False Assumptions - Does it Really Matter?

[0:00] The title of the message is False Assumptions. Does it really matter? We'd like you to please turn to the book of Psalms and we'll be in Psalm 119.

[0:22] In Psalm 119, we'll be looking at the first 16 verses.

[0:41] How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. How blessed are those who observe his testimonies, who seek him with all their heart.

[1:00] They also do no unrighteousness, they walk in his ways. You have ordained your precepts that we should keep them diligently.

[1:15] Oh, that my ways may be established to keep your statutes. Then I shall not be ashamed when I look upon all your commandments.

[1:28] I shall give thanks to you with uprightness of heart when I learn your righteous judgments. I shall keep your statutes.

[1:41] Do not forsake me utterly. How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to your word.

[1:53] With all my heart I have sought you. Do not let me wander from your commandments. Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against you.

[2:10] Blessed are you, O Lord. Teach me your statutes. With my lips I have told of all the ordinances of your mouth.

[2:22] I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies, as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and regard your ways.

[2:37] I shall delight in your statutes. I shall not forget your word. It just occurred to me that I started telling you about a particular book, and then I detoured from that and talked about the Bible Museum.

[3:01] Well, actually, they are connected, because the folks who founded the Bible Museum also founded the Hobby Lobby, as I mentioned earlier, Steve and Jackie Green.

[3:12] And they have co-authored a book that you will find on the table back there. It's one I read with great relish. There are a couple of copies left, and it's called That Dangerous Book.

[3:27] And it is a dangerous book, because if someone reads it and believes the content, it can uproot and change their whole life. If that's dangerous, then bring on the danger, because that's precisely what is needed.

[3:43] So peruse those volumes that are back there, and if you happen to have a September birthday, you're more than welcome to take any of the books or Bible back there and accept that as our gift to you for your birthday.

[3:56] And others, if you would like to obtain a book, the cost is, as indicated on the back of the book, but it is a strictly voluntary cost.

[4:10] And that means if you wish to take the book and you don't feel that you can afford the cost of the book, take it and enjoy it. On the other hand, if you want to make a contribution to cover the cost of the book, then you may just put that money in an envelope that is provided there, drop it in the offering box, and when you do, they will know that that has to do with the book table, and that way they can kind of keep the accounting separate.

[4:36] So when we say that it is a voluntary donation, we mean voluntary, strictly. Okay? Get that out of the way. False assumptions.

[4:49] Does it really matter that we spend the time that is going to be involved in this subject? Does it really matter? Well, no, unless.

[5:01] Unless truth matters. If truth matters, then it matters a great deal. And it matters because we are admonished by the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy, as he wrote Timothy, that he is to study.

[5:16] That means concentrate. That means focus. To show himself a workman approved unto God, rightly dividing the word of truth. And that simply indicates that there is something about this word of truth, this Bible, that needs to be divided.

[5:35] What does that mean? The word literally in the Greek means to cut it straight, or to divide it correctly, as opposed to incorrectly.

[5:45] And my contention is, if you do not rightly divide the word of truth, then there is no alternative remaining, but wrongly mixing it.

[5:56] And it has been and is being wrongly mixed in a great many quarters. I think we pointed out to you, and I do not know how anyone could deny it, in the book that we shared just a few weeks ago about the 250 denominations that exist in this country.

[6:16] And that has to do with conventions, and synods, and councils, and splits, and splinters, and large, and small, and denominations all across the board.

[6:29] They all have an existence here in North America in particular, and each of them claims that their doctrinal positions are all biblically based.

[6:41] And no one is questioning their sincerity, or their earnestness. But as you read through them, and see the doctrinal differences that they hold, how that many of them are completely opposite of doctrines that other groups hold, it becomes immediately apparent, somebody's got to be wrong.

[7:04] Who is it? And apart from rightly dividing the word of truth, you're not going to find out. Rightly dividing the word of truth is the only reliable way that points out truth and error.

[7:20] And that's what we're setting about to do. So, we continue to engage the principal area that is responsible for the many doctrinal differences that have divided Christians for centuries, and continues to do so today.

[7:34] And in our last session, I made a point of the issue that with all of the differences that exist, all of the disagreements, all of the various positions that are taken regarding these issues that we're going to be looking at, Satan is behind a lot of the confusion.

[7:56] And I'm not blaming everything on the devil. We've got more than enough capability on our own of really messing things up. And I know from personal experience that I'm as capable of that as anybody else.

[8:09] But it's important to note that Satan has his finger in every doctrinal pie that has ever been produced. Because he is the deceiver.

