It's Day By Day

“I just wanted to finish well.”
—Actor Alex Kendrick in movie, “Flywheel,” after he obeyed God and it looked  like he was bankrupt financially. But God hadn’t finished blessing him yet.

“All of us will one day leave behind all that we have…and take with us all that we are.”
—Rev. Larry Hatfield, in The Pentecostal Evangel.

“Pain is temporary, quitting is forever.”
—Lance Armstrong, eight time winner of the Tour-de-France bicycle race.

“People who have a Bible that’s falling apart have a life that’s not.”
—Rev. John Hagee.

“It is impossible to waste time; we only waste ourselves.”
—Unknown.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
—Thomas A. Edison, inventor of the light bulb.

“It ain’t where you’re at, it’s where you’re going.”
—Evander Holyfield, world heavy weight boxing champion.

“Be one of the ‘few’ [of Matt. 7:14].”
—My daughter, Trinette Gray.

“The key to knowing God’s will is a willingness and determination to follow it before knowing it. (John 7:17).”
—Dr. Henry M. Morris, creation scientist.

“It isn’t what you’re made of that counts, but what God is making of you.”
—Rev. Phil Woods, December 8, 2002.

“It is best to have less thunder in the mouth and more lightening in the hand.”
—Old Apache proverb.

“You gotta know where you’re going; otherwise you can’t know where you’re at.”
—Jesse Duplantis.

“Insanity is when you think that doing more of what you are already doing will lead to a different outcome.”
—Albert Einstein.

“My son, if God called you to be a missionary, your Father in Heaven would grieve to see you shrivel down into a king.”
—Dr. Charles Spurgeon.

“There’s a reason the rearview mirror is smaller than the windshield.”
—Dr. Tony Evans.

“Good men today who stand up for right, regardless of the cost, are maintaining, strengthening, and reestablishing all the good things good men did in the past.”
—Patsy Coker.

Finally, an ironclad rule for future success, happiness, safety, and contentment for individuals, families, cities, states, nations, the world:
“Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed” (Psalm 37:3).

According to the Word of God there will be at least three categories of people who wind up in Hell’s eternal flames, such as those who understood the message of salvation but rejected it, or those who never heard the message but ignored their natural intuition to seek more truth. But by far the greater category will be those who allowed themselves to be deceived into thinking they were bound for an eternal Paradise, even as they were heading for an eternal Hell instead.

If we are going to understand how that happens, we must accept two vital peculiarities about the Word of God:
1.) God’s WORD is perfect because,
2.) GOD is perfect.
Perfection means absolute purity, righteousness, and holiness. As such, He cannot remain perfect if He tolerates the imperfect in any measure without a perfect Advocate between Himself and the opposite. Jesus Christ is that Perfect Advocate.

This immutable truth falls out to us this way: God’s truth, being absolutely perfect, cannot  be progressive. It never adapts to changing human society, but rather demands without apology that humanity adapt to His own immutable, inflexible standard of what is right and what is wrong. He even said of our relationship to Him, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). No matter what it is that humans do, whether in word, deed, custom, dress, artistry, poetry, music, occupation, politics, and especially church, they must conform to God’s holy, righteous, and perfect standards, or else it will miss the aims of His will every time.

Brought under God’s scrutiny, if it has even the very appearance of evil, then something is afoul of His standard of holiness. Do we see our reaction to this? Since our very depraved natures are afoul anyway, we are by nature attracted to worldly offers, and find ourselves all too easily led astray by our fleshly appetites, most especially in our taste in vision, preference in music, and quality of speech.

With the understanding that God’s Word is perfect and cannot be progressive with human society, it is reckless, yes, reckless, to dismiss so-called Old School Christians of yesteryear as being outdated, behind the times, and should be put aside now for the modern generations with new innovations for evangelizing. What such reckless mouths forget is that on every occasion when the church had an awakening (three in America alone!), they always had to go back to what former generations had already found out: That is, go back and “Do your first works over.” Frankly, until the newer generations manage to get the quality of results the older generations did, they should keep their mouths shut. After all, if they do get the same results it will be because they also went back to the first works of the perfect New Testament pattern. There is simply no other way, no matter what clamor we hear about New-School, Purpose Driven, or any other such nonsense.

