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Psalm number 449, Dwelling in Beulah Land, on the first. Far away the noise of strife, upon my ear is falling. Then I know the sins of earth be set on every hand. Doubt and fear and things of earth in vain to me are falling. None of these shall move me from Beulah Land. I'm living on the mountain, underneath the cloudless sky. I'm drinking at the fountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes, I'm fisting on the land up from the bountiful supply, for I am dwelling in Beulah Land. Far below the storm of doubt, upon the world is beating. Sons of men in battle of the enemy will stand, safe and by within the castle of God's words retreating. Nothing there can reach me, tis Beulah Land. I'm living on the mountain, underneath the cloudless sky. Praise God! I'm drinking at the fountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes, I'm fisting on the manna from the bountiful supply, for I am dwelling in Beulah Land. Let the stormy breezes blow, thereby cannot alarm me. I am safely sheltered here, protected by God's hand. Here the sun is always shining, here there's dark and harmony. I am safe forever in Beulah Land. I'm living on the mountain, underneath the cloudless sky. Praise God! I'm drinking at the fountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes, I'm fisting on the manna from the bountiful supply, for I am dwelling in Beulah Land. Viewing here the words of God, I sing in contemplation. Hearing now His blessed voice, I see the way He planned. Dwelling in the Spirit, here I learn of full salvation. Gladly will I tarry in Beulah Land. I'm living on the mountain, underneath the cloudless sky. Praise God! I'm drinking at the fountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes, I'm fisting on the manna from the bountiful supply, for I am dwelling in Beulah Land. Let's open a word of prayer. Apparently, Father, thanks for allowing us to be in Your house this morning. We ask You to bless this entire Church service. Pray Your Spirit will be upon us. Bless the singing and also the preaching of the Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Turn to song number 472. Song number 472, This Is My Father's World, on the first. This is my Father's world, and to my listening ears, all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spears. This is my Father's world, I rest me in the thaw of rocks and streets, of skies and seas, His hand the wonders draw. This is my Father's world, the birds their carols raise. The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker's praise. This is my Father's world, He shines in all that's fair. In the rusting grass I hear Him fast, He speaks to me everywhere. This is my Father's world, O let me ne'er forget, That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. This is my Father's world, the battle is not done. Jesus, who thou shalt be satisfied, and earth and heavenly one. All right, take out your bulletins this morning. And on the front you see our verse of the week, Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 2, And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that reading. That's a great verse there. Turn to the next page, we have our service times listed, 10 a.m. is the first service, then a short 10 minute break, and we have our second service around 1130. We have our Wednesday evening Bible study on 7 p.m. I think we've been several weeks since we've been in that, because we've had guest speakers and everything, obviously the big missions trip. We'll be back in that this Wednesday. We have our so many times listed there, Saturday afternoon, at 2 p.m. meeting at the Chocolate Cup restaurant, to go to the Kaysan Memorial Circle, and meeting at 2.30 at the Rizal Monument in Rizal Park on Sundays. Our praise report for 2019, 2019, 2,254 salvations. I know we had the big missions trip, it's no excuse if we have less next month. We must hit 2,000 again. Amen. But obviously just kidding on that, but even outside of the missions trip, we can still be at 245, so we're doing great works here as a church. Last Sunday morning attendance, 140. Last week's soul winners, very hard to get an accurate count, was more than 100. We're a family integrated church, which means children and infants are welcome to the church services for convenience during all the services. Remember no eating during the church services, maintain a professional atmosphere, and keep the children from running in rough housing before and after the church services. On the next slide you see our 31 day Bible reading challenge. It is coming up in just two days. And so if you'll see in the bulletin there is an insert there if you want to pull it out. And so there's two sides to this, okay? So the one side that says nine chapters a day if you want to turn to that one, nine chapters a day in the month of February. You'll notice it's nine chapters every single day, and I believe there's 260 chapters in the New Testament, so you get it done in 29 days, and it's eight chapters on the last day. Then you have two days of the grace period. And so what you don't want to do is just say right at the beginning, you know what, I'll just start on the 31st. You want to use those as the last resort, okay? And so that's in case you get behind a little bit, so keep that in mind. But if you keep this up, you'll definitely finish this. Now on the nine chapters a day, at the first week and a half, two weeks is going to be a lot more reading because if you know the Gospels, nine chapters in Luke, that's a lot, okay? So that's the schedule. They always do a verity, which is a great schedule. I also have an alternative schedule just because I have a bit of an issue when it comes to math. I like things being done the same amount every single day. For example, Matthew is 28 chapters, so in four days, seven chapters a day, you finish it. I'm just a math-oriented guy. It's a problem I have. So you can see Mark is in two days, eight chapters each day. Luke, eight chapters each day. John, seven chapters each day. I just can't stand it not working out that way. So you can do either