Self-righteousness, the worst sin, and you'll see as we go along what that means. Now, let me quote the text in Proverbs 16.25, one you're familiar with, and then here in a few minutes we'll go through the one you're turned to there in 2 Thessalonians. There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. And since it's been a while that we have gone through those first four messages, I think it's even before the conference, let me just refresh our memories on some points here, just real quick, on what we've looked at so far in those first four messages on self-righteousness. We talked about how the issue of self-righteousness is not exposed enough, in my opinion, and I think as we talked about it, I think everyone agreed, It's not exposed enough in sovereign grace Calvinistic reform churches or circles. And I concluded that that is a crisis. The idea that self-righteousness is so popular and it's not exposed, that is a crisis. So that is part of the reason why we were going through this to explain and expose what self-righteousness is. We also saw that self-righteousness is the most unidentified or at least ignored things in the church today. We also said that self-righteousness is sometimes, very often, misidentified as good works in religion. This would just be called legalism. That's what it is. because of the name of the title of those four messages, this here is an obvious one, that self-righteousness is man's natural condition ever since the fall of Adam. We concluded that self-righteousness is the primary evidence of total depravity. The primary evidence. Now the world, and even some that are in churches, would say, Hitler, Joseph Stalin, they would pick these extreme cases of people that have killed people and tortured people, and they would say, this is the pinnacle and height of total crappy. But we're going to learn tonight in the scripture, once again, that that is not necessarily the case. Self-righteousness is the basis of Satan's message, Satan's gospel. We also saw that self-righteousness is the most deceiving sin that there is, especially among religious people. But it's not limited to religious people. But especially in religion, self-righteousness is the most deceiving sin. In other words, people don't know that they're even committing it. Self-righteousness is false religion's foundation, with its works and conditions for salvation, under various forms and denominations. And lastly, and again these are just the highlights that I went back and picked out, only the gospel of grace can expose self-righteousness, and when it does, it's a great offense. It's part of what's called the offense of the cross. So today we want to continue the series and We want to show how that self-righteousness is the worst sin that can be committed, and that it receives a greater condemnation than any other sin, and this is going to be proved out by the Scripture. Well, let's first refresh our memories of the definition of self-righteousness. And in the series, I think it was the very first message, we said that self-righteousness is mankind setting his own standard by where he will be accepted by God. Man setting his own standard of righteousness, specifically. To elaborate on that more is saying that this mindset of these people doing this is in the place of the only standard of righteousness that God will accept, the very righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the only righteousness that satisfies all the demands of God's will and justice. Now, since the New Testament was written, I would venture to say that every generation probably thought that their generation was the last generation because of the atmosphere, what the scripture says about how things are going and how things will go. The people of God, they read things where the Bible says evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. That's self-deception, by the way. When they read those things, God's people say, well, how can it get any worse than it is right now? But it gets worse in various ways. We see that. We experience that. I remember 20 years ago thinking that when I would read, they will not endure sound doctrine and shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall turn unto fables. Second Timothy 4, 3 and 4. When I would read that, I would think that's now, that's right now. That's going on right now. And then you read books by preachers and theologians that are already passed away. A.W. Pink is one for an example. And I enjoyed Pink. He was, I believe, a means God used in my conversion, reading his material. But he was born way back in 1886. Died in, I think, 59, I'm pretty sure. I remember reading him, and he said the same thing. And I thought back, man, that was a long, that was kind of a long time ago. But I've read other people back in the 15 and 1600s, they said the same thing. We know that atheists and agnostics would say, see, where's the promise of the return of the Lord? Things are just going on and you guys are anticipating this thing and this thing, nothing's changed. We've heard that. But right now we are in an age of apostasy or of falling away as this text, one of these texts we're going to look at, tells us. Where not millions, billions. I got an email the other day that tried to get people on board with this number billion. What it looks like is in reference to the debt. But you can transfer that idea to people that are deceived too. You know, and you think, that's a lot of people. I think there's six and a half, between six and a half and seven billion people in the world. But