God’s perfect Word is always present in God’s earth to show us the way. Like sheep, we need shepherds who will not only feed us all of God’s pure truth, but who are not afraid to crack rebellious knuckles. But God’s Word is crystal clear: Unlike sheep, even without a shepherd we are personally responsible for how we treat God’s holy Word.

Since creation, the world has always teemed with other books and/or false prophets. But only God’s Book has proven itself beyond measure to be the one and only solution to the voracious, ever-seeking, restless souls of humanity. It behooves us, then, to know and understand exactly what God has openly declared to be the truth about His offer of salvation to every soul. In answering that sobering question of eternal consequence, the direction of this article is to show what salvation is not.

~ ~ ~ Christian Salvation is not a thing of the head. This one perhaps accounts for the greater part of those who miss the truth of it. Here is where many well-meaning souls flake off into deception through intellectually cold calculation. Millions of souls have side-tracked into this stark land of granite monuments of facts and figures. Old Testament Jewry slipped into this legal minefield with the Mosaic Law, and a great host of New Testament Christians are there as well through the same legalistic mechanical treatment. Jesus said, “These things ye should have done, and not leave the other undone” (Luke 11:42), meaning they had missed the very personal spirit of God’s Word.

So often we hear about many coming forward to make “Decisions for Christ,” as though that many actually received God’s genuine salvation. Unfortunately, the actual statistics show only a smattering of those go on to serve God. Yes, many were convicted of sin, but few committed. It is one thing to come under conviction of the truth, but it is quite another to make it one’s own. Why? Because God also demands immediate repentance, a turning away from former sinful practices, and a turning toward a life of holiness. Frankly, few are willing to make that reverse of lifestyle. The lack of it openly declares their sincerity in the whole matter, and so they return to their old ways.

However, if the prospective convert can be convinced that one can be saved while continuing in much the same lifestyle as before, many times they will proceed into the good graces of the fellowship of a church of similar deceived Christians while assuming that God accepts such practices. But a church whose standards of Biblical holiness are lowered to keep saints comfortable will have an atmosphere more common to a community club membership. Such a church is best depicted as the intellectuals Paul encountered on Mars Hill (Acts 17). They were there only to “Hear some new thing.” The second nature of which is commonly called GOSSIP.

~ ~ ~ Christian Salvation is not unemotional! There is no such thing as half a human being, unless it is a corpse. True salvation involves one’s entire being—body, soul, and spirit. It is flatly impossible for one to go from a state of separation from one’s holy, perfect Creator to a state of unity with Him—the imperfect suddenly comes into union with the Perfect—without it impacting one’s emotional state in some way. If a healthy human cannot keep from flinching at a nearby unexpected explosion, or from the sudden news that one has gone from rags to riches, or from a myriad of other such surprising impacts, then one cannot prevent the same reaction to sudden peace and fellowship with one’s holy Creator. Frankly, a simple change of mind in our value system is not enough. Worldly people do that all the time. When we cease being one creature but suddenly wake up a new creature where “Old things are passed away…and all things are become new” (2 Corinth. 5:17), we are going to DO more than casually go on about our business.

If our conversion experience fails to make us feel saved, we would do well to question what we are calling “salvation.” By our very nature the feeling part of our salvation follows the spiritual. If we walk daily with God in proper fellowship, we will radiate peace, joy, and happiness, all of which show up in us as emotional expressions. And if that is not what we are showing, then we have probably left the Lords presence and have foolishly stepped onto the conveyor belt heading in the opposite direction.

