give it to us. No, this is the way Word of Faith will try to argue it.

52:42

So that they can say, hey, God is obligated to you. Notice a trend that we see throughout all these passages.

52:49

The focus changes from God to person, from God to you. What's the problem? What is it we repent of when we come to Christ?

52:55

We repent of our, our pride, our selfishness, and we turn to Christ. But what is it that so many

53:01

Christians are doing? They repented of that in regeneration, and then they're trying to pull it back to themselves.

53:06

This is the problem. I mean, the command of Christ, deny your self, deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me.

53:13

Why? Because he's the center. He's the focus. He is exalted. I mean, the Lord is exalted.

53:19

He is high and lifted up. It's all about God's glory. It's not about you. We're the creature. We're commanded to repent and believe, not invite, not get some other guy here so we can get our wishes granted, because there's two of us.

53:33

But in this context, I mean, you know, to the defense of the pop

53:38

Christian church, most people sitting in those pews, they have no idea what church discipline is, so at least they're pulling this verse out, right?

53:46

They're trying to be faithful. Because that's about all they could use out of that section of Scripture.

53:54

But the focus becomes, again, on me. On you. We continue, as Christians in our sanctification, to be struggling to deny ourselves.

54:03

Why do we have to be commanded to deny ourselves? Because we keep trying to exalt ourselves.

54:08

Yeah. And that's the way each of these passages that we've looked at, this is what ends up happening with this. It becomes all about self.

54:16

And so, you know, this is just a couple of passages. We'll probably do an episode in the future.

54:21

We have some more that we couldn't get to in time. I should mention, Bud, that you were talking about the fact, you made a comment about Southern Baptists, that Southern Baptists don't practice infant baptism.

54:34

But they don't. They don't believe it. They don't believe it. But they don't really practice it, though. They practice child baptism.

54:41

Because they don't do it to infants. But, you know, a really good book on that subject is written by a friend of ours,

54:49

Justin Peters. It's called Do Not Hinder Them. And it deals with childhood baptism and conversion.

54:55

And the good thing about that book, I mean, even though it's geared toward addressing the issue of the

55:01

Southern Baptists baptizing young children and saying they're not old enough to really understand the issues of salvation.

55:08

And, you know, you're giving a false assurance to many because many of them trust that, well,

55:15

I've been baptized, so I'm saved. And now they're not looking for salvation because they have a false conviction.

55:23

And they think they're converted, but it's a false conversion. So that's why he wrote it.

55:28

But the really neat thing about that book is it talks about what conversion actually is. It's a really good detailed explanation of conversion.

55:34

And that's why I think that book is so excellent, is even if you're not struggling with the child baptism, it's still a good book on conversion.

55:43

So I do want to recommend that. And so I think, but we're not going to be able to get to all the passages we had.

55:50

We've gotten to some. Yeah, we're already an hour in. There's only like 7 ,000 that this happens with, apparently.

55:59

Yeah, there's probably, if we use that Bible, that personalized

56:05

Bible that you sent those things for this morning, there's, what, 7 ,000 personalized promises.

56:12

Those would be 7 ,000 out of context, I'm sure. Please don't buy that Bible, please.

56:20

Besides that, would you say the price was like over $100 or something? It was $140, I think, but no show links, please.

56:26

Don't put that in there. Put Justin's book in there. Put a link to that. I'll put a link to Justin's book. So maybe we'll continue this next week.

56:34

If something else doesn't pop up, we'll see. But folks, we hope that this encouraged you, that for you to consider reading within the context.

56:46

It's an important time to read when you go to bed. How did you sleep last night, by the way? You look all fresh and everything. I am.

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So you thought that we were missing that commercial, and you were going to sneak it in at the end, huh? I just didn't know. You forgot. You thought

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I forgot. I did not forget the commercial. You're the pro. I just figured I was going to do something different today.

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You know? Well, you can't fool me. I'm too ignorant. But hey, we got it in.

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