there are billions of people under what the scripture describes as strong delusion. Strong delusion. There's this sway over the world by the spirit of Antichrist where they believe a lie and they love unrighteousness. And it's gone from just hearing about it I mean, it's always our generation, going back to the other generation, said, well, maybe they thought this and now we think this now. It's kind of hard to do, put yourself back the way some people thought, unless you read what they thought. But we read about a lot of things, but now, to me at least, it seems like I'm seeing it. I'm experiencing dealing with people one-on-one that have this attitude, have this atheistic idea or this agnostic idea. And agnostic is somebody who just says, I don't know. I told you about that documentary kind of a thing by this comedian talk show guy, Bill Maher. He is a self-proclaimed agnostic, and he's going around, and he said his mission is to cause doubt. And you know, truth be told, really, most people in religion ought to doubt because they're deluded. But at the same time, that idea of being agnostic is gaining popularity. They're still unbelievers. They're religious unbelievers. They become agnostic. The evangelical church is crumbling. And I'm thinking, good, because 90% of them are false churches. But then you're thinking, OK, so now what's next after that? What's left? Where will they go? Who knows? I don't know. God knows. When it comes to comparing certain things, you think, well, here's the lesser of two evils, you know. We see that's the case, where you wonder, would it be better for one of my kids to go to an Arminian church or go fishing? Well, fishing, no doubt. You know, I'm going to vote for the fishing thing. But I want them to go fishing instead of going to the Arminian church, because fishing won't condemn their soul like a false gospel will. And we'll see that here in a second. These messages are to get you guys to process all this information, put it all together, and think for yourselves concerning these comparisons of things. And when we read things in the Scriptures, certain things we compare Scripture with Scripture. Certain things are relative, they're comparative, and you have to think. Nobody said this thing of growing in grace was like the easiest thing in the world. You know, God takes you through things and causes you to think. Sometimes trials and tribulations and persecutions and other things. I had mentioned that people are believing a lie and loving unrighteousness. When I say loving unrighteousness, I'm emphasizing self-righteousness, which is, as we'll see, the greatest attack on the glory of God. Self-righteousness is the greatest attack on the glory of God. And it has been. It's nothing new. It's been that way since the days of Cain, and it's that way today, and it will be there until Christ returns in vengeance. And let's look at these verses here in 2 Thessalonians 1, starting in verse 3. Paul writing to the church of Thessalonica, this is the second letter to him, and he says, We are bound to give thanks always, God, always for you, my brothers. as it is right, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of each one of you abounds toward one another, so much so that we ourselves glory in you and in the churches of God for your patience and your faith in all your persecutions and tribulations which you endure. So there is some fruit of these people not compromising the gospel back in the day here when Paul was talking about those people. Verse 5 says, For it is the manifest token of the righteous judgment of God that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you also suffer, since it is a righteous thing with God to repay tribulation to those who trouble you. and to give rest to you who are troubled. Now, let me say, before we go any further, there are different kinds of people that may trouble God's people. There are immoral people and there are religious people. There's both kinds. I didn't really do a study here to look at the history and the culture and read some commentaries and all that to find out exactly which group they were talking about. It may have been both. But it seems like when the gospel goes out, the religious people that are offended by it are the ones really that are the ones that attack and respond with saying, you know, we've got to shut these people up because they're affecting my religion. You know, the idolatry factories, when Paul was preaching, were starting to go out of business. Their business was being affected. We've got to shut this guy up because these idols we're selling, they're not going to be effective to the people. They're not going to want them. And then, of course, the scribes and the Pharisees and people like them on the other side of religion was saying, you know, they're talking about this grace, which there goes the basis of our religion, this law. You know, we're losing members right and left. We've got to do something about it. So they reacted in violence and putting God's people in prison and killing them and so on. The middle of verse seven. at the revealing of our Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power, or his mighty angels, inflaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. So these people that are persecuting God's people are gospel rebellers. They have rejected the gospel of Christ. And here Christ is going to, this is some serious language here about what he's going to do to them. In verse 9 he says, these people will be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. When