~ ~ ~ Christian Salvation has no family ties: not social, tribal, communal, ecclesiastical,  or national; not inner circle, outer circle, political, clannish, marital, regional, ethnic, racial, for the poor, the rich, the healthy, the sickly—none of those things. While it is for all of those, it is not tied to any of them. Just because one may have connections with one or all of them, salvation does not depend on any of them. Instead, it is for individual, solitary persons ONLY, to take place inside the confines of their God-given free wills when he created us in His own image of freedom. Scripture makes it starkly clear that only individuals are judged on judgment day. This free-willed image of God in each of us means a person cannot claim a bad upbringing, ignorance, a tragedy, or holding a grudge against God for anything, as an excuse for not accepting God’s salvation. All of that lame tommyrot is swept away in God the Father’s seeing the sacrificial death of His only begotten Son as the one and only reason He doesn’t sweep all of sinful humanity into Hell anyhow! There is absolutely no excuse whatever He will accept for rejecting that sole sacrifice to save us. Yes, He is aware of human suffering, and has compassion on those who got cheated in life, but to all those who reach the age of accountability, God’s steady finger points at our noses saying something like, “You now freely stand in the land of golden opportunity, thanks to my merciful Son. My question to you demands an answer: What are YOU going to do about HIM?” All too often we fix on doctrines that focus only on His Son’s compassion, kindness, mercy, love, long suffering, and other such qualities in His Son. Sadly, we forget about His Father, who’s base attribute is holiness and justice, which gave rise to the work of His Son. When we consider salvation, we dare not fail to look beyond the Son to see His Father who stands ready to execute judgment on those who reject His dearly beloved Son. There is a very good reason to FEAR GOD. Just as surely as there is eternal life in the Son, there is eternal doom in the hands of His Father! As His Word warns, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God” (Heb. 10:31).

~ ~ ~ Christian Salvation is not an escape from trouble and persecution. Most Christians will agree with that. But most overlook the fact that it is MORE than NOT an escape from it. If the salvation is genuine, it will amount to a guaranteed SHORTCUT to trouble, especially persecution. The Word of God is specific to this: “They that live Godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12). The word is emphatic: SHALL, not might. The only escape from it is the old adage of “go along to get along.” A stand for right will get you shot in an ally, or your head severed from your body, you and your family eaten by lions, a life of chains in the salt mines, worked to death as an oarsman in a Roman galley, burned at the stake, living life as a slave to a despot, dying of starvation, being burned alive in your church. The fortunate will be merely the object of gossip, peer pressure, finger pointing, whispering, fun poking, even a challenge to fisticuffs.

Why? Again, because of the free will in every human. We fail to consider that evil men have free wills created by God to be just as free in this world as good men. We all have it by natural instinct, and know we have it as surely as we know our head sits on our shoulders. God guarantees the free operation of that gift, whether for good or for evil. The free wills of the evil men of 911 flying that airliner into the twin towers, for a brief instant came eye to eye with the free wills of some Christians in the Tower. They all met in a flame of death and destruction because God guaranteed the free operation of both wills. The spiritual law of humanity’s free will in both brought them both to the ground by another of God’s natural laws which He guarantees to operate—gravity. When God’s people who accept His salvation and purposely put Him in charge of their lives, individually or as a nation, they become a bulwark against evil men. If not, God’s law of free will guarantees that “Evil men shall wax worse and worse” (2 Tim 3:13). Christians get themselves into a heap of trouble under the false notion of “God is in control,” meaning whatever evil takes power must be there because God’s providence pre-planned it and “allowed” it. Such error nullifies God’s mandate to His church to evangelize a lost world with the Good News of  genuine Salvation.
—DA

” ‘Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not. yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not. ‘ (Hosea 7:9)

“One of the saddest dramas in human experience is the sight of a proud and confident leader who does not realize that his once-vaunted powers have deserted him and he now appears merely weak and foolish. Mighty Samson, with his locks shorn was a sad example of such tragic ignorance. ‘And he wist not that the LORD was departed from him’ (Judges 16:20), so the Philistines put out his eyes and bound him with chains. So it was with the once-mighty people of Israel in the days of their deep apostasy. Hosea described their distressing condition in the graphic words of our text.

Many years later, God’s chosen people exhibited an even more tragic state of pompous ignorance. Their Messiah had come to them, and they didn’t know Him, even crucifying Him. God’s judgment couldn’t be delayed. ‘[They] shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation’ (Luke 19:44).

But perhaps the most tragic case is the church in Laodicea. This church represents all those outwardly prosperous evangelical churches that attempt to take a neutral stance on the basic conflicts of the last days. The one who is ‘the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God’ (Revelation 3:14) will pronounce the awful judgment. ‘So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked’ ( vv. 16-17).

How urgently the people of God need to guard against the tragedy of arrogant ignorance! ” —Dr. Henry M. Morris

The foregoing devotional by Dr. Morris seems so very appropriate to our times. So it was with the ancient church of Laodicea, until Jesus was on the OUTSIDE of their door, bidding them to let Him back in to sup with them. That church, like so many churches since then, started well at it’s birth, but became full of what Dr. Morris calls “pompous ignorance.”

