This afternoon, the first one right here now is Dr. Ed DeWitt. He's going to be speaking on confirmation of things. Dr. DeWitt, we have our questions as you come. A couple things I want to mention before I get started. The first one is really important. Lunch was excellent. And believe me, I excellently ate. So I'm liable to go to sleep while I'm here. If you want to, you're not going to miss anything. This is the time. Second thing, I know I'm not going to get done. I'm sorry, but I came up with 30 pages, and I need to do 20 to do 40 minutes. And I've cut it back as far as I can. But the point I wanted to get across, the main one, is the confirmation, like I'm saying, that the great things that Muhammad spoke Yeah, nobody confirmed him except some guy with a sword. Abraham's great vision of monotheism, he was confirmed when he went and talked to Melchizedek. God confirms his own work if we'll just look through his word because it's all one thing. Well, that's probably about all I need to talk about right now as far as getting ahead. It's very important we understand. Oh, Malachi 3.6. I did want to read that because that has a very another thing too. Come on, I got a paper in there sticking it so I won't lose it. Okay, Malachi 3.6, which is something I know we all know. There it is. Okay. For I am the Lord, I change not. There's a little bit more in there. There's a lot of things we talk about spiritual principles. How do we know we're not supposed to smoke? After all, everybody does it. Actually, everybody doesn't anymore. Kids are stupid for smoking today. It costs too much. It tears up your body. It's not even popular. Nobody's doing it. What, 18% of the population now? And if they think it looks adult, check the adults who are smokers. They're all trying to quit. And they can't. But how do we know from the scripture? Because there was no lucky strike back when the Bible was written. Well, there was a lucky strike when you strike on the truth of God, but there was no cigarette because God said your body is a temple and you don't desecrate the temple. You're desecrating. So it's called a spiritual principle. There are spiritual principles in the scripture that we look at. And that pretty much is the idea behind all of this. It's very important we understand that that which we read is of God, and which is simply the voice of man trying to set himself up for God, because it's a whole bunch different. Consider for a moment the prophetic number 666. What does it mean? Is it indeed the number of Satan? Well, in biblical numerology, which I don't place too much importance, The number 6 is the number of man. The number 3 speaks of the Trinity of God. So we can easily argue the number 666 is a picture of man trying to make himself God. And isn't that what they're doing with these new scriptures? They're deciding on their own intellect what God has allowed to have said or what he should have said and just forgot. They're deciding on their intellect. It reminds me of a couple of kids in a preschool class arguing. A little girl said, my church told me the mother of Jesus is Mary, the Virgin Mary. The other little girl said, well, I think you're wrong because our church says the mother of Jesus is the King James Virgin. Okay, it's a reach, it's a reach. But even the child who was right didn't understand the impact of this statement. The one who was wrong was still very religious in his observation. Neither being right nor being religious has any real bearing on salvation or on understanding the Bible. Being right is, but right in his word, not right in our mind and our own heart. Before I start, I probably should introduce myself. I haven't been here live in a few years. But for those of you who have never met me, congratulations. My name is Eddie Wett, not a pastor, and I proved that in the last church I tried to pastor. A few months ago, the VA called me up and said, you're going to take a PET scan. And I thought, does that mean I should take the dog with me? I mean, I just didn't understand. After this procedure, a doctor called me into his office. For me, they found a spot on my lung. Spot, there's the dog. Can you imagine? He called me into his office and said, we found a spot on your lung. Don't know if it's cancer or not. And I'm thinking, how much are you paying each month in your student loans? And you can't even figure out yes or no on something as simple as that. It might rain and it might not. 50% chance I could do that without a student loan. But he said, we'll do a biopsy. If it is cancer, considering how old you are, do you want to try treating it? That's true, that happened. You can't make up stuff this good. I was doing basically my best Rodney Dangerfield impersonation, whether I wanted to or not. And I've done that before. Now you're going to wonder why I'm going through the next few of these illustrations, but believe me, there's a reason and I'll get to it. With the first college I attended, I was keeping time with a very beautiful and talented girl. keeping time because I was too cheap to date. That means I had to spend money on her. And I can't figure out what she would do with me anyway. But she said, and I kid you not, this is true, I enjoy spending time with you but we can never get married because