side. Either day you get done in 29 days, and you have two days of grace period, but either way, you're going to have a lot of growth in this month, especially if you haven't read the Bible much. Just reading through it every single day, you're going to notice a change. If you're married, your spouse will probably notice a huge change in you. You're a lot nicer, a lot more patient, a lot less bitter. You don't get angry as easily. So the Word of God is obviously very valuable. So I'm hoping we can get 100% participation outside of obviously the really small kids, Outside of that, I think we should all be able to do this. It's going to take a lot of work, but it's definitely doable. So definitely keep up on that. It's going to be exciting, and then you'll finish it before the end of February. Keep in mind, though, it starts on the 29th, because February is a short month. You can see that on the schedule there. Let me know if you have any questions. We have our Salvation Boot Camp series, which we're going to be finishing today as we speak about the resurrection of Jesus. Then we have our series, A Dissolver of Doubts. So we are postponing the series on Keep Your Own Vineyard because it just wasn't coming together, so we're going to increase that later on. So this series, A Dissolver of Doubts, as of now, it's going to be a five-part series. It's something I've been wanting to preach for probably six months, and so it's going to be very interesting. I need to change the description there, but we're going to be starting that. We have our January Challenge for Bible Memorization, and so it's coming up towards the end of the month. And since we had the big missions trip and everything, your last date quoted is going to be next Sunday, February 3rd. And then after that, it's not going to count. It has to be someone that you're not related to, and so someone else at the church, and you've got to quote it word for word perfectly. So I know that you can be very close. The Bible says, He that believeth on the sun hath everlasting life, that's different than he that believeth in the sun hath everlasting life. It has to be word for word perfect. And like I said, I'm trying to do this in Tagalog, and I'm behind schedule, so I'm really trying to crunch this last week. But it's got to be word for word perfect, and if you are able to do it, there's going to be a prize. Our Manila missions trip results, the final total was 2,009 salvations. And I thought about this because, I'm going to make a video about this, because I think that number's just going to seem too outrageous to people that we're not here. When you think about it, we had up to 100 people going soul-winning during the week, and people probably averaged about three hours of soul-winning in maybe five days. So that's 1,500 hours of actual soul-winning. And you have to keep in mind, when you're going soul-winning in a result park, sometimes when you're giving the gospel, your partner might stop three other people, so you're both giving the gospel at the same time. It's a little bit different than door-to-door in America. So averaging more than one per hour is actually very good here in the Philippines, I think. So honestly, those results are very valuable. The people that I know go in-depth preaching gospel. It wasn't just this one, two, three, people coming back with 80 salvations every day. It was actually people who put in a lot of hard work. So great results, everybody, great work. And our special announcement, and so we do have our church building, and so it's in Pasig, and we went down there yesterday, and so we made the first payment, and then we're going to officially sign the contract tomorrow. And so I have more information on that. I've decided not to publicly announce where it is just because there's a lot of people that hate us, so... But it's in Pasig. It's pretty close to Resolve, but it's definitely a good place. There's a lot of houses there, so I really think God blessed us. It's a great area. We're excited. They're going to be doing renovations on it, though, and so I think February 17th, was that the first day? February 17th is the target date for the first service. We're going to be in here a few more weeks, and obviously we'll give you guys the exact address so you can figure out the best way to get there and everything like that, but February 17th is the target date to be moving in there, and it's going to be a pretty big space, and they're not going to tear down all the walls because some of it we're going to keep in an extra room for the time being. It's going to be kind of like a mother-baby room, but they have two bathrooms, one for men, one for women, so it's a really good place. I think God has blessed us, and so February 17th is the target date on that. We have our birthdays and anniversaries for January, and it's my son's birthday tomorrow. One year goes by quickly, so you can see he's got a nice brood on the top of his head. He was doing back flips on the bed yesterday, and he fell like head first, so he's a rowdy kid, but he survived one year, so that means that's a good start, right? And so we have our prayer list for the week, and start praying for the mega marathon, as obviously we have a lot of time, but what we'd like to see is a lot of so many marathons in the Philippines, and I know we're going to have more than last year in Luzon, but I'd like to see there's a lot of people going to so many. Hopefully they can rally up a lot of groups, and we'll try our best to motivate people and get groups and try to just publish it for them. There's so many people out there, so many. I know there's a lot of people listening. Our quotable quotes for the week, in order for a person to successfully follow directions, the directions need to be clear. The directions within the Bible are very clear, so we only have ourselves to blame if we fail at running the Christian race. That's the great verse there. We have our offerings listed below. I think that's it for announcements. So the next song we'll turn to is 364. 364. 