In our own time, the first tragic sign of compromising our testimony is always “that attempt to take a neutral stance on the basic conflicts of the last days,” forgetting that the stand for Godly righteousness, whether it be a church, a city, a state, or a nation, is first of all individually. How many church pews today are occupied with used-to-be’s, but are now arm-folding, gray-headed has-beens, full of pride and “arrogant ignorance,” and “wist not that the Lord has departed” from them.

Jesus’ admonition to those seven churches of Asia was to do their first works over again. There is no indication at all that He ever changed His advice for any New Testament church. His vehicle to win souls has always been equipped with just one gear—reverse! It’s no secret formula, no elaborate, complicated seminar course. That’s why He had the New Testament written with all the vital details for everyone to read. It has never failed to do the job when the church goes back to it, and the church has always failed, and always will, when they don’t.                             –DA

These are not three sisters, but three very vital Biblical concepts.

GRACE: God’s marvelous gift of a measure of grace (I Corinth. 1:4) actually comes down to the simple truth of our God-given freedom to choose for ourselves whether or not to serve God or to thumb our noses at Him. God’s grace built and maintains the living existence of our fleshly house, but He parked His control at the door because He allows US to LIVE in it. He leaves it to us to bless Him for the privilege, or curse the landlord if we think we can get by with it.

FAITH: The essence of faith is simply the free choice to believe the truth of God’s Word and promises, or to doubt them or reject them altogether. He made it starkly clear that “All things are possible to him that believeth,” (Mark 9:23) and that He is ready to give us “Days as of Heaven upon the earth” (Deut. 11:21), but He made it just as clear that the recipients have to be only those who believe Him (exercise faith) for it.

HOPE: Hope exists where something good is yet unrealized. It is born of faith, made possible by grace. GRACE is essentially God’s created image in us to think and decide for ourselves. FAITH is the belief for the receipt of God’s provisions, and HOPE is our patient waiting for the product of God’s grace and our faith. Grace is our endowment of free will, Faith is the activity of free will, and hope is the free will in waiting.

When we subject these three subjects to careful, merciless scrutiny until we arrive at their bare essence as they relate to our humanity, we finally arrive at the simple, obvious, self-known reality of our God-given attribute of free will. That part of us is a vital, essential, core quality of who all humans are. It is there by God’s gift of grace upon His decision to make man in His very own image of freedom. So long as God is free, we are also free. In fact, if we ever in this physical world cease having that core attribute, the entire human race will suddenly die in a pile! We can live with one leg or one arm, or even without good sense, but freedom to choose is a piece of our being just as much as our soul or spirit. Without God’s image within of free will we are all corpses—instantly!

It follows, then, that if we get the notion that once we use that freedom to accept God’s gracious gift of salvation but that we then lose the will to reject it, we have foolishly mocked the reality of God’s gift of freedom that makes us who we all are. It also follows that a natural by-product of such an erroneous concept is the “God is in control” misapplication that flourishes in Christendom today. Yes, God is in control of His natural laws, including the maintenance of His image in us, but He has made it starkly clear that He has put ourselves in control of our own freedom to choose. We truly reap what we sow. When we as a nation elect a madman to rule us, we turn God’s stomach when we justify it with, “Well, God is in control, so I guess this is God’s will.” Such a doctrine moves God even closer to letting us have our madman.

Without free will as an essential part of who we are all our natural lives, there is no such thing as “Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord…”(Isaiah 1:18), since all He would have to do is press a few buttons and we would automatically obey His own choice of whether we were to be a Paul or a Hitler. If God predicated our fate upon His own fore-ordained will, there would have been no reason for a Savior, since He declared openly in His Word that, “God is not willing that any should perish” (II Peter 3:9).

