One of the things I would like to look at in the Bible is how God tells us in the Bible that we should not trust our own thoughts or ideas or what we think truth might me. We only should listen to the Bible, because we know that the Bible is absolute truth. It is God who is speaking to us and we had better listen to what the Bible has to say.
There are many people who claim to be believers who do not take correction at all. They do not want to hear that they might have a belief that is not true to the Bible. You go to them and you try to correct them from any teaching in the Bible, and you tell them what the Bible says, and they do not want to hear it. They are locked into what they have been taught by their pastor or favorite Bible teacher and they will not listen to the Bible. The Bible should be our authority. The Bible has the final say of what truth is. It is not what is coming out of our own wicked minds or ideas.
In Proverbs 3 (this is a very familiar passage), look at Proverbs 3:5-6. Here God is warning all of us that we should not trust our own ideas of what we have been taught or what somebody told us, or whatever the case might be. We should only listen to the Bible. Proverbs 3:5-6 says:
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; …
And the only way we are going to trust in the Lord with all our heart is when God saves us and gives us a new heart:
… and lean not unto thine own understanding.
See, what God tells us is that we should not lean on our own ideas or what I believe truth is; it tells us not to lean on our own understanding:
In all thy ways …
In all our ways, God tells us, and it says:
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he …
Which is God:
… shall direct thy paths.
We should only listen to the Bible, to what it says, to the Word of God. It does not matter what it is. It could be speaking about election, it could be speaking about the end in which we live, that we are so very close to the end of the world. Seeing that we are only two years away from the end of the world, a little over two years, who are we going to listen to? Our own thoughts and ideas? I do not think so. What are you basing your thoughts on? What you think or what the Bible says? You see how important it is to not listen to our own thoughts, or whatever the case might be; rather, we ought to listen to the Bible.
God tells us that we should not lean on our own wisdom or what we think truth might be. You see, all sorts of books have been written about this, or whatever the case is. But not all are going to listen. You can read books, but the Bible is the authority and you should check the writer of that book or that tract out from the Bible. Is what this person is trying to tell us from the book that they have written faithful to God’s Word? Are you going to trust God’s Word over that book? You are going to see, because God’s Word is the authority, that is what we are going to listen to. And if the person is found to be faithful to God’s Word in what they have written, then, okay, they are correct in what they are trying to say.
You see, the Bible is the authority, not what that person thinks. So we should only listen to the Bible. And God warns against that, that we should only listen to the Bible.
Let us turn over to 2 Timothy 3, another familiar passage, in 2 Timothy chapter 3. A child of God, a true child of God, will take correction from the Bible because we recognize that we do not know anything. You see, we have to come to God’s Word as if we do not know anything at all and say, “Oh Lord, You teach me,” not the other way around. Many people come to the Bible to prove their point. “I believe this,” and you can find whatever you want in the Bible to back up what you believe. But is it true? Is it true? Here in 2 Timothy 3:16, God tell us:
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, …
Our teaching:
… for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, …
But none of us have 100% truth. God’s Word should correct us. There cannot be any pride involved.
In the day in which we live, we are beginning to learn a lot about the last day, Judgment Day, the tribulation period. Are you simply going to walk away in pride and say, “I do not buy that. I have been taught that hell is eternal torment. We are going to be burned up for ever and ever and ever.” But here, God tells us in the book of Daniel that these things were sealed up until the time of the end. God is beginning to open these things to our minds now that we are at the end of the world. Are you going to hold to what you have been taught by the church during the Church Age, that hell is eternal, and you are not going to be corrected from the Bible?
I used to believe some things that were not true. But when you start reading the Bible, you start to realize, “Oh, that was not so!” The true believer will take correction from the Bible. No matter what you have been taught, when God has opened your eyes to that point regarding what you have held through decades or years and years of belief you thought was right, and you come to realize the fact that it is not so, then we have to turn away from it. There is no pride involved because we come to the Bible, if we are a true believer, and say, “Oh Lord, You teach me, You teach me”. We sit at the feet of Christ as Mark did, listening to the Word of God. We come with a humble spirit. “Oh Lord, teach me Thy Word.” The true believer has a teachable spirit and we turn away from our wrong belief or the wrong teaching that we held to for years and years and years. We turn away from it because we want truth. We want truth from the Bible, not what somebody has taught us. And it goes on and it says in 2 Timothy 3:16-17:
… for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God …
The true believers:
… may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
You see how we have to approach the Bible and not lean on our own wisdom or our own ideas, but listen only to the Bible. Because God now is opening the Bible to us and God is expounding to us more clearly doctrines pertaining to the end of the world. It has been closed up for a long time now. But God has been opening up the Bible to us, so we listen to the Bible because the Bible should be our authority. It is absolute truth.