364, standing on the promises, starting on the first. Standing on the promises of Christ my King, Through eternal ages let his praises ring, Glory in the highest I will shout and sing. Standing on the promises of God, Standing, standing, Standing on the promises of God my Savior, Standing, standing, I'm standing on the promises of God, Standing on the promises that cannot fail, When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail, By the living Word of God I shall prevail, Standing on the promises of God, Standing, standing, Standing on the promises of God my Savior, Standing, standing, I'm standing on the promises of God, Standing on the promises of Christ the Lord, Bound to him eternally by love's strong cord, Overcoming daily when the Spirit's sore, Standing on the promises of God, Standing, standing, Standing on the promises of God my Savior, Standing, standing, I'm standing on the promises of God, Standing on the promises I cannot fall, Listening every moment to the Spirit's call, Resting in my Savior as my all in all, Standing on the promises of God, Standing, standing, Standing on the promises of God my Savior, Standing, standing, I'm standing on the promises of God, This time we'll take up the offering before we do our scripture reading. . . . . . . . . Please turn your Bibles to Habakkuk chapter number 2. Habakkuk chapter number 2. As we're accustomed, we'll read the whole chapter in Habakkuk chapter number 2. Please say amen if you're there. Habakkuk chapter number 2. The Bible reads, I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, And will watch to see what He will say unto me, And what I shall answer when I am approved. And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, That He may run, and that He did it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, But at the end it shall be speak, and not lie, though it tarry, Wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Behold, the soul which is lifted up is not upright in Him, But the judge shall live by his faith. Yea, also, because he transgresses by wine, He is a proud man, neither keepeth at home, Who enlarges his desire as hell, and is as dead, And cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, And keepeth unto him all people. Shall not all this take up a parable against him, And a taunting proverb against him, And say, Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his! How long, and to him that leadeth himself with thick clay! Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite me, And awake that shall vex thee? And thou shalt be for booties unto them, Because thou hast foiled many nations, All the remnant of the people shall spoil me, Because of man's blood, and for the violence of the land, Of the sea, and of all that dwell therein. Woe to him that covetted an evil covetousness to his house, That he may set his nest on high, That he may be delivered from the power of evil, Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting up many people, And a shine and a sin against thy soul. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, And the beam out of the timber shall answer. Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, And established a city by iniquity. Behold, it is not of the Lord of hosts, That the people shall labor in the very fire, And the people shall weir themselves for very manatee. For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, As the waters cover the sea. Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, That putteth the bottle to him, That makest him drunken also, That thou mayest look under nakedness. Thou art filled with shame for glory, Drink thou also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered. The cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned unto thee, And shameful spewing shall be on thy glory. For the violence of Lebanon shall cover thee, And the spoil of beasts which made them afraid, Because of man's blood, and for the violence of the land, Of the city, and of all that dwell therein. What profiteth the graven image that the Maker thereof hath graveneth, The molten image and the teacher of lies, That the Maker of his work trusteth therein to make dumb idols? Woe unto him that said to the Lord, to the wood, Make to the dumb stone arise, it shall each. Behold, it is laid over with golden silver, And there is no bread at all in the midst of it, But the Lord is in his holy temple, Let all the earth keep silence before him. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. Bless Brother Stuckey as he preaches your word. Give us a sound mind to listen to the preaching, And help us keep the scratches at the minimum, We love you, in Christ's name we pray, Amen. Alright, Amen. And we're here in Habakkuk chapter 2, And I want you to look at verse number 1 to start off. Now let me just say this, that when you're in the Minor Prophets, There's a lot of things that are kind of dark and complicated, But there's a lot of great truths on the surface that we can glean from them. The whole Bible is worth reading. This is what it says in Habakkuk 2 verse 1, I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, And will watch to see what he will say unto me, And what I shall answer when I am reproofed. And so you notice, he's going to great extremes to find out what's being said to him. It says that he's going to stand upon my watch, And he will watch to see what he will say unto me. He's putting in great effort to hear the words. Now we're going to be preaching a sermon about reading the Bible this morning. The name of the sermon is, That He May Run That Readeth It. And what I want you to understand right off the bat is, In today's world, all of us have a Bible. Every single person in this room has a Bible. I have two Bibles right here. I have one on my phone, and I have one here, and I have one on my other phone. I mean, we all have the Word of God. You can get it on your phone, it's not expensive. But you know, there was a day when they did not have the entire Word of God. And in the Old Testament, it's not like at the very beginning, God dropped a Bible out of the sky to Adam and Eve and said, This is everything that's ever going to be written. There