My guilt's gone. My guilt's gone. The verses I want to use tonight
is verses 18 through 21. Little children, it is the last
time. And as you have heard that Antichrist
shall come, even now are there many Antichrists. Antichrist,
everybody says, is going to be one person that's going to come
in the last days. Here he calls them, everybody
who denies Christ is an antichrist. And that's what he's saying here.
Many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time.
They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had
been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us, but they
went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all
of us. But you have an unction from
the Holy One, and you know all things. I have written unto you, because you
know not the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie
is of the truth." Now, you know I've been dealing with this subject,
Bible doctrines, and I haven't really actually started with
a Bible doctrine yet. I've been building up to it.
I'm getting you all ready, getting your anticipation all stirred
up. I should have started with God
tonight, the doctrine of God. But I want to ask this question. How do we find the doctrines
of the Bible? How do we come to understand
and believe of the doctrine? How do we come to find them?
Where do we find them? How do we find them? Do you find
them in books? Do you find them in the church?
Do you find them on television? Do you find them in your imagination?
Do you find them from some preacher? Do you find them in just a book? Now, I know that, and that's
what he says here, there's anti-Christ out here in this world. There's
people that start with you and don't continue with you. And
we, you know, he says here, there's people that know the truth, and
there's people who believe a lie. And there's a difference in what
you believe. And how do you know where to find out where the truth
is at, where the doctrine's at, that you believe? Now, the scripture,
well, one of the old catechisms says the chief end of man is
to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. But how can a man glorify
God and enjoy Him if he don't know Him? And how can you know
Him? Because now by searching, find
Him out. And I do know this, that we can't find Him out by
our own efforts. People have been trying to find
God by their own efforts as long as there's been a man. You know,
that's why they built the Tower of Babel. They said, we're going
to build a tower that reaches from up to heaven. We're going
to get up where God's at. Every man's always trying by
his own efforts to find God. And I say that it's our desire.
God's given us the desire to know God and to glorify Him and
enjoy Him now. Now. If we don't know Him and
enjoy Him now, we won't enjoy Him forever either. But how do
we know Him? How do we glorify Him? How do
we enjoy Him now? By the Bible. By this blessed
book. Because it's the revelation of
God. It's the revelation of God. This Bible from Genesis to Revelation
is God's Word. It's the revelation of His will.
It's the revelation of His purpose. It's the revelation of His counsel.
It's the revelation of His redemption by His Son. It's not a book of
ethics. It's not a book of morality. It's not a book of philosophy.
It's not a book to be argued and debated about. You either
believe it, or you don't. You either bow to it, or you
reject it. And I said, you know, there's
general revelation. We see that in history. We see
it in creation. We see it in God's providence.
And then there's a special revelation. That's the revelation where God
says, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them. I lay down my
life for the sheep, they shall all be taught of God." That's
that special revelation. All thy children shall be taught
of God. That's that special revelation. But can we rely upon the Bible,
can we rely upon the book of God as our only authority for
saying for the doctrines we believe, for what we teach, for what we
preach? As really, can we say this really is God's Word? Can
we really say this is God's Word? Can we actually believe that
this is God's Word? A lot of folks don't believe
it. You know, we said that all scriptures
given by inspiration of God is profitable for doctrine. That's
the first thing. Doctrine's teaching. For reproof,
for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Huh? Now, another question. And this
is the title of my message, How Do We Find the Doctrines of the
Bible? Huh? They are given to us in
a systematic order. I don't open up Genesis here,
and I find Genesis 1, and there's the first doctrine I'm confronted
with. I turn to Exodus, and I find my second one. I turn to Leviticus,
and I find my third one. That's not how you find doctrine.
It's not systematic. You can't open it up and see
Doctrine 1, so we'll expound that. Doctrine 2, we'll expound
that. Doctrine 3, we'll expound that. That's not the way it's
found. That's not how you come to doctrine. And when we open
the Bible, we read lots of history, history of different nations,
history of kings, history of kingdoms, history of people's
lives, history of people's death, people's life of faith, people's
life of hatred for God. But we can't turn to page one
and say, here's this doctrine. And here we need to learn it
and then turn to page 2 and etc. Let me show you something. You
keep John here and look over in Isaiah 28. Just a minute.
