Showing posts with label Sabbath. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sabbath. Show all posts

Thursday, April 28, 2016

The Seventh Day Adventist Cult

Video

March 1, 2015

Pastor: Tonight, I want to preach about the Seventh-day Adventist and I've done once sermon before on the Seventh-day Adventist and, you know, we have CDs of that. And I'm not going to reproach that sermon. I want to cover some different material in this sermon. But many people today think that the Seventh-day Adventist are Bible believing Christians that just happen to go to church on Saturday.

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: That’s what most people think about the Seventh-day Adventist. But actually I'm going to prove to you tonight that the Seventh-day Adventist are a cult and that they have many strange doctrines and false teaching and I'm also going to demonstrate to you that they have this false bible that they’ve put out, this paraphrase of the Bible as they call it quote unquote called the Clear Word Bible and this thing is the most wicked false Bible version I have ever seen. I mean even the New World Translation would blush. I mean, this thing -- this thing is bad. But first of all, let me -- I'll just quickly explain to you who the Seventh-day Adventist are and let me tell you something, this is a huge religion.

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: This isn’t just a small religion. I mean, we’re talking tens of millions of people follow the Seventh-day Adventist cult and the reason that I call it a cult is because they follow the teachings of a woman named Ellen G. White and they put that on par with the Bible sort of like the Mormons have Joseph Smith and they say, “Oh, he's the prophet and basically his words are right up there with the Bible,” and they embrace his strange teachings as if they came from the Bible, so with the Seventh-day Adventist. They have the strange teachings of Ellen G. White and it is a cult around her. In fact in their statement of faith they're 28th fundamental beliefs, she's the only person that they mention by name. You know, they mentioned Jesus of course but in addition to Jesus, they actually specifically mentioned that Ellen G. White is their prophet and that her writings are authoritative. Let me just read that for you just so that you hear from the horse’s mouth because I'm not bringing to you tonight slander and heresy and rumors floating around the internet. This is directly from the official Seventh-day Adventist website adventist.org their 28 fundamental beliefs and belief number 18 under these fundamental beliefs is called the gift of prophecy, listen to this. One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is prophecy. This gift is an identify mark of the remnant church and was manifested in the ministry of Ellen G. White. As the Lord’s messenger, her writings are a continuing and authoritative source of truth which provide for the church comfort, guidance, instruction and correction. You know, just that list right there of four things, comfort, guidance, instruction and correction, it reminds me of when the Bible says that all scriptures given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness. They're using the same type of language about her writings and saying, ‘Hey, these are a continuing and authoritative source of truth.” So this isn’t just a teacher that they like or books that they like to read. No, it's an authoritative source of truth. What does it mean authoritative? It's their authority and they can say, “Well, the Bible is also our authority” or “the Bible is also a final authority” or “Ellen G. White’s teachings line up with the Bible.” But either way, these are two authorities that they have. They’ve got the Bible and they’ve got the writings of Ellen G. White and they are both considered authoritative sources of truth under the Seventh-day Adventist. Now, I'm going to get into a lot Bible tonight to disprove the strange teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist church and I'm going to show you how this book that is published by the Seventh-day Adventist -- and they’ll lie to you and say, “Oh, we didn’t publish that.” Well, it's published by the Review and Herald Publishing Association which is one of two major Seventh-day Adventist publishing houses in North America is the oldest institution of the Seventh-day Adventist church. The institution that prints this book in my hand, the publish house that prints the Clear Word is the oldest branch of the Seventh-day Adventist church is an official publisher of the Seventh-day Adventist church that is publishing this book. It's their main publisher that publishes it. But first of all, let me just tell you what some of the strange doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventist are before we get into this. First of all, their big doctrine that they love to hammer in is the indivisibility of the body, mind and spirit, okay, and you might hear that and say, “Well, who care what they believe about that? Who cares if they believe that the mind, body and spirit cannot be divided?” Well, it leads into other…

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: …strange doctrines, okay?

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: Whenever you have doctrine that false, the Bible calls it leaven. And He says a leaven leavens the whole lump because when you get false doctrine in, it spreads and contaminates other doctrines but they strongly teach and the writings of Ellen G. White really hammer this in that man indivisible. Mind, body and spirit can never be divided. For example, in their fundamental statement of faith off their website under the nature of man, it says, “Man and woman were made in the image of God with individuality, the power and freedom to think and to do. Thou created beings, each is indivisible unity of body, mind and spirit dependent upon God for life and breath and all else.” So this is something that they found so important as to put it in their fundamental beliefs, okay? Let’s see if it matches up with scripture that the body, mind and spirit cannot be divided. Well, go to James chapter 2.

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: James chapter 2 will tell you this in verse 26 and there are a lot of scriptures that will teach this but James 2:26 is probably the clearest where it says, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: So according to the Bible, the definition of death is that the body is without the spirit. When the body and the spirit are separated, that’s what death is according to the Bible, isn’t it? And in fact, here's a list of scriptures to bolster that. You don’t have to turn to these. Genesis 25:8, “Then Abraham gave up the Ghost and died.” Now anyone who knows anything about the Bible knows that the word “Ghost” means spirit.

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: Have noticed that about half the time in the New Testament, it talks about the Holy Ghost and then the other half the time it's talking about the Holy Spirit…

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: …and they're both synonymous, they're both the same person, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit? And it says that he gave up the Ghost and died. Genesis 25:17, it says of Ishamel, “He gave up the Ghost and died and was gathered onto his people.” Isaac in Genesis 35:29 gave up the Ghost and died and was gather onto his city or under his people. Lamentations 1:19, “My priest and my elders gave up the Ghost in the city.” Mark 15:37, “And Jesus cried with a loud voice and gave up the Ghost.” And so on and on -- I'm not going to read them off for sake of time but scripture after scripture after scripture where the Bible says that someone gave up the Ghost and it means that they died. They gave up the spirit. The spirit departed. The body without the spirit is dead.

Congregation: Right.

Congregation: Amen.

Pastor: Faith without works is dead also. You find a dead body and the spirit’s gone. So to say that they're indivisible is just a made-up false doctrine. Why would anyone make up that doctrine? Because one of the key teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist church is that they do not believe in eternal hell. They don’t believe that hell is an eternal punishment.

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: They just believe that people are just annihilated and they're gone but that no one is burned up. And so they have to teach this thing of the inseparability of the body, mind and spirit in order to get their doctrines of soul sleep and annihilation.

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: Okay? So what is soul sleep? The Seventh-day Adventist believe along with the Jehovah’s false Witnesses which are a very religion, they believe that when a person dies, that person is just asleep, body, soul and spirit, you know, all asleep. They don’t believe that they go to heaven. They don’t believe that they go to hell. They just believe that they're asleep and that’s it. Okay. This is a false doctrine. Go to Philippians chapter number 1. Let’s see what the Bible says about this doctrine. Philippians chapter number 1 -- Philippians chapter 1 -- while you're turning there, I'll read for you from the statement of faith of the Seventh-day Adventist on adventist.org under point 26 it says, “The wages of sin is death but God who alone is immortal will grant eternal life to his redeemed. Until that day, death is an unconscious state for all people.” Did you hear that? Until that day, death is an unconscious state for all people. Look at Philippians 1:21 and see if that’s true. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor. Yet what I shall choose I want not for I am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better. Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. Why did Paul say that for him to live was Christ and to die is gain, because he said if I die I would depart and be with Christ. He didn’t say I have a desire to just die and then just be asleep.

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: No. He’s have a desire to depart and be with Christ which is far better. Go to 2 Corinthians chapter number 5. 2 Corinthians chapter number 5, there's a lot of scripture that we could use to show that this is false. I’m just showing you a few. But in 2 Corinthians chapter 5:6, the Bible reads, Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: for we walk by faith not by sight. We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labor that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of Him. Now, let me ask you something, does that teach that the mind, body and spirit are inseparable?

Congregation: No.

Congregation: No.

Pastor: No. Because they say look, right now we’re at home in the body. But one day we will be absent from the body and present with the Lord. That’s when our body’s physically die, we will give up the ghost and the spirit will return to God that gave it.

Congregation: Amen.

Pastor: And we will be in heaven consciously awaiting the Day of Judgment and all the different things that are going to come. But we’re going to be asleep. Now, you say well but the Bible does talk about those who are asleep, right. But here’s the thing. It's the body that’s sleep.

Congregation: Right.

Congregation: That’s right.

Pastor: The body sleeps. That’s why the Bible says, “Many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall rise.” Psalm 2 -- I don’t have it off of the top of my head right now. But in Daniel chapter 12 it says, you know, “Some are going to -- be rise unto everlasting life. And others going to be rise unto everlasting shame and contempt.” Okay. But what you have to understand is that the body remains here when we die, but the soul is going to go to one of two places the moment we die.

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: You’re either going to depart and be with Christ. You’re going to be absent from the body and present with the Lord or you will lift up your eyes in hell being in torment. In Luke chapter 16 it says, “The rich man also died was buried and in hell he lift up his eyes being in torment.” So it was that fast, and a lot of people will say, “Well, how can they go to hell they haven’t even judge yet.” No, the Bible says, “He that believeth not is condemned already.”

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: There's need to be judge that the great white thrown to be sent to hell. No. Hell is going to deliver up the dead that are in it and they’ll be judge everyman according their works. You go to hell before the Great Day of Judgment if you’re unsaved.

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: Because you’re condemned already, the Bible says. And the moment that unsafe person breaths their last breathe the soul will go to hell. And the moment that a believer breaths their last breathe the soul will be in heaven. That’s why John and Revelation, before the rapture took place, before the first resurrection, before the trumpet sounds, he says, “I saw the souls of them that were slaying for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.” And he said, “I saw the souls that were up there and they cried out saying, how long O Lord, holy and true, is to not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth.” So they’re not unconscious. They’re not sleep. They’re up there saying how much longer do we have to wait?

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: They’re not being just warp forward to that moment as the Seventh-day Adventist, Jehovah false Witnesses and others teach. Go to 1 Thessalonians 4 because this is a powerful truth.

Congregation: Yeah, it is.

Pastor: I’m just showing you how these teachings of Ellen G. White are not authoritative. They’re false.

Congregation: Right.

Congregation: Amen.

Pastor: And they contradict the Bible. Oh it's an -- Ellen G. White’s writings are an authoritative source of truth but they have to be tested by the Bible. Well, I’m tested them right now and they’re failing.

Congregation: Right.

Congregation: Amen.

Pastor: This is one of her key teachings. This is one of their 28 fundamental truth that they’ve chosen. I mean I didn’t picked 20 things about the Seventh-day Adventist. They have chosen and listed these things and said, “These are our 28 fundamental teachings.” Fundamental means that it's the foundational, it's the most important to them and it does not line up with scripture. It's false, which proves that Ellen G. White was a false prophet. And wait until we get into more on that. But I think I told you to turn to 1 Thessalonians 4. This is the famous passage about Jesus Christ coming in the clouds, the trumpet sounding and us which are alive and remain being caught up together in the clouds with him. But that’s not what I want to focus on. I want to focus on those who’ve already died and gone on to be with the Lord. Lets see what the Bible says about them. This is a fascinating passage and in fact, it's one of those passages that so famous, we’ve read it so many times. We’ve heard so many times but it is so deep and they’re many biblical truths in this passage that I’ve never heard expounded because it's so deep there's so much going on here. And I think often we overlook things in famous passages because we feel like Oh, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that a million times. But read it again beginning in verse 13. It says, “But I would not have to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep.” Now, is that what we were talking about with Ellen G. White? Hey she’s teaching this soul sleep doctrine that people’s body, soul, mind is all asleep until the Judgment Day. Listened to this, “Concerning them which are asleep that you that ye sorrow not, even as the other which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.” So notice, it says in verse 16, “For the Lord Himself shall descend.” So the Lord Jesus Christ is going to descend from heaven, right?