[8:21] He thrives on confusing people and causing division. And we've made the point that if the Christian community, and by the Christian community, I'm talking about the masses that comprise the Roman Catholic Church, along with the masses that comprise the Protestant Church, if they could ever really come together so that they have doctrinal agreement, the impact that could be made on the world would be astounding.

[8:55] But we all know the likelihood of that happening isn't very good. Not too long ago, there was a group established that tried to get together with the Protestants and the Catholics and see what could be worked out by way of resolving differences and so on.

[9:13] And eventually, it came to naught, as most people kind of thought it would. And the reason it did is because each group insisted pretty much on hanging on to their own particular doctrinal beliefs and the principles and practices that they've developed over the years.

[9:31] And who can blame them? If they were convinced that they were right, you ought not to be willing to surrender them. That's like surrendering truth.

[9:43] But again, we come back to this issue, somebody's got to be wrong. And much of wrong conclusions resulting in wrong doctrines have been built upon what I am calling faulty assumptions.

[10:00] And this goes all the way back to as far as the second and third century. We're talking 1800, 1900 years. When people who were in positions of authority and respect, people who were well-educated at that time, reached certain conclusions and contributed to the establishment of different doctrines, we are suggesting, and I think we will be able to demonstrate, that many of those conclusions were based on faulty assumptions.

[10:40] Things that they thought were true, but weren't. And again, I emphasize their sincerity had nothing to do with it.

[10:50] You can be as sincere as a day is long and still come to wrong conclusions. And that is precisely what has happened. And one of the greatest reasons, perhaps the greatest reason, why many wrong conclusions and false assumptions were made was simply because they didn't have at that time all of the information that was necessary that would enable them to reach right conclusions and establish right doctrine.

[11:20] And I'm going to say something now that I suspect will maybe be suspect. But I'm convinced that it is true. I think we are guilty of making a false assumption of our own.

[11:34] And that is the idea that the twelve apostles, for instance, who lived and walked and talked with the Lord for three years, they obviously knew far more about the plan and program of God than what we do because they were there.

[11:51] And they lived it. And that would be a very reasonable conclusion to reach. But it is a faulty assumption that it's not true. It is true they knew more about the culture.

[12:06] They knew more about the experiences that they actually lived with the Lord. They knew more about the miracles that they saw Him do. They knew more about the things they heard Him say and so on.

[12:17] In an interrelational capacity, of course, they knew far more than what we do. But they still had very limited information. What do I mean by that?

[12:28] I mean, at that time, the Bible was not even underway. The scriptures were not complete. We did not have a completed canon until the third or fourth century.

[12:41] And the statement that I'm making now, you may find hard to accept, but I am convinced that it is true. we have a far greater advantage than they had who actually walked with the Lord in understanding the whole plan and program of God and the way it is mapped out and where it is going and how it is going to end.

[13:04] We have more insight to that than they did simply because we have more information. We have a whole Bible before us. We are able to compare the book of Revelation with the book of Genesis.

[13:17] They couldn't do that. They were operating on the basis of limited information and that caused them in many instances to make a faulty assumption.

[13:29] And upon that assumption, they arrived at a doctrinal position and delivered it to the faithful and the faithful took it from the experts and the pros and etched it in stone.

[13:40] And it has been there ever since. And millions have believed it and followed it down through the years. So only when you have a completed full revelation such as we now have and rightly divide it can you spot the faulty assumptions, see where they went wrong and what the corrective is.

[14:06] And let me add this. I am satisfied that if I had been living back then when they did, having no more to operate with than what they had, I would have been guilty of the same things.

[14:21] I think we all would have. So we don't need to think that we've got some kind of a wonderful feather in our cap or that we're a whole lot smarter than they were. Most of these, most of these were very brilliant individuals.

[14:34] examples. Augustine was a genius but he had some faulty assumptions. Martin Luther is one of my heroes and I'm sure he was a genius in many regards.

[14:47] You should see the life's work that he left behind. But he had some very faulty assumptions. And one of his faulty assumptions was that it was called upon, the Christian community was called upon to inflict whatever punishment or pain or deprivation or ridicule they could upon Jewish people.

[15:06] Because that's part of the price they were supposed to pay for having crucified Jesus. And Martin Luther had it all wrong. And as I pointed out earlier, the World Lutheran Federation issued an international public apology to the Jewish community for the terrible, nasty things that Martin Luther said about the Jewish people in the 16th century.

[15:32] So as brilliant as Martin Luther was, as much as I admire the man for his courage, he had some faulty assumptions. And they are so easy to arrive at.

[15:46] We're all capable of that. So we ought not to look upon these as a bunch of ignorant people. They certainly were not. They were very intelligent, the vast majority of them.