I want you to see this in Isaiah 28. Isaiah 28, verse 9. That's what John was saying there.
He said there's so much heresy and error, Antichrist in the
world. But here in Isaiah 28, verse
9, look what it says. Who shall he teach knowledge,
and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned
from the milk, and drawn from the breast. Now watch it. For
precept must be upon precept, line upon line, line upon line,
here a little, there a little. That's how you get it. Get just
a little here, a little there, a little precept here, a little
precept there, line upon line. That's how it comes. It don't
come all at one time. We know that from our own experience.
But John says here that there's Antichrist there. And there was
people that went out from us. They fellowshiped with us. They
went out from us, but they didn't continue with us. And you know
the truth. You have a notion from the Holy
One. You know the truth. And these people here, they went
out with heresy, they went out with error, they went out denying
the Christ coming in the flesh, there's cults, and they went
out from us. They were guilty of this, of erring in hypocrisy.
And that's what he's saying here. So how are we going to be one
of those who's not an antichrist, and going to be those who know
the truth? And we know that anything that's not the truth is a lie.
So how are we going to come to these Bible doctrines? Now, this
book, this blessed book, is inspired. It's God's oracles. He told Peter,
says, If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God.
You speak what God says. That's what he said. And this
is God's Word. It's God's truth. So how do we
find the doctrine that's in this blessed book? Let me ask you
another question. Where is the place for our reasoning,
our understanding, and our intellect in learning Bible truths and
learning the doctrines of the Bible. What part is our reason
and our understanding and our intellect at? Well, I can tell
you this much. By reason alone, no man can find
God. It can't be done. The world by wisdom knew not
God. Ain't that right? And the intellect is insufficient. If all it took was intellect,
every Ph.D., everybody had any kind of education could read
the Bible and just get it like that if it was by intellect. But oh, the scripture says the
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
neither can he knowing. Now we agree, beloved, And I
tell you, that's why we tell man that intellect's not what
opens the Scriptures to your understanding. Reason is not
how you find God. Logic's not how you find God.
Logic's not how you find truths in the Bible. Logic and reason
and intellect's not how you find the blessed truths of the Bible.
If that's all it took, I'd say, all you had to do was go get
you an education, and all you had to do was open up and say,
man, I did that just like that. This is not a book where you
learn mathematics. It's not a book where you learn
science. It's not a book where you learn history. This is a
book that makes us see and know something about God. And that
right there shows us how you're going to know about God in new
flesh. And He's Spirit. You're finite,
and He's infinite. He's Spirit. And we're flesh
and bones. Huh? And we agree, we all agree
that the Bible is our full and final authority, and it's by
revelation. Where would we be? What would
we know without the Bible? Where would we be? What would
we know without it? Huh? And I say this without a shadow
of a doubt, and I believe every one of you do say the same thing.
I submit myself entirely to this book. I submit myself to this
Bible entirely. And when I admit this, and I
admit this, and I believe you will too, when I read it, when
I read it to learn something from it, to learn a doctrine,
to study it, and I remember years ago when I first made a profession,
I went to a meeting somewhere every night, And I'd go hear
somebody say something and I'd ask them, say, now where's that
at in the Bible? And I'd go back and I'd read the Bible and see
where it's at. And that's how I started finding out how people
were so in error. I started speaking in tongues
years and years and years ago. And I'd come to find out, and
I said, well, I'm going to search in the Bible and see where that's
so, because somebody preached against it. And I said, I'm going
to find out myself. And I found out that it's not
true. If you're speaking in tongues, you're speaking in another language.
You're not speaking in something that nobody understands. I'm
down in Mexico, and I'd give anything if I could talk to those
preachers and talk to those people. They stay around like us. They
just hang around after the service is over, and they're all talking
and visiting. And the preacher sits there, and you know, I speak
to them. When I speak, I'm a barbarian
to them. They don't understand a word I say. And they try to speak to me,
and I don't understand what they're saying. That's why when I'm speaking,
I'm speaking in an unknown tongue, so I have to have an interpreter.