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: And it says “That those that are sleep in Jesus will God bring with them.”

Congregation: Amen.

Pastor: Now are there bodies up in heaven right now?

Congregation: No.

Pastor: So how is He is going to bring Him with them? Because it's the soul.

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: See if there was an inseparability of the body and soul that wouldn’t even make sense. So, it says right there very clearly, it's says, “Them which are sleep in Jesus…” At the end of verse 14, “…will God bring with Him.” Verse 15, “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

Congregation: Okay.

Pastor: Now stop and think about this, on hand he’s saying, “The Lord is going to descend and bring those who are sleep in Jesus with them.” Which direction is that? Bring it them.

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: And then over here it says, “The dead in Christ shall rise first.” How can that be? Because the body is rising, the body is in the grave and it's rising and then, the Lord bringing them with Him in -- as far as their souls. And then, there's a reunion that takes place were they are change in a moment in a wink of an eye, we’re change. And the Bible says, “That God shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.” The Bible says, “That in the resurrection it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” So we see here that according to 1 Thessalonians 4, “We have the soul coming from heaven because we have the believers coming with Jesus, God’s bringing it with it.” And then we also have the dead in Christ rising which is only possible if we’re talking about the body and the soul. And we could go to scripture after scripture, after scripture to prove that. But that just a small sampling of what we could show on the fact that the doctrine of souls asleep is a false doctrine. Now another major doctrine of the Seventh-day Adventist is annihilation, okay. And that’s where they’re really going with this. They do not believe that people will be punished in hell eternally. They believe -- they basically they just burned up, they’re destroyed, it's over. Now, in fact, there's a famous Seventh-day Adventist teacher and I remember seeing this guy on TV when I was a kid. And one thing about the Seventh-day Adventist, they don’t go around always broadcasting, “Hey we’re Seventh-day Adventist.”

Congregation: Yup.

Pastor: Sometimes they try to get in the back door by acting like they’re just basic Christians and they don’t tell you that they’re part of this Ellen G. White cult. And a guy like that is this guy in Sacramento, California and I’m from Sacramento, California. So when I was going up I would see this guy on TV and I even watch him a few times on TV back before I knew that all TV preachers are bad. But I sat and watch this guy on TV. His name is Doug Batchelor and the show is just called Amazing Facts. So it doesn’t say anything about being a Seventh-day Adventist, Amazing Facts. And upon listening to this guy for a few hours, when I was a teenager I realized, wait a minute this guy is a Seventh-day Adventist. And I realized that after a while and I never listen to him again. But this guy is like the chief apologies of the Seventh-day Adventist church. His got all kinds of videos on YouTube and everything just to try to smooth things over and try to let people know, “Hey the Seventh-day Adventist aren’t weird. We’re not a cult.” And they try to gloss over their strange doctrines and they try to make them sound normal and to try to smooth it over. And his goal is to try to recruit Christians, you know, to become Seventh-day Adventist and to, you know, leave biblical Christianity and to get suck into these false teachings. Now, in order to show you the policy of the doctrine of annihilation, you know, I would go through a lot of scriptures to show you that hell is eternal. But before I do that, I think it would make more sense if I introduce you to this book right here. Okay. This book, it says on it the clear word. It used to say the clear word bible but they got so much flack about even calling this a bible that they just changed it to the clear word. But if you open it up you’ll see that it's laid out like a bible, chapters, verses the whole thing. And it's a paraphrase of the bible. It says on it, “And expanded paraphrase to build strong faith and nurture spiritual growth.” And what's funny is when you try to show the error of this book and just show the wickedness of this book and how it perverts and corrupts scriptures. The Seventh-day Adventist will try to tell you, “Oh, well, that’s not our official bible.” That’s not an official bible of the Seventh-day Adventist church. They’ll try to, you know, distance themselves from it. But it says right on the back of it. It says Jack J. Blanco, and I think it's funny that their cult leader is a woman name Ellen G. White and this guy’s name is Blanco which is what? Spanish for white. So, anyway, right on the back, the author of this book -- because they’ll say, “Oh, that’s just, you know, a guy wrote that. You know, that was just one Seventh-day Adventist who wrote that. You know, it doesn’t represent our whole church. That was just written by one guy.” That’s what they’ll try to say. But listen to this, Jack J Blanco is chair of the religion department of Southern Adventist University near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Okay. So this guy is the chairman of the religion department of this major Seventh-day Adventist University in Tennessee. So this isn’t just some renegade Seventh-day Adventist. He’s going to be the next David Koresh or something who is also, you know, a renegade Seventh-day Adventist by branch Davidian whatever. You know, no. This guy right here is a major professor and a major -- I mean not even profess -- I mean he’s the chairman of the religion department at their university, at their seminary. Not only that, this book is published by their official publishing house, the Review and Herald Publishing Association. Not only that, it's for sale in Seventh-day Adventist church bookstores all over America. Not only that, lots of Seventh-day Adventist are carrying this thing around, showing up to church with it. Showing up to their bible studies with it. And this is the bible and then all of a sudden say, “Oh, that’s not Seventh-day Adventist Bible.” You’re selling it, you’re publishing it. It's written by one of your top university guys and all of a sudden you’re going to act like, “Oh, I don’t know that book.” You know what in the world? Well, this book is mentioned on adventist.org, the official church website. There's an article on there about choosing a bible translation, and on there it explains that there are three types of bible translation. So they’re putting this in the list of bible translations. And they say, “Well, there’re basically three types of bible translation.” And say, “Number one, there's the essentially literal” A translation that’s literal and list, you know, the Kind James Version as being a literal translation. And they say, you know, “The ESV is a literal translation. The New American Standard is a literal translation.” Then they say, “Number two, there are dynamic equivalents translation. Translations that translate a little more loosely, not as much word for word and a little more thought for thought. And they list some bibles like the NIV and the New Living Translation. Okay. Then number three they say there are three paraphrases. And here's what they say about paraphrases on adventist.org. Paraphrases take great liberty with the biblical text and seek to convey the meaning of the author using contemporary phrases and metaphors. The best known paraphrases are the clear word, the living bible, and the message. Now, the question for you, is the clear word one of the best known paraphrases? Who's ever heard of the clear word before tonight? Look around. It's real -- yeah, well, you have here. So, is this -- is this the first in the list of the best known paraphrases? No. Because they just want to get out there. They’re promoting it as, “Oh, yeah, you know, of course. The clear word, the living bible, the message.” Here's the thing, you’re not going to find this book down at the Christian bookstore. Go down to Bellarmine Bookstore and this book will not be there. But you know, what will -- but, you know, where you will find this book? Seventh-day Adventist church bookstores all over America. It's the Seventh-day Adventist that are the only ones who promote and use this book, okay. It's their bible that they’ve put out to promote their false doctrines. Now, listen to this, the best known paraphrases are the clear word, the living bible and the message. Within each of these categories there are significant variations. For example, the NIV is generally more literal than other dynamic equivalent translations. Well, the message makes bigger departures, listen carefully. Adventist.org says that the message makes bigger departures from the original text than the living bible or the clear word. So what are they saying? The message is a much looser paraphrase than this thing. Is that what they said? We’re going to test that right now. I’ve got the message. I never thought I’ll be defending the message and I’m not defending the message, you know. All these translations are bad. We’re King James Bible only here, that’s all we use, King James Bible. Now, but let me tell you something. This thing makes the message look literal and you’re going to see that as a -- I’m not even -- and that’s a weird thing to say I know.

Congregation: No.

Pastor: But for them to sit there and say, “Oh, yeah. Well, you know, the message takes these big liberties, you know. The clear word stays more true to the text.” Well, lets see if that’s true. Now, here's the thing. I didn’t even really need much effort to find the problems in this clear word. I’ve got all this index cards and all the different pages where I found hers. You say, “Pastor Anderson did you read that thing cover to cover? How did you find all that stuff?” Because it was so easy to find here’s all I did. I didn’t even go on the internet to go look at the list some more. Here's what I did to find it. I just look up all the verses that show that hell is eternal because I knew that it all be change. And I looked up all the verses about departing and going to be with the Lord. Everything that contradicts their doctrine, that’s a good place to look for what they’re going to change, right?

Congregation: Uh-hmm.

Pastor: And of course that’s where they made the big changes. Lets go to Luke 16, Luke chapter 16. Because when you think about people suffering in hell, this is the most famous passage. Luke 16, the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Now, some people will just write this off as being a parable.

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: But in parables Jesus never gives people names.

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: Because in parables He’ll just say there was a certain man. There was a rich man. There was a -- but in this one He actually names a guy named Lazarus showing that it's a real story that literally took place. Now I want you to go to Luke 16 in your King James Bible because you’re going to follow along in that as I give it to you from the clear word. But first of all let’s just read it in the King James to get out minds on that which is right. It says in Luke 16 beginning in verse 19, “There was a certain rich man which was cloth in purple and fine linen and fair sumptuous everyday. And there was a certain beggar name Lazarus which was later which was laid in his gate full of sores, and desire to be feed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table more over the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to past that the beggar died and was carried by the angels and Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments and see if Abraham a far off and Lazarus Northern Ireland his bosom and he cried and said, Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented in this flame.” Now does this jive with the Seventh-day Adventist? Oh, no when you die, you're just asleep and then eventually you’ll just burn up in hell and you're just gone, just annihilated. It's just over. You just burn up and destroy and it's done. No, this is a pretty chilling story, isn’t it?

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: Let’s see what the Clear Word does, okay? Look, this is not even a paraphrase. This makes The Message look mild as scary as that is, okay. Let me turn to the scripture here in this phony Clear Word Bible of the Seventh-day Adventist. Okay, you're looking down at your Bible at verse 19 and listen carefully to that number 19 because it's going to be so unrecognizable, you need to get your bearings now in your Bible, okay, 19. Listen to what they’ve done to this story. Then he said to the Pharisees, “You keep telling people the story you put together about a rich man dressed in fine clothes and lived luxuriously.” Did you hear that? Listen to it again. Then he said to the Pharisees, “You keep telling people the story you put together about a rich man dressed in fine clothes and lived luxuriously. In your story, there's also a poor man called Lazarus.” So notice, Jesus is not stating this story as fact as He does in the Bible. He's teaching as the word of God. In this book, He tells the Pharisees you made up that story. You made up the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Can you believe that? And this claims to be a paraphrase, and all throughout it, He keeps saying that like in verse 22, “As you tell it, the day came when the poor man died and was carried by the angels into glory sent by Abraham.” Verse 27, “Then according to your story, the rich man said I beg you -- do you see all these additions?

