STUDY THE BIBLE 5
"Rightly Divide
the Bible
They hop, skip and jump through
it once or twice and then ‘throw it in the bin’. Perhaps they leave
their Bible
on a shelf somewhere because it makes them feel spiritual. “Oh, I read
the
Bible when I was eight years old but it didn’t do me any good. Now, I
do what I
want and what makes me feel good. But I have to tell you man, it’s
wearing me
out! I’m getting so depressed, life is losing its taste, I want to kill
myself!
But I’m looking at going on a spiritual retreat and doing some more
travel. I
think I’ll have to lose myself to find myself.”
Mmmm! Yeh right! Their motto is “Your
truth is not necessarily my truth.” It sounds clever doesn’t it? And of
course
it totally contradicts what Christ said
I am the
way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
John
14:6. Another
clever saying of theirs is “There is no such thing as absolute truth”
not
realising they have just contradicted themselves with an absolute
statement
about their truth.
Here’s their problem. The Bible
is the only book that you must know the author personally to
understand
it. It’s not a novel. A lot of people who call themselves Christians
are not
Christians. There are two groups of unsaved people – those that deny
sin exists
and those that take the wrong option of wanting to be like Jesus and
follow
him. But they won’t have him as their Saviour!
Most people just see the Bible as
another book of self-improvement or a guide on how to be kinder to
others.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The real reason that people
don’t like
the Bible is that the Bible ‘doesn’t like them’. The Bible is totally
against all the modern day psychology and popular self-help books
that say
“In order to become a better person, you must eliminate negative
thoughts about
yourself”. No, the Bible calls them sinners. The
problem for
people is not lack of self-esteem. No. Everyone has too much
self-esteem.
Everyone thinks too highly of themselves already. This is why people
end up in
jail. The laws of society don’t apply to them and stop them being who
they want
to be. Laws inhibit and constrict them.
There are two ‘MUST
HAVES’ to understanding the Bible.
1. You must be saved 2. You must not only
use the King James Bible but you must believe it.
If God had wanted us to use the
Greek or Hebrew, he would have let Greece or Israel rule the world. But
he
didn’t. He chose England. As it is said “The sun never set on the
British
Empire.” This means wherever the sun was shining on the earth, Britain
was ruling
a colony there. Why? He wanted all the races of the world to learn
English so
they could read his perfect Bible in the English language. As stated “The
Authorized Bible, also known as The King James Bible, is perfect,
infallible,
inerrant and inspired.”
“What if I don’t speak
English?”
Answer: “Do the best you can with the language translation
you have.” Just remember though, the whole world wants to learn
English. Why?
International business and commerce is conducted in English (not
Chinese yet,
or Russian or Spanish). People don’t realise that God has made the
international language to be English. Why? It’s not about
business or
commerce, but about God blessing man in being able to study his
perfect words
in the perfect language called English. The whole world spends a lot of
money
learning English, and they don’t really know why. God does.
English is the unique
language
English is not like any other
language, in that, it is a mixture of all other languages that use
‘letters’ to
make up their words. Remember back at school you learnt that the
Angles, Saxons
and the Jutes with their primitive European languages, invaded England,
and these
formed the basis of the English language. These are all the European
languages
of French, German, Spanish, Dutch and so on.
Now, Europe is where Noah’s son
Japheth went. These are not the African languages of Ham
or the
Semite languages of Shem, that is of the Arabs or the Jews. The
English King
James Bible is the perfect Bible to which all other languages
must go
back to and refer.
The English language
is far superior to the Greek or the Hebrew.
Why? The Old Testament was
written in Hebrew. But it’s not the Bible. The New Testament
was
compiled in Greek before the English King James corrected it in about
1,000
places. But the Greek New Testament is not the Bible. The Bible
is combination
of the Hebrew Old Testament with the Greek New Testament and made into
the
English Bible.
Let
me give you a well known story about Richard Kilbye – one of the King
James
Bible translators. Richard Kilbye, one of the translators, attended a
church
service where the young preacher used most of the time allotted to show
how a
particular English word had been mistranslated and gave three
reasons in
support of his stance. He had been studying the Greek. Later, Dr
Kilbye,
explained to the preacher why the King James Bible’s choice of words
was
correct and gave him thirteen more weighty reasons for the
particular
wording.
There
are three things about the English King James
Bible
1.
All the Bible is pure HISTORICAL fact. 2.