he shall come and be glorified in his saints and be admired in all those who believe because our testimony among you was believed in that day. So here is Christ as he comes taking vengeance on We don't know how many, we don't know a percentage, but self-righteous people, those who persecuted God's people, who were offended at the gospel, and who were offended at the cross of Christ, that message. Remember, it's foolishness to those that are perishing. But unto us, it's the power of God and it's the salvation. So those who have their foundation on the sand, not the rock, And that saying is self-righteousness. Christ is going to come back as what the scripture says, as a thief in the night. It means they're not going to be ready. If you don't have the righteousness of Christ, you're not ready. And he's not coming in some kind of a secret second coming, not by stealth, but as one theologian friend of mine said, but as a frightening, destroying, unstoppable terrorist. That's the language here in these verses. How can this be secret? What's going on here? This is not the only verses that talk about that. There's 2 Peter 3 and other verses that tell you Hebrews 12 about the earth shaking and those things being removed that shall not remain. It's going to be a frightful thing. So briefly, what we want to look at tonight are degrees of punishment in hell. Why is self-righteousness the worst sin? Evidences of self-righteousness. The degrees of punishment. Scripture teaches in many places that there are degrees of punishment in hell depending on the amount of knowledge, or as the scripture says, light, referring to truth or knowledge. Referring to or depending on the amount of knowledge that a person has and the type of sin that's committed. An example, let's go to Matthew chapter 10 and verse 15. And in verse 15 of Matthew chapter 10, he says, truly, I say to you, it shall be and listen to the language. This is language of math here. It shall be more tolerable. For the land of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the day of judgment and for that city, that city that rejected the gospel in the context of what he's talking about. Now, when he says more tolerable, he's using comparative language. He's comparing religious sin with immoral sin. It's very clear here what he's doing. And he's not saying Sodom and Gomorrah is just fine. He's not saying that. There's going to be judgment. There already was judgment. God sent fire and brimstone. I mean, there's no doubt about that. And that story was a famous story. It went on. Prophets and other people warned people about what had happened at Sodom and Gomorrah. So they got some punishment, physical. And there is another judgment after that. He uses the phrase more tolerable in comparing. Think of some other language. Since we're in Matthew, not too far away, go to 7. Go to Matthew 7. We've picked on this guy so much, but right before the context of that guy bragging about his works, it uses some math language here. I want us to see this. It's kind of the same way it's used in the verse we just looked at. Verse 13, Matthew 7. Go in through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. And many there are who go in through that way, because narrow is the gate, and constricted is the way that leads to life, and there are few who find it. There's another many that's used just a couple verses down, where he says, many, I think it's verse 23, many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, same many, it's in the same context, but the many is many compared to the few. We have to keep that in mind. Because here it says that few are going to find it. Well, you go to other compare scripture to scripture, you see where in that great day when it's looked across to see who is bowing down and worshiping the Lamb that was worthy to be slain. It said that there was a number that no man could number. Now, I don't know how many that is. And I don't know on purpose because they said it so nobody would know how many there is. Because if somebody knew exactly how many it is, they would be like Jehovah's Witness or somebody goofy like that where it said it's 144,000. By the way, that's who he is talking about, the 144,000, which is not literally 144,000. It's just saying a lot of people. But compared to a lot of people that will be saved by God, a whole lot more are not going to be saved by God. So that's how you compare the few to the many. Stop trying to say percentages, because we don't know. I don't think, and I've said this before, I don't think it's 49 and 51. I think it's too big of a spread. So, God in his word uses comparable language. That's the way he does, so we can understand him. You don't have to turn there, but if you're taking notes, this is Genesis 13, 13. He says, describing Sodom and Gomorrah, but the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before Jehovah, exceedingly so. I mean, that's some more mathematical language. It means kind of extreme. You know, they went out of their way to be wicked and sinners right there in front of Jehovah and everybody else in the world. We've heard about the story of this city and how the people acted, and we know it was an extreme case of outward immorality. Self-righteousness will be more harshly judged and receive greater damnation than open, blatant, proud homosexuality. And one of the seemingly most immoral cities on earth is used as an example to say that, to prove that out, taking the quote from Christ in Matthew chapter 10. Now, let's run through some scenarios in our minds here of our