If you'd like to follow along,
please turn to Deuteronomy chapter 4. One more time here. I'm just going to read the first
two verses again. Now therefore hearken, O Israel,
unto the statutes and unto the judgments which I teach you for
to do them. that ye may live and go and possess
the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you. Ye shall
not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish
ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord
your God which I command you. I said it last week. We preach,
and we teach, and we speak, and we talk to people and to each
other the truth, the truth of God. And it is totally to be
based upon the scriptures and nothing else, nothing else. What
the scripture actually reads, not our interpretation, not Oh,
this is the tricky one for a lot of people. Not our own ideas. Understand? I don't know how
many of you have gotten this. I know I've gotten it in the
past. I figure you guys have too. Let me tell you what I think. And you can't really look at
them, Walter, and say, I don't care what you think. Maybe I could say it nicely.
But that's sort of what it comes down to. It doesn't matter what
you think. It doesn't matter what I think.
It just matters what the book says. The scripture is not our
final authority. It's our only authority, which
leads to verse 2 here in Deuteronomy. You shall not add unto the word
which I command you, neither shall you diminish aught from
it. And that leads to hermeneutical
eisegesis. Y'all knew I was going to say
that, didn't you? I can't help it, I like that term. That basically
means this. You interpret scripture according
to your own idea. According to your, well, let's
use the word, imagination. You're more worried about trying
to prove what you think from the scriptures than what the
scriptures actually say. Now, and you go looking for proof
about what you think. The word of God warns us clearly
against this in verse two here in Deuteronomy chapter four.
Actually verse one and two. Last week I spoke about hearken
and do the word of God. Now in verse two we're given
this admonition. About to choke. Excuse me. This command. this command. You understand, a lot of people
don't like being told what to do. But God has every right to
tell us what to do. Why? Because he is right. Totally
and completely. And this is a command. Verse
two, don't add to or take away from my word. From the word of
God. The word of God which is given
of God. That's hermeneutical eisegesis,
to take away or to add in anything to the word of God. Now, I told
that here before. We have a nice word for hermeneutical
eisegesis. We actually just call it lying,
because that's what it is. That's what it is. Men do. That's what men do. They lie
about God, and they rest the scriptures. We're told about
that. to, they rest the scriptures
to their own destruction. But God said, ye shall not add
unto the word which I command you. What's that mean? Well, that means that adding
to the word of God which he's given is a sin. See, I understand a lot of people
want to talk about their opinions. And I understand that, because
everybody's got an opinion. Everybody has their own thoughts.
God says, you listen to what I said. And don't add anything
to it. Don't add anything to it. It
doesn't matter what you add, and it doesn't matter how you
add it, because there are many, many ways to do it. And it also
says, ye shall diminish ought from the word. Don't take anything
away. Don't diminish. Don't leave out
a word God has spoken. Don't leave out a word that is
written in here. Taking anything away from the
word of God is exactly the same as adding to it. It's a sin. It's a sin. And thereto also. It doesn't matter what you diminish
from his word or how you diminish something from his word. Now,
I'm gonna give you one example here. But before I do that, I'm
gonna tell you this. Why should we not add or diminish
from the scriptures? Well, first of all, God said
not to. God said not to. That should
be enough. It's not for men. It's not for
us, human beings. But that should be enough. And
the second thing I want to tell you is something I've told you
before, something I have to tell myself every now and then, like
every day. God doesn't need our help, folks.
He doesn't need our help. He doesn't need our feet. Or
our hands, Paul preached on that a while back. You don't need
your feet, your hands. And he doesn't need our words.
We need his words, is what we need. And he's given us his word. But I want to use one example.
If you want to turn to 2 Peter 3 and verse 9, 2nd Peter 3 verse 9 This is a wonderful verse I'm
gonna tell you something. This is a verse that very commonly
Many people and I'm talking many theologians and people who consider
themselves Scholars and preachers have taken away from this verse
right here And I've read it several times The verse reads this way. The Lord is not slack concerning
his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering
to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance. Now, what they leave out of that
verse is those two words right there in the middle where it
says to usward. They will say, the Lord is not
slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackless,
but is long suffering. And they'll put four little dots
there, or three little dots. Not willing that any should perish,
that all should come to repentance. And I'm telling you, this is
a verse that men love to take those two little words out of.