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: To completely change the story from truth into a lie. Instead of being a true story about the rich man and Lazarus, now it's some lie told by the Pharisees. And then listen to this in verse 34. this is all verse 34, it's a really long verse in here. You look at verse 34 in your Bible. “Then your story ends by Abraham saying, ‘If your brothers are not willing to listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen to anyone even if he rose from the dead.’” So you see, you yourselves teach people that they should listen to the scriptures and that what they do in this life will affect them in the next one. Is that a paraphrase of verse 31? No, that’s just something completely different. Okay. Now, lets see what The Message does because I mean The Message is going to go even further, right? That’s what adventist.org says. Oh, this is much true than the original and The Message. That message just really takes liberties. Okay. Look at verse 31. Remember the King James says in verse 31, he said to them if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded thou one rose from the dead. Here's what The Message says. Abraham replied, “If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they're not going to be convinced by someone who rises from the dead.” That’s The Message. Here's the Clear Word. Then your story ends by Abraham saying, “If your brothers are not willing to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen to anyone even if he rose from the dead.” So you see, you yourselves teach people that they should listen to the scriptures and that they -- what they do in this life will affect them in the next one. Listen to me, the Bible says add thou not unto His words lest he repove thee and thou be found a liar.”

Congregation: Amen.

Pastor: And let me tell you something, that is just lying to sit there and say Jesus said, “Oh, he's just trying to make it easier to understand. He's just making it clear.” No, it's clearly satanic.

Congregation: That’s right.

Congregation: Amen.

Pastor: You're clearly a cult, you clearly don’t care what the Bible says because you're worshipping a woman named Ellen G. White that taught you that this story is a lie. It's not a lie, Jesus told the truth about that story and it's the Seventh-day Adventist that are lying today.

Congregation: Amen.

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: Can you believe that [inaudible 0:31:56] and look, every verse that teaches that hell is eternal, they do this. Go to Revelation 14, Revelation chapter 14. Revelation chapter 14, look what the Bible says in verse 9 of Revelation 14, “And the third angel followed them saying with a loud voice, ‘If any man worship the beast in his image and receive his mark in his forehead or at his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever and they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast in his image and those whoever receive the mark of his name.” This guy Doug Batchelor that was on TV in Sacramento when I was kid, here’s what he said, “If you believe hell is eternal, you believe that God is sadistic.” So he's blaspheming God by calling Him sadistic for creating hell. Well listen Doug Batchelor, he did create hell, it is eternal, people will be tormented day and night forever and ever and you're going to compare Him to a perverted man named Marquis de Sade from the late 80th century France that was a sodomite and everything else and you're going to compare that to the Lord? That’s the worst kind of blasphemy to say, “Oh, He's a sadist. The God that the Baptist worship is a sadist,” is what he's saying. But listen to this. From the Clear Word, okay, you're looking at the real Bible there in Revelation 14:9, “I noticed a third angel flying behind the first and second ones and he also gave his message in a loud voice for all to hear saying, ‘Those who worship the sea beast and it's image and agree to receive the mark of it's name on his forehead or on his hand,” listen to verse 10, “will have to drink the wine of God’s judgment which will be poured out unmixed with mercy from the cup of his indignation. This will take place in the presence of the holy angels and of the lamb.” What's missing?

Congregation: Torment with fire.

Pastor: What's missing?

Congregation: Fire.

Pastor: Tormented with fire and brimstone. Okay, lets look at verse 11 in the Clear Word, “The fire of God’s judgment will not rest until those who worship the sea beast and the animal and have the mark of it's name are totally destroyed. The fire will not rest until they’ve been totally destroyed.” What does the King James Bible say? The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever and they have no rest day nor night. So what they’ve taken out is the no rest day nor night.

Congregation: Uh-hmm.

Pastor: What they’ve taken out is the torment and the fire and the brimstone and it just becomes them being destroyed. So they take out the fact that it's an eternal punishment and add in this idea of just being destroyed or annihilated. Go to Revelation 20:10. Revelation 20:10 is another scripture that we point to to show that hell is eternal and the -- in fact, this is one of the first Bible verses I ever memorized in my entire life. When I was just a little tiny kid, tiny little boy and my parents had a Bible -- they each had a Bible in fact, a Scofield Reference Bible but -- you know, they had these Bibles and in the back of their Bible, they had a list of key doctrines -- both my mom and dad had this list. They had a list of key doctrines and where to go in the Bible to prove those doctrines. And the first thing that was listed in that -- it was a big list of all kinds of doctrines but the first thing on the list was eternal hell and it said Revelation 20:10 and I remember copying those references. I took my parents' Bible when I was kid and I had a bible like theirs and I copied all those references into my Bible and I decided I want to memorize these verses so that I can know these key doctrines. And one of the first ones that I memorized was Revelation 20:10 on eternal hell and here's what it says, "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever." You say, "Well, that’s horrible. I don’t like that." But here's the thing, we don’t decide what we like or what we don’t like, it's what's true or what's not true. I mean, what does the Bible say?

Congregation: Amen.

Pastor: The Bible is not a smorgasbord where you pick certain parts that you like and then other parts you say, "Well, I just don’t like that. I think I'm just going to skip that." No, you take it or you leave it.

Congregation: Amen.

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: You take it all as a whole or you leave it all as a whole. You can't be one of these people like Thomas Jefferson who made his own Bible where he takes out all the parts he doesn’t like.

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: Okay, no. You have to take it all because the Bible says, "If you add two or remove from God's word, you're cursed with the worst possible curse," at the end of Revelation. Listen to Revelation 20:10 and the Seventh-day Adventist published Clear Word. You're looking down at the true Bible, the King James version verse 10, "And the devil who deceived them was thrown in to the lake of fire and consumed together with the sea beast, the land animal and all the wicked. Their destruction will be forever and ever." So notice they're consumed, they're burned up, they're destroyed, the sea beast and the land animal, okay? Really good poetic language there but what else have we got here on annihilation? Let me go through my cards here. Another scripture, go to Mark chapter 9 on hell.

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: One that we would think of is where Jesus keeps hammering this in about hellfire and he says, "Where their worm die of not and the fire is not quenched," and he repeats that exact statement three times, where their word doe of not and where the first is not quenched. Listen to what they do with this in the Clear Word. This is starting in verse 43, "You must be willing to sacrifice anything that would take you away from me, even something as valuable as your right arm." Man, they want you to cut off the whole right arm.

Congregation: Ooh.

Pastor: Not even -- not even the hand. I mean, they want to do the whole arm. But anyway it is better to be physically handicapped and be in the kingdom of God than to go through life physically whole only to lose eternal life and be consumed in the lake of fire. That fire will do it's work as thoroughly as worms eat a dead body or as forest fires burn trees. Now look, there is so much heresy packed in those senses. Losing eternal life? That’s an oxymoron.

Congregation: Yeah, right.

Pastor: How can you -- if you lose it, it's not eternal.

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: Eternal means it's forever. So you say, "Oh, you lose eternal life. Yeah, it's called dying and then you then have eternal life."

Congregation: Yeah, right.

Pastor: Okay? It doesn’t even make sense. So they -- first of all, they're teaching this lie of losing this eternal life right there. But then not only that, it says that, you know, "Oh, the fire will do it's work as thoroughly as worms eat a dead body or a forest fire burns trees." You know, a forest fire doesn’t really burn trees that thoroughly because if you ever seen a forest that had a forest fire come through, what's left?

Congregation: Exactly.

Pastor: There's this giant black stocks that are all there standing and years and years and years later they're still there, still standing. We have a hiking trail that we love in Northern California called Beecroft and there was a major forest fire. It used to be a beautiful trail but a forest fire went in and ruined a lot of it and now they're just black, burned, charred huge tall trees. That’s not very thorough. And then he repeats it again in verse 46, "As I said, the lake of fire will do it's work as thoroughly as worms eat a dead body or a forest fire burns trees." Verse 48, "Placing anything above the kingdom of God will have it's consequences as sure as worms attack a dead body or a forest fire burns trees." Okay. Matthew 25, go to Matthew 25 where Jesus Christ again makes it clear that hell is an everlasting punishment. In Matthew 25:41 he says, "Then shall He say also onto them on the left hand, 'Depart from me cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.'" So notice they're departing into everlasting fire but look at verse 46, "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal." Question, what is everlasting punishment? It means that your punished and it lasts forever.

Congregation: Yeah.

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: It's a punishment that lasts forever. Listen to what the Clear Word does to verse 41, "Then He will say to those on his left, 'You can't be given a home in my Father's kingdom for you're still controlled by your sinful nature. Leave my presence. You will perish in the same fire which will destroy the devil and his angels." Again, it's always destruction, annihilation, consumption but isn’t it interesting? They also add this heresy in of you can't be given a home in my Father's kingdom for you're still controlled by your sinful nature."

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: Where's that coming from? Okay. Wait until you see verse 46. Look down at your Bible, the real Bible, "I have no choice but to end your lives because in My kingdom, everyone cares about everybody else." It's unrecognizable. Now look, let's go to The Message because remember the message really makes some huge departures compared to the Clear Word. Okay, here's what the message did -- listen to what The Message did with -- oh, man, I didn’t get all these from The Message. I can look only look at a few verse of The Message. I had to get rid of that thing. But anyway, listen to Revelation 20:10 in The Message, okay? This is the one that I memorized as a little tiny boy, the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and false prophet are and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. In The Message it says, "The devil who deceived them will be hurled into the lake of fire and brimstone joining the beast and false prophet, the three in torment around the clock for ages with head." Now, that’s a weird way of putting it but at least they're literally actually saying the same thing that they're…

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: basically being tormented around the clock forever. Now look, I could do -- I'll do another sermon where I could show you a lot of weird stuff in The Message. I'm not defending The Message tonight, okay. And perhaps Sir Anderson endorses The Message, you know. Look, it's King James only. I'm just trying to show you what a lie it is on adventist.org when they say, "Oh, yeah, the Clear Word's a lot more true description than The Message." Yeah, it's a paraphrase but, you know, it's not like The Message or anything. It's not just taking this huge celebrities. I mean, isn’t that crazy. So anyway, that’s what they do. Other key doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventist -- of course, there's tons of Sabbath added…

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: …in verses that had nothing to do with the Sabbath. They’ll just take the Sabbath in. Pharaoh's mad at Egypt about the Sabbath, you know, just stuff that was never even in the -- he said, "Hey, you're giving everybody a seven-day Sabbath. That’s why, you know, I'm mad at you." I mean, just all this stuff, just Sabbath, Sabbath, Sabbath, just sentences being added. You know, one of them in Leviticus, "There has always been the weekly Sabbath since God first blessed it," just a statement just added into a verse that was never even there in the first place, just added. And then they go on with the actual verse from God's word. Other things, Isaiah 66, that’s about hell. We've covered enough about that. Go to Daniel chapter 8. Daniel chapter 8. This is another strange doctrine. You know, we're done talking about -- we're done talking about the fact that they believe in this weird inseparability of the body, mind and soul. We're done talking about the fact that they don’t believe in hell being an eternal punishment and they believe in soul sleep. They don’t believe that we go to heaven when we die, we're just going to be asleep and blah, blah. But they have this other very strange doctrine that has to do with actually the origin of their religion because their religion actually started back in the 1800s and it surrounded a man by the name William Miller. And this guy William Miller falsely predicted the return of Christ and he said, "Jesus Christ will return in either 1843 or 1844." And he went around spreading this message, printing literally millions of pamphlets, books, magazines, just the end is near, Jesus will return in 1844 and that movement became known as the Adventist Movement. Now advent means coming. When we talk about Jesus Christ's first advent, we're talking about His first coming. When we talk about Christ's second advent, we're talking about the second coming. Now a lot of people think that the Seventh-day Adventist are just called Adventist because they believe is Christ coming back. Well, that’s ridiculous because virtually all of Christianity believes that Christ coming back.