And Cody's the interpreter. What good would it do for me
to stand up and preach 40 minutes to him? And they don't understand
me, and I don't understand them. I'd be under absolute foolishness. That's why Paul said, it's better
that I speak with five words with my understanding within
10,000 words in an unknown time. So when we come to read him,
to learn doctrine, we automatically, we're entered into a realm that's
past my understanding and your understanding. And it's a revelation. Intellect and reason and logic.
And this makes us know this. We're seeking to know God. To
study doctrine that leads us to God. That leads us to know
what salvation is. To lead us to know how to worship
God. To bow to God. To know something
about God. How to approach God. That's why
we find out, that's why we search it. Oh God, what are you like?
How do we worship you? How do we speak of you? How do
we talk about you? How do we bow before you? What
do we say about you? And so when we come to that automatically,
it shows me this pastoral realm of understanding. Huh? If I'd know God and find him
out perfectly, you know what would happen? I'd be like him.
I'd be equal with him. But I can be equal with God.
Let me show you something. It's like the doctrine of the
Trinity. There's no place explicitly in
the Bible that talks about to call God a Trinity. But you have the Father speaking
to the Son and the Holy Spirit coming. And you have the Spirit
and the water and the flesh. You have the Word and the Spirit
and the blood. But how in the world is nothing explicitly,
but yet how did you come to the doctrine of the Trinity? Huh? Now, who can understand the doctrine
of the Trinity? How do we understand that there's
three persons in the Godhead? And you can't say that you can't
point to any place in the Bible where it says, now, here's three
persons in the Godhead. Huh? And who can explain it adequately? I've heard some great illustrations
about it. But I, you know, how do you explain
it? I'm not three persons. I'm a father. I'm a son. I heard somebody, a what? And a
husband. You know, I'm a father. But no,
I'm a grandfather and a father and a son. And anyway, no, I'm
talking about trying to figure out how this, I heard a fellow
use illustration one time where you know, you're a father and
you're a son and you have a grandson, I think,
and that's, you know, they're all related to one another, you
know, it's all from the same person, but they're, I don't
know. That's what I say. You cannot
use an illustration. That's the whole point. I can't
do it. I heard people trying to do it,
and they just get as bum-fuzzled as I do. But, listen to me. We accept
truths where we can't even understand them. How do you understand the
Incarnation? How do you understand, how do
you grasp that God came in the womb of a virgin, with the Holy
Ghost planting the seed of God in her womb. That that baby that
came out of that woman's womb was none other than God manifest
in the flesh, the One that created this world and upholds it by
the word of His power. How do you explain how the Lord
Jesus Christ said He was here on earth and He was in heaven
at the same time? So you see, And we can't even
fully like the new birth. What do you say? You know, the
Lord didn't even explain the new birth. He just said he had to
do it. You had to have it. And how do you explain Christ
as man and God, yet not two persons? How do you express three persons
in the Godhead, yet there's only one God? And yet we don't, you
know, that's what I'm talking about. How do we come to these
things? And we accept things that we
can't understand and can't even fully explain. How do we do that? By faith. That's why we submit
to this blessing. Look, I'm content. You know,
God-given faith says, I'm content with what the Bible says. I don't
have to have an answer for everything. I don't. I don't. And I tell
you, people who don't have faith, they're never at rest. They're
never at rest. They're always questioning. Always
questioning God, always questioning His reasons, always questioning
why things happen in the world. When they hear about election
or predestination, they say, God can't be fair to be like
that. How can God be fair to be right and let somebody over
here suffer, who's done good all their life, and let somebody
over here, who ain't never done good, and they just happily act
as if they had good sins? And that's the way people, that's
where human logic and reason comes in. But I'm not, you know,
God says it. I got an email from a fellow
this other day, and this is what he said, and I don't know where
he got it from, because I've heard this said so many times,
but he says, you know, it's whenever we stray from the Scriptures
that we mess up. He says, you know, God says it,
that settles it, whether I believe it or anybody else believes it.