own comparative thinking, critical thinking, and just hypothetically say, okay, so what if the citizens of Santa Demora know what we know? Not all that we know, but they read this verse, Matthew 10, 15, and they said, well, God will accept us if we stop our homosexuality. Now, there is a sense in which, and when I say this, you're going to say, nah, I don't know if I go that far. But there's a sense, and because the comparative language was used, there's a sense in which that would be worse than committing homosexuality in the first place. Because they're being self-righteous. They're saying, if I stop homosexuality, God will accept me. What are they doing? They're trying to be saved by the law. They're trying to be justified by the law. That's the definition or the evidence of self-righteousness. It's fundamentally self-righteous. An alcoholic might say, well, if I quit drinking, God will accept me. That's why you hear so many people say, that are involved in different things that we need at work, or we may know personally, and they say, we ask them to come to church. Well, wouldn't I clean up and get straightened out? In other words, they think God will accept them, you know, when they straighten themselves out. But that's a self-righteous, that's a natural self-righteous idea. What if a citizen of Sodom sees the religious people that rejected the gospel and understands this quote that Christ is saying, that they're worse than them, and they say, see, I'm not that bad. There again, self-righteousness. That's worse than what they're doing. They just moved themselves over to the category that was being compared with them. You could come up with all kind of different comparisons there. We know that from our studies so far concerning the conscience and different things early on in self-righteousness, the series, that the natural conscience tells the person that is a homosexual, tells them that it is unnatural. In Romans, you don't have to turn there, but you'll remember this, I hope, in Romans 1, 26 and 27, it says that these deeds are unseemly. The homosexuality, the act, is unseemly. In other words, it seems wrong to the conscience. Seems, the opposite of that. Seems means proper, fitting, or in good taste. Therefore, unseemly is the opposite, which means improper, unfitting, and not in good taste. Their conscience tells them that. So the conscience can detect that. As we have talked about before, this sin that's judged more harshly, which is self-righteousness, the conscience can't detect that. And that's what makes that sin of self-righteousness so deceiving. And instead of detecting it with the conscience, the conscience springs into play and goes about to establish a righteousness of their own in some form, some kind of work, to reconcile themselves to God by their deeds. the bad by doing good. That's the natural self-righteous mindset. And nothing in this world can stop that except the gospel of grace. The Holy Spirit applying that gospel of grace to awaken sinners, to see what they're doing to themselves, and more importantly, to God with their self-righteousness. Look at James chapter 3. We'll look at some more comparative language here. Degrees of punishment is what we're dealing with here. Now, this point is going to have two prongs in it. We're going to deal with two things. And we'll see here in verse one what I'm talking about. Brothers, do not be many teachers, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. Look at the language, greater condemnation. You've got people flooding into seminaries. You've got people taking online classes. You've got people being hired as pastors and teachers and so on and so forth. And they don't realize the seriousness of representing what God says. Here, James warns against it. He says, don't be too much in a hurry to do that, because if you're misrepresenting God, you're going to receive, look at the math, greater condemnation. In other words, false preachers and teachers will have the greatest condemnation at judgment and the worst punishment in hell. That's easy to see. All right, let's move along and ask the question, why is self-righteousness the worst sin? You've heard me say a lot when we speak of self-righteous religious people that don't know the gospel. and compare them to people that are just outwardly immoral. We've made that comparison. We already have in this message. Make no mistake about it. Self-righteousness is immoral. It is. Self-righteousness is immoral. It's a lie. It's the biggest lie that you can commit. And it is a lie to God, and to yourself, and to others. Strong delusion. I mean, we saw that that's strong delusion. How strong is the delusion? It's so strong that we have believed this strong delusion all of our life because it's the way that seems right. And the only thing that got us out of it was God sending something stronger, the power of the gospel by the power of the Spirit. to blow with the power, the dunamis, dynamite of the gospel, to blow those ideas away and to give us repentance, to turn our back on such foolishness now that we know that it's foolishness. So how many times have you been told in your life or heard people say to do the right thing? All you can do is to do the right thing, do what seems right, just do what's right. I've heard religious people say, All you can do, all God can expect you to do, is do the best you can. And He'll accept you. You know what, that's the definition of sincerity, right there. When they say, it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere, that's what they're saying. All