Let us look at another passage in the book of Acts. We saw this in the book of Acts. There was a true believer who did not quite get a lot of things right, and God is giving us an example of this true believer in the book of Acts chapter 18 about this person. I was looking at this passage last night. Acts 18:24-28:
And a certain Jew named Apollos, …
This is a true believer named Apollos:
… born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, …
This man was mighty in the scriptures, but there were things he did not understand. And it says:
… and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John.
God tells us what he believed. He did not understand a lot of things:
And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.
He did not understand things. And here, other true believers heard him speak, and God had opened their eyes to the fact that he did not understand a lot of things about the Bible, and here they took him to the side and they corrected him. They corrected him about what he was saying. Did he fight against it? Did he say, “Look at me.” No! This is a sign of a true believer when they are being corrected from the Bible. And He continues in verses 27-28:
And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace: For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.
He did not understand a lot of things, and this husband and wife took him to the side and explained to him more perfectly the truth, something he did not understand. So that is how a true believer should approach the Bible. “Oh, I did not see that!” We thank God for Him putting someone in our life. Or we are reading the Bible and somebody is talking about the Bible and we say, “I did not understand that,” or “I did not see that.” We praise God for that! Are we being corrected by the Bible? God’s Word is the Bible.
Let us look at Proverbs 28:25-26:
He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife: but he that putteth his trust in the LORD shall be made fat. He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: …
We do not trust what comes out of our own sinful mind. God calls us a fool. Do not trust it, only trust what the Bible says to us. You were taught that, for instance, if you believed all your life that you could get divorced and get remarried and you come to realize that you cannot do that—“That was wrong, I had a wrong belief, that is not so”—you turn away from it. We changed that belief because God’s Word corrected us. We are not to trust in our own sinful thoughts or ideas. What I think or what you think pertaining to the Word of God means nothing. We should only listen to the Bible. It is our instruction, it is for our correction because we do not have it right. The Word of God corrects us.
But we have to approach the Bible very humbly, very humbly, and say, “Oh Lord, You teach me,” and put all our ideas aside. We only listen to the Bible. We only listen to God’s Word, the Bible. That is what we should listen to. We should be like the Bereans (Acts 17:10-11). Search the scriptures: are these things so? Especially in our day, when we have been taught all these new doctrines about the end of the world, we search the Bible. What is being taught? And if it is so, we glorify God for this truth that He has opened our eyes to. We do not take any credit for anything. God is the one who gets all the praise and all the glory for everything that we have learned from the Bible, whether it is a little or a lot. We take no credit.
Let us look at Psalm 86. Here God is going to tell us about the true believers. The true believers come humbly before the Word of God, and we have this attitude as we approach the Bible. Psalm 86:11-12:
Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name. I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy name for evermore.
Teach me, oh Lord, Thy way. Many people do not approach the Bible that way. They come to the Bible to prove their point. But for the true believers, it is the other way around. You teach me, oh Lord, Thy way. It is the same idea there in Psalm 119:33-40:
Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart. Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight. Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way. Stablish thy word unto thy servant, who is devoted to thy fear. Turn away my reproach which I fear: for thy judgments are good. Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness.
We could just go on, especially in Psalm 119. The desire of the true believer’s heart is that God will teach him His way. That is how we should approach the Bible because we are sinners, we know nothing, we know nothing. So when we are being taught from the Word of God, we should praise God for it. As true believers, we have an open mind to God’s Word because God is the one who has to teach us. He is the one who has to open our eyes to truth. We cannot do it of ourselves. And when the true believers come to truth, they delight in it and they praise God for it because the Bible is truth. I cannot put it any other way. God’s Word is truth. What ever He has said in His Word, He will bring it to pass.
I want to look at, for instance, election. Many people do not like election. It is taught in the Bible, and from the moment you start talking about election, or where we are at, that we can know the timing of the end or the very day of Christ’s return, they just completely cut you off. They cut you off; they do not want to hear it. Yet they claim to be true believers (I would never judge anyone, but they claim to be true believers). But the moment you start speaking about election, that God has chosen a people for Himself, the guards go up. They are greatly offended by it; they do not see the beauty of election. If God did not elect a people for Himself, none of us would be saved, none of us.