And that's why we've got to stay. God says it, and that settles
it. And if we'd stay true to that,
that's why John said, verse 21, I've not written unto you because
you know not the truth, but because you know it, and that no lies
are the truth. And another thing, let me tell
you another thing that we're going to learn, Dr. Don't mix
philosophy with revelation. And what do I mean by that? Don't
mix philosophy with revelation. And we've often said this, wouldn't
you love to come to the Bible without preconceived notions? But everybody, especially when
you're taught wrong to start with, you come to the Scriptures
with a preconceived idea of what it says. If you're an Armenian,
you come to the Scriptures with a view of its free will and its
works to get a blessing. Is that not right? If you're
a Catholic, you're going to come to it. Well, you ain't going
to come to the Bible. You're going to go to the priest.
He's going to tell you what the Bible says. You ain't going to come
to the Bible. You're going to go to the priest.
You're going to go to the church and find out what they say. But now, don't
miss philosophy. Now, let me tell you what philosophy
is. And every one of us is a philosopher. Some of us more philosophers
than others. Ain't they, Bruce? Some of us
philosophize a little more than others. And I remember one time me and
Todd Leiber was talking, and he says, Boy, Don is really philosophizing
now. You know, and what all philosophy
is, is it means this, anyone who has an opinion about anything
is a philosopher. Whenever you start giving your
opinions and your beliefs, that's all it is, it's your philosophy.
Your philosophy for life. My philosophy for life is live
right, You know, they'll ask somebody a hundred years old,
how did you get to be a hundred years old? I'll tell you my philosophy
of life. Drink one shot of Jack Daniels a day, smoke all you
smoke, and enjoy it. And then somebody else comes
along and says, oh, I never, how did you live to be a hundred
years old? I never drank a drop. I lived
real good. I read my Bible every day and
I prayed with church. So, you know, you got both extremes.
But that's their philosophy of life. I don't want to live with
that kind of philosophy. Anybody's philosophy. Mine or
anybody else's. And so listen, beloved, how many
reject the truth because it doesn't fit their philosophy, their belief,
their opinion? And I tell you, don't mix no
philosophy. None of these things have nothing
to do with Revelation. You mix your philosophy, your
opinion, your beliefs with the Scriptures. Next thing you know,
you'll never come to a knowledge of the truth. You'll never arrive
at it. And we not only submit ourselves
to the authority of the Bible, but we also ask the Scriptures,
ask the Holy Spirit, God, guide us. Ain't that what he says here,
but you have an unction from the Holy One and you know all
things. We not only say, this is the truth, you know, I don't
understand it all, but we say, Lord, guide us through the Scriptures.
You know, when I read the newspaper, I don't stop and pray. When I pick up an old fiction
novel, sir, I don't ask, Lord, give me understanding of this.
But when I open the Bible, before I ever open it, I always pray,
Lord, this is a spiritual book. This is your word. And please give me a desire when
I read it that I can, that I will read it and I can read it and
that it won't be a dead book to me. How many times have you
opened it and it's been dead to you? But it's a spiritual book, and
if you know anything from it, so Lord guide me through it.
Direct me through it. And we ask for inspiration. God
give me some light from it. Inspire me from it. Teach me
from it. Illuminate my mind from it. And we ask the Holy Spirit
for these things. That's why our Lord Jesus says,
The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. And so when we come to
this book, I don't know if you all do this or not, but when
I come to this Bible, I realize my inability real quick. I realize
my inability. My understanding, my intellect,
my logic, my reason is not enough. Not enough. I've read it too
many times, and all I've read is just words. Have you ever
done that? Just read a chapter, and when
you got through reading it, you said, well, what did I just read?
And then there's other times, you know, God just makes it come
alive to you. You start getting it and you
can't hardly put it down. So we say, Holy Spirit, guide
us. Keep us from error. Keep us from subtle danger. Don't
let us be one of them who go out. Don't let us be one of them
antichrists. Don't let us. Keep us from this
error that denies that Jesus Christ has come into flesh. Let me make a couple of other
statements here. How do we come to learn doctrine? The first
thing you do when you're looking in the scriptures, you look for
statements. You look for statements. Put scriptures together. I just
talk about the new birth. Our Lord says you must be born
again. How in the world are you going to talk about the new birth?