you gotta do is do the best you can, and God will accept you. Well, I think we know human nature. Nobody does the best they can. Just nobody does. They don't do the best they can. And even if they could, it doesn't matter, they don't meet the standard of God. God will not accept the best you can do. He won't accept the best that Christ did. Besides that, Psalm 39.5, man at his best is altogether vanity. That means a waste. A waste. That's man at his best. So God's going to look at vanity and say, yeah, I'll take that. I'll accept that. No, I'm talking about a different God, not the God of the Bible. So he'll accept his son's best. That's the only acceptable righteousness to God. So right here, that's what I'm talking about. Now, here is why self-righteousness is the worst sin, because it strikes at the very glory of God and it tries to compete with Christ's merit of perfect flawless righteousness that actually took his death to accomplish. That's something major. That's like looking at his death. What's it say in Hebrews 10? The writer of Hebrews warned these people that were tempted to go back in Judaism, go back to the ceremonies and law. He said, if you do that, it's like that you're throwing the blood of Christ down and walking on it like a common thing, like you would do salt that's no good and you make it gravel, and it's just common. Because you don't pick up a nugget of salt like it's a piece of gold, do you? It's common. You walk on it. You spit on the ground. That's what people... They look at Christ's merit that way. When they bring up their own righteousness, they're saying, I don't need that sacrifice, the one that was complete, that was finished, that was perfect. And see tied to that idea is God is a jealous God and he's not going to put up with that. I mean, I have found personally that my own standard of justice and judgment and what I can do and put up with and let slide is way different than God's. And it's funny how that as humans, you know, we see somebody being inconsistent with their judgment and justice against maybe society or their children. And we say, he weaseled out, didn't he? I'll turn around and do it a week later with my kids or with with something, you know, you sit, you talk about how your boss has mistreated you. And oh, man, here's what I'm going to go tell him. You get in his office and he just whimper down like a wimp. You got nothing in you. By nature, we are big talkers and we do not perform. God is not that. God is the very opposite. He is patient. And as wrath builds up and is kindled and then it's released, we've read about it, flaming fire, taking vengeance. He does not mess around. He's a jealous God. That's why we need to be serious about this issue. And we need to go out and warn people that they don't realize what they're doing. They're striking out against the very glory of God and they're trying to compete with Christ. And a jealous God will not put up with that. He will not. He only accepts Christ's righteousness and filthy rags and dong is not enough to compete with that. Look at Luke chapter 16, Luke 16, verse 15. And he said to them, you are those who and again, this is a religious context. He's talking to some religious people. You are those who justify yourselves before men. But God knows your hearts. In other words, hey, you're not doing a good job. You're failing because I know that you're not doing it. For that which is highly esteemed among men, in other words, those things that you're doing to justify yourselves before men in your little obedience that you think you're doing, It's highly esteemed among men. Everybody who looks at Saul, you know, he's a great guy. The one guy too there in Matthew 7 we looked at a while ago that said, but Lord, Lord, haven't I cast out demons in your name and done many wonderful works and prophesied in your name? I'm sure all the people that knew him would say, may I tell you what, he was a go-getter in religion. He was impressive. If he's not saved, I don't know who is. Well, he was highly esteemed in the eyes of men. And Christ said, you're going to hell. You did the worst thing that you could do. And here, that which is highly esteemed among men is what? An abomination in the sight of God. Now, we know, it's just like the legalist talks about the one that practices monasticism, where you get away from everything. And they think they can separate themselves. They think they're separating themselves from the world. But their wicked heart is with them. And they perform deeds of law. And they look at others who go to movies, smoke cigarettes, or do whatever, and they say, you're going to hell. But we're not, because we do these things. Taste not, touch not, handle not religion. God says, that's an abomination to me. It's actually lawlessness. That's what that verse goes on to say. I've done many wonderful good works, cast out demons. And Christ says, I will say unto them, In that day, I never knew you. Depart from me, those working iniquity. And the word is lawlessness. They thought they were keeping the law. And I said, you are lawless. I'm calling you that as a name. That's your nickname. You're not a law keeper. And the guy's thinking, I thought I was the best law keeper there was. No. You're lawless. Anomia is the word. You know, antinomia means against the law. And that's what he was saying. The self-righteous is the true antinomian. The self-righteous look at us, of course, and call us antinomian because we say we are not being justified by us keeping the law. But they are the ones that are antinomian. I