[15:57] so. Our contention is that over the past 2,000 years, beginning with the death of Christ, men in positions of leadership arrived at some of their conclusions they believed to be true, but were not true at all.

[16:16] And their conclusions were based on what we are calling faulty assumptions. You're going to be hearing a lot more about these, because there are a lot of them. And we do not have a corrective to offer to them, but the scriptures do.

[16:31] And we will allow the scriptures to speak for themselves as we compare scripture with scripture. And it is amazing, I marvel at this every time I get into the book in any depth, it is absolutely amazing how everything in the Bible is intricately connected to everything in the Bible.

[16:53] it all comes together. It all fits in a way that is just absolutely astounding. And when you get into it, the only conclusion that you can reach is, this just absolutely has to have a divine mind behind it.

[17:15] There is no human explanation for the manner in which these things come together in the scriptures, in the Old and New Testament. Their interrelatedness, connection, there is just no way that all of this can come together with just 40 independent writers, authors, sitting down and writing what they wrote.

[17:36] No, no, no, no. There absolutely has to be a mastermind behind it all. Coordinating, blending, revealing, and this, of course, we call the inspiration of the scriptures.

[17:52] This is God breathing into the minds and hearts of the individuals what he wanted written while he utilized their vocabulary and their writing style and their personality, incorporating that into the text.

[18:09] And what we have as a result is a book that comes to us with divine authority but with a human touch. And it is absolutely amazing.

[18:21] If you have not gathered this before, please do so now. This book, this book is the most amazing, priceless treasure we have on the globe.

[18:34] There is absolutely nothing to compare with it. It and it alone reveals the mind, the plan, the program of our God.

[18:47] And he has been pleased by revelation and inspiration to let us in on it. It is just absolutely amazing. So, many of the conclusions that were reached hundreds and hundreds of years ago were adopted and solidified and inserted into statements of faith as truth, biblical truth.

[19:14] But many of them simply are not. And the proof of that ought to be obvious when you realize that so many of the conclusions reached contradict other conclusions reached and as I've said before, somebody's got to be wrong.

[19:34] And it's not God. These conclusions were based on the faulty assumptions and by that we mean these respected and sincere interpreters of scripture simply assume certain things they read in scripture that they meant something they actually did not mean at all.

[20:00] Yet, based upon their erroneous conclusions, different doctrines came to be established and accepted by those who followed them.

[20:11] I know I'm repeating myself but I want you to get this. This is so important. Boy is it important. This, listen, this, this, what we are talking about right now, this is the thing that has divided the body of Christ for 2,000 years.

[20:27] And no, I have no illusions of being able to reunite it because of what we're doing here. I'm not that naive. But I want you to know desperately because what it has done for me personally, I want it to do for you.

[20:51] It makes this book come alive and make sense like it has never made before. You connect the dots.

[21:02] It's a marvelous, marvelous thing. So, what I have explained to you is precisely how so many denominations have come into being over the past 2,000 years, first under Roman Catholicism and then following the Reformation 500 years later when those leaders who lived all the way back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries made their faulty assumptions, they did so under a handicap that they did not have a completed Bible at their disposal as we have today.

[21:38] And as I mentioned, had we been in their position at their time, we likely would have made the same faulty assumptions that they made. Since the completed canon of Scripture came into being, perhaps as late as the 4th or 5th century, many doctrinal conclusions had already been reached and installed as dogma in the Roman Catholic Church.

[22:03] And I'm going to have quite a bit to say about the Roman Catholic Church and how it established its doctrine, simply because it was so dominant for hundreds and hundreds of years.

[22:16] years. And you must realize that as few as 500 years ago, and I know that may sound like a long time to us because of the average lifespan of a human being, but 500 years compared to human history is not really very much at all.

[22:43] And do you realize that just 500 years ago, the denominations that divide us today, and no, please understand, I am not barking against denominations.

[22:56] I am not anti-denominational. But I am saying that the denominations that exist today didn't even exist 500 years ago.

[23:11] I mean, there were no Lutherans. There were no Presbyterians. There were no Baptists. There were no Methodists. There were no Church of God.

[23:22] No Nazarene. None of those. They just didn't even exist. They hadn't even been thought of. And they came into being over a period of years, eventually, out of, well, I am getting ahead of myself.

[23:37] Let's go back. it was believed by early Roman Catholic authorities that an infallible and inerrant Bible, and can we give them credit for believing that?

[23:54] Absolutely we can. The Roman Catholic Church from the earliest days believed the Bible to be inerrant and infallible.

[24:04] same conclusion we reach. So where's the faulty assumption? And I am satisfied that the faulty assumption that they arrived at was made in good faith and in sincerity.

