Proverbs 30:5 Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
Matthew 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Matthew 12:40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
One of the basic tools for a carpenter is a tape measure and a square. A carpenter that builds a house just with eyesight, will not be building many houses. The house will not stand strong and it will not be square. The windows will not fit properly, nor will the doors. The floors will not be level and nothing will be right. Any decent inspector would condemn such a house.
When a doctor is going to do surgery, he needs to know what he is operating on. If he is going to work on the heart, he needs to know where the heart is situated and what he is trying to do when he gets in there. He cannot be guessing at what he is planning to do. He needs a plan that has been studied and that has a high possibility of fixing the problem. A good doctor works with real science, not imaginary ideas.
When it comes to true faith, it must be based on facts. The Bible tells us that every Word of God is pure. There is not a single error in the Word of God. God does not make mistakes. He chose holy men of God to write down every word just as He gave it to them. Those men did not choose the words they would use. They did not summarize what God told them. They listened with open ears and they wrote down exactly what God wanted them to write.
I listened to an apologist (I won’t call him a Biblical apologist because I do not believe it fits), who suggested that we can all agree there are about forty verses in the Bible that have problems. He made his statement as though it were something that should be accepted. The fact is if you choose to use a perversion, there are hundreds of changes that have been made. The perversions do not agree with each other.
If we humble ourselves like those holy men that God chose to give us His Word, we will have confidence in the fact that there are no mistakes and there is no need to change one word of what God has declared. Yes, over the years the spelling of some words have been changed but that does not change the text. The spelling has just been changed to more recent spelling of a specific word.
In Matthew 4 Jesus declared that man shall live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. How can we live by every word of God if we do not know what He said? The sad reality is that we have a multiplicity of religions today, each built upon some interpretation of the words they choose to use. The ecumenical movement is built upon ignoring doctrine (right teaching) and just focusing on loving Jesus. The question is ‘which Jesus’, and what is love?
Today is marked as “good Friday”. I know what the common reason for calling is good Friday but really, what makes it good Friday? When we look at what Jesus declared in Matthew 12, Friday has nothing to do with His crucifixion. He would have been in the tomb on Friday. He was not crucified on a Friday. How do we know that? Jesus made it clear that He would be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. Jesus referred back to the book of Jonah where we read that Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. Does it matter?
Is every word of God pure or not? Does man live by every word of God or not? God says that His Word does matter. God does not waste words. He never gives suggestions. He never says that some of His Words are not really that important. If we can disregard Scripture anywhere, who decides what is to be disregarded and what is not? We have so many different views on salvation and baptism, and on marriage, etc. Who is right? According to the New Evangelical movement, it does not matter. To them, as long as you claim to ‘love Jesus’ that covers it all. Not according to God!
We need to remember that the Jewish day begins at 6:00 pm. our time and goes to 6:00 pm. We know Jesus rose from the dead early the first day of the week. The first day of the week is also known as ‘the Lord’s Day’. Our calendar calls it Sunday. Since we know Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, and we know He “gave up the ghost” during the ninth hour of the day on which He died on the cross. If we count backward from the fact that He rose early the first day of the week, we cannot come up with three days and three nights using Friday as the day of the crucifixion. It just does not work.
Our salvation is not tied to commemorating the events from the crucifixion to the resurrection accurately. In fact, nowhere does the Bible tell us to keep this event as is done in most religions. The Bible does tell us that born again Christians are to keep the “Lord’s Supper” as often as ye do this. There is no set schedule given. In partaking of the Lord’s Supper, we are told to remember His death until He comes again. Thus we are told to remember His sacrificial death and also His promise that He is coming back again. He is alive today. He is in heaven today. He is the Mediator between God and man.
We know that Easter comes from paganism. It is only mentioned once in the Bible and that is in Acts 12. It is in reference to a pagan event that was celebrated by the Romans. That same passage talks of the Jewish feast of unleavened bread. These were two separate events. King Herod honoured his paganism and the Jews kept the days of unleavened bread. The two were running at the same time, but were not combined as one event.
I Corinthians 5:7 tells us that Jesus Christ is our Passover. Those who are born again, know that Jesus Christ replaced the Old Testament lamb that needed to be set aside on the tenth of Abib/Nisan and killed on the fourteenth day of Abib/Nisan. Thus we learn that the Passover had a specific date attached to it. It was the same every year. Jesus Christ fulfilled the Old Testament typology and thus there is no need to provide a lamb for our Passover. Those who are saved, have the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.
On our calendars, Easter changes every year. It is not based on any Biblical fact. It is based on the moon. Who worships the moon? That religion goes back to the time of the tower of Babel. It is a pagan practice.
Born again Christians do not identify with paganism. We identify with the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Jewish Passover was on this past Wednesday and right now they are in the midst of the feast of unleavened bread. Again, Christians are not commanded to keep the Passover. We are commanded to keep the Lord’s Supper which has no set date attached to it. We keep that event as a memorial. It has no saving merit. It is kept in obedience to God for born again Christians. It is done to remind ourselves of the cost of our salvation and the great love that God has for us in providing the only means of salvation for man.
God wants us to pay attention to the Word. Every Word of God is pure. The saved person lives by the Word of God. We are dependent on what God said for our salvation and for our Christian life once we are saved. We cannot make up our own rules and ideas and claim to be followers of Christ.
The common events of this weekend are just one example of many where professing Christians have thrown the truth aside, for the sake of convenience. Not a wise plan. We, those who are saved, need humility and a willingness to be the peculiar people God says we are. That is how we grow in the Lord and that is how we testify to the true Jesus Christ.
Pastor Bartel