you'll never amount to anything and I won't live that way. She was intelligent, she was right, but she was also very intelligent. There are no kids here dating the age. Tell your kids dating age, they need to get that girl's idea because she was right. Dating and going out, that's all kinds of fun and all that. The whole reason for dating, you should be looking down the line for 30 or 40 years. An example of that, later, much later, I went home to visit my mother in the hospital. My mom was a hypochondriac. Happiest day of her life was the day she died. See, I told you! Linda Gunther, if you remember the name Linda, you remember my wife. I'd known her since 8th grade. She was the oldest of 11 children. I got home to go to the hospital to visit my mother, and I found out Linda, after she finished all the chores she had in her own house, she was walking six blocks through unincorporated land, I mean it was grass and forest under her feet, had to cross the stream on the way over there, coming to my house, we weren't even dating at the time, I don't know why she was doing this, but she was coming to my house, cooking, cleaning, doing dishes, doing laundry for my family. My father and I drove her home, while he drove I got to sit in the back seat and watch. Because she only took it for front seat, she didn't give me a choice. But we drove her home and after she got out of the car, waited to make sure she made it in the house, my dad backed out of her driveway and then he stopped in the road and said, boy, I don't know where you met this girl, but if you let her get away, that's the stupidest person I've ever met. I could do that without losing her. No, she was the best, she really was. A year later, I had a three-day pass in the military. I was down in Fort Bliss, Texas. Did you see I was in the Air Force? Bigsfield. Totally different from anything I'd ever been in the Army. These were four-man rooms, not a gymnasium for everybody to sleep in. But a three-day pass. Linda was working up in northern Illinois in a factory. Fourth of July was the three days. Neither one of us had time to get to the other and get back home. So we met in Springfield, Missouri, which is the queen city of the Ozarks. We traveled around a little bit. We only had about four hours. Walked around a little bit, got some food at Shea Golden Arches. I spent a lot on her. We sat down on a bench to rest next to a little stream. I turned to her and said, Linda, you know they're going to send me to Vietnam in a few weeks. It was 1968, and I was taking Vietnamese language training. Yeah, she had it figured out. But I said, they pay you more if you're married when you're there. What do you think? Well, there was no way in the world she could turn down a proposal that romantic. I mean, on September 22, 1968, we were married. Twelve days later, my dad drove us to the airport where I boarded a plane for Vietnam. My dad had faith in me. Linda and him went to the little chain link fence to watch the plane take off. And dad said, well, you'd better watch that plane real close. It's the last time you'll ever see him alive. Dad had faith in me, you know this. You have no respect, I'm telling you. I didn't. I got on the plane, they knew we were coming home in a year. We had it the softest of anybody in Vietnam. You went over on October 6th, you know the next October 6th you're coming home if you manage to stay alive. By the way, one guy didn't. I was on a, what do they call it, a siege. A siege on top of Hill 29 down in Vietnam, the Central Highlands. We were doing recon patrols. This has been bothering me for a couple of months. We were doing the recon patrols on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They shot down helicopters coming to get us. Finally, we had to walk off. Through my mind, I'm going, all these things I've seen in trench warfare in World War I, because we had to go through the trench and walk down the mountain. For some reason, the northern Vietnamese army just went, and let us go. It worked for me. But we went back to Dak To. calm down a little bit and then they put us in a formation and I love that it was like an old John Wayne movie. Gentlemen, we're going back to Hill 29. This time we're going to take it and we're going to keep it. By the way, those of you who are Catholic may like to think last rites before we leave. My thought was, this is not good. And they said, they called me DeWitt. Yes, yes. We see from your form 20 that you took typing in high school. Yeah, we need a temporary, yes sir, I'm on my way, I'm already packed. But high school saved my life. About 60 days after I got out of there, one guy I remained friends with from that unit, and he wrote and said, last night we were hit by, we were overran. He said, we think the OP, the listening post outside the line, we think he went to sleep. We can't ask him because he's not alive either. But one of the men that were killed that day was due to be caught on the helicopter that afternoon and go home. So anyway, he didn't. So you weren't guaranteed anything. And we're not guaranteed anything in this life, except what God's guaranteed us. Nothing else. So I got my time where I'm leaving Vietnam. And I'm at the airport. I'm at the airport. got talking to somebody. You've