Congregation: Uh-hmm.

Pastor: No, it was called the Adventist Movement because they said he's coming back in 1844. Now, you go to adventist.org and they go, "Well, Adventist means that, you know, we believe Christ is coming back. We believe in the second coming." Yeah, join the club. We all believe in a second coming but we're not going around being called Adventist. No, you're called an Adventist because you believed in the second coming in 1844.

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: Which was a false prophecy, which was a lie, which was a ridiculous twisting of scripture. Now, you saw where in the world did they get the year 1844. You know, this William Miller's going around and saying did he get it from divine inspiration or what? No, here's where he got it. He got it straight from the Bible here in this crystal clear verse in Daniel 8:14. Well let's read verse 13 to get the context, "Then I heard one saint speaking and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, 'How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice and the transgression of desolation to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?' And he said unto me, 'Unto 2,300 days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.'" So in that scripture it says 2,300 days and then the sanctuary shall be cleansed. So here's what they said okay, when they came back from Babylon and reinstituted the animal sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem when they came back from the captivity, they said 456 BC. And they said 2300 days. Wait a minute 20 -- how about 2,300 years. So let's take 456 BC, let's add 2,300 years, 1844. All right. He's coming in 1844. Okay. So then they start going around saying it. Now look, were they right or wrong?

Congregation: Wrong.

Pastor: Well, evidently they were wrong because, you know, you're going to be shocked when I tell you this but Jesus Christ did not return in 1844. And this goes down in history as the great disappointment.

Congregation: Wow.

Pastor: Seriously, that’s the official name for it, the great disappointment. So this great disappointment took place. So what happened to William Miller's followers after 1844? Well obviously they're all disillusioned. You know, what happened to Harold Camping's follower after 2011 or, you know, all these false predictions? Well, they kind of divided into different groups. Some people just stopped following William Miller. That makes a lot of sense.

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: Hey, we should probably stop following this guy. Other people said, "Well, okay, Christ didn’t come back but something happened in heaven. We don’t know what it was but something happened. Something had to have happened, just we don’t know." Then other people said quote, "The door has been shut" and they said no one can be save after 1844, it's over. That was, you know, that was the -- it's done, nobody can be saved after this. Then there's a third group which would later become the Seventh-day Adventist. And that third group said, "Well, Christ didn’t return in 1844 but what He did is He started cleansing the sanctuary in heaven," because it says right here in Daniel 8:14, "And he said unto me onto 2,300 days then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." He just started cleansing the sanctuary in heaven, you know, it wasn’t here, it was up there duh. So then they just continued with their following and Ellen G. White and her husband became leaders of that group of people who stuck with the Millerites and this teaching of -- and they would not admit that 1844 was a false date. They said, "No, 1844 was the real deal, it's just that He started cleaning the sanctuary in heaven." So Seventh-day Adventist have created this elaborate doctrine called investigative judgment and the whole thing is just to cover up the false prediction of 1844. So in order to cover for it, they have to say something happened in 1844. So they say, "Well, it's the beginning of this investigative judgment." They have this elaborate doctrine. Now, if we just glance at this passage in Daniel 8: 13 and 14 we'll notice a few things. In verse 13 we'll notice the transgression of desolation, does everybody see that toward the end of the verse?

Congregation: Yup.

Pastor: Also known as the abomination of desolation. Jesus said that that’s not going to happen until the tribulation.

Congregation: Yeah.

Congregation: Uh-hmm.

Pastor: Isn't that right?

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: It's going to happen when the seals are being opened and the tribulation -- so that’s not talking about 1844, okay? This is something that would take place in the end times, not just leading up the second coming of Christ like a hundred and sixty, hundred and seventy years before it happens. No, that stuff that’s happening in the end time. Not only that but it talks about at the end of the verse the sanctuary and the host being trodden under foot, that’s described in Luke 21 in association with the abomination of desolation and it's described in Revelation chapter 11 and it all happens in the second half of Daniel's 70th week. That’s what these 2,300 days prophecy are referring to. That period of end times, tribulation and God's wrath being poured out. But yeah they're just going to say, "Oh, this is about 1844." So of course the Clear Word has to step in and clear this up for us. Okay. So here's what they do in Daniel 8:13 and 14, “The Holy One said something to my angel who asked Him, ‘How long will the little horn be allowed to transgress so rebelliously and pervert the truth about God and the heavenly sanctuary?’” So see how they move in to heavenly sanctuary?

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: That’s their new interpretation after 1844. How long will all this things go on and the little horn’s power last? He answered, “After 2,300 prophetic days which represent actual years. God will restore the truth about the heavenly sanctuary to it’s rightful place, then the process of judgment will begin of which the yearly cleansing of the Earthly sanctuary was a type and God will vindicate his people.” That’s a lot of text. Verse 14 is pretty short. They added a lot in this thing. This is a strange doctrine that has no bases in scripture, it is based in a false prediction of William Miller. Look, admit his wrong. He was wrong. He lied about 1844. He’s stupid.

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: Everybody who predicts the year Christ will come back is preaching false doctrine because He said, “At such an hour as you think not the son of man coming. Watch therefore for you not what hour your Lord does come of that day and hour, no man, no, not the angels of heaven neither the son but the father only." But then people think, “Well, I know. But I know because I saw the blood moons and I saw the Jewish calendar.”

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: “And I saw the prophecy in Daniel 8:13 and 14 and I knew that those 2,300 days were really 2,300 years and the end is near. Sell what you have,” you know, blah, blah, blah, drink the cool aide. Okay. So anyway -- so therefore they get this weird doctrine of investigative judgment. Now listen to me, when you talk, the Seventh-day Adventist are a dangerous religion today and I'll tell you why, because when we look at the Mormons we all know they're a cult. It's -- everybody realizes they're a cult. If you look at Jehovah's Witnesses, everybody realizes this is a false cult. They’ve got their own, weird Bible that changes everything. The Mormons have their own Joseph Smith translation, yes they do. They -- oh, we use the King James, but they also use the Joseph Smith translation.

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: And most people don’t know that. And then they got their other book of Mormon and everything else. Okay. But they think that the Seventh-day Adventist are just like Baptist, just like non-denominational Christians, just like your basic Evangelicals. They just meet on Saturday and they just want to talk about the Saturday and the Sabbath and -- look, that’s the least of their problems. I mean, they can meet on Tuesday for all I care. They can be meeting on Thursday, it'd be fine with me if they actually preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. But I'm telling you they are preaching strange false doctrine from Ellen G. White. Listen to their fundamental belief on investigative judgment. This is point number 24 in their fundament beliefs. Christ's ministry in the heavenly sanctuary. In 1844 at the end of the prophetic period of 2,300 days, He entered the second and last phase of His atoning ministry. It is a work of investigative judgment which is part of the ultimate disposition of all sin. Listen to this, the investigative judgment reveals to heavenly intelligences who among the dead are asleep in Christ and therefore, in Him, are deemed worthy to have part in the first resurrection. It also makes manifest who among the living are abiding in Christ, keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, in Him, therefore, are ready for translation into His everlasting kingdom. Now, it's funny because whenever you talk to the Seventh-day Adventist, they’ll tell you up and down, "Oh, we believe salvation's by faith. Oh, yeah, just believe -- just believe in Jesus. Oh, yeah, it's all by faith. It's not of words, just by faith." What did that just say?

Congregation: Right.

Pastor: That this investigative judgment is checking out whether you're keeping the commandments and keeping the faith of Jesus to see whether you're worthy to pass in to His everlasting kingdom. Isn’t that what it -- I mean, let's read it again. The investigative judgment reveals to heavenly intelligences. So this isn’t like the Earthly, you know, Central Intelligence Agency or the NSA spying on you, you know, this is like a heavenly agency that’s checking -- that’s checking out your works, okay? The investigative judgment reveals to heavenly intelligences who among the dead are asleep in Christ and therefore, in Him, are deemed worthy to have part in the first resurrection. It also makes manifest who among the living are abiding in Christ, keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, and in Him, therefore, are ready for translation into His everlasting kingdom. This judgment vindicates the justice of God in saving those who believe in Jesus. God's judgment doesn’t have to be vindicated. He can save those who He believes because that’s what He said He would do because He died for them. It declares that those who have remained loyal to God shall receive the kingdom. The completion of this ministry of Christ will mark the close of human probation before the Second Advent. You say, "No, Pastor Anderson, you're misunderstanding that. You're reading that wrong. They believe that salvation is only by faith." Okay. Well, under their point 10 experience of salvation, it says this is how to be saved, led by the Holy Spirit we sense our need, acknowledge our sinfulness, repent of our transgressions -- you know, there's a sermon I heard about that recently you might want to check out. I think it's this morning, right? Repent of our transgressions, and exercise faith in Jesus as Christ -- exercise faith in Jesus as Lord and Christ as substitute and example. So notice how they're kind of slipping in there with, "Well, yeah, just believe in Jesus" and also repent of all your sins, you know, since like not resting on the Sabbath for example or any other number of sins that they want you to repent of in order to be saved which is works salvation because the Bible says, "God saw their works that they turned from their evil way," okay, in John 2:10. And then -- or Jonah 3:10. And then of course because repent is in the book of John so you knew that that wasn’t John 3:10, it had to be Jonah 3:10. But anyway, you know, and then they -- oh, well, you know, you trust in Christ, faith in Christ as your example…

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: …of how to live and do the works. It's all by faith but you got to do works too because we all know faith without works is bad, you know what they say, just always find a way to import it and bring it in and whatever. Just about out of time but I just want to go through one last thing. You say where is all this false teaching coming from? Where's all this stuff coming -- you know. Ellen G. White, who's Ellen G. White? You know, Ellen G. White is the woman that is the only woman that they list in their doctrine as being a woman that has the gift of prophecy or person that has the gift of prophecy in our modern era. She's the only modern day prophet that they look to. And remember her writings are a source of authoritative truth. Now, what did she write? Well in her lifetime, she wrote more than 5,000 periodical articles, 40 books and reported over 2,000 visual or oral paranormal experiences. Now look, of course we're going to listen to somebody who has had over 2,000 paranormal experiences. You know, when I get emails from people like that, it's like stop everything, pick up the phone and let me spend four hours on the phone with you. I want it -- tell me all about it, don’t leave anything out. No, that’s like delete, spam, spam folder. You know, I mean, I get calls from -- you know what, I've had multiple people contact me from multiple countries that started saying, "I'm one of the two witnesses, I'm Moses." Is that true, Zsuzsa? My wife has seen -- I bring her own physicals letters. I get a registered mail and I'm like, "Oh, being sued." I go down to P -- you know, that’s where -- you know, your registered mail is like being sued. Sue me for what? I don’t know anything. You know, joke's on you buddy. Aren’t you afraid you're going to be sued? That’s what people ask me sometimes. You're going to be sued. When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose. Sue me for what? I don’t own anything, I don’t have any money. So anyway -- I mean, I have a little money in my wallet but, you know, not a big deal. But they'll say, you know, oh, you got a registered mail, go down to post office. And, you know, it's such a hassle. You go down the post office, you wait in line, you show your ID, they go find it, they bring your registered mail and it's like Pastor Anderson, I want to make sure you're the one that get this because I was abducted by aliens and I don’t want to tell this to anyone else except you. And it's like -- I've literally shown my wife like 50 page handwritten letters.