[24:20] And their faulty assumption was if we have an infallible and inerrant Bible, that automatically requires an infallible inerrant interpretation of the Bible.

[24:39] I mean, after all, what good is it to have a document if you can't interpret it? What good is it to have some kind of official reading if you don't know what it means? And accepting the idea that the Bible is from God, that it is inspired of God, word for word, inerrant and infallible, does that not require an infallible, inerrant interpretation?

[25:13] Hmm. Now, is that true? Or is that a faulty assumption? They believed it to be true.

[25:25] this is how and why the edicts or the bulls, the papal bulls delivered by whoever the Pope was at the time, and the councils that he convened, and the deliberations that they held, and the conclusions that they reached, were likewise dubbed inerrant and infallible, most surely to be believed by everyone.

[25:57] That was the official verdict that was reached time and time again with all of these councils that were held, with all of the writings and edicts of the Pope, who is supposedly in the chair of Peter, that is a direct successor of the apostle Peter, and that when the Pope speaks in an official capacity representing the church, he speaks from the chair of Peter, which they called ex cathedra, that means that the Pope's pronouncements in his official capacity are as infallible and as inerrant as is the Bible itself, because after all, he is installed as the vicar of Christ.

[26:41] That means in Roman Catholic theology, the Pope, whoever he is, is exactly the same as if Christ Jesus himself were sitting there in the Pope's chair.

[26:57] That's the authority that the Pope has when he speaks in matters regarding the church. Now, most Protestants don't know this, don't understand this. In fact, I'm sure there are a lot of Catholics that don't as well, but that is the official position as the vicar of Christ.

[27:14] That means the substitute of Christ. That means the Pope is the stand-in for Christ. He is Christ's right-hand man, and when the Pope speaks in an official capacity, it is just the same as if Jesus Christ himself were standing there and speaking in his place.

[27:32] And you better believe it, because if you don't, you are in peril eternally. Now, that is a faulty assumption, but I'm satisfied that it was probably made in good faith, and based on what seemed to be very logical.

[27:49] Look, if we've got an infallible inerrant Bible, what good does that do if we don't have an infallible inerrant interpretation? But where are we going to get that? What man is going to give us an infallible inerrant interpretation?

[28:02] When you deal with a passage of Scripture among ten men, you may get ten different answers. How do you know which one's right? You have to have someone who stands in the position of absolute authority, and that is His Holiness, the Pope.

[28:22] That's the backbone of Roman Catholic theology. And, I would be the first to admit I am satisfied. They didn't arrive at that through some kind of evil conniving or scheming.

[28:37] I think they arrived at it very honestly, very sincerely, and really believed that that was right. And again, we just remind you that sincerity and earnestness is no guarantee for truth.

[28:54] What happened eventually? there were some within the Roman Catholic Church who strongly disagreed and saw much of the dogma to be unsupported by the scriptures, and that created a problem.

[29:09] among these John Wycliffe and William Tyndale in the 14th and 15th century, and Martin Luther in the 16th century. All of these wished to reform the church with no intentions of leaving it.

[29:27] It produced a serious challenge to the authority of the church. Wycliffe and Tyndale were both executed by the Roman Catholic Church, and Luther was excommunicated as a heretic.

[29:44] Following Luther's 1517, that is, in the year 1517, and by the way, we just recently celebrated the 500th anniversary of that, nailing his 95 Theses to the church door of Wittenberg, shortly after that, King Henry VIII, a Roman Catholic monarch, appealed to the Pope for an annulment from his latest wife.

[30:12] Because if you know anything about Roman Catholic theology, and this goes all the way back to hundreds and hundreds of years, divorce is not permissible. You cannot obtain a divorce if you are Roman Catholic.

[30:27] You cannot obtain a divorce and remain in good standing in the Catholic Church. You will be excommunicated. And if you are excommunicated, that means you are officially put out of the church.

[30:41] That means that the sacraments that the church offers are no longer available to you. You cannot partake of communion.

[30:52] And, in the Roman Catholic Church, Christ is received through the mouth, through the wafer, water, which is the literal body of Christ, and the cup represents the literal blood of Christ.

[31:09] And, if you are excommunicated from the church, you do not have the sacraments available to you. And, when Roman Catholics say that we are saved by grace, they use the same terminology we do.

[31:25] You're saved by grace. Oh, we believe that. You're saved by grace. Well, what do you mean by grace? How does grace get to you? And, here is the great dividing line between Protestantism and Catholicism.

[31:39] Because, Roman Catholics say, and again, very sincerely, very innocently, and very dogmatically, grace is dispensed through the sacraments.