noticed I'm a talker. It's a problem with old age. I talk a lot. There I was talking to this guy and the airplane just went... Army was not happy. If the Army tells you to be somewhere at 2 o'clock, you better be there at 2 o'clock. They had to reschedule me because I was late. Missed the plane. So Linda didn't know when I was coming. I couldn't surprise her. I knew she had rented an apartment for us for that month or so that I'd have a pass between there and going down to Fort Polk for my next duty station. So I got back to Galesburg. I'm thinking, how am I going to surprise her? What am I going to do? Got off the plane, walked to the terminal, and there was Linda sitting. How did you know I was coming home? I didn't. I knew it would be sometime around now, so I'd just been coming out every night. Think about that in the second coming. We're the bride of Jesus, and we ought to be looking for him. I've used that illustration a couple of times. That's the type of person she was. She wasn't a girlfriend, she was a wife. It's totally different. I remember our first child was born. Now, Pope was the only post that had no on post housing, so we had to rent a place about 10 miles off post out in the middle of nowhere. Alarm went off, I'm in labor, take me to the hospital. Okay, 10 miles to the post, across the post to the hospital. While I was, luckily she was already inside, but while I was getting the paperwork done, she delivered. And I said, Linda, you're the oldest of 11, you should understand. You've got to let me know a little sooner. Oh, I went to labor last night, but I thought you needed your sleep. That's what Linda was like. I mean, she just, well, whatever. I did very well with her. Her, not so much, but with me. Okay, for almost 32 years then, Linda and I pastored a couple churches in Louisiana and Illinois. And I was a pretty good pastor when she was with me. Then on 15 May 2000, Linda went home to be with the Lord. Yeah, women who do anything get away from me. Although that was a good one on her part. I'm not, however, when it's just me pastor material. Trust me, I proved it. I just finished a three-year pastorate. The best thing they could say about me was, we didn't lose anybody while you were here. Well, they didn't kill anybody either. Yeah, I went down in flames. The problem isn't with me, the problem was Linda wasn't with me, which was true, but probably what I thought was, I better find another Linda instead of what God thought, you better get closer to me, I'll take care of your problems. It wasn't looking that way. The first woman I approached was an old college chum I'd known for 50 years, a very classy and wonderful woman, very, very gracious. Matter of fact, I don't believe anyone has been told no and take a long walk on a short pier any more graciously than she did with me. She made me feel good about being turned down. Anyway, I realized that college girls were too smart for me, so I approached Linda's best friend from high school. I figured I'd be pretty close. After all, Linda's best friend, they were always palling around together. I sent her a dozen red roses. after Valentine's Day. Seventy-five bucks. She called and told me how beautiful the flowers were. And then she said, and you spent way too much money on me, don't do that kind of thing. And through my mind went, now this is a real good start. There is a danger filled line coming. Three and a half hours, the girl talked for two or three hours at a shot. Three and a half hours later, she said, I don't ever want to speak with you again. Don't call. I won't call you. Don't write. And then she closed her email account just to prove she meant it. What have I done in the last few paragraphs telling these stories? I have basically said something about me and my ability with interpersonal failings. Not anywhere near all of them. Trust me, I could be up here for a long time on that. But I could have left out these embarrassing facts and probably sounded much better. And I wouldn't be telling a lie, but it wouldn't have been entirely truthful either. And God's word is like that. One of my pet peeves with the modern English versions of man's thoughts, not God's, is the word publican is always translated tax gatherer. And I mean, it's accurate, it's true, but it's not accurate. Much of us know someone who works in a government building. That's, you know, just somebody. which is essentially the job of a tax gatherer. But a publican, while he gathered taxes, was a traitor to both his nation and to his God, and to his friends and neighbors in the neighborhood. So the publican is the proper word, and tax gatherer is not. I don't care what the strict translation is. David, arguably the best man in scriptural records. So why did God include that little interlude with Bathsheba? He wanted to show, and he does throughout his work, no man and woman, too. I'm sorry, but look it up. No man is perfect. No one is perfect. And we all stand in need of a, no, not a, we all stand in need of the Savior, ain't but one. The truth of God does not shy away from the record of truth about simple mankind. The human penman of Romans reminds us all of sin and comes short of the glory of God. In this way, the scripture reminds us of our need for a Savior. I just prayed with