Are you going to study about the new birth? Are you going
to look for every place where it says something about being made new,
new nature, new heart, new will? You look
for these kind of things. And then you start putting Scripture
together. And you ask the verse of Scripture,
what is this teaching? And I do know this without a
shadow of a doubt. any doctrine, and there's lots
of them. Sovereignty, justification by faith, salvation holy of the
Lord, sovereign free grace, man's utter and absolute inability
to believe God, come to God, understand anything about the
Bible. Unconditional election, Christ dying only for his elect, The gospel is the only thing
we're to preach. Christ, the substitutionary death
of Christ. Any doctrine we claim to believe,
we must be always able to say, here's where it's at in the Bible.
Right here. I can take it and show it to
you. And if you can't find it, ain't that what he says? You
know it, no lies are the truth. And if you can't find it, leave
it alone. Somebody you know, every once
in a while you run across somebody, and they'll say, well, I believe.
I believe this, and I believe that. I believe, you know, that,
well, you take Jehovah's Witnesses. They don't believe Jesus Christ
is God, that He's just a creature, and that you are not worshiping.
That if you worship Him, you're worshiping an idol. That's an
antichrist. That's an antichrist. And they'll
say, where did you get your message? Oh, I had a vision. Oh, I had a dream. I got a message when I was out
in the woods one time. And I come out in the woods,
and I got a message, and I built a whole church off that message. And then you got these folks,
and they'll say, oh, you know, preachers say, God told me if
I stand up, He'll fill my mouth. That's mysticism. That's mysticism. You better be prepared. If you're
going to speak for God, you better have God's Word in you. You better
know something about Him. Well, how would you like to face
God getting up and say, well, let's see, I don't know where
I'm going to preach at tonight. Let's see, let's see. Oh, boy,
that's a good one. And away they go. And then they
cut their ear, and then they go to hack, hack, hack. You know, we don't get our doctrine. Let me tell you something. We
don't get our doctrine. We don't get it from the church. You know that the Catholics,
they change. And I know, you know, that the
Catholics, they change their beliefs according to whatever
the Pope says. The Pope, you know, the Bible
is not infallible. The script the Pope can add to
it or take from it. The church is the one that's
infallible. The Pope's the one that's infallible.
And so he can change things to suit himself. And we certainly don't get it
from tradition. I was listening to Bruce Crabtree gave me a couple
CDs by a real, real famous preacher. Got a big ministries on the radio.
I've got several books in there. One of the best books I ever
read was by him on the wholeness of God. But he was having a debate
with a fellow, another real famous preacher, about baptism. One was talking about believers'
baptism, and the other was holding the position of infant baptism.
And the one holding the position of infant baptism, he said, I'll
say that from the outset. That is, you can't find it in
the Scripture. But it's the tradition I was
raised in. And it is tradition. It's just
our church tradition. And that's what he said. So he's
going to hold an infant baptism because it's the tradition that
he's raised in. And then it went off the bat
that you couldn't find it in the scriptures, that you couldn't
find one in infant baptism. I'd hate to face God with the
tradition. Well, it's just a tradition,
you know. Well, I believe in grace because that's what my
daddy believed. I don't know anything about it. And people
go all the time, they'll say, you know, I heard somebody mention
years ago, sovereign grace. I don't know what it means. And
I tell you, doctrine must be clear and plain in the Scriptures.
And true doctrine always is clear and plain. Now, the old timers
called it perpiscuity. Perpiscuity. And you know what
that means? It means it's always clear and it's always plain.
If it's in the Scriptures, it's always clear and plain. It's
never muddy. Never muddy. You can't contradict them. I
tell you, the Scriptures, the Scriptures weren't written for
professors. It wasn't written for students at Larvard or Yale
or Princeton or Cambridge or Oxford. You know this Bible. When John wrote his epistle,
you know who he was writing it to? He's writing it to people like
himself. When Paul wrote to the Colossians and the Ephesians,
he was writing to people that were slaves. When he wrote to
the Romans, there was a lot of them that were slaves, common
people, ordinary people. And they didn't have to have
some professor get up and expand it to them. They didn't have
to have Dr. So-and-so to stand up and tell them how deep the
doctrines and how deep mysterious the scriptures are. They didn't
need nobody with a degree in Greek and Hebrew to explain what
Paul meant. Look down here in verse 27 of
1 John, chapter 2. Look at this. This is what I'm
saying. But the anointing which you have
received of Him abides in you. The Holy Spirit that came upon
you and taught you and revealed Christ to you abideth in you.