[31:52] And, as you partake of the sacraments, including communion, communion, including holy orders if you are a priest, including baptism, if you were baptized as a baby, that is a sacrament, and that is the impartation of grace to the individual.

[32:14] So, you receive grace through the sacraments. And, no one, no one is able to dispense the sacraments but the Roman Catholic Church.

[32:26] and its official representatives which focuses on the priest. And, the Protestant position is, yes, we believe that you are saved by grace.

[32:40] But, it is not through the sacraments. It is by faith. And, that means you are saved simply by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, apart from any works or sacraments or baptism or communion or anything, you are brought into the body of Christ simply by exercising your will and placing your faith and trust in Jesus Christ apart from anything else.

[33:10] And, what that does is it makes salvation come from God to the individual rather than through an organization.

[33:27] Therein lies all the difference in the world. the biblical position, we believe, that will be established as we go through this is that your salvation is not institutional.

[33:44] It does not come to you through any organization, through any church, or through any committee of any kind. It comes to you personally.

[33:56] You receive Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. as an act of your own personal will. This is the great dividing line between Protestantism and Catholicism.

[34:10] And, both hold their positions with great tenacity and great sincerity and great earnestness. What do you think the chances are of those two diverse groups really getting together?

[34:26] Well, as I pointed out a little earlier, they already tried that. And, of course, it didn't fly. And it won't, because each very strongly holds to those positions.

[34:37] things, it was actually during the same century, during the 1500s, that King Henry, Henry VIII, who was king of England at the time, and England was Roman Catholic, as was just about all of Europe, and when the Pope would not grant an annulment to King Henry.

[35:06] And, of course, the divorce is out of the question. But the Roman Catholic Church will, in some instances, grant an annulment whereby a special dispensation is offered that actually comes from the Vatican, and it isn't easy to obtain, and it isn't cheap to obtain.

[35:29] It costs money, and it costs a lot of effort, and you've got to go through all of these channels, and it goes all the way to the Vatican. And if you are granted an annulment, it doesn't make any difference.

[35:43] If you were married 23 years and you have eight children, you won't get a divorce, but you can be granted an annulment, and several, of course, have.

[35:54] King Henry VIII resented the fact that he could, his latest wife, with a divorce, an annulment, or whatever, and he withdrew from the Roman Catholic Church, and thereby, of course, as a monarch, even as a king, he cut himself off to eternal life, as far as the church was concerned, and King Henry, as much as said, I'm going to start my own church, and he did, and it became known as the Church of England, and he was the head of the Church, and he appointed their own individual who would act in the capacity of a Pope, and it was, and still is to this day, known as the Archbishop of Canterbury.

[36:45] He is the head of the Roman Catholic Church, and the Catholic, the king, or the queen, now it is the queen, Queen Elizabeth, one of her titles, one of the official titles of whoever the monarch is in the Roman Catholic Church, I mean in the Episcopal or the Church of England, is the defender of the faith, and for hundreds and hundreds of years, that has been part of the title of royalty that sat on the throne of England, and I remember reading just recently, where in the litany that is given of all of the responsibilities that the monarch of England has, whether it is a queen or a king, they have decided to drop from the list the defender of the faith.

[37:44] Isn't that interesting? Who would have thunk it? Well, this is what's going on there. And then the plot thickens, because as you move on, with the Church of England being established, King Henry VIII brought, like Martin Luther before him, brought a lot of baggage from the Roman Catholic Church.

[38:09] There were a lot of practices that they brought over from the Church and adopted in the Anglican Church. For all practical purposes, the Church of England, the Anglican Church, the Episcopal Church, are pretty much one and the same.

[38:23] And they all have the Archbishop of Canterbury as their head. Corruption became a big problem. And we're talking about Oxford University in England in the 1700s.

[38:38] And there were young men attending there, as there had been for quite some time. This is a very, very old institution, Oxford in England. and some were preparing for the priesthood, the Anglican priesthood.

[38:55] But it was not a requirement of any kind that anyone had to have any particular religious feelings, affiliations, convictions, or anything of the kind because applying for the clergy was just the same as applying for any other profession, whether it was legal or something else.

[39:12] and to us that might be considered unthinkable. You ought to at least have an interest in pursuing spiritual things, but that was not required at all.

[39:26] Yet there was a group of young men who did have that and they had a sincere interest in spiritual things and they wanted to promote them.

[39:38] And they were in ridicule by the vast majority of the student body who referred to this little group as the Holy Club.

[39:49] That was a term of derision. They made fun of them and they mocked them and they called them the boys in the Holy Club. Among them was a man by the name of John Wesley and his brother Charles.

[40:07] Charles wrote some 6,000 hymns. John Wesley eventually became the founder of the Methodist Church.