a lady two weeks ago, and first thing we had to get her to admit was that she's a sinner. And she didn't like that. She finally did, though. In Acts 4.12, Luke quotes the words of Peter, neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby ye must be saved. Now, I said Luke quoted the words of Peter. Well, that's one of those true but not accurate things. It's true that Peter had said this, but in a sense we could argue arguably, accurately, I'll get the words. I'm supposed to go in about a month and have all my teeth pulled. It'll probably be better speaking then. But we can accurately argue that Peter had plagiarized the words of the Holy Spirit. Think about this when they're telling you they need to upgrade the scripture. I'm going to read it so I don't try to quote it. and get it wrong. Sometimes when you write things down, you make mistakes. Okay, where is it here? Malachi 3.6, I'm the Lord, I change not. I just read that verse, I should have had it down. But God doesn't change, and His Word has been there forever, from eternity. We'll be reading that in a minute. His word forever. Why not? It doesn't hurt to read the Bible once in a while. Forever, O Lord, forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Now eternity, I can't understand it, but eternity means he didn't wait around until Peter said this before it became part of his word. God knew about it. We're not going to surprise him. That's just what happens. In a sense, we could say accurately that Peter had plagiarized the words of the Holy Spirit. And then he finally got around to saying them. Luke finally got around to writing them. And since this passage is part of those inspired and preserved words, we could argue that Peter was simply stating what was already eternally inspired. And he was. Sounds like a novel concept, but it's not. It's not an unreasonable concept. Peter said the words. Luke wrote them down. They were already eternally in existence. Check Revelation 13, 8b. Jesus was considered as the Lamb slain for sins even before man was created. I mean, I can imagine the counsels of God, which gives me, Father, that if we make man, if we create man, that. And the Father saying, yes, Son, there's no other way. And the Son saying, OK, let's go ahead and create him. Talk about love! That's above and beyond the pale. When we say God is love, we just don't need to say the half of it. God is not, as a theological evolutionist might assert, a theologian is one who studies God, an evolutionist is one who studies the creation of God. Look up oxymoron in the dictionary, because it takes a moron to believe that God has left his creation to move on while he gets a celestial easy chair and turns on his celestial TV because he's interested in seeing what's going to happen. No, he already knows. Psalms 14.1, God is never surprised. He foreknew what happened and he knew it was going to happen. It's laughable that any puny man could argue that God has lost control of his words. But I've corrected to within a small degree of error, of course, what he had originally inspired. The true words of God do not contain even a small degree, any hint of error. How did these men correct what God has lost? That's the thing that bothers me too. I would easily admit these men are far above me in intelligence. I mean, you don't have to be real tall to stand over an ant. And they're smarter than me, there's no question about it. They're wiser than me, there's no question about it. However, in all their studies and travels, when did they visit the eternal and spiritual realms? Where could they have studied the truth of those eternal and spiritual realms? The only place is in the scripture. And if the scripture has been lost or perverted, there's no way it could ever be corrected. It just can't be. So they're all lying or something. If it had been lost, it wouldn't have been possible. There are a few children who've never sat in a classroom. I know there's some. I heard about a six-year-old. who was speaking French by the time he was four years old. Of course, he lived in Quebec. But any person who has not experienced the spiritual and eternal realms would be unable to even possibly understand the full realities of the spiritual, eternal realm of God. They just couldn't do it. The only way they could understand would be if someone from the spiritual, eternal realm explained or described those truths to them. And without that knowledge, they can't correct a lost scripture. They can't, because the scripture teaches us those things. Consider John 3.13. Jesus is speaking Nicodemus in regard to this basic concept. No man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. Now, if the inspired scripture had not been preserved by the power of God, We no longer have any scripture worthy of truth. You know we have so many Bibles today, we don't have a Bible? I mean that's, I heard that and it's true. Two problems come to, I could, sorry I left out a paragraph, I could write, I've got a worse, this is true, I'm going to get over here for this one, I guess this will still be, yeah. I tended also, when I was pastoring, to write out, I mean, word for word, but I would read them a little better than I'm doing now, funerals, because I don't want to make any mistakes in a