Because you know what it does? It changes the entire complexion
of this verse. It diminishes it, is what it
does. Now, those four little dots,
three little dots, you can use three or four, according to the
dictionary, they're called an ellipsis. That's what it's called. I forget why I remember that,
but I do. Now, what an ellipsis is. Well, an ellipsis is, by definition,
The omission from speech. Now, I don't know how you put
dot, dot, dot in your speech. But the omission from speech
or writing of a word or words that are superfluous. You know the thing I love about
the dictionary is when you look up the definition of something,
you've got to look up something for the definition. Superfluous
means unnecessary. Oh. more words than are needed. Now listen folks, I'm going to
have another favorite word here, superfluous. The word of God
is never superfluous. There's not one extra word, there's
not one little word missing from what the word of God says. Now
there's a whole lot missing from us, there's a whole lot we want
to put in, and there's a lot more even than that that we want
to take out. to say that this scripture, those
two words, I mean, you're not saving a lot of space if you're
typing it out. And nowadays with computers,
I copy and paste. I don't type anything out if
I don't have to. I just take that verse out of
my Bible program, I copy it, and I put it right in my Word
program. And there it is, it's right here. Underneath to the
right, all this blue scribble. That didn't take me nothing at
all. But they want to put them two dots in there, three dots
in there, four dots in there, anything except for those two
words. Now, they leave them out. And I read where somebody just
said it blatantly. The reason they leave that out,
because when you read that to us word, that means to us humans. That's what it means. So you
don't need it. And I thought, what are you talking
about? Who is this letter addressed
to? Who is Peter constantly referring to as us in this letter? To them
that have obtained like precious faith with us. Us humans, I guess. Us, through
the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. That's the to us word right there
that they're leaving out. But here's the thing, if they
leave those words out there and say that this verse means, and
that's what most everybody says, you understand? God's not willing
that any should perish. They'll leave out the whole first
part of the verse that way, okay? I'm here to tell you folks, and
I'm gonna show you here in just a minute from scripture, but
I will tell you this. If God's not willing that any
human should perish, no human is going to perish. Because our
salvation is based upon His will, and His work, and His way, and
He does it. And if you think that God's not
long suffering to us where that any should perish, and that means
all humans, what's it say here? In verse 14 and 15 of the same
chapter, chapter three, written by the same man, Peter, which
says, wherefore, beloved, verse 14, seeing that you look for
such things, be diligently that ye may be found of him in peace
without spot and blameless. And I count that what the longsuffering
of our Lord, what is salvation? And you know what? That's the
same word as in verse nine. Now, in verse nine, it's a verb,
and in verse 15, it's a noun, but it's the same word. Even
as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given
unto him, has written unto you. Paul wrote the same thing I'm
writing here. The longsuffering of the Lord
is salvation. Also, I gotta read this, as also
in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things in which
there are some things hard to be understood. Understood by
who? By us humans. By us believers. By us believers. Oh, wow, but
here's the thing, which they that are unlearned and unstable,
What do they do? The unlearned and the unstable
rest, wrestle, grapple with, as they do also the other scriptures. This ain't the only one. It's
not the only one by any stretch of the imagination. But they
wrestle them, they rest them, as they do the other scriptures,
unto their own destruction. That's what comes of taking away
and adding to the word of God. Because the scripture plainly
tells us that those who actually receive him, receive Jesus Christ,
are born of the will of God. He's not willing that any of
those shall perish. And guess what? None of those
which he has chosen before the foundation of the world, none
of those which receive him because they are born of God, none of
those that are born from above will ever perish. They never
will. Why? Because of the long suffering
of God. Not because of us, not because of what I do, not because
of what I want, but because of him. This is how corrupt and
defiled and depraved we are. When someone adds to a scripture,
somewhere else the word is diminished. And when somebody diminishes
the scripture, somewhere else they're adding something in.
That's why I put them both in the same verse in Deuteronomy.
Oh, my. Men add one thing, and here's
the thing that we run into. Men add one thing so they can
diminish the word. And men diminish one thing so
they can add it somewhere else. That's what I call lying, Walter.
Lying is a sin in whatever form it takes. Bearing false witness
or and adding to and taking away from the scripture. So what did
our Lord Jesus Christ tell us about lying and lies? Well, it's in John chapter eight,
verse 44. John chapter eight, verse 44. Now this is Jesus Christ talking
to some people in his day with his own lips. Ye are of your
father, the devil. And the lust of your father ye
will do. Now he's talking to religious
people here, folks. He's talking to Pharisees, the
best a religion could promote. They walk the walk and they talk
the talk, but not before God. And that's what Christ is telling
them here. He was a murderer from the beginning and a bold
Where? Not in the truth, because there
is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh
of his own. Why? For he's a liar. He's a liar. The devil is a liar,
and the father of it, and the father of it. The devil is Satan, and Satan
is a liar. and the father of the lie. You
know the first lie we have recorded in scriptures in Genesis 3? It
was in the garden. The serpent was more subtle than
any other beast. What's that mean? You didn't
know what he was doing. You didn't know what he was doing.