[40:18] The Methodist Church came out of the Church of England, broke with it, split from it, primarily over doctrinal issues.

[40:31] And once the Methodist Church was established, and this was after John Wesley died, and by the way, he came to the United States as a circuit rider and road all over the country. And it was said of John Wesley that when he died, the only thing he left behind was a well-worn saddle, a pewter serving dish, and a bent pewter spoon, and the Methodist Church.

[41:03] That's what John Wesley left behind. died. And guess where the Nazarenes came from, and the Pentecostals came from, the Methodist Church.

[41:20] We've got a family tree of religion here, started with the Roman Catholics, and then the Lutherans peeled off into different branches of Lutheran Church, and there are several different Lutheran groups.

[41:33] And then after them, King Henry VIII, with the Church of England, and then out of the Church of England came the Methodist Church, and came the Churches of God, and the Nazarenes, and so on.

[41:47] They all had their roots in the Methodist Church. And why was it that any of them broke away from their parent groups? In each and every case, it was because of doctrine.

[42:00] The leaders that led those particular groups away simply interpreted different passages of Scripture in a different way, reaching different conclusions than the parent group had held.

[42:11] And they divided over that. And they did so out of a good conscience, sincerely believing that they were right. But again, we keep coming back to this. Somebody's got to be wrong about something.

[42:22] none of us is exempt from reaching bad conclusions based on faulty assumptions. I've got some of my own that I'm not proud of, but there are faulty assumptions that I had to recognize I had in the 45 plus years that I've been here at Grace Bible Church, and some of them I've had to correct because I came to the conclusion that I was wrong regarding that.

[42:49] I need to change my position. And I did. Some of you know about those, and we've talked about them. But so very, very much of these doctrinal issues and problems arose from the disregarding or misinterpreting the promises that God gave to the Jewish people.

[43:10] And here is where I want you to make a very, very important connection, because it severely impacts the whole worldwide religious seen today.

[43:23] Everything, everything hinged on whether the promises God gave to the Jewish people through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were conditional or unconditional.

[43:39] I cannot express how much is riding on this question and the way it is answered. Everything hinged upon this.

[43:51] If conditional, if the promises God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, blessing, I will bless thee, and I'll curse those who curse you, and to you and your descendants, I will give this land, and you shall be a blessing, and all the world shall be blessed through you.

[44:07] if that is conditional, then it means Israel as a nation really better behave themselves because if they don't, God is going to pull his promises from them.

[44:22] That makes them conditional. That's how most interpret them. That's how the vast majority of religious bodies today, beginning with the Roman Catholic Church interpret this.

[44:40] They say that God made these promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but they were all on the condition that Israel function as it should and that they remain obedient to the Lord and observe the doctrines and so on, and if they don't, then God will withdraw the promises that he made because they were conditioned upon their obedience.

[45:09] God will withdraw those promises and he'll find somebody else who is worthy of them. And the majority opinion is that's exactly what God did and guess who he found that was worthy.

[45:23] It's called the Christian Church. And it came into being in Acts chapter 2 where it is commonly believed that that was the birthday of the church.

[45:36] I think we will be able to establish that that is one of the greatest faulty assumptions that has ever been made. And the repercussions and the consequences that have issued forth from that have been absolutely staggering.

[45:51] And they insist on keeping Christendom divided. And as I pointed out earlier, guess who has their finger in that pie?

[46:04] You better believe it. The adversary. Satan himself is stirring all of this up.

[46:14] He contributes to these wrong, fallacious assumptions. And people establish doctrine on them and it ends up dividing people and it keeps the church in a weakened, confused, disunited entity that has only a small percentage of the impact that it should be having.

[46:37] Satan's game is divide and conquer. It's exactly what he's doing. Scriptures make it very clear he is the God of this age. 2 Corinthians 4.4 And he blinds the minds of those who believe not.

[46:51] And they look at all of this division. Unbelievers on the outside have no church affiliation, no interest in church at all. They look at all these people who call themselves Christians and what do they see?

[47:03] Nothing but division, rancor, bitterness, separation, name calling, and all the rest. And they say, who wants anything to do with that outfit? And Satan is just tickled to death.

[47:17] He just loves it. And this is where we are. This is where we've been for hundreds and hundreds of years. And it all has to do with doctrines that are established that have no biblical base for their authority.

[47:38] You see, the real danger about assumptions is that people act on them. People follow through with them.

[47:50] People go with them. People believe them. people trust them. That's where we are. And what I have given you is a very brief, and I realize in many respects very shallow, we don't have time to go into it in any depth, but this that I have given you explains more than anything that I can tell you as to how we got where we are today and what it all means.