was a day when they had to really rely on hearing the preaching of the Word to find out what the Word of God was. There was a day when the Bible was extremely expensive. It used to cost a lot of money. Families would save up money for a year just so they could have a family Bible. It's not like that today. The Word of God was very precious. It was hard to get the Word of God. People valued it more than a car. They valued it more than entertainment. They would save up a whole year so they could have a family Bible that they could read together. Now, in today's world, it's so accessible that we just kind of overlook it. Like, it's no big deal. But here in the first verse, you see that he's making it a point to hear the Word of God. Then I want you to notice verse number 2. And it says, And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that reading. I want you to notice where it says, Write the vision. This is a very basic sermon. It's got three points. The first point is just simply this. That we need the Word of God. See, he's commanded to write the vision. Turn to Jeremiah 3. He's commanded to write the vision because God wanted everybody to see what those words were. So he's commanded to write the vision. We need the Word of God. And underneath this first point, I want you to understand the blessing of having the Word of God. It says in Jeremiah 3, verse 15, God says he's going to give them pastors that are going to feed you with knowledge, feed you with understanding. Back in the Old Testament, they really had to rely on the pastors actually feeding them. Now obviously in this room we all have Bibles, but just think about a year ago in the Philippines. Was there a great church where you're really being fed with the Word of God here in the Philippines? There really wasn't. Realize that there's a blessing to having the Word of God. Don't forget that. You need to remember that. I've been at times where I went to Baptist churches and I was not at a good church. It's such a blessing to have a church where they're actually preaching the Word of God. They're giving you knowledge that you can actually learn and grow. And throughout the world, most people do not have that. Most people do not have a great church that they can really count on to hear the Word of God. Honestly, we're pretty blessed here in the Philippines because outside of the U.S., I would say this is probably the number two area where the Word of God is really being proclaimed at churches. I mean, we're pretty blessed here in this country. No, this isn't the richest country, but what's more valuable than this book right here? Nothing is. And so remember that. Never forget that there's a great blessing when it comes to having the Word of God. Remember what it was like a year ago here. Because honestly, we're still at the exciting stages. Pastor Mendez was just preaching about that. The first couple months, it's new, it's fresh. We had the exciting soul-winning event, the soul-winning missions trip. Here in a couple months, after we move into the new building, that excitement is going to kind of fade away. But you have to remember what it was like before you had a great church, where you walked out of church services. You spent hours and hours, and you learned nothing. You didn't grow, and you weren't even confident if your pastor was saved. That's what it was like a year ago. I'm not exaggerating that. Now turn to Amos 8. And so there's definitely a great blessing with the Word of God, but I also want you to see this, that there's a curse to having no Word of God. And you know, when I say things like that about how there was no great church, I'm not trying to say that to lift myself up at all. Would to God there be a day when there were so many great churches that nobody would know anybody's name? I mean, there wouldn't be this big thing about this online ministry, because everybody would have a great local church to go to. But the sad reality is, most people do not have a great church. It's very lacking in this world. There's a great blessing to having the Word of God. There's also a curse to not having the Word of God. Notice what it says in Amos 8, verse 11. That I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. As a curse, God is sending a famine. But it's not a famine where there's no food. He's sending a famine of the Word of God as a curse. This is not a blessing, to not have the Word of God in your country. Now you think about a physical famine. What drives men to make stupid decisions more than a famine? I mean, when people lack money, they make a lot of dumb decisions. How many people in this country just leave because they're worried about money? That happens all the time. They leave. Now, obviously, if you don't have a great church, it's not that big of a deal. But I would hope that nobody would ever leave this church, that's a member here, for the sole reason being because you start to struggle financially. Because God promised to provide your food. He promised to provide you clothing. He's going to feed you. You're not going to starve to death. And if you just leave here and have no church, you're going to remember how big of a curse it is to not have the Word of God. That's the truth. And he's sending a curse of not having the Word of God. There's nothing that could be worse than that. You know, we can easily just open up this book every single day and read it when we want to read it. We don't have to worry about not even having an opportunity to have the Word of God. You know, I've known a few people that were persecuted for the cause of Christ and they went to jail. And you think about being in jail, you probably don't have your cell phone with you to pull up the Word of God. Think about how terrible that would be to just be sitting in a prison cell and not have the Word of God. And if you don't have it memorized in your head, you're not getting any Word of God. We're not in that situation. We can wake up every single morning, set aside Facebook, set aside the cell phones, set aside YouTube, set aside all the drama on Facebook and just say, you know what, I'm going to