Congregation: Oh.

Congregation: No.

Pastor: Am I -- like 50 page letters. There's handwritten 50 pages, 50 pages just on and on and on and…

Congregation: Did you read everything?

Pastor: No, I did not read the whole thing. But they're just talking about being abducted by aliens and seeing visions and I'm -- look, I'm afraid I'm the anti-Christ, what do I do? I've literally -- I'm not kidding and I'm not -- look, I'm not talking about -- it's one -- and people are like, "Why don’t you get back to me? I emailed you. Why don’t you get back to me? I called you." Here's why because my inbox is so full of paranormal experiences, I can't get to your message. You know, hello, you’ve reached the voicemail of Steven Anderson. If you’ve got a paranormal experience, press one, you know, if you -- if you want a debate, you know, my new show of Bible Prophecy, press two, you know, if -- you know, just like, all and everything. So people call me up and I've had emails and not from one person. I'm talking different people, different parts of the world, all them people telling me, "I'm scared that I might be the antichrist. How do I know if I'm the antichrist or not?"

Congregation: Man.

Pastor: What if -- what if I'm the antichrist? And other people are saying like, " I'm one of the two witnesses." And then one guy said, "I'm Moses of the two witnesses." Another said, "I'm Elijah of the two witnesses." I've had both. I've had a couple Moses', couple Elijah's, couple antichrist, you know. So I'm on a rabbit trail, I need to get back to this, okay. But anyway, you know, through her lifetime, she reported over 2,000 visual, oral paranormal experiences. Most of which she was conveyance or communications with supernatural entities including various angels and sometimes Jesus. Today, over 100 titles are available in English including compilations from her 50,000 manuscript pages. That’s quite a source of authoritative truth, 50,000 pages. Oh, I just thought of this. Clear Word Bible in contrast, these ungodly men is the Lord Jesus also called Michael the Archangel for he's over the entire angelic coast. So by the way, this Clear Word also says that Jesus is Michael the Archangel and that’s what Ellen G. White taught, okay, that they're both one and the same. So anyway, she wrote all these 50,000 pages. And where did she get all these stuff? What were these 2,000 paranormal experiences? Here’s a description of her paranormal experience from a guy who was actually there. This guy's name is Jay N. Lobro. He was there 50 times with her from 1852 on and her husband James White was there and they both described it the same way and here’s what they said happened, okay. In passing in the vision, she gives three enrapturing shouts of glory which echo and re echo. The second and especially the third fainter but more thrilling than the first. The voice resembling that of one had quite a distance from you and just going out of hearing, glory, glory, glory. Number two, for a few seconds she would swoon, having no strength then she would be instantly filled with superhuman strength. This is written by the guy who was there 50 times. Sometimes rising to her feet and walking about the room. She frequently moved hands and arms and gestures that were free and graceful. But to whatever position she moved a hand or arm, it could not be hindered nor controlled by even the strongest person. In 1845, she held her parents' 18.5 pound family Bible in her outstretched left hand for half an hour and she weighed 80 pounds at the time. It's like these people on Facebook bragging about how much they lift, you know what I mean? Dude, I held out an 18.5 Bible -- 18.5 pound family Bible, you know, for half an hour and I'm down to 80 pounds. So an 80-pound woman is holding out -- I mean, that might not sound hard? Try it. Pick out -- I mean, 18 and a half pounds, pick up a 20-pound dumbbell and hold it out like this.

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: Let's see if you can last one minute.

Congregation: Yeah, right.

Pastor: Okay? She's doing it with a Bible so it's harder on, you know -- because you have to grip it, 15 and a half pounds -- you know, sign me up for this church because you know what, this is an authoritative source of truth. Okay. Where is my -- where is my nearest branch of the Seventh-day Adventist Church so I can join? Okay. Number three, she did not breathe during the entire period of a vision. She did not breathe during the entire period of a vision that ranged from 15 minutes to 3 hours.

Congregation: What.

Pastor: Yet her pulse beat regularly and her countenance remained pleasant as in the natural state. Her eyes were always open without blinking. Well, it says she's pleasant, eyes open, not blinking. But not breathing. I wonder how her -- oh, you know, man, I just wish to go back in time and get a pulse oximeter on her because she's not breathing but the blood's still going, you know, and just watch her go like 98, 97, 96, 95, you know, and just see how low it could go. But she didn’t breathe for up to three hours, no breathing. Okay. Her head was raised looking upward with a pleasant expression as if staring intently at some distant object. Several physicians at different times conducted tests on her to check her lack of breathing and other physical phenomena. Number five, she was utterly unconscious of everything transpiring around her and viewed herself as removed from this world and in the presence of heavenly beings. You know what she was in the presence of? Demons.

Congregation: Right.

Congregation: Yeah, that’s right.

Congregation: Exactly.

Pastor: Devils, unclean spirits. Okay. Number six, when she came out a vision, all seemed total darkness whether in daytime or a well lighted room at night. She would exclaim with a long drawn sigh as she took her first natural breathe, D-A-R-K. she was then limp and strength less. So she didn’t breather for hours just frozen, just -- and when she takes the first breathe, she goes D-A-R-K. Who just -- who just figured out what that spelled?

Congregation: Dark.

Pastor: Did that say, girl or boy dark? That’s right, dark. Because we all know that revelations from God are always associated with darkness.

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: You know, we all know that whenever we deal with spiritual beings, we always wanted -- we always wanted to be -- having something to do with darkness and dark because dark is a symbol of good things in the Bible, you know, dark is the symbol of learning the truth about Jesus. No it's not. It's not at all. I mean, isn’t that creepy?

Congregation: Yeah.

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: D-A-R-K? That’s it, that’s the thing. But, you know, just a little add-on, Mrs. Martha Amadon added there was never an excitement among those present during a vision, nothing caused fear. It was a solemn, quiet scene, just kind of chill out and relax with Ellen G. White for an afternoon as she goes through this process 2,000 times. You know, pass the lemonade, we're chilling, we're relaxed, you know, we're waiting for the big screaming D-A-R-K to come out and you say, "Well, how dare you mock the Seventh-day Adventist prophet, how dare you mock the -- you know, you are -- you're hateful, you're a mean spirited, you’ve got a bad spirit." No, Elijah mocked the prophets of Baal.

Congregation: Right.

Congregation: Right.

Congregation: Amen.

Pastor: Because you know what, she is a fraud and a liar and somebody needs to expose it and you know what you find when you go on the internet, you find all the apologist of the Seventh-day Adventist, the Doug Batchelor trying to smooth all these over and make it sound good. You find even people -- what's the guy that wrote that book Brother Louis, that one that you gave me, the Kingdom of the Cults?

Louis: I don’t know, Walter Martin.

Pastor: Walter Martin, your -- yeah. There's a guy, Walter Martin, he wrote a book called the Kingdom of the Cults and he said, you know, the Seventh-day Adventist are not a cult, you know, so all these people are out there defending it. But you know what, it's weird. It's a cult.

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: It's -- you don’t see this stuff in the Bible, these weird type of paranormal, you know, type of activities like this, nothing similar to what's described with Ellen G. White. You also see clear teaching and -- you know, we can go on all night but there are clear teachings that say I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man but to be in silence, let your women keep silence in the churches.

Congregation: Amen.

Pastor: Why would God say all that and then found the true church, the remnant church, the true remnant, why would he found it with a woCongregation? Why wouldn’t he raise up a man like he -- look, the whole rest of the bible is written by men. Can somebody show me a book of the Bible that’s written by a women? It's written by holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost and that’s nothing against women. You know, God loves women just as he much love men, they're just important but they have a different role.

Congregation: Amen.

Pastor: And God did not use women to pasture churches or found churches or found religions or to pinned scripture. It just isn’t what He's done. And yet they would have us to believe that. So the reason that I preach this is to warn you of this dangerous teaching because these people will come at you and a lot of them love after the tribulation. In fact, after tribulation was literally played in some Seventh-day Adventist churches in their services. So I get all -- I get all these emails saying wow -- I literally have a hundred emails like this. Wow, after the tribulation was awesome. Now if we could just get you to learn about the Sabbath and if we could just get you to learn about Ellen G. White. And I'm thinking like what are you talking about. I'm telling you what, these people are deceived and I don’t have Seventh-day Adventist. I love Seventh-day Adventist, that’s why I'm teaching this message because if I -- if I hated Seventh-day Adventist, you know what I would do if I hated them? I'd say, "You know what, you guys are saved. You guys are going to heaven. You guys are a part of the true Christianity." Right?

Congregation: Right.

Congregation: That’s right.

Pastor: And just let them go. But you know what, I'm trying to wake them up by teaching this and I'm trying to wake up God's people who think that the Seventh-day Adventist are a legitimate branch of Christianity. People today are starting to think Mormons are Christian. They're starting to think Catholics are Christian. They're starting to think that, you know, Jehovah's Witnesses are Christian and it -- were -- it's this ecumenicalism of like, "Hey, we're all -- we all believe in Jesus, hey," you know. But we need to be warned about false teachers and false prophets. The bible says mark them that caused division among you and offenses contrary to the doctrine that you’ve learned and avoid them.

Congregation: Yup.

Pastor: And Paul always named them. He said Alexander, Hymenaeus, Phygellus, Hermogenes. And he said of whom I've told you often and now tell you even weeping that they're the enemies of the cross of Christ. Paul pointed out the false teachers of his day and I'm here to point out to you the false teachers of our day, Doug Batchelor's one of them.

Congregation: Amen.

Congregation: Uh-hmm.

Pastor: The Seventh-day Adventist are one of them.

Congregation: Amen.

Pastor: And this doctrines of annihilation and soul sleep and all. They're not biblical doctrine.

Congregation: Yeah.

Pastor: As far as -- let's have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for Your word Lord. Thank you for the real Clear Bible, the King James. The King James is the true clear word if you're saved but to those that are lost Lord, they're blinded. They can't understand it. But thank you Lord for the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth and to help us understand Your word Lord. Please just bless us as we grow in knowledge of doctrine so that we will not be carried about with diverse and strange doctrine. And in Jesus name we pray, amen.

 

 

Saturday, March 05, 2016

Colossians 1 - Verse by Verse Bible Study

Video

July 31, 2013

Colossians 1:1.The Bible reads, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

So as we start out on the book of Colossians in our Bible study, let me first of all explain to you what the book is. The book is an epistle; an epistle is a long letter. And this letter is being written by Paul and Timotheus, Timothy, unto all the saints and brethren who are at Colosse.

Now if you look at the word saint as used, and it is used many times in the Bible, scores of times, it’s always referring to those who are saved, every time. The Bible does not use the word saint to refer to a special kind of Christian. The Catholic church will elevate a person to sainthood and say that long after a person died, we’re going to declare them to be a saint. But in reality all throughout the New Testament, all throughout the Bible, the word saints is used to refer to those who are sanctified by the blood of Jesus Christ. And over and over again he talks about the saints.