funeral. And a friend of mine called me up, my mother died, can you handle a funeral? And I, well, sure, Jim, I can, yeah. And I went out and typed it up, got it ready, read it word for word, went out to the graveyard and read the committal word for word. handed the only copy of it to the next of kin, and she looked up at me and said, you didn't know Grace well, did you? At that point, I realized I had buried my friend's wife instead of his mother. But the family said, that was great, that was great. Grace would have loved that. That type of thing could only happen to Grace. And I said, well, I planned it that way. And I thought most of the time we make mistakes. God has a reason. If we're trying to be in His will, He has a reason. And He's going to teach us something from that. He taught me to make sure I get the person's name right. But I could very easily write a moving history of a cavalryman during the Revolutionary War. I've read about cavalrymen. I've read about the war. Two problems I would have, though, I've never ridden a horse at full gallop. In fact, I went to get on a horse once, one of these riding places, and all the horses, and I'm not making this up, all the horses went over behind the barn. And the guy couldn't get them to bring him back out until I left. It's like they saw me and said, no, I don't think so. And I've never ridden a horse with the sound of gunshots and cannons frightening the beast. But even with those problems, I'm more qualified to write a story, that's such a story, than are these Bible-corrected men able to reconstruct a lost scripture. I've at least read stories of the Revolutionary War. None of these men have spent ten seconds in an eternal land without a second hand in the spiritual presence of God, where they can tell me about heaven. The scriptures made mistakes. No, yeah, that's not. If it were ever lost, there'd be no human possibly qualified to correct or configure the truth of God from the sinful mind of created and physical time-centric man. Don't try to argue the spirit could leave them in that, because unless they have the scripture, the real scripture, they're not going to understand what the spirit is and who he is. And this I want to read more carefully. The Christian used to attend a church with a wood-burning stove for heat, wooden benches for comfort, and an often wooden preacher for exhortation. And we changed the world. Now we have all the gadgets that the world has to offer, all the comforts of central air and heat, a band, and a polished possibility speaker to exhort our emotions and dreams, and the world has conquered the church. We seem unable, corporate church-wide, to hold the current generation in our ranks. In part, it's because we have nothing to offer them. That's nothing to show them, at least, that we're offering them the world doesn't already offer, and probably offer better. Even our Bible has become one in which we put greater emphasis on the world of time than on the eternal world of God's existence. We argue that they won't read the scripture if it sounds too churchy. Dr. Don Jasmine said in the Fundamentalist Digest, What you draw them with, you draw them to. And that's the truth. And should we be surprised if when they have problems, instead of coming to church, they go to the nightclub? I mean, that's what we've taught them. My grandson, and I'm grandpa, I'm not dad, so I don't have the choice. But every other Sunday, I was having to take him to this, not a rock and roll church, it was a heavy metal church. I mean, in the parking lot, it reminded me of being in my room at night trying to sleep while these kids with a $200 car and a $2,000 sound system were driving past. I mean, in the parking lot, it was shaking the car. And the people were holding the doors, and I'm not going to do it, but they were dancing while they were holding the doors open for you to come in. And I hadn't seen women dressed like that since years ago when I went to the beach. I mean, this is church for them. It's true, the true child of God will see the scriptures are important. We're commanded to peruse those pages. The scripture is what tells us how to live, in this world even. The Christian, however, should not study a pseudo-scripture, but the true words of God. It's our defense in a world bound against the things of God. Remember Archie Moore. He had a thing like this where he would defend himself in a fight. And believe me, if you got your hands like this, it's almost impossible to be hit in the face. But you can't do anything offensive out of it unless you draw your hand back, and then the other guy knows what's coming, and you are hit in the face. In our defense, we're in a world bound against the things of God, and this scripture stands for us. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in that evil day, and having done all, to stand, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. There's a radio advertisement going on in a radio station back where I live. It's from an investment company wanting people to come in and explain their needs and their hopes for their retirement. They use the illustration of a thousand-piece puzzle just poured out on a table. What piece is the most important? Suggestions like the middle piece or the corner piece, even the first piece are given rejected. A bit of whimsy, the suggestions made the last piece is the most important piece, but that's rejected. The most important piece is said to be the picture on the top of the box. To put a puzzle together, you need to know what you're putting it together to be. And the same is true with our spiritual lives. We need to know what it is that God wants as we seek to become more like His Son. And we can't do this, cannot do this, with our eyes upon a faulty text. It's not possible. Now, I don't lobby for the King James Bible, which probably sounds a little weird in a place like this, but I really don't. A few months ago, I was enjoying some phone calls. Actually, what I look for is what underlies the F. King James Bible. That's what makes it different from the others. The others are done on man's text and a God-rejecting text. Only this one's going to have God's text. A few months ago, I was enjoying some phone calls from the most spiritual lady I've ever known. I mean, really. She ended all of our phone conversations with prayer. Wonderful woman. But she was wrong on two counts. By the way, she said under Dr. Custer. First, and first to only end the conversation with prayer, is to tacitly admit we're having, we'll learn to talk, having pursued our own agenda as we didn't seek the leading of God beforehand, which is not generally a good idea. Second, she said she loved the NASB, which is a Bible drawn from the critical text, which I like to have it by that name because it's easy to criticize. The critical text is a construct of man using his best intellect to decide what it is the translator will allow for God to have said. In effect, this does place the translator over God. It's only the inspired and preserved text which God originally gave which has any authority. King James Bible, among all the competing slew of alphabet soup versions, is faithful to the words of God, rather than trying to decide which words God is allowed to say. We accessed John 3.13 a few minutes ago, and search your translations. I have 40, I was going to say in my library, but when I left the church there, they put them all in boxes and put them in storage. So I don't have all my books. Almost none of these other translations include the important phrase where Jesus spoke of himself as being in heaven, even as he spoke with Nicodemus that long ago night. Now, this seems sort of strange. Why would they do that? After all, this does speak of Jesus' own omnipresent deity. Well, there are two primary reasons, and they're both based on human reasons. First, as Drs. Westcott and Hort would argue, this just doesn't have the ring of truth to the carnal mind. So, you've got to get into the word of truth before you know what truth is. Second, it's dismissed as too fanciful. to be accepted by the human reason of the translator. So it's dismissed as a pious gloss. I'm trying to figure out that word, pious gloss. How pious do you have to be to change the scripture? Eh, whatever. But consider that it is true. It was placed in the inspired and preserved scripture by the inspiration and action of the Holy Ghost. And he doesn't answer to us. We answer to him. The words he has given us are not to be studied, to be dismissed. there to be studied, to be understood, and to turn ourself into. To dismiss his words is to defame his influence and goodness. So I don't lobby for the King James Bible, I lobby for what underlies it, for what it was translated from. And even sometimes you can have some trouble with that. I've seen a couple translations from the proper text that were done on one-man revision committees. Too easy to get your own ideas in there. OK, the King James Bible and the text that underlies it argue for themselves, so I don't have to argue for them. In the great revivals of the past 400 years, can you tell me any that were based upon anything other than the gospel messages preached from the traditional text? There haven't been any great revivals based upon the preaching of the critical text. And don't tell me about Mr. Graham. I've got to get way away so I can say this. When I was young, I worked one of the Graham meetings as a counselor. If you look close, there on television, there's little things on the lapels of some people. Those are called counselors. And you get up in a staggered order, sort of as a primer to get people to go forward, which is somehow not right in itself. But at the end of this one, all of us went forward. It looked like a great revival in progress. If we'd have found a sinner amongst us, we'd have beat him to death. Because all there was was us people with twisted tags on. But even the ones where people are saved... Yeah, there's ones where people are saved. You go back in six weeks and see if there's been any change in the city. Are the taverns any less busy? Are the portal houses any less busy? Are the people any more pious? Not at all. A real revival of God makes a change in people. And without that change, there is no revival. Those who defend a critical text above the traditional text are left with an unanswered question. Why did God bless the false if that's the traditional text and withhold blessings from the true if that's the critical text? It's an important consideration. Why? After