[48:15] So, if those promises God gave were conditional, then Israel could be safely dismissed as over and done with, and replacement theology came into being.

[48:30] And that's exactly what we have today. But, if God's promises to Israel were unconditional, which means God is saying to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, this is what I am committed to do, and it doesn't make any difference what you do.

[48:50] I'm going to fulfill the promises that I made to you. Even if you are disobedient, because my promises to you are unconditional, this is what I'm going to do, doesn't matter what you do.

[49:04] Now, that doesn't mean that it gave them license to disobey and ignore and all the rest, but it does mean that God's promises are connected to his integrity.

[49:19] And where he wants to issue a conditional promise, he's fully capable of doing so. The Abrahamic covenant, unconditional. The Davidic covenant, unconditional.

[49:34] The Palestinian covenant, conditional. Conditional. What do I mean by that? The Palestinian covenant has to do with the land. And God said to the Israelites, look, I'm giving you and your descendants this real estate, this land.

[49:52] This is going to be yours. And it's going to be yours in perpetuity. But I want to warn you, if you disobey me, you ignore my commandments, you fall into idolatry, and you go the way other nations go, tell you what I'm going to do.

[50:13] I'm going to drive you out of that land, and I'm going to scatter you all over the world. And that will be your penalty for disobeying me. But then, I'm going to bring you back.

[50:29] look, and when I do, you will be fully prepared to obey me. I'm going to chasten you, and rebuke you, and use heathen nations to punish you, until you see the error of your way, and you repent.

[50:52] And that's exactly what Israel is going to do, according to Zechariah 12.10, and the whole of the revelation. So that's a conditional promise.

[51:04] And God said it's, the land is yours, you're going to be on it, prosper, unless you kick over the traces and go your own way, and if you do, I'm going to scatter you out the world.

[51:16] That's exactly what God has done. And I think any reputable history will point that out. This requires, of course, a futuristic interpretation of the book of Revelation that explains how Israel, by way of a surviving Jewish remnant, will realize all that God has promised.

[51:39] Well, there is so much more to this, and I just hope this has enabled you to connect a few historical dots. But we've got some time left for Q&A, and I want to entertain questions or comments that you may have.

[51:53] have. And there's a comment or question way in the back there. Okay, Terry, here comes the microphone. And by the way, just let me say this for the record.

[52:07] I would much prefer to just give you an exposition of scripture rather than what I've given you. But this is necessary background material, and you really need to know it, and it will help the scriptures that we are going to be looking at more meaningful.

[52:20] Yes, Terry? I just want to clarify, the Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of the Church of England, right? Yes. Okay. Well, he's not called a Pope or anything, but he's the equivalent.

[52:35] He is the head of the church. I forget the fellow's name now. Years ago, it was Jeffrey Fisher, and I don't recall the name of the Archbishop. Now, John has a comment here.

[52:45] question, actually. The Catholic Church started as Gentiles or Jews?

[52:57] Because how could they be in the seat of Peter if they weren't Jews? Yeah. That's a really good question, and we will be dealing with the very essence of that and how that came into being.

[53:12] Because, of course, one of the basic claims of the Roman Catholic Church is that Peter was the first Pope. And do you know where they got that from? Well, it was a faulty assumption.

[53:26] It was on the assumption that when Jesus said to Peter in Matthew chapter 16 that he was going to give Peter the keys to the kingdom.

[53:39] And he did. And Peter used the keys. Peter and we find him using him in Acts chapter 10 with Cornelius. And he used him in Acts chapter 2 when he stood up and delivered that Pentecostal address saying, Men of Israel and you that dwell in Jerusalem, hear me.

[54:01] These men are not drunken as you suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the morning. This is that which was spoken of the prophet Joel. Oh boy, this is, wow, this is really something.

[54:14] And he tells us exactly what it was and what it wasn't. But it is interpreted to mean something other than what it is. And yes, yes, absolutely, Peter was the chief apostle.

[54:29] And it was because of that that Christ gave him the keys to the kingdom. But that's not the same thing as keys to the church. And we'll make that distinction because it's a faulty assumption that equates them.

[54:41] Other comments or questions? Okay, Carolyn. Doesn't it have something also to do with the fact that when Jesus said, and upon this rock I will build my church, and they assume that the name Peter means rock when I think, as I've looked it up before, and I think it has something to do with pebble more than rock.

[55:01] But they take that rock and when Jesus said, upon this rock I will build my church, so they think Peter is the rock. Precisely. Precisely. And they say that the church is built on Peter.

[55:12] Well, it's quite evident that the church is built on Christ and he himself is a cornerstone and he is a stone. He is a stone. Peter is a stone in the building.