He knew what he was doing. But that's what subtle means.
That means you're trying to slip something in. And how does he
slip something in? The first thing he told Eve was,
yea, hath God not said. Oh my. Yea, hath God said. Excuse me. Yea, hath God said.
Eat of every tree in the garden. And he stopped. Guess what? That's diminishing what God said
in chapter two. He left out the last part. Now
Eve added it in. Oh, he told us to eat of any
tree in the garden, except this tree over here. Don't touch it
either. He'll die. Then what did he say? Well, first
he left that word out and that phrase out, but except the one
tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don't eat from
that. He left that part out. And then the second thing he
did was he added the word in. Ye shall not die. Ye shall not
surely die. Added one little word. Took out
one word in a phrase, and then added one word in it. That's
the way it works. Trust me. Somebody that's going
to add to the scripture is going to diminish from the scripture.
And somebody that diminishes from the scripture is going to
add to the scripture. That's the way it works. The
word and phrase left out was a deception of Satan. He was
deceived. One word. or one phrase omitted
can change the truth of God into a lie. Think that's not important? One
word added, ye shall not surely die. One word added can change
the truth of God into a lie. And that's where it all started,
folks. As far as we know, Now, I'm willing to bet that's not
the first lie Satan ever told. Because he got himself kicked
out of heaven for lying to God. He said, I'm going to be like
the Most High. You know what that is? Yes, it's pride. Yes, it's arrogance.
But yes, it's a lie. Because there's no way in this
world or any other of the whole universe that Satan's going to
overthrow God. But he thought he could. He wanted
to. Oh, but here it is, one word
added, one word taken away, and what happens when men believe
the lie? What happens when men and women
are deceived by a lie? And what happens to men or women
who change the truth of God into a lie? What did Jesus Christ
say after speaking of the liar and the father of lies? Verse
45 of John chapter 8. Because I tell you the truth,
ye believe me not. When the truth comes, man won't
have it. When the truth is spoken, man
won't have it. From the lips of God himself
manifest in the flesh. Psalm 56 and verse five puts
it this way. Every day. Usually every day
what happens every day every day they rest my words Why why
in the world would somebody rest the words of God wrestle with
the Word of God twist them Bend them add to them take away from
them All their thoughts are against me for evil Every day every day
every day. Like I read before, Peter states
they rest the scriptures to their own destruction. Romans 1 tells
us, Romans 1 and verse 22, professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools. Perception and reality are hardly
ever the same thing. Not where man is concerned. Now
where God is concerned, perception and reality are the same thing.
As far as man is concerned, no. For professing themselves, saying,
declaring themselves to be wise, they became fools. How? and change the glory of the uncorruptible
God into an image made like to corruptible man. You thought
I was altogether such a one as yourselves. And they do. I did. I didn't understand God. the glory of the uncorruptible
God into an image made to like corruptible man and to birds
and forfeited beasts and creeping things. Wherefore, God also gave
them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts
to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. What? Who
changed the truth of God into a lie? and worshiped and served
the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever, amen. The reason people add to the
word of God or try to take away from the word of God is they
love themselves more than they love God. They love the creature
more than the creator. What's it lead to? Corruption
and rebellion. Corruption and rebellion. Now
I'm gonna tell ya, it's important to know the truth. It's important
to know the truth of God. Firstly, it's just common sense.
Because it's almost impossible to recognize a lie if you don't
know what the truth is. And firstly also, we are told
to try the spirits, whether they be of God. Why? Because many liars have
gone out into the world. I'm sorry. Because many false
prophets have gone out into the world. Many false preachers have
gone out into the world. And they're still with us. They
haven't gone anywhere. They haven't gone anywhere. Because
a false prophet is a liar. And to try the false, you kind
of got to know the truth. They tell you this. You got to
lay a straight stick down next to a crooked stick, and that
way you can see really which one's crooked. But if you can't recognize
a straight stick, where are you at? It is important to know what
you're talking about, to know what is the truth. But I have
to tell you this, that in order to know the what,
you have to know the who. I mean, I've been talking about
the Word of God. People don't understand, when I'm talking
about the Word of God, I'm talking about Jesus Christ. He is the
Word of God. Yes, this is the Word of God
here. But this is a book about Him. It's a book about a person. It's Him. You can't know what
is the truth without knowing who is the truth. And I can tell
you this, from personal experience, the who will change what you
know. I'm gonna tell you something. There was stuff I had to unlearn.