open the Word of God with no distractions and just learn and grow from God's Word. Amen. Let's turn to 1 Samuel 3. I don't think there's any secret why this country has been blessed over the last year with great churches. It's not because of me. It's not because of Pastor Robertson. It's not because of Brother Richard Simes. It's because great soul winning was going on throughout the entire country. And God saw a lot of people that wanted to turn back to God, wanted to go soul winning, were starving for great preaching. There was a famine to them. They were starving for it. So they got home from church and went to YouTube to listen to sermons online. And what God said, there's a group of people that are looking for a great church. I'm going to bless them and send them churches. I'm going to send them pastors. I'm going to send them evangelists. I'm going to send them church leaders because they want the Word of God. 1 Samuel 3 verse 1. The Bible reads, And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli, and the word of the Lord was precious in those days. There was no open vision. It says it was precious in those days. Because of the fact they didn't have the accessibility of the Word of God every day, whenever they got to hear the Word of God, it was very important to them. It was very precious to them. Now our goal ought to be that no matter how often we hear the Word of God, that it's always precious. That whenever we have free time, we're excited to read the Word of God. But you know, honestly, that's not the way it is most of the time. Because we have it all the time, we get used to it and we don't think it's that important. I remember seeing a video several years ago, I think it was on New World Order Bible versions, if people remember. I think it was over in China where they brought the Bible to them because they weren't able to have the Bible and it was illegal. And you saw how excited those people were. Why? Because they rarely got to hear the Word of God. There were Christians there, people that wanted to hear the Word of God, and they didn't have the opportunity. And they could potentially be in trouble, it could be illegal, they could be thrown in jail for listening to the Word of God. And you saw how excited they were. That sort of excitement, we've got to keep that. I just preached last week on keeping the excitement of soul winning. We need to keep the excitement and the joy in reading the Bible as well. And never let that fade. Now turn to Hebrews 1. And so with the Earth being a little bit more than 6,000 years old, you're looking at two-thirds of human history, more than two-thirds, where they didn't really have the Bible. I mean, obviously in the English language, it really didn't start getting compiled until the middle of the second millennium. And even 1611 is when the King James came. We're really talking about 400 and a little bit, a few years of change there. That's not that long in human history. In today's world, we all have a Bible. But for the vast majority of human history, they didn't have that all the time. Now we have it all the time, and yet we read it probably less than they did back then. Because they looked at it as being very precious. It's interesting how that works. It's kind of like there's so much opportunity to learn in today's world. You have everything on the Internet, and yet people are dumber than they've ever been. I mean, isn't that the way it is? You can learn anything you want. You want to learn a foreign language, just go online. You have all the resources, and yet people... I used to be a math teacher. And I understand. I love math. But it just boggled my mind how my high school that I was teaching, I wanted me to teach calculus the next year. And I'm like, these people don't even know what four times six is without their cell phone. It's like they don't know how to multiply four by six, and I'm going to teach them calculus? It's like... And honestly, they would just pull out their cell phones. And it just boggled my mind. And I was like, I know math is my one subject that I really like, but I'm just like, four times six? I mean, that's stuff they should be learning at a young age. But you know, honestly, people don't learn in the school systems. The schools don't educate you and make you intelligent. They make you pretty dumb. That's the way it works. But in today's world, it's the same thing with the Word of God. When was there a time where... It's like the dark ages in today's world. The Catholic Church used to prevent you from reading the Word of God. No one's preventing us now. We're just not doing it. I mean, you ask people about very basic things in the Bible, and they don't know anything about it. They don't know the Word of God in today's world. Now, there's a huge change, though. Let's look at the New Testament. In Hebrews 1, verse 1, there's a huge change that took place, though, after Jesus rose again. Notice what it says in verse 1. God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time passed on to the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. Now, we need to keep in mind that Jesus Christ is referred to as the Word. The Son of God is the Word of God. He's always been the Word of God. In the beginning was the Word. Jesus Christ is the Word of God. So when it says that He spake in time passed by the prophets, remember when we saw how there was no open vision and not everybody had the Word of God? But see, when Jesus Christ came, everything was completed. There's no advanced or new revelation like the Mormons are going to show us, or all these other weird cults, these new visions to add to the Word of God. No, it was completed a long time ago. And see, Jesus Christ came, He rose again, and so now if we want to talk to God, we can directly read the Bible. We can directly pray to Him. We have the Word of God where He answers our questions. He's not going to come down and talk to you one on one. If somebody tells you that God came down and spoke to them, look, they're inherited. They're full of it. I mean, the most famous athlete in this country, that's his story. You know, an angel came down and spoke to him, I'm sorry, you know, you preach a false gospel, you're inherited. You're a great boxer, I love watching you box, but you're a false prophet now. That's the way it is. When you look at Mormonism or INC and these religions, where they have these weird visions and stuff like that, the seventh day of Venice, all this advanced revelation of, no, God in the past spake by the prophets. Now He's spoken by His Son. We know everything in the Word of God. It's already here. Turn to 2 Peter 1. 