just read the text to prove it. And then people say, well, at least he's going to church somewhere. You see the confusion right away when you put all those ideas. When people hear the word church and they automatically start associating it with, you could go on and project, just remember what you did in false religion. That's how you can project it up and just think about how it was. We've seen people do this. We have done it ourselves, perhaps, and do those things. with the attitude of pride and hypocrisy and unbelief and boastfulness and hatefulness and doubt and free will and penance and envy and all those things. We're stirred in those sins because that's what self-righteousness produces. Those are the evidences of self-righteousness. So comparatively speaking, as we saw the extreme language that the word of God himself used, Jesus Christ, he said, it's going to be more tolerable for the outward immoral people in Sodom that God sent fire and brimstone and burnt sea to be more tolerable for them, for you zealous, sincere, religious people. So comparatively speaking, we could say most church buildings in this country would come closer Serving God if they were turned into movie theaters and bars. I mean, that's what that implies, does it not? Exactly. One thing that stands out about self-righteous people is that they won't submit. They are not submissive people. Look at Luke chapter 10. They will not submit. That requires humility and mankind is not humble by nature at all. Man by nature is proud and if you take anything away from his pride, there will be some retaliation and it will be in the form of hatefulness and response in defending their pride and explaining why they are doing the things they are doing. And the more they explain it, the more evidence it is that they hate the gospel. Luke chapter 10 and verse 25 says, And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, What is written in the law? How do you read it? And answering, he said, You shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, you have answered right. Do this and you shall live. What's it saying? I think it's Paul in Romans said, the law is not something you just say, it's something you do. Otherwise, it's not worth even talking about. You have to do the law. Well, we know that law can't be done. We study Galatians. It's a curse, right? Law was given to show we can't keep it. Do this and you shall live. Verse 28. But he, willing to justify himself to Jesus, said, Who is my neighbor? Well, he gives an example here of who the neighbor would be. But the point is, This guy was trying to, his conscience was affected because he knew he wasn't performing this. And he was trying to narrow the playing field of the people that he deals with and get them out of the way so if I could hone it down to a smaller group of people, I'd have a better chance of keeping this law. Because there's just way too many people to be considered my neighbor to get this done. Look at chapter 18 of Luke and verse 9. And he spoke this parable to certain ones who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. And look at this here, he threw this in too, and despised others. That's a fruit of self-righteousness, is hate. And here is the parable. Two went up into the temple to pray, one Pharisee and the other tax collector. Pharisee stood and prayed within himself in this way. God, I thank you. See, he was religious. He accredited God for his righteousness, his cooperation with God, no doubt. Maybe it was the old infusion doctrine he held to. I thank God that I'm not as other men are. There again, let me throw this in. It could have just been a lip service. No doubt it was lip service. He talked of a God that was not the God of the Bible. Christ talked about a group that Their lips sounded like they were with him, but their heart was far from him. Here's the example right here of this guy. Take it I'm not like other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. So he starts naming his work. See, I fast twice on the Sabbath. I give tithes of all my possessions. And standing far off the tax collector, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but struck on his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Now, before we go to the answer. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. This guy was saying he was referring to the mercy seat, which is the idea of propitiation. He was talking about, God, I need you to be the one that takes care of me by putting the blood on the mercy seat to cover my sins. Because I am not a sinner, the language here is definite article, the sinner. So there's that humility of that idea of I'm the worst sinner that I know of. Look at verse 14, here's the answer. It says, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself shall be abased and those who humble himself shall be exalted. When we go through the scripture, not just on this issue, we've learned about anthropomorphic terms, how the gods uses terms to teach us. We've learned about comparative terms. I hope that we continue gathering up these principles of biblical interpretation, and we just don't haphazardly read the scripture for sport or out of duty. We actually glean something from the scriptures. What is this telling us? And to know these rules of interpretation, comparative language and things, it's going to be applied to our hearts and minds much better, so we won't be fumbling around and when some new wind of doctrine comes by, we're not going to fall for it. By God's grace, he will teach us to be aware of whatever it is.