Look at Isaiah. God clearly tells us there in Isaiah 1 that if He did not chose a people for Himself, none of us would be saved, none of us! Here He tells us in Isaiah 1:9:
Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
We know what happened to those cities: God destroyed them. If God did not elect the people for Himself, none of us would be saved.
The teaching of election in the Bible is a beautiful thing. There are some wonderful teachings throughout the Bible, but many do not see it that way. They start to accuse God, and that is not right. They do not understand salvation. They do not understand salvation at all. If God did not choose tens of millions of people, let us say two hundred million people, not one of us would be saved.
Through election you see the mercy of God. You see the grace of God. You see how patient and kind God is because all of us are sinners, and all of us deserve to be destroyed. But yet in His infinite wisdom and His mercy and His kindness, He elected a people to Himself. And many are offended at it; many are offended at election. But when God has opened our understanding and we are sitting humbly before the Bible, we see this wonderful teaching in the Bible and we glorify God for it. Although He says it is a very tiny remnant compared to the whole numbers into the millions, it is a very tiny remnant, yet if God did not do that to save that tiny remnant, we would have all been like Sodom and Gomorrah or we would have all been destroyed by God. It is a beautiful thing when we look at election throughout the Bible. It is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful teaching that we see. Let us look at 1 Thessalonians 1:1-4, the word election:
Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father; Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God.
It is taught throughout the whole Bible that God has elected a people unto salvation before the foundation of the world. You bring these proof texts to people who believe in free will, who believe it is up to you to become saved. It does not matter what you show them in the Bible pertaining to how the teaching of free will is not so, that it is a false teaching. You try to show them (it has happened to me several times), you show them scriptures in the Bible that God has chosen a people for Himself. Yet they do not buy it. They do not want to hear it. You tell people about the time in which we live. You tell them about the end of the world. What is the first verse that they quote? No one can know the day or the hour.
I was speaking to someone at work this past week and they heard about it, (they listen to Family Radio), they heard about May 21, 2011. They do not buy it at all. I tried to explain to them that they have the wrong understanding of no one can know the day or hour. They do not want to hear it. They do not, no matter what you say about election or the end of the world. It does not register, it does not register. They are locked into their false belief. I take out my little pocket Bible and I try to show them some things and, “No,” I say, “it is not my words, it is what the Bible says,” and they just simply walk away. They hide behind these verses in the Bible, they hide behind it, no one can know the day or hour. They would rather live in ignorance, they would rather live in ignorance to what the Bible says.
And it can also be election. I tried to talk to many people about the doctrine of election in the Bible, but they are trusting in what they have been taught. They are trusting in what they are thinking; they are not listening to the Bible. This one particular guy told me, “Well, God is standing at the door and He is knocking, He is knocking at the door of your heart and all you have to do is open it up,” and I said, “Not so.” They simply turn and walk away. All you can do is pray for that person.
Now in the day in which we live, you know when Peter had that vision about the clean and unclean animals, and Peter is saying, “Not so, Lord,” many people are saying the same thing in our day. “Oh Lord, not so, not so.” But you know, you can know the end of the world; you can know the day. Noah knew, Abraham knew when the city of Sodom was going to be destroyed. Yet they are saying, “Not so, Lord, not so,” and they are turning and walking away.
I hope none of us here are doing the same thing. Would you rather not know the end of the world and blindly live out your life, and have that day come upon you as a thief? Or would you want to know and hear the warning and say, “Oh!” You should stop and start examining yourselves. Is this so? Is the Bible really teaching that we can know the very day and the year of Christ’s return? A true believer is going to examine this; they are going to want to look at the Bible. Is this really so? But there are those who are simply turning and walking away with no effect whatsoever. They go back into the world, they live their life, and they just continue on with life as usual.
We live in a day where time is of the essence, time is running out. There is no business as usual any longer, is there. There are a little over 24 months to go. What are we doing with this information? It is easy to look at someone else, but what about you hear it, I hear it, we all hear the end of the world is at hand. Are you going to act like the people in Noah’s day? They gave no attention to what was being said because, as we know, they all perished in the flood. And as you know, the word got around. They heard that the flood was coming. Just like people today; they are hearing, the word is getting out about May 21, 2011. Do you see the world up in arms over it? No! You do not hear it on the media; you do not hear it or see it in print media. It is just business as usual.
I would want to know how close we are to the end of the world. We should just stop and examine ourselves. Am I ready for that big day? Because it is going to affect us whether we are living or we died. It is going to affect you! I would rather know and start beseeching God for His mercy. And even if you are saved, you still can cry, “Oh Lord, have mercy on me.” But if you know that you are not saved and you hear that God is still saving a “great multitude” in our day, what should you be doing? There is nothing that should take precedence over this. There is nothing more important that this, nothing. Because the end of the world is here, the end of all things is at hand. And it is only months away.