But the very essence of our God-installed freedom of will is our ability to choose for ourselves APART from God’s own will, and so freely suffer the consequences. It is the same whether our will is individually, corporately, a family, a church, a city, a nation, or a world of people. If this were not true, God would have had no inspiration to urge the Apostle John to even write the Book of Revelation, which describes the consequences.
DA

A compliment is the act of verbally expressing sincere respect to another, either in their person, or in their ability, or in their position. Scripture is quite clear about this. Therefore:

~Show me a person who will not freely praise God, and I’ll show you a person who will not freely compliment others.
~ Show me a church who does not compliment their pastor, and I’ll show you a weary pastor.
~ Show me a supervisor who will not compliment his workers, and I’ll show you a company in trouble.
~ Show me a politician who will not compliment his constituents, and I’ll show you a candidate in trouble at the polls.
~ Show me a person who will not reward their animal, and I’ll show you an animal you cannot trust.
~ Show me a man who will not compliment his wife, and I’ll show you an unhappy wife.
~ Show me a wife who will not compliment her husband, and I’ll show you a struggling husband to return the favor.
~ Show me a person who compliments in order to receive praise, and I’ll show you a person soon without friends.
~ Show me youth who will not compliment their parents and elders, and I’ll show you youth hard at work building their own unhappiness.
~ Show me parents who will not compliment their own offspring, and I’ll show you offspring being taught to wound their own.
~ Show me the head of a home who never compliments, and I’ll show you a home turned on its head.
~ Show me a nation that refuses to honor God, and soon there will not be a nation there to show me.

Why are all of these statements true? It’s because their foundation sits squarely on the human ability to be selfish, or to be unselfish. It’s as simple as that. Selfishness always demands an in-flow of personal backslapping praise, while non-selfishness always requires an out-flow of sacrificial respect for others. Stated in brief, it is the old truth of James 3:10 of blessing and cursing coming from that same hole under our noses. Meaning, persons who will not humble themselves to give compliments is completely immersed in their own selfish pride, and instead expects that pride to be fed. Conversely, a person who does compliment is one who steps away from cursing by blessing others. The first instance we find true to our carnal nature; the second we find unnatural unless we purposely choose to reflect the love of God.

Giving is not a natural act with human depravity, which is totally grounded in selfishness. One can give, yes, but what for? A compliment is a gift, but Jesus pointed out that if we do “good,” or “lend,” (same as giving) for the purpose of receiving back in kind, then we are no better than sinners and enemies. Rather, we should give “hoping for nothing in return,” if we expect to be called God’s children (Luke 6:32-35). Frankly, if we go through life failing to give honor where honor is due, refusing to give praise to those we love, then Scripture itself calls into question our very loyalty to God Himself! It behooves us, then, to cease cursing by inflow, and begin blessing by outflow; to stop receiving and start giving, and this in obedience to God because it is simply the right thing to do, whether or not we even want to or feel like it. And if we buy the old John Wayne image of “It’s not my way,” we’d better dump that wimpy excuse and stand tall as Christian stalwarts.

Again, a true compliment is an unselfish act. Once delivered, it should be left alone, expecting no return of any kind. The Bible calls the giving of praise the fruit of our lips ( Heb. 13:15). It is a sacrifice of one’s self, and the expectation of a return is to retrieve the sacrifice from the altar and to consume it ourselves. All humanity is told, “In Him we live and move and have our being,” (Acts 17:28), that is, the air we breathe belongs to Him. Therefore, “Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matt. 10:8).

But some will surely say of the person to be complimented that there is nothing there worthy of compliment. This is ludicrous. The Hippie culture had only one song with even a grain of truth in it: “Everything is beautiful, in it’s own way.” Why? Because each person exists by the creative hand of our PERFECT God, even if they are born in sin. Try telling a Hitler’s mother she just gave birth to a murdering demon. On a milder note, a husband might compare his wife to a Hollywood super-model and decide in his warped mind that there’s nothing to compliment. Well, how about, “Honey, you must be a woman of pristine character to choose to marry the likes of me.” Or, if she is truly homely, try, “Sweetheart, you might not be the most beautiful woman in the world (which she already knows), but you are certainly the most beautiful woman in MY world.” If she isn’t, that man needs to stop negotiating with her and let God turn him right side out, since his own homeliness is a disgusting sight.

I suppose we should not be surprised at our present unthankful generations. After all, they were born and nourished in a society whose very music itself is a protest to common, quiet Christian decency. Music in one’s face is going to miss the heart. Shattering the eardrums deafens one to God’s “still, small voice.” Screaming and yelling chokes the “sincere milk of the Word.”