And yet I still find it ingrained in me a little bit. But I had
to unlearn it. Why? Because I was wrong. I was
wrong about my thoughts of God, of Jesus Christ. And I was wrong
about thoughts of his word. Didn't understand it, didn't
like it, didn't want it. And now, I want it, I like it. What happened? I met him. I met him. The who's going to
change your what. The what's not going to change
your who. You understand, there's a lot
of people, the what. The doctrine changes their conception
of God. No, it better not. It better
never. You understand? That's what got
me so hard and so fast in John 6. When I read that about except
to be given unto you of my father, no man can come unto me. No one's
going to come unto me unless it's be given of him of my father,
or unless my father which has sent me draws him. That scared
the bejeebers out of me. That worried me. And I finally
come to the fact, some people, some very smart people, told
me, what did he say? What does the book say? And that's
exactly what he says. And I came to it, I said, and
I remember sitting here looking at it, and I read it, and I read
it again, and I read it, and it never changed. Walter, every
time I read it, it said the same thing. And I thought to myself,
Well, you said it, Lord. That's it. I don't get it. I never heard it before. I didn't
understand it. But he said it. And I believe
it. I believe him. And because I
believe him, I believe what? There's lots of people out there.
They don't believe him. And guess what? They don't believe
what either. They want to change what? They'll
heap to themselves teachers. What? having itching ears. You
say what I want to hear. Don't say what this says. Oh, the who will change your
what. This is what Pilate didn't understand.
Because there is no understanding of the truth without knowing
Jesus Christ. Read it, quoted it, and I'll
do it again because I like it. I'm going to tell you I like
it. Let's see. John chapter 18 and verse 37. Pilate therefore said unto him,
art thou a king then? Jesus answered, thou sayest that
I am a king. To this end was I born, and for
this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto
the truth. And that's what Pilate says.
Pilate saith unto him, what is truth? And I've said it, and
I said, well, if you have to ask, you don't know. And that's
true. That's exactly the truth. But
here's the thing. Christ said right before that,
everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. That's when
Pilate said, what is truth? Wrong question. Who is truth? Who's the truth? That's the question. Jesus Christ is the truth. He
said so himself. Jesus saith unto him, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. Not through me, not using me,
not coming to the front of an altar and kneeling down. No,
you're coming by Christ, or you're not coming at all. And he is
the truth. If ye had known me, ye should
have known my Father also, and from henceforth ye know him and
have seen him. Why? Because you've seen Jesus
Christ, you've seen the Father. If you've seen Jesus Christ,
if you believe Jesus Christ, you know the truth. And that
truth, Jesus Christ, will set you free. He'll set you free. Whatever bondage you're under,
Please understand this, to add or diminish is not disrespecting
the Bible or dismissing the preacher, the preached word of his ministers.
That's true, but it's not it. Because to add or diminish from
the word of God is to try to add or diminish Jesus Christ
the righteous. He's the offended party. He's
the one that, you don't have to worry about sinning against
me, trust me. I can't punish him, I've got
too much of my own problems to worry about. But you understand,
if you take away from his word, you're taking away from him.
And I'm gonna tell you something else, if you take away from Jesus
Christ, you've upset the Father. Because there is nothing nearer
and dearer to God the Father's heart than the work and the words
of his son, Jesus Christ. This is my beloved son in whom
I'm well pleased. Talk about him at your own risk.
Don't take anything away. Don't add anything in. What we've
got here, folks, is perfect. Actually, who we got here, folks,
is perfect. to add or dismiss from the Word
of God is to try and take away the glory of Jesus Christ. That's to deny Jesus Christ. And that's to rebel against God
and His Son. Psalms 119 and 89 said this,
forever, O Lord, thy Word Thy word, Jesus Christ the word
of God, but thy word is settled in heaven. In Matthew 24 verse 35, heaven
and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. People try. to change this word. People try. They'll put words
in Jesus Christ's mouth, and they'll take words out. And they
think nothing of it. You know why they think that
way? Because they have no idea who they're dealing with. Jesus Christ is the way, the
truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by him. Peter said it, thou hast the
words of eternal life. His truth, his words are life. And no man can change him. And what are we to do? We are
not to add to the Word of God. We are not to take away from
the Word of God. All we are to do is to speak the truth of God
and lie not. Don't lie. God even calls it
a lie. Heavenly Father, we're thankful
to be with you again today. Thank you, Lord, for your son
who has given us all things, his life, his love, Oh, His strength. We need it all. Thank you, Lord. In Christ's name we pray.