All the Bible is 100% ABSOLUTELY TRUE. 3. BUT ALL OF IT
DOES NOT
APPLY TO ME AS A CHRISTIAN TODAY.
Why?
God gave the Jews all the laws to keep in the
Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Read these books and you will see
endless
laws (about 619 of them), feasts, holy days, sacrifices and so on. Will
I be
keeping those? No. Will I be getting circumcised so that I may go to
heaven?
No. Why? In a nutshell, Christ fulfilled the Old Testament laws
perfectly, so I
don’t have to for my salvation. However, when you are saved, you are
now under
‘Christian laws’ of right and wrong. God will take you back to his
commandments,
and these are found in Paul’s books. There are lots and lots of them.
Furthermore,
the Ten Commandments are re-stated and ‘re-worded’, minus number 4
about
keeping the Sabbath, for the Christian in the Books of Colossians and
Ephesians. Paul says If any man think himself to be a prophet, or
spiritual,
let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the
commandments of the Lord.
1 Corinthians 14:37.
“What
about the Book of Revelation?” you say
“surely this can’t be called historical fact!!?”
Incorrect.
This is history alright. It’s future
history. It’s called prophecy. It’s called history in
advance.
The book is not hard to understand, it just hard to believe. All the
events
foretold are more sure than gravity. But you do not want to be here in
the
Tribulation to prove them - do you?
“What
about Song of Solomon?
“Isn’t
it just some poetry about husband and wife?”
No.
The Song of Solomon is the book that the Jews
recite every Feast of the Passover. And they don’t have a clue
why they
do it. This book outlines Christ’s future love for Israel. Christ, the
faithful
and unknown shepherd of the story, waits and waits for Israel, the black
Shulamite woman (Song of Solomon 1:6). She is not a virgin (Song of Solomon 1:6), and
symbolizes
Israel’s fornication with the many lovers of the surrounding heathen
nations
with their evil religions. She is being tempted once again to join the
harem of
a very powerful king, but she keeps resisting the offer. She is
eventually
taken away by the shepherd. This will be Christ in the Tribulation when
Israel’s
eyes will be opened (Zechariah 12:10). Isn’t it amazing, that God would
have
the Christ rejecting Israel rehearse this story every year?
God
has put a persistent spiritual ‘thirst’ into
Israel and she doesn’t know what it is. Deep down she longs for Christ.
In the
interim, Christ, the humble and unknown shepherd, waits for his beloved
(Israel) with true love. Christ is their true Passover who they haven’t
recognized yet. In many ways, Christ is like a Hosea who knowingly took
a
prostitute for a wife.
God wants us to study
God has written down Study
to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman
that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of
truth. 2 Timothy 2:15.
1.
Do you want to be approved by God? Yes!
2.
Do you want to be ashamed? No!
3.
Do you want to be a workman? Yes!
4.
Will you study the
Bible? Yes!
5.
Will you RIGHTLY DIVIDE the Bible, the
word of truth, into it’s proper sections? Yes!
People
will not rightly divide the word of
truth (2 Timothy 2:15). They are taking a truth meant for another
time
and mis-applying it to today. As it is said “The Bible has
probably sent
more people to hell then any other book.” Can you believe it? People go
to hell
for believing the truth. IT WAS JUST THE WRONG TRUTH! Put it
this way, all
heresies are truths. They are truths for another time.
There
is a big word called DISPENSATIONS.
God has dispensed and given out different
sets of rules
and instructions for different groups of people at different
times since creation. More on that later.
The
verse of 2Timothy 2:15 tells us what to do –
STUDY. Wrestle with it! Take it to God!
We
are to work! Study is a work! Work involves
effort! Work is not merely reading the Bible! To pass an exam
you stay
up late and put in the effort! Work is not reading a verse, feeling
spiritual, then
dropping off to sleep! The King James Bible is the only one with the
word
‘study’. All the other versions read “do your best” or “have a go” and
so on. When studying the Bible, say this
prayer
“Lord, I don’t understand this bit, but I know it’s true. Please show
me. I
won’t change a word or meaning. I want the truth, all of the truth and
nothing
but the truth - at any cost.” If this is your aim, God will
bless you. You’ll
be accused of having a closed mind. That’s for me brothers and sisters!
Closed
and rusted onto the Lord’s truth.
www.
AustralianBibleMinistries
.com
Australian
Bible Ministries, PO
Box 5058 Mt. Gravatt East 4122 Qld, Australia
www.AustralianBibleMinistries.com