Certified barbarians graduate daily from our public schools and universities, diligently trained in godless evolutionary brainwash where Christian thought is banned—barbarians, because godlessness equals Freudian egoism of self-centeredness. This produces Hollywood sitcoms closely related to the sport of dog fighting, emulated in the viewers of such trash, all surfacing in children with firearms that turns schoolrooms into execution chambers. Even our welfare children grow fat on free delicacies, eat like royalty, wear designer jeans, afford expensive hairdos, own i-phones, are never denied, always receiving, never thankful, and instantly ready to curse anyone who dares withhold it from them. Such a society had better remember that God does indeed grow weary of such selfish, foolish people, and turns over those tables of delicacies and unfurls his dreaded whip. Many an affluent people have learned the hard way how to dig in the garbage heaps while in rags. Some of those were people claiming His name, but shaming His righteous standards.

Is it any wonder his Word tells us that in the last days would come a generation who were “unthankful,” and “unholy?” I must point out quite candidly, that anyone, Christian or not, contributing to such a spoiled, brattish society by denying them the Christian refinement of compliment will one day have to survive a social pig sty, and finally be hauled into God’s court of justice for such neglect. Therefore:

~ Show me a world who thumbs its nose at God, and I’ll show you the world described in The Book of Revelation.

So how does one give a compliment? Actually, there’s no long, complicated secret to it. All one has to do is open one’s mouth and let it go. But I must warn you in case you’re not ready for this: First you have to swallow that big wad of chewing gum called PRIDE!

Please note that title: It does not say, “HOW TO STUDY SCRIPTURE,” or “THE BIBLE.” While all three may be seen as the same, some may perceive them differently. The word, SCRIPT, means writing of any sort and would be called scripture. A compilation of scriptures by different authors is a bibliography, and may be called a bible. Christians, of course, commonly call God’s Word The Scripture or The Bible.

To be clear, the reader should know that this entire article assumes there to be one absolutely holy God, eternally existent in three distinct Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It assumes that this God created all humanity, and that we violated His holy nature through willful disobedience; that He nevertheless loved us enough to redeem us through His Son, whom He calls The Word, and that this Word speaks to all humanity of God’s plan of redemption; that we aliens from our Holy Creator are invited to this full redemption through the Word of God made available to us.

It assumes, then, that when our Perfect, Holy Creator spoke The Word to us, He did not stutter or double-speak in impossible riddles so as to play with us and laugh at our stupidity. It assumes that He is the eternal Upright, but we are the miserable down-fallen, giving meaning to the fact that He truly hates our selfish pride above all. Meaning, if we parade around with a high look, a snooty attitude, and a personal strut, then He will make it a point to see the day when we slink away dragging twisted tails and our ears flopped. It is healthy to remember that He has never come out second best in any contest and He solemnly promises that He never will. He has never lied, and never will.

So if you read this article with a view of God’s Word as being something we can reprocess and apply to a new generation where “old, outdated standards” of Biblical morality need “fresh ways of interpretation,” then this article in your view will be a waste of time. I must warn you, though; you’re in that other long line to get a Divine tail twisting.

The Word of God was not designed as a textbook on science, geology, history, geography, politics, economics, psychology, mathematics, chemistry, adjudication, medicine, nor any such thing, although what it says about those things is absolutely perfect, and drags a long trail of embarrassed nincompoops who doubted it. No, God’s Word was designed and built to be each individual human’s Divine, personal X-ray machine for their soul, so as to expose precisely and exactly what disease is in there, with the added feature of revealing exactly what the remedy is if we expect to live over it. God’s X-ray has never missed giving an exact diagnosis.

Anyone—I say ANYONE—approaching the Word of God with a mindset of intellectual prowess to critically examine it in support of a doctrinal presupposition will find fool’s gold. Why? Because an approach to examine God’s Word stands God’s approach that we BE examined on it’s head! Out of that may come uncanny geniuses in many respects, but all too often among them genius comes trotting out with third-grade logic. It’s as if they overlooked Hebrews 4:12,13: “For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” We are talking about humility here. Billy Graham’s interpretation of Biblical evangelism says it best: “Evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where he can find bread.”