Now, here he says the saints and faithful brethren which are at Colosse. Now Colosse is a place; the people who live there are called the Colossians. That’s why the book is called the Epistle to the Colossians. Now let me point out you something about the word “and”. Often in the Bible people are confused by the word and because they think that every time we see the word "and" we’re talking about two different things. Look at verse 3. It says “we give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you”. Now I don’t think anyone here would dispute that God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ are one and the same, right? Because Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So when the Bible says “God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ“, we’re talking about the same person. And often the word and can be talking about two different things, but often in the Bible as is the case here, and is used to talk about two of the same thing. So in verse 2, Paul is talking about the saints, and the faithful brethren are the same people. And in verse 3 God is the same person as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

See, the word faithful in the Bible has 2 different meanings. Sometimes the word faithful means anyone who has faith, anyone who believes, anyone who has is saved, anyone who’s a believer is faithful, meaning that they have faith. But the word faithful, according to the context, can also mean someone who is worthy to put your faith in, someone who is reliable or trustworthy. So sometimes when we hear the word faithful we think of some who is reliable, who is trustworthy, who is always there for you. But faithful also in the Bible can refer to someone who believes, who is a believer, who has faith. The opposite of the faithful would be the faithless. The infidel, the non-believer.

So this is the epistle of the Paul unto the Colossians. Let me say that the apostle Paul wrote 14 books of the New Testament, more than half the books of the New Testament. Of course we know that God is the author of all Scripture, that holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. But Paul was the human instrument by which this book was penned. Now are there are those today who subscribe to a false teaching, elevating the epistles of Paul above other Scripture, and basically saying, if it’s not in the epistles of Paul, it’s not for us. A lot of people have heard of this, where they say 1 and 2 Peter, not for us. James, not for us. And they’ll say “the 4 Gospels are not for us. The epistles of Paul are teaching for the new Gentile church”. This doctrine, often known as hyper-dispensationalism, or just dispensationalism, will often say this: “Well Paul is our apostle”. We’re gentiles, so Paul is our apostle. This other stuff, we don’t worry about that. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 1.

If you think about how ridiculous it is to say that certain Scriptures don’t apply to us just because they didn’t come from Paul. Just because Paul at some point said, You know what? I’m the apostle of the Gentiles, all he meant by that was that he spent his life bringing the Gospel to the Gentiles, taking the Gospel to distant countries as a missionary bringing the Gospel into foreign nations. And he basically said to Peter: “Look Peter, you’re taking the Gospel to the Jews in Jerusalem. I’m going to take the Gospel to the Gentiles." These two men were preaching the same New Testament, the same message. They’re just bringing it to 2 different geographical areas. The proof of that is that the apostle Paul in Romans 1 said “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. ” It’s not 2 different messages for 2 different groups. No, the same Gospel for the Jews is the same Gospel for the Gentiles, the same God will save the Jews by faith; the same God will save the Gentiles by faith. There is NO difference between the Jew and the Greek, the Bible tells us.

So to sit there and say “Paul is our apostle”, no he’s not YOUR apostle. Let me tell you something, you are not a Gentile living hundreds of years ago, to whom Paul brought the Gospel specifically. Therefore he’s not your personal apostle, no more than Peter, James and John are your personal apostles. They are the apostles of Jesus Christ and all of what they preached, all of what they wrote for us in the Bible is applicable. And to say only what James wrote is applicable for me, only what Paul wrote is for me, that is a false doctrine. What Paul wrote is for the Jew, it’s for the Gentile; what James wrote is for the Jew, it’s for the Gentile. It’s for all of God’s people. There is NO difference between the Jew and the Greek!

So to sit there and say, the book of James is addressed to the 12 tribes who are scattered abroad; that means it’s not for us as Gentiles… if you’re going to say that, I guess you’re saying the epistle of Paul to the Colossians is not for the Jews. Or the epistle of Paul to the Romans is not for the Jews. But Paul specifically SAID that the Gospel that he preached was for both Jew and Gentile. He reiterates that later in the book of Colossians itself. But look at 1 Corinthians 1. Let me show you the error, the ridiculousness of that doctrine. Look at what the Bible says in verse 11 of 1 Cor. 1 "For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?

To say “Paul is MY apostle”, you’re like these carnal Christians in Corinth. You see, Cephas in verse 12, that’s Peter. So some people are saying "Well, Peter's my apostle". And some people are saying "Paul's my apostle". Paul didn't die for you. There's one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. S There's one Gospel, so don't sit there and try to divide Christ! Don't try to divide the body of Christ. Don't try to divide between Peter and Paul. They preach the same Gospel of the same Christ. There's one Gospel, it’s salvation through faith, by grace. What’s good for the goose, is good for the gander.

Go back to Colossians. I just want you to understand that the epistles of Paul are God’s word, they are God’s scriptures; but they aren’t any more or less God’s word than anything else in the Bible. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, so Colossians is no different from anything else.

Let’s see what we can learn tonight from Colossians chapter 1. First of all, we saw God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; we saw that they saints and the faithful are who this is being written unto. Look at verse 3. It says: "We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you," and look at these last 4 words: praying always for you. Paul and Timothy are basically saying that they’ve been praying a lot for the saints in Colosse. If you go down a little bit to verse 9, it says “For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding”. Two times here Paul is mentioning that he’s praying for the Colossians and that Timothy is praying for them also. I think there’s a tendency sometimes to tell people that we’re praying for them and we’re not really praying for them. Sometimes I’ve caught myself saying “I’ll pray for you”, and I say, I need to pray for this person right away. because I don’t want to be like that guy who says I’m going to pray for them and doesn’t do it. We definitely shouldn’t deceive or lie: “I’ve been praying for you, brother”, when in reality you haven’t spent any time praying for that person. Sometimes it just comes out of our mouth. We know that the Scriptures are true, so we know that Paul and Timothy really were praying for them. I notice that when I’m reading Romans, he’s talking about praying for them. In Galatians, he's talking about praying... over and over again he says he’s praying for Philemon, for Titus, for Timothy… Paul did a lot of praying! Because we see all these different groups, and Paul was praying for all of them, and we know that Paul was telling the truth here because it’s in Scripture. That tells me that we should be praying for one another and not just dissimulating and acting like we’re praying for one another, but actually spend time praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ, specially our church members.

A lot of times Paul even specifically says “making mention of you in our prayers”, or talks about praying for people by name. I think that we as Christians should pray for people by name, and love the brothers and sisters in Christ that are part of our church, and not give lip service: “Praying for you, brother!” It’s just meaningless.

You say, What do I pray for? If you get to know people, and meet people, you’ll figure out what needs to be prayed for in their lives, by getting to know them. And that’s why going to a website or watching TV or listening to the radio is not a good substitute for going to church. A lot of people just listen to preaching through one of those electronic formats, but that is not church. Church is a place where you go, you meet people, you have friends, you pray for them, you love them, there’s a fellowship there. That’s what Paul had with the Colossians and so many other people, and he talks about praying for them. He says in verse 4 that he’s been praying for them: “Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints, For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth.” There’s so much packed in here; Colossians is jam-packed with doctrine.

Here we see the Bible teaching us that the time that this is being written, the Gospel was already going out throughout the whole world. Because he's talking about the word of God coming to them, them learning about the grace of God in truth, and he says it's bringing forth fruit, it's going into all the world and it's bringing fruit everywhere. A lot of people say there's so many parts of the world that have never heard the Gospel. They've never been exposed to it. But even back then God made sure that the Gospel was getting out all around the world.

And today the Gospel is being being preached in every nation of the world. According to the Bible in Revelation, there will be people out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation. Here he said the Word of God is being preached in all parts of the world and is bringing forth fruit.

You say, well, does that mean we don’t need to send missionaries? No, we need MORE preaching of the Gospel, more people to take the Gospel where it is not represented, but we also need to do a lot of soul-winning right here at home! Just because a person has heard the Gospel one time doesn’t mean they are saved, and we need to go back to them again. There are a lot of people even in America that haven’t heard the Gospel. And we need to get the Gospel to regions beyond, to foreign nations, also at home. We need to preach it as much as we can, we need to be used of God in whatever area God puts us, but this attitude that says “There are huge parts of the world where the Gospel’s not been”, that’s simply not true. The name of Jesus Christ is known on every continent and in every nation in this world. Talk to people from India, China, Africa… they’ve heard of Jesus.

Now they may not have heard a clear presentation of the Gospel; that’s why we need Spirit-filled soul-winners, to give them Gospel, but the word of God has gone out into all nations and brought forth fruit in all parts of the world. That’s what we see in this passage also. He says that they have love to all the saints. They love God’s people, they love the brotherhood, they love the saved. It says (starting) in verse 7, “As ye also learned of Epaphras our dear fellowservant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ,w ho also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.

For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

As we read this, we can get an idea about what some of the strong points were of the Colossians and some of the things Paul wanted them to work on. The strength that we see of the saints at Colosse was their love. Over and over again Paul is praising them for being loving, for loving people, loving the saints. He says Epaphras told us about your love. We’d already heard before about their love, from other people. And over and over again he talks about what a loving church they were, but the thing that he wants them to work on and the thing that he’s praying for is knowledge. He says in verse 9 “since the day we heard it”. Heard of what? Their great love, what a loving church they were. And to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and understanding. So here we have 3 words: knowledge, wisdom and understanding. Those are 3 words that come up a lot in the book of Proverbs. God talks about the importance of those 3 elements. They all have to do with learning.

And in the next verse he says “that ye might walk ” and then he brings it up again, “and increasing in the knowledge of God”. Now go to 2 Peter 1. So Paul’s saying you are a very loving church; I’m hearing about your love from all different people, how loving you are, but you need to also have knowledge with that. If you’re going to be fruitful, and abound in every good work, if you're going to walk worthy of the Lord, love is important, love is critical, love is important. Paul says "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal", and so we know that love is key. But he says love's not enough. Add do that some knowledge. You need knowledge and wisdom and understanding. He says "I'm thrilled how loving you are; I don't want to see that love go to waste." Get the knowledge, and if you can combine knowledge and love, it's going to be action, that's the right action, that's going to be what God wants to happen.

Look at 2 Peter; it talks about some of the same things as Colossians. "Of course this is not coming from our apostle, but it does mention the same things." (Just kidding) In 2 Peter 1 he talks about the same thing, about being fruitful. He ties in knowledge and he also ties in love. In v. 5 it says "besides this, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge". The reason he says add to your faith is because that's what saves you, is faith. The Bible says "for by grace are you saved through faith, and then not of yourselves; it is the gift of God". We know that anybody who is saved has faith, or they're not even saved. As the Bible says "that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life". So it’s great you have faith; you’re saved. But you have to add to your faith, virtue.

What does virtue mean? Virtue has to do with living a good life. It also has to do with power. Look what it says next: “Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge”. You need to grow in knowledge, you need to learn new things, you need to gain knowledge.

He says you need to add to knowledge, temperance. Temperance is basically being able to control yourself, being tempered or under control. You talk about someone having a bad temper; it means they’re constantly getting out of control. They blow up; they lose their temper and they become angry about insignificant things. He says “add to temperance, patience. And to patience, godliness. And to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ”. So he says look, you need not only to have faith, but you need the life to back it up if you’re going to be fruitful. Have the virtue, the temperance; those are the things you need to have to do to live your life. Living a life of virtue, of temperance, not a life of sin, of gratifying the flesh. He says you’re also going to need knowledge. But then the final bond of perfectness, that last element that’s most important is charity or love. That’s the final icing on the cake that’s going to make you fruitful in the knowledge.