And you need not that any man teach you. But as the same anointing
teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, even
as it taught you, ye shall abide in him." The Holy Spirit, no
matter even who the man is teaching you, is the Holy Spirit that's
actually doing the teaching. That's what he's saying. The
same anointing that abides in you, that made Christ known to
you, is the same one that's going to open the Scriptures to you.
Not only do you look for statements, but you compare Scripture with
Scripture. And I know this, the Scriptures never contradict themselves.
Never contradict themselves. If you've got a thing that contradicts
itself, you're wrong right off the bat. And that's why I say
we reject freedom. You know, somebody comes to Scripture
with Arminianism, freewillism, works. We reject freewillism. We reject
dispensationalism, where the Bible's written to the Jews,
to the Greek, and to the church. And they split it up that way.
This Bible, every word in it is for all of them. Jew, Greek,
Church, everybody. You know, oh boy. We reject Catholicism. We reject infant baptism. We
reject anything that doesn't give all the glory to God in
Christ and all the glory to Christ. And if it's complicated, God
ain't in it. God ain't in it. And then let
me close just reminding you of this. Remember this. We're looking through a glass
darkly. We're looking through a glass
darkly. That's what Paul said. We're looking through a glass
darkly. We know in part, and we just prophesy in part. We
just preach in part. Our knowledge isn't full. And
thank God it's not final yet either. But I do know this, what we're
sure of, there'll be no compromise on God's cause. Salvation by
grace and grace alone, merit, works, has no part in this salvation. Salvation's entirely of grace,
free grace, and we will be no compromising on the person of
Christ. Jesus Christ was God come in the flesh. Jesus Christ
is the only Savior. Jesus Christ is the only man
mediated between God and man. He sits at the right hand of
God now with all power and authority vested in Him. And He has power
over all flesh, and He's the only one who can give life to
a man. And if you want to know God, you only know Him in Christ.
If you're going to come to God, you only come to Him in Christ.
If you worship God, you worship in Christ. That's, you know. And no compromise. No compromise on the miracles.
People say, well, them miracles, you know, they really didn't
happen. They just, just things, you know, to try to teach us
a little few things. No, no. I believe in every miracle in
this blessed book. I'm a miracle. You're a miracle. You've got faith. That's a miracle.
And, oh my, we will be. No compromise on everything that
God does is supernatural. Everything He does for us is
supernatural. If you learn anything, it's a supernatural move of God
upon you. And no compromise on the substitutionary
death of Christ. That when our Lord Jesus Christ
died, He died as a substitute. Not for everybody. Substitute
don't take place in everybody. When somebody substitutes for
somebody in school, they don't substitute for everybody in the
school. They substitute for one person. And that's what substitution
is about. It's for particular people. And no compromise on
the literal resurrection. I mean, people are going to literally
rise from the dead and be changed in a moment and a twinkle of
an eye. Where do we get all these things at? Where do we learn
them at? Where do we find them at? Where did I find that stuff
at? Where did I find these things at? Where did you learn them? Looking in this blessed book,
that's where we're going. Our Father, oh, blessed, blessed,
blessed Father, thank You for the night. Thank You for Your
Word. God, bless it to our hearts. Bless it to our understanding.
Lord, we do want to learn from You. We want to be as Mary. We want to choose that good part.
Sit at Your feet and learn. And I ask that You take us and
teach us. God, help me to learn Teach and bring things from your
word for these dear saints of God. May I bring new things and
old out of the treasury, out of the treasure of the blessed
book of God. Father, bless our time together,
our worship. Create a greater love in us for
you and a greater love for one another. And do be with Dirk
and his family in this trying time. We ask in Christ's name.
Amen. Amen.