What’s more, anytime we examine God’s Word with the purpose of setting others straight, even as a minister or teacher, it is an exercise in futility because God’s way is for His Word to straighten OURSELVES out so we can show them where we got ourselves satisfied. Only then can we in true humility be a help to others. After all, in God’s view we are all beggars, whether poor and uneducated, or credited geniuses. Paul admonished Timothy to study with a view “approved unto God,” not his peers, the elders, the teachers, nor his parishioners (II Timothy 2:15; 3:16,17).

Today there is a very vital issue regarding the study of the Word of God: The question of other translations. Frankly, the best approach to that question is to ask ourselves another question: WHICH ONE IS GOD BLESSING? First, there are passages which seem neglected about this subject. Actually, God has made it clear in such passages as Matthew 5:18, Luke 16:18, John 1:1-5 and others, that God, not ourselves, guarantees to oversee and preserve the truth of His eternal Word through the generations. It is therefore impossible that God’s pure truth to humanity can ever be stamped out, falsified, or burned out of existence completely. He will take care of that, not our own imperfect recklessness. As a result, all we need do to see which one His blessings are on is to take note of which one glares at us.

Well, statistics show that most Christians are reading the NIV translation. But wait! Before we sit down and brush our hands, we’d better take another look. The KJV translation is a close runner up to the NIV, but the statistics showing what Christians are reading also includes the NKJV. The NKJV is NOT A NEW TRANSLATION, but a correction to the KJV. It should be considered that if we today attempt to read the original issue of the KJV of 1611 A.D., we come away with a headache from trying to decipher the Old English. No, the KJV has gone through several CORRECTIONS, not new translations, so that we can read the 1611 translation today. And so when we combine the KJV and the NKJV as the same translation, we see that the KJV translation of 1611 is yet the favored translation of the people of God, and has been, by the way, for half a millennium! Obviously, God is not yet through with having the KJV translation as closest to the preservation of the purity of His Word. Also, we should not miss an important part of the Preface of the NKJV: “In faithfulness to God and to our readers, it was deemed appropriate that all participating scholars sign a statement affirming their belief in the verbal and plenary [Full in all respects or requisites; having all power] inspiration of Scripture, and in the inerrancy of the original autographs.” Such a belief is absolutely vital to any approach in clarifying the precise meaning of God’s Word.

Finally, with those basic concepts in place, we will find the study of God’s Word becoming far less challenging. There is a vast difference between digging ditches in granite and feasting on the Bread of Life. When we read any and all passages of Scripture, regardless of how deep they are, with the paramount question leading us, “How will this passage personally nourish ME and draw ME closer to my God?” it is the same as crawling onto God’s X-ray table and lying still for Him. In fact, if we do it any other way, we will go out the door dragging a crooked tail.

Assuming, then, that we will approach God’s Word correctly, allow me to point out a vital method of study that we should always apply. It is based on the bedrock fact that this is GOD’S Word that we are consuming. As such, every single little word and phrase, down to every “jot and tittle” [Hebrew punctuations], are also Divinely inspired and vital in truth. This includes such little words as the, and, it, I, this, and that—every word!

A young man less than half my age made this truth indelible to me. I am a retired tax examiner from the Internal Revenue Service. I had a young friend named Mark who was also a work leader and somewhat of a genius at the business. I consulted him often on many difficult cases. Very often with problem cases he would ask me, “What does the IRS Code book say?” I’d open it and read it with him looking on. Then he’d ask me what I thought it meant. I’d tell him, and then, as he did many times, he’d say, “But that’s not what the Code said.” So I’d read it again, but with the same outcome. Then he’d point at a single little insignificant word buried in the text, such as a THE, or an AND, and tell me I had overlooked the meaning that simple little word brought to the text. Often the entire sense turned on such a word. Then he’d tell me, “You can’t overlook even one simple word in there. This is the legislated law we must rule by, and every single word counts.” Indeed, some cases went to court, and often the case was won or lost because someone overlooked the meaning of a simple word or phrase in the law.

If that is true in a court of human law, then how much more so in God’s perfect Word, the LAST word in what is right and what is wrong in God’s Divine economy. If anything at all is perfectly plain in God’s Word, it is this: Classes or groups of people do not go to Heaven or Hell. No, only INDIVIDUALS go there! That is why our study of God’s Word must be personal, one-on-one with “Him with whom we have to do” apart from anyone or anything else in life. Should we fail to get that priority right—and keep it right—then we stand to suffer great loss, perhaps even our souls. —DA