So when we hear the warning, and this warning from the Bible is not from our own mind, is it? All this information is coming out of the Bible, right out of the Bible. You can check it out for yourselves. What are you going to do with it? Turn and walk away and say it is not going to happen? You know, we can tell ourselves a lot of things. Our evil hearts can believe anything. But is it going to change the fact because you do not believe it? Is God going to put His plans on hold, so to speak, because I do not believe that we are at the end of the world? No. You can go back into your own sin or whatever and live your life as usual, but the fact is that we are at the end of the world. We have to listen to the Bible. Do not trust in your own wisdom; do not trust in your own wicked heart. Because God tells us in Jeremiah 17:9:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: …
It is wicked and we should not listen to it. We should only listen to God’s Word the Bible and what He has to say to us. And we should listen to it very carefully with a view to be obedient. Obey! We can hear the Word of God, but we have to do what He says. Pray for obedience, pray for obedience. Is this so? We should react that way with fear and analyze our own heart, and we should cry to God for mercy because we know that God is a merciful God.
Anyone have any questions so far or comments?
Q. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). You can tell the people that we are sinners and under the wrath of God, and when they hear the Word as it was said before, it does not register. So when you talk to a million people [Inaudible] they will listen to a rock star, they will listen to a person of the world [Inaudible]. When it comes to the Word of God, a lot of people will not listen to it and only a few will listen, one or two people will listen. All the rest will follow that person, follow a rock star or another person like that. But when you preach the Word of God, a lot of people will not listen to it. They walk away from it; they will not listen to it.
A. The last thing mankind wants to hear is to be reminded of Judgment Day. See, the Word of God judges us; it condemns us. The last thing we want to hear is about God and to be reminded of it. People live out their lives in ignorance. They go about their business from day to day, and the last thing they want to be reminded about…
Take, for instance, when you go out to hand out tracts. From the moment most people see the title of the tract, what most people do is act like it is going to bite them. They back away from it. It is the Word of God and that is what it does to us, it condemns man. It reminds us that Judgment Day is coming, and people do not want to be reminded of that. But if you bring a false gospel, then that they will follow after. But the true gospel, mankind does not want to hear it.
Remember in Psalm 58, how God looks at the baby? We do not want to hear it. That is man’s rebellion against the Word of God, but the fact is that it is not going to change anything. That is why the teaching of election in the Bible is so wonderful. If God does not save a person, salvation is an impossible thing with man. God has to enter that person’s heart and give them a new spirit, and you know, Ezekiel 36, a new heart and so forth. Other than that, we are spiritually dead; we cannot respond to the true Gospel.
Q. My last comment is God is going to save 250 million people out of this world. The United States has about seven million people. We do not know if the 7 million people out of the 250 million people could be one of God’s elect. Cannot that be possible?
A. Anybody can be one of God’s elect. We do not know who they are; it is none of our business to figure out who God’s elect are. God has given our orders in Matthew 28 to go into the world with the gospel. Share the gospel far and wide as He wants it to go. That is not our business. We just go and we share the Gospel as far and wide as we possibly can and God will save His elect.
Q. There are people that have listened to Family Radio for 20 years, 13 years, and some of the people are old listeners. The Bible says the “first shall be last; and the last shall be first” (Matthew 19:30). Are we the last? Are we going to be the first or are we going to be the last?
A. Well, in the United States we have always had the Bible. We are one of the first to hear the Word of God. That is not our concern really; we just go into the world with the Gospel as God opens the doors, and He will open the door to that nation, to this nation. We simply share the gospel.
Q. Proverbs 3:7:
Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.
[Inaudible]
A. We are not to think we are wiser that God, in other words. We are not, because as I said many times, we should know our place. God is “high and lifted up,” He “inhabiteth eternity,” and we are not wiser than Him. He is the one who designed the salvation program. That is it. He lays it out in front of us. But there are those; man, in his perverted mind, wants to change the gospel to suit himself. It is like the gospel of grace; you are saved by grace, but some believe you have to do something for it. Man’s mind is perverted and has been teaching like that throughout the Church Age. You have to walk down the aisle and accept the Lord today and say the sinner’s prayer and touch the TV, or whatever the televangelists tell you to do, and do this or do that and God will save you. No! The Bible does not tell you that. From the moment you have 99.99% grace and a tiny bit of work, you change the gospel of grace into a works gospel. God is the one who saves 100%.