2 Peter chapter 1. And in 2 Peter chapter 1, this is what Peter says in verse 16. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made note on you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. Peter says that they were eyewitnesses, that they actually saw it with their eyes. They saw it at the Mount of Transfiguration. They saw it when Jesus rose again after that. They actually saw Him. It says they were eyewitnesses of His majesty. Notice verse 17. For He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, this is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. That's a reference back to the Mount of Transfiguration. If you remember, Peter was saying how, well, let's build three, one for Moses, one for Elijah, and then one for Jesus. And then all of a sudden there was this voice from heaven saying, this is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Notice verse 18. And this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with Him in the holy mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy. Whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts. You say, what is the more sure word of prophecy? What is He talking about? Well, notice verse 20. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So it's talking about the word of God. This is a more sure word of prophecy than what Peter actually saw with his eyes. In the voice that he heard. Now, people put great stock in things that they see and things that they hear, but the Bible is very clear there's a more sure word of prophecy. You see, when I hear people with these stories, and they say, well, I know this is true because I saw it or I heard it, or they say, I know it's true because I know someone. For example, people will tell you, you know what? Someone can lose their salvation and here's why. I know someone who lost their salvation. It's like, well, I don't really care what you know. I care what the word of God says. Because when the word of God says, I give unto them eternal life, gain set match point. That's over. Clearly, you can't lose your salvation. People have these stories. They'll say, well, you know, I know someone who got saved without the word of God. There's a problem with that. The word of God says you can't get saved without the word of God. So I'm not going to believe your personal testimony. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean that people are lying. Sometimes they could be confused at the moment they got saved. I've heard people say sometimes that they got led to the Lord by some person on YouTube. And sometimes when I hear it, and I'm not talking about pastors that we respect and everything, sometimes I hear it and I'm thinking, that guy's not even saved. I'm thinking there's no way that he led you to the Lord. But it could be that somebody got spiritual and they prayed a prayer, and then they started listening to preaching online and eventually ended up getting saved. I have a friend of mine in West Virginia who was listening to preaching online for a while. And he came and visited our church one time in West Virginia. And he came out sowing with me that day. And a couple years later, he sent me a message on Facebook and told me that, hey, I just wanted to let you know that you led me to the Lord. I'm thinking, what? I thought you were saved like a year before that. A lot of people listen to a lot on YouTube. Honestly, the best way to lead someone to the Lord is just a one-on-one conversation. And so a lot of people could be confused on the moment they got saved. The proof of whether or not we're saved is what we believe. So if you believe the Gospel that it's eternal life, that you can't lose it, that it's a free gift, you're saved. But honestly, some people, they hear a lot of things and it's not real clear. Maybe they went to a Baptist church that was very fuzzy on the Gospel. That's why a lot of people in this room got baptized when they came to this church. Because a lot of them are like, I'm not sure. I might have been saved before, I might not have been. I'm not sure because they made the Gospel so unclear. They didn't make it plain like it says in Habakkuk 2 that they're not 100% sure when they got saved. But obviously, if you believe right now, there's no question that you're saved. But what I'm trying to say is this, that people have a lot of stories about, well, I know someone who stopped believing. They were saved and then they stopped believing. No, the Bible says that you can't. We go with what the Word of God says. Not personal testimony, not what you saw, not what you heard, but what does the Bible say? Now turn back to Habakkuk chapter 2. And the first thing we saw is quite simply this, that we saw the importance, the need of the Word of God. But I want you to understand another point here. This is very important. The Word of God is meant to be simple. It's meant to be easy to understand, okay? Notice what it says in Habakkuk 2.2. We're going to look at the plainness of the Bible. And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision and make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it. What does he mean by write the vision and make it plain? He's saying when you write it, make sure it's readable. Make it plain. Now I'm a terrible writer, okay? My excuse is math people are bad at writing. And I think it's the truth because I can't even read my own writing sometimes. But what he's telling him in Habakkuk chapter 2 is when you write it, make it plain. Make sure people don't look at it and then walk away and say, Whoa, I don't even know what that says. It's the same way with