[55:22] But he is not the rock. The rock, the rock is the confession that Peter made. And what was the confession? Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?

[55:34] Peter says, thou art the Christ. You are the Messiah, the Son of God. That confession is that upon which the church is built.

[55:46] It's also that upon which the kingdom is built. Because the message that was delivered, what did John the Baptist preach when he came on the scene? Repent for. Why?

[55:57] Because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And he wasn't talking about the church. He was talking about God fixing a broken world.

[56:09] The kingdom of heaven is when God's rule and reign on earth is done as it is in heaven. And that's what John was announcing.

[56:19] That's what Jesus was announcing. That's what the twelve were announcing. That's not what Paul was announcing. What happened? the message changed.

[56:34] Dramatically. And that's upcoming. Yes? Can I just add one thing to that? Isn't it a controlling issue too? Because in the Catholic church it's only the sacraments through which you can receive grace.

[56:47] So that means if you are not a Catholic you are not attached to the Catholic church. And so therefore the only Catholics will go to heaven because they are the only ones who can receive the sacraments.

[56:58] Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know something? What you stated is very correct but there are a lot of Catholics that don't even believe that. Because there are a lot of Catholics that really do not understand actually the teachings of their own church.

[57:15] And I know I've talked with a number but I've had some of them shake or say no no no that's not true. Our church doesn't believe that. Well look it up. You can get this information online. You can go online and get the actual doctrine.

[57:28] regarding the Roman Catholic church from the Roman Catholics. It's not what Protestants say about them. It's what they say about themselves. And it's available online. Anybody can get it. It's there.

[57:39] There are different degrees of belief and acceptance of that among the Catholics. There are a lot of Roman Catholics that are not what you would call good Catholics at all.

[57:52] No. They're not good Catholics. They practice birth control. And there's no way that official Roman Catholicism is going to call a woman who practices birth control a good Catholic.

[58:05] That's just a contradiction in terms. In the same way with abortion. How many Catholic women are there who've had abortions? That is a big, a really big no-no in the Catholic church.

[58:19] But, on the other hand, you can go to confession and you can confess it and be forgiven by the church and all is well.

[58:34] That, too, is based, you guessed it, on a faulty assumption. These things are going to command us fast and furiously.

[58:45] But I don't want you to think that I'm picking on Roman Catholics and the reason that I'm using Roman Catholics so much is because they were the foundation of this. They were where all of this began.

[58:58] And Protestantism came out of it and guess what? We Protestants brought a lot of baggage from the Catholic church and we have a lot of our own faulty assumptions.

[59:11] So it isn't a question of us pointing our finger at them and saying the Catholics are all wrong. Hey, we've got plenty of wrongs of our own. Plenty to go around. Anyone else? Quick question. Yes.

[59:26] Nathan? This will have to be our last. This is a little bit tongue-in-cheek. So if the Bible, which is inspired, needs an inspired interpretation, who's going to interpret the interpretation?

[59:44] Yeah. Well, good question. It's an infinite regress. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Absolutely. You're right. Well, what this all boils down to is that admonition that Paul gave to Timothy, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

[60:07] And that's something that we are all called to. And you know something? I say this with great sadness, but most Christians, most Christians, I mean, I'm talking about people who are going to be in heaven when they die.

[60:24] Most Christians don't even know about that passage. And they have no idea. If you quote to them, they have no idea what it means. It just doesn't connect.

[60:35] And yet, it is so very vital. Jesus Christ is behind all of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation.

[60:51] And as he said to his apostles in John's Gospels, the words that I speak unto you, they are truth and they are alive. And that's the whole book.

[61:06] Well, folks, this thing is so involved. And so important. I consider this to be the conclusion of my ministry here.

[61:25] And in the time that I have spent with the Lord about this, I have besought him to enable me to make these things that I see as the very most important.

[61:48] The things that I want to leave with you more than anything else. And that all goes back to this wonderful book. And with that, if you would stand, please.

[62:00] Father, we are so grateful that you've been pleased to provide for us what you have.

[62:12] And we confess sometimes our disinterest, even our laziness, when it comes to exploring and examining this precious volume that you've given us.

[62:26] we know we're not worthy of it. And we know it's a tool of your grace. And we trust that as the time goes by, and as we continue examining these issues, you will use the truth to stimulate a greater and a more intense desire in each and every one of us.

[62:49] to know more fully, never completely, but to know more fully than we do the ins and outs of this book, so that we will see it as a living, throbbing thing that wants to impart its very own life to us in ways that we cannot begin to understand.

[63:10] That is our prayer. And to this end, we commit our times that we'll be spending together in Christ's name. Amen.