So he says if you just have knowledge but you don’t have love or charity, you’re nothing! Because in 1 Cor. 13, the next thing that he goes on to say is “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing”. So we’re not saying that love’s not important, but we’re saying that to serve God effectively you must have both love and knowledge. You’ll run into a lot of people, in fact a whole movement today of churches that are very lean in the knowledge department. And oh the love flows. That’s great, but they need the book of Colossians to tell them, it’s great that you’re so loving, that you care about people, but you need to get in the Bible; you need to study to show yourselves approved unto God. You need to add to your faith virtue and to your virtue knowledge, because you don’t want to be unfruitful. You need to have knowledge, you need to have wisdom, you need to have understanding. That’s basically what Paul said in Colossians 1. Over and over again he’s telling them that they need to learn more.

And this is downplayed today in churches, where they are interested more and more in giving you an experience. You go to the church, you have a religious experience, an emotional experience. Maybe you come out FEELING very close to God, or like you just charged your spiritual battery. That’s great, but what did you learn? I’m not against the feeling, I’m not against you feeling close to God, but if you’re really going to be close to God, you’d better learn the word of God, and get the knowledge and the wisdom and understanding that God tells us hundreds of times are important to us. He says wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom, with understanding.

What do these words mean? Knowledge is when you know things. Look at the first four letters, know. When you don’t know the Bible, what Genesis is about, what Exodus is about, what Leviticus is about. “Oh, that doesn’t matter!” No, you’re not going to be fruitful. “Yes, I will!” No you won’t. The Bible says you need to learn. A lot of people have a lot of love, and not a lot of knowledge. They go out and do a lot of work for God, and they do all the wrong things, because they don’t know what God told them to do! Really loving preachers that preach a lot of false doctrine. Not even because they want to preach false doctrine, but because they are lean on knowledge. They just didn’t do the reading, the study of the word of God, the Bible.

I remember one time when I was a teenager. Back then I was in a really liberal, watered-down church, a New Evangelical church. I remember sitting in the youth Sunday School group; it was a discussion about whether it would be better to have been brought up in a Christian home your whole life, or whether it were better if you had lived a life of sin and then got saved so you’d have a better, more radical testimony: “Man, I was into drugs, I got drunk, I was partying and I got saved.” And now is the discussion.

I thought to myself, this is ridiculous! Everybody liked the testimony. “A person like that’s going to be more powerful, used by God because of the more radical change in their life”. I raised my hand and said “I think you’re going to be used in a greater way if you’re brought up saved, in a Christian home”. And they said “Why do you say that?” I said, because when you grow up in a Christian home, and you’ve gone to church all your life and been reading the Bible, you’re going to have so much more knowledge of the Scripture. You’re really going to be able to use that knowledge to serve God, whereas somebody who gets saved later in life, in their 30’s or 40’s, they’re having to play catch-up of all that stuff they could have learned for all those decades. They have to go back and read and learn… They go, “Oh man, it’s just about what you know? Is that what it’s all about? How good is that, man? It’s just about telling people about Jesus, man! Just Christ crucified and nothing else, man!” I’m sitting there thinking, what are you talking about? What’s the rest of this book? I thought we were supposed to know this! We need this!

And you say, “Well, look at the apostle Paul!” I know the apostle Paul got saved later in life, but there’s a difference. He studied the Bible since he was a kid, at the feet of Gamaliel, brought up as a Pharisee. He still memorized huge chunks of the Old Testament. Even once he got saved, he spent a whole bunch of time in the desert just reading the Bible. He went into Arabia and just studied the Bible and learned it. He KNEW the Scripture, he knew what he was talking about. I’m not down on people who get saved later in life, but why would it be better to get saved later than sooner? The sooner the better! The sooner you can get saved and the less dumb things….why would you want to do a bunch of dumb things that later you could talk about? “Yeah, I used to do all this stuff.”

You know what’s a more powerful testimony? Jesus saves! Jesus died for all our sins, and was buried and rose again. But was your life dramatically changed? No, I got saved when I was 6, so I really hadn’t hit rock bottom yet. If you could have seen me before I was saved… good night! Stealing cookies from the cookie jar, eating fruit snacks unauthorized and hiding the wrappers under my mattress, pushing little girls in the playground off of the swing. But Jesus changed it all.

You know what? That’s not what the Gospel is. The Gospel’s not about you, it’s about Jesus. And the Gospel’s the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. I can preach that whether I was a junkie or not. It’s great if your testimony can help someone get saved. But this thing of downplaying knowledge, knowledge doesn’t matter, isn’t important. Then we have a generation of dumbed-down churches, dumbed-down Christians, who are easily deceived. The one who does not have knowledge is carried about with every wind of doctrine; they’re tossed to and fro; they’re not grounded in what they believe because they don’t know the Scripture. But when you know the Scriptures and you know false doctrine, you go "wait a minute!" A verse is popping into your mind... "what this preacher is saying is not right". Not because you FEEL it’s not right, but because the Bible SAYS… and the verses are coming to mind because you know Scripture. If you don’t know Scripture and a preacher says this is what the Bible says, you say OK, because you don’t know!

Knowledge, wisdom and understanding. Knowledge is knowing things. It’s important to know things, to know what the Bible says. Wisdom is when you not only know things, but you can actually apply those things in your life. That’s what preaching is supposed to do, to take things that are in the Bible and try to apply them to today’s world, to our daily lives, to situations.

Somebody might know that drinking is something that the Bible warns against. The Bible explains all things that are going to happen when you drink, how your eyes will behold strange women, your mouth will utter perverse things. You might know what the Bible says about that, but if you see a person turn around and go and start drinking, that person lacks wisdom. They’re not applying what they’ve known and learned. They’re not applying it to daily life, and to decisions that they’re making. They know the facts but they’re not able to apply them. Understanding is when we not only know things, we not only apply things, but we understand them. It’s possible to know something and apply it, but we don’t necessarily understand it. So I tell my children “Do not drink alcohol. Here’s what the Bible says: "Thine eyes shall behold strange women and thy mouth shall utter perverse things”. And they might look at that and say, well now I know that the Bible warns about alcohol. Wisdom tells me I’m going to heed the Bible’s warning and I’m going to abstain from alcohol. But understanding is when they understand what it means to behold strange women. If I say that to a 6, 8 or 10-year-old, they’re not going to fully understand what the Bible is saying. Or when it says your mouth is going to utter perverse things. Later on, they might understand and comprehend.

When I was growing up, I didn’t necessarily understand why I wasn’t supposed to commit fornication. I didn't fully understand why I wasn’t supposed to do a lot of things, but I still obeyed it anyway, because the Bible said so. Then later after I marry and after I live my life, then I look back and understand why God didn’t want me to commit fornication. At the time I didn’t fully understand it, but I trusted and obeyed. So here knowledge is being emphasized. If your going to be fruitful, if you’re going to win people to Christ and do a lot of good work for God, you need to be a loving person. No question, 1 Cor. makes that clear, but you also need to have knowledge.

Let’s keep reading. It says "That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God”. So now he’s explaining some other attributes that need to be a part of our life. He says, not only do you need love and knowledge; he’s saying you want to be a strong person. What’s the opposite of strength? Weakness! The Bible says be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Weakness is when we give in unto sin because Jesus Christ said watch and pray lest you enter into temptation. The Spirit truly is willing but the flesh is weak. So when our flesh is weak, when we walk in the flesh, we’re going to be more likely to give in to temptation. Strength is when we resist temptation. Temptation is before us, whether we look at something we shouldn’t look at, participate in something we shouldn’t participate in. Strength is when we stand firm, hold firm, do not give in to temptation. It takes strength to watch and pray. Weakness is when we say, I’m too tired to pray, I don’t have the energy or will to pray. I don’t have the discipline to even sit still and just pray. Strength overcomes those obstacles. Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power with all patience. Patience is when we don’t have an attitude that says I want everything right now. Patience is similar in the Bible to endurance and diligence. We’re willing to continue and wait and not expect to be gratified with everything right now.

If we’re impatient, what does it mean? Give me my food right now! Patience is willing to wait a little while if necessary. He says longsuffering, what does that mean? It means that we don’t just blow up at people who do or say something that we don’t like. Suffering long with someone means putting up with someone. Are you a person when if there’s someone around who’s not just like you, who doesn’t act just like you want them to act, you say, I can’t put up with these people? But that’s not longsuffering, is it? Longsuffering is maybe where our husband or wife does something that annoys us, does something that we don’t like and we don’t flip out or instantly blow a gasket; we put up with things and pass over certain transgressions, not get so rattled and angry about things that don’t matter. If you get so angry about some little thing, that’s the opposite of longsuffering. Longsuffering is if somebody does something that you don’t like, you just relax.

I’m not talking about correcting people that are under your authority. Obviously you correct your children, but you can do that without blowing up at them, without instantly losing your temper, you can still be patient and correct them. You can be longsuffering and be patient with them. Why do marriages end up in divorce? Because of a lack of longsuffering. “I just can’t put up with him anymore! I just can’t take her anymore.” You know what? You need to have longsuffering, to be patient with people. Sometimes there are people that have serious faults. There could be someone in this church that irritates you. You need to be patient with them, and say "That’s how they are. I’m going to be patient." And sometimes people change. Maybe your husband has a serious problem or fault. Maybe your wife has a serious problem, a serious problem, a serious sin in their life. It doesn't mean that they're never going to change. You need to be patient, longsuffering, try to help them, and over time things can change. It doesn’t mean that they’re never going to change. But we need to have longsuffering , meaning that we put up with people, we’re patient with them. We don’t expect everyone to be exactly like us, and do everything exactly the way we want it. Otherwise we're just going to cloud up and rain on them. That’s the opposite of longsuffering.

And then he says "with joyfulness". So no longsufferer with a bad attitude of "Grr, I guess I’ll just put up with them". The pastor says to just let them be an idiot, whatever. He says longsuffering with joyfulness. Be cheerful about it, have joy in doing what's right. “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light”. He said you’re going to have patience and longsuffering toward others; keep in mind that's the only reason that you're even meet to have a big a part of the inheritance, as big as God has made you meet. Basically he’s saying that in your flesh you're not worthy of going to heaven. You’re not worthy of the inheritance the saints will inherit. That’s something that God has given unto you, so you ought to be patient with others who are not as far down the track as you are.

In a church like ours there’s a tendency for people not to have patience and longsuffering . Our church preaches the word of God pretty straight and we’re pretty strict. We cross the T and dot the I; then people will get this attitude… somebody comes in and they’re not like us; we just want to straighten them out. You don’t believe exactly like us, get out! That is a bad attitude. You and I didn’t get this way overnight, did we? One day you were unsaved, living an ungodly life. And then boom, you got saved, you were in church, you dressed right, you acted right, you talked right, you read the Bible every day, you prayed every day, you had all your doctrine right?

Then these people come here and they don’t even know about the rapture and the tribulation. Get out! You need to understand that people are all at different stages of growth as Christians. Some people have saved for decades, some people have been saved for a few weeks or months, some have been saved for a year, 2 years.

Here's how I judge people. I don’t judge people on how good they are, how righteous and knowledgeable they are. I judge them on which direction they are going. If I see someone who’s growing, who’s trying, even if they’re very worldly, and don’t have the knowledge, they're wrong on a lot of doctrine. but if their hearts in the right place, be patient with them! If you had met me when I was 17, I’d have been the person you're calling an idiot. And I know brother W did meet me when I was 17 and he didn’t say I was an idiot. If you’d met me when I was 16, you’d have said I was an idiot.