our preaching, that the word of God is meant to be preached. The worst thing that could happen to me, something that would be very depressing, is if you listened to a whole sermon and you walked out and said, I have no clue what you're even talking about. I'm confused. My goal is to make it plain. Make it so you understand what I'm actually saying. And that's what he says to Habakkuk chapter 2, make it plain. Now turn to Deuteronomy 27. One good example of this is the vast majority of math teachers, the vast majority of math teachers are very intelligent. They know math really well, but they are terrible teachers. And when you go to math classes, they're explaining it and nobody understands what they're talking about. Why? Because they don't know how to make it plain. They're very good at adding and multiplying numbers, and they don't know how to actually explain it so anybody even understands what they're saying. And honestly, when you look at people that are really guilty of this, the Calvinists, the James White out there, they try to use all these big words to try to make themselves sound intelligent. They're not making it plain, they're making it complicated. And it's like that doesn't make you more intelligent because you know a bunch of big words that you only learn in seminary that nobody in the real world actually uses. That doesn't make you more intelligent. But they don't make it plain, they're not even trying to. They make it complicated. The Bible is very clear that our job when we preach is to make it plain. Make it so people understand what's being said. Deuteronomy 27 verse 8. And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly. You see how God is emphasizing this word plain? He said that in Habakkuk chapter 2. He says that in Deuteronomy 27. When you're going to write this, you make it plain. You make it readable. Now turn to 2 Corinthians 3. And so in 2 Corinthians 3, this is going to be a little bit deep here, starting at verse number 6, but it will make sense when I explain it. So we saw very clearly a couple of verses where the Word of God is meant to be plain, it's meant to be understandable, it's meant to be readable. And I want you to notice 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 6. So it says that they could not behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance. Notice verse 8. What is basically being talked about is the difference between the law in the Old Testament and what we have today, of it being by grace through faith. The letter killeth, the law killeth. The words of God, they condemn us. They show us we're guilty. We've broken His law, but the Spirit giveth life. Now we know that in the Old Testament, people were saved by faith, not by their works. There were a bunch of things they were expected to do, but that had nothing to do with salvation. But remember what it says here in verse number 11. If that which was done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. See, the law was great. There were no problems with the law, but it couldn't lead someone to getting saved. If you followed the law to a T, you still weren't perfect. Everyone's a sinner, so it's not going to get you saved. But you know, the law was great. We don't just completely get rid of the law and the Old Testament. Those laws apply today. I hate to break it to you, it's still wrong to kill someone today. That wasn't just in the Ten Commandments. You shouldn't kill anyone today either. But those laws in the Old Testament, either than a few ones that Jesus did away with, because when He rose again, like cleanliness laws and things like that, the Sabbath day, we still follow the law. Now notice what it says. We don't offer sacrifices. Why? Because Jesus already rose again. But notice what it says in verse number 12. Seeing that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech. Now we live thousands of years after Moses. Quite honestly, we have a better understanding of a lot of these things today than he did. Why? Because the New Testament sheds light on the Old Testament. Look, we can have a better understanding of the end times than Daniel. Why? Because of the fact that we have the book of Revelation where it's revealed. Now those men were, I mean, obviously Daniel was a greater man than I'm probably ever going to be. But it doesn't change the fact that he didn't have everything in the perfect picture in the New Testament. So what it says in verse 12 is, seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech. That's why we use the book of Revelation to explain the end times to shed light on the book of Daniel. Because we want to use great plainness of speech. Because in the book of Revelation, he makes it very clear what is happening. Notice what it says in verse 13. And not as Moses which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. But their minds were blinded, for until this day remained the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ. So when Jesus rose again, that veil is gone. All of a sudden when you look at things like Moses holding up the serpent, the brass serpent, it makes sense when you read John 3 and Jesus is actually risen again. You think of Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac in Genesis 22. That makes a lot of sense now that we have Jesus Christ who rose again. Right how the only begotten son came and paid for our sins. Those things in the Old Testament make sense now. And then it says in verse 15, but even unto this day when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. See when we get saved, the veil is gone. We're indwelt with the Spirit of Truth, we're indwelt with the Spirit of God, and we can understand the Word of God. Now it's said in verse 12 we use great plainness of speech. Because in this room is filled with a bunch of people that are saved, that have the Spirit of God inside of them. So what do we need to do? We need to preach so people understand what is being said. Now turn to 2 Timothy 2. The last 10 minutes, 15 minutes of this sermon, what I've basically been doing is completely disproving dispensationalism. Because the whole point