all, the critical text is the one that's being used more and more places. We show our respect of God when we show our respect of His word. Like I've also always mentioned before, I'm not a pastor. By the way, the church I sat in the pastor's chair, I went out of expediency rather than in the confirmation of God's leading, which is generally a bad plan. I do need to learn to respect the leading of God. I'm a theologian, not a pastor. There are obviously exceptions, but I'm not called to stand in front of a group. I'm called to sit in front of a word processor. That's what God has called me to do. I'm not that great a theologian for that matter. But that's the place where God says, do as good as you can. This is where I want you. And I'll take care of the rest, OK? Don't argue with him. If he says, I know you want to be the head of a top 400 business. But what I want you to do, what I need you to do, is to collect garbage. If that's where he wants you, you have something to do there. No person is full time in the Christian work just because they're being paid for it. They're full-time for the Christian work if they're working full-time for God, and that's the catch. I need to remember and try to place myself in His will because that's the only place, one, that I'm going to be happy, two, that He's going to be honored. If we make an effort to follow His will, He'll generally give us some confirmation when we approach the proper path. By the way, it's always wise to search the scriptures before we decide on a path to follow. A little prayer wouldn't hurt either. The problem here is to identify that which is perfect. Paul had been speaking of the charismatic gifts which the Spirit had bestowed upon him as signs of truth within the early church. Apparently, the gifts weren't perfect. Now, how can that be? After all, charismatic, we all know that's where it's at. Well, not really. Paul said the more important thing is something that hasn't yet arrived. And what hadn't yet arrived was the entire scripture. General revelation is a witness of the fact that God exists in the elements of creation. Unfortunately, those elements are also subject to the sin of Adam. The entire creation, Romans 8.22, the entire creation groans under the weight of that sin. Sin is so warped, man, that he's used the very acts of God's great creation as arguments against the very existence and person of God. Romans 118 says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man who hold the truth in unrighteousness. So we understand it's possible to see the very truth of God and hold that truth in unrighteousness. And you'll find examples of this in nearly any secular biology textbook used. The very thing God created, they used to argue against him. The very truth of general revelation is often used to argue against the creation of God. That's why God has given us a preserved record. I'm trying to train myself to never say the scripture, but say the inspired and preserved. God has given this because this has never been touched by sin. This is always true. The only thing that's been touched by sin is there's been some sinner's hands upon it, trying to tear it down. I might add, there's no way this scripture has ever been solved with error, that simple humanity, even supposedly pious and godly men, would be able to reconstruct that truth if God had lost control of his scripture. And it gives you an awful small opinion of God to say he lost control of his... How did he lose control of his... Who overpowered him to get it away from him? How did it happen he lost control of it? Was he so stupid he didn't understand he was going to lose it? Why did he take the time to inspire it? No, God gave us a word that was supposed to stay around. And it's the world that has corrupted the idea just like they have for other things from general revelation. And a short look at the many versions in any Christian bookstore and craft shop will give evidence of this. without the leading of the perfections of God's inspired and preserved book, no man, pious or otherwise, has the experience and understanding of the perfections of the eternal and spiritual realms to restate that of which he can have no understanding." Now I'm going to stop, but this is going to be, after I take it home and make some more comparisons on it, this is going to be in the book that we have of all the talks, and get it there because I haven't even gotten to Mohammed. and there are, oh yeah, yeah I'm talking about the scripture and then I start to walk off without it. Okay, and I'm glad I got this one, I was thinking that when I saw it before. Verses 89 through 96, and I love it as it starts out, O Lord, forever O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations. Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according to Thy divine ordinances, for they are all Thy servants. And lest Thy law had been in my delights, I should then have perished in my deflection. So I'll never forget Thy precepts, for with them Thou hast quickened me. I am Thine. Save me, for I have sought Thy precepts. The wicked have waited for me to destroy me, but I will consider thy testimonies. I have seen an end of all perfection, but thy commandments is exceeding broad, and those perfections there is no end to.