If you had met me when I was 15 or 16, I’m sure I would have said a lot of dumb thing about the Bible. I hadn’t read the Bible from cover to cover at that point. I would have had a lot of dumb doctrines, I would have believed a lot of stupid things, I would’ve been dressed like an idiot. There are so many things that would’ve been wrong with me. I didn’t change overnight; I spent years and years reading the Bible, listening to the preaching of God’s word, slowly changing in one area after another, learning new things, getting my doctrine in conformity with God's word. You can't just expect everybody to be there. And I guarantee you were the same way. It’s taken you a process to get where you're at.

Salvation happens in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, but the Christian life and growth is a process. So don’t you dare be rude to people and jump down their throat and don’t alienate people. We work hard to invite people to come to church. Don’t just turn around and turn people away from our church by rudeness. I understand if somebody hears the preaching of God’s word and its straight from the Bible they might get offended and that’s their problem, but we'd hate for somebody to not come back because you are rude, you rudely correct somebody or rudely tell someone that they're wrong about something, something that really isn’t that important or that probably they will eventually learn. Just focus on being nice to people; while you have knowledge, while you're straight down the line, while you are fundamental and cross your T's and dot your I’s, you should also be longsuffering and patient with people. People are often surprised by the type of people that I’ll talk to and hang around with and get along with. But because they’re good people that are learning. It's not that they are bad people because they're at a different stage of the journey. It says here in v. 13 “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son”, so the forgiveness of sins comes through the blood of Christ. It says in v. 15 that he is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, for by him were all things created”… remember this is all going back to the dear Son. This is all about Jesus, the dear Son; the sentence in v. 13 is not ending. There’s a semicolon and another semicolon at the end of 14, then a comma. It’s all one sentence. So we’re talking about Jesus, and it’s saying that we have redemption through the blood of Jesus, even the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible God. The Bible says that no man has seen God at any time. "The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him."

So no one has seen God the Father at this time, but we have seen Jesus Christ. You say, is Jesus God in the flesh? 1 Peter 3:16 tells us Jesus is God in the flesh. But if we keep reading it says “for by Him were all things were created”. So the Bible says that all things were created by Jesus. And Genesis 1:1 says in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Here it says "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell”.

We know that the Father is God, but the Son is God also, and the Holy Spirit is also God. The Bible says there are 3 that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these 3 are one. That’s what people mean when they use the word Trinity. The Trinity simply means the 3 in 1. The word Trinity is not in the Bible, but 3 in 1 is in the Bible, and that’s what Trinity means. It’s a word we use today to express it in a way that people understand. The proper way of stating it is “the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, these 3 are one”. So we all believe in one God, but he exists as the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these 3 are one. That’s why the Bible says in the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God and the Word was God. I don’t understand that. The Bible says “great is the mystery of godliness”. It’s something that’s hard to wrap our mind around.

The one way to help you understand is to think that we as human beings are also in 3 parts, the body, the soul and the spirit. Can those 3 parts be separated? Absolutely, because the Bible says the body without the spirit is dead, so the moment that we die our bodies are separated. Let’s say that I would die tonight. If someone were to look at the dead body and identified it to the coroner and said, “That is Steven Anderson”, would they be telling the truth? Yes. But my spirit would be somewhere else; it would be in heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ. Because the Bible says to be absent from the body is to be present to the Lord, 2 Cor. 5. Paul said I should desire to depart and be with Christ which is far better. SO therefore my soul and spirit is in heaven with the Lord Jesus, is that the real Steven Anderson? Yes. Would it be accurate to say Steven Anderson is in heaven? Would it be accurate to say that the body left behind is also the same Steven Anderson? Yes, so you could say they could be in 2 different places and be one person. Maybe that helps you understand a little bit, to say the Lord God is The Father, son and Holy Ghost. The Father could be up in heaven, Jesus Christ down on the earth, but they’re one person in the sense that there’s only one God, it’s not 2 different gods.

Col. 1 is really strengthening that fact that Jesus is God. It tells us that Jesus is the creator of everything. It says before all things. So in the beginning God, and it even says he IS the beginning, in Rev. 1 where he said: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty” and it’s Jesus speaking there. Which is proven by the fact that he then then says “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen”. He says he was dead; that’s Jesus. Jesus died and rose again. But it says I’m the Almighty. That proves that the Almighty God is Jesus. And we see in Colossians 1 that he’s the Creator. It’s a strong statement. It says in v. 18 that he’s the head of the Body, the church. A lot of people will say see, there’s only one church. But the Bible uses the word churches more than it uses the word church. The church is a congregation and the Bible says that the husband is the head of the church as the husband is the head of the wife.

Is there only one wife? The universal wife? The Catholic wife? No, there are multiple wives, multiple husbands. Well there are multiple churches, the church at Ephesus, the church at Smyrna, the church of Pergamus. And Christ the head of the church, it means an institution. That means each church has Christ as its head, of that local body, just as each husband is the head of that wife. There doesn’t have to be one. It says he’s the head of the church. It says in v. 19 “For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight”.

Now Romans 5 teaches the same thing.

Go to Romans 5, a great parallel passage. Romans 5:8 is a verse that we often use when we give someone the Gospel: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. Lots of people use that verse but they don’t really fully understand what that verse is saying. Now the modern versions all change this verse, clearly showing that they don’t understand the verse, but then I’ve heard a lot of people change this verse out soul winning. They’ll say God commended his love toward us, that means God demonstrated his love. No, that’s not what it means. The NIV says that that’s what it means. Look what it says in v. 6. “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” So the Bible is saying, someone might die for someone else if they were a really good person. Someone might be willing to die for someone they love; for example, a parent might be willing to die for their child. A husband might be willing to die for his wife. Maybe if there’s a great man that I know, a godly man, he’s serving God, he’s a righteous man, who I have great respect for… I’m willing to lay down my life for that guy. But he says SCARCELY for a righteous man will one die. Some people are like no, I’m not going to die for anybody! I want to stay alive! Scarcely meaning hardly, hardly ever is one willing to die for someone else. But if they are willing, it’s for someone they like, for someone good. You’re not going to lay down your life for someone that you don’t like. Someone that you consider a bad person, an ungodly person; you're not going to sacrifice your life for an ungodly person. “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. What he’s saying is that God's love goes so far beyond our life. Our love might compel us to die for someone that’s good. Jesus Christ on the other hand died for the ungodly, for us.

Look at the next verse: “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement”. We can have such great assurance of our salvation, because a lot of people believe you can lose your salvation; we don’t believe that. He says you can have so much assurance of your salvation because when Christ died for you, you were a complete enemy. He saved you when you were ungodly, when you were at enmity with Christ. Well, he can keep you saved, when you were reconciled. Now that you’ve been saved by the blood, he’s even more likely, he loves you even more. If he accepted you when you were ungodly, why would he reject you after you’ve already received Christ? It’s a strong assurance there that now that we’re saved and reconciled, we’re going to be saved from wrath. God’s wrath is not going to be upon us even if we sin. That’s why at the end of the same Chapter 5, he says where sin abounded, grace did more abound. Should we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! But if we sin, grace will abound, we’ve been reconciled. We will not lose our salvation.

Back to Colossians. That’s basically what he says here in Colossians, what he says here in verse 21: "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight, If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled.."

He’s saying you’re only going to be unblameable and irreprovable in his sight if you continue in the faith. You'll still be saved if you continue in the faith, but you’ll be reproved, you’ll be punished on this earth. He says "if you continue in the faith, grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven". Heaven, again. Remember how we talked earlier about how the Gospel has gone out through all the world? People try to see that there are large parts of the world where they’ve never heard of Jesus. Is that what the Bible says? It says that the Gospel which you have heard and which is preached to every creature under heaven, "whereof I (Paul) have been made a minister, according to the dispensation of God”. Oh, see the word dispensation! We must be…No, just because the word dispensation is in the Bible, that doesn’t make me a dispensationalist. And just because the word presbytery is in the Bible, that doesn’t make me a Presbyterian. And just because the church of Christ is in the Bible, that doesn’t make me a member of the church of Christ, and just because the Bible has the word Nazarene, that doesn’t make me a Nazarene. People take good words in the Bible and twist them. Nazarene’s a great word. Teaching you that you can lose your salvation is not great. Presbytery is a great word; teaching Calvinism isn’t great. Church of Christ is a great term; teaching that you have to be baptized to be saved, that's not great. And on and on. What we see here when the Bible says dispensation, the word dispense means to… well for example a Pez dispenser. What does a Pez dispenser do? It gives you Pez! It dispenses Pez, to dispense means to give. The other meaning of the word dispense is to use something up. To dispense with something is use up. So we see here, it says "whereof I have been made a minister, according to the dispensation of God”. Which is GIVEN to me. So the dispensation of God is what God gave him, because to dispense something is to give something. You’ll notice that if you look up the 4 times that the word dispensation is used, it’s not used to refer to “the 7 dispensations, periods of time where people are saved in different methods, or where God is dealing with Israel". None of those mentions will preach that. They never teach it as a period of time; it is always something that is given.

And then there’s the 3rd meaning of dispensation that is not a Biblical meaning. If you study the word dispensation it sometimes means to give and sometimes means to be used up. The dispensation of the fullness of times is where he says there shall be time no longer, Rev. 10. But there’s a term dispensation that the Catholics would use, where if someone uses the word it means we’re going to let you off the hook of following God’s commandments. Like you’re not allowed to, say, kill your wife, but we're going to give you a dispensation, because you paid us. You say, that sounds weird. We were at that Bible museum, they used to have pricing sheets. Remember, they used to sell indulgences, where you could get your sins forgiven by the Catholics… I saw the price list, and one of the things was killing your wife, it was like $2.50. It was a lot more money back then than it is now, like thousands of dollars. Literally, killing your wife you could buy an indulgence, you could get a dispensation on that. There were other things like a priest could have a concubine, a woman that he goes to bed with, for like 2.25. He could have a live-in girlfriend. Now that was in writing, it was spelled out! These Catholic priests, they're not married, they took a vow of celibacy, but they could have a woman that they're shacking up with; they just have to pay money to the church and it's paid for. Look it up! This pricing was amazing. When King Henry the 8th killed his wife, it was like you can kill her but you can't divorce her. If he killed her he could pay the church at Rome and get it absolved, get a dispensation.

I might not be using the word dispensation exactly right, but thank God I'm not an expert on buying your way into heaven. In case I got that price wrong, forgive me… because I’m just trying to go to heaven on faith. So it says here "the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory”, the fact that Christ lives inside of us, that we have Christ in our hearts, the great mystery that was not revealed in the Old Testament. Who do we preach? We preach Christ, "warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily".

Part of our preaching is warning. When we go out soul winning we also go out soul warning. We're warning people of hell if they’re not saved. You should always teach people about hell when you give the Gospel. Not only that, in church we need to warn the believers that if they don't live right, God is going to chastise them on this earth. They're not going to lose their saslvation, but God will punish. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgesth every son whom he receiveth." We need to warn people with the word of God. Not preach a positive, sugar-coated mesage but a warning lesson to the lost and a warning lesson to the saved, warning them of the judgement of God on sin. To the unsaved it’s hell, to the saved it’s earthly consequences. Let’s bow our heads for a word of prayer.