of dispensationalism is this. You can listen to their preachers. This is what they're going to say. The Bible is meant to be complicated. It's meant to be confusing. You can listen to them say that on YouTube. They would disagree with everything I just said about make it plain they would disagree with that. They will openly say the Bible is not meant to be simple. It's meant to be complicated, where you need all these other books to understand the Word of God. I've listened to Gene Camp who was probably the most famous follower of Peter Ruckman. And out of his own mouth he said that people like us, we want the Bible to be so simple. He's like, well you know what, God is not a five year old. That's what he basically said. He said the Bible is not meant to be simple, it's meant to be complicated. He said it's meant to be confusing, not meant to be simple. Now I think we just looked at a few very clear verses where it says plainness of speech. Make it plain when you write it. Make it plain. But the whole thing with dispensationalism is the Bible is meant to be extremely confusing. That's what they say. They will openly say that. They don't deny that. That's what they believe. See the two big problems with dispensationalism, one is their false salvation. Saying in the Old Testament people were saved by their works and the sacrifices and things like that. But the other thing is that they will say that the Bible is very confusing. What happens is everybody that's in their churches, they think, I can't understand the Bible for myself. Because it's so confusing. I've only been saved for two years. You've been preaching for 20 years and so they don't read the Bible. Why? Because they think it's too confusing for them. It would be like for example if you have somebody who is just a young kid and you put a physics book in front of them. He's going to say I'm not going to read it. Why? Because he's going to say that's too complicated for me to read. See that's what the dispensational teachers say. They say the Word of God is meant to be complicated. It's meant to be very confusing. It's not meant to be simple. They will say that. Now in 2 Timothy 2.15, this is their really famous verse. It says in 2 Timothy 2.15, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth. That's their big phrase. Rightly dividing the Word of God, the Word of Truth and study to show thyself approved. It's funny. They think the Word of God is just divided. Let's just divide it here. Let's divide it here. It's like no, every single verse in the Bible we're supposed to rightly divide. We look at the context of what's being said. There's this section and you don't look in this section so you don't read this part. That's not what's being said. Every single verse we need to rightly divide and understand what's being said. But the reason why they focus on studying the Word of God is because they say the Bible is really confusing. And you must study it. You won't be able to get it if you just read it. That's why you need all these other books that have come out in the last 150 years. You must study, study, study. Turn to Exodus 34. Now let me just say this about studying the Word of God. In my opinion, the two best ways I've found to study the Word of God, outside of just reading, but to actually study, one is memorizing the Bible. Memorizing the Bible is an excellent way to study. If you memorize a chapter of the Bible, you'll be amazed at how much you learn. Honestly, a lot of sermons I preach, it's because I memorized something in the Bible and I was like, whoa. Because you keep repeating it over and over and over again and all of a sudden you really understand it. These verses that we've been memorizing here in January, if you've been faithfully memorizing those, you probably have a better understanding of those verses and you're going to be better at explaining them when you preach the Gospel than you would have been able to a month ago. Because when you memorize the Bible, you're really going to learn. Another great way I've found to study the Bible is when I write sermons. Because if I'm going to get up here and teach something, I better make sure I know what I'm going to say. You don't want to get behind the pulp and have no clue what you're talking about. So it forces me to really study and learn. But outside of that, the most important thing to do would be to read the Bible. And honestly, I spend more time reading the Bible than I do with those things. Reading the Bible is extremely important. Look, like I've said, I love math and I hope my son one day loves math like I do. I love calculus personally. Maybe that makes me a nerd or geek or whatever. I don't care. I like calculus. I think it's fun. It makes sense to me. I hope my son has that same love, but you know what? I'm not going to just hand him a calculus book when he's ten years old and try to get him to solve those problems. Why? Because he's got to learn algebra first. He's got to learn geometry and trigonometry before he jumps into calculus. And this idea that somebody who's newly saved needs to do a deep study of the Word of God, that doesn't make any sense. They need to just read the Word of God. So they have a general understanding. And once they have a good foundation, then you dive into studying something. Someone who just got newly saved, the worst thing they can do is just really study, study, study, without knowing what they're talking about. Because they're going to walk away and say the sons of God are fallen angels. That's the truth. I used to believe the sons of God were fallen angels. You know why? Because I didn't read this book enough. Because I wanted to study the Word of God when I didn't have a firm enough grasp. I used to believe in Abraham's bosom. I used to believe that. Why? Because I wasn't reading the Bible. And the other thing that these dispensational teachers do, they give you no confidence in the Holy Spirit teaching you. I've had times where I've read something in the Bible. Acts 2.31 is a good example. Where I saw Jesus went to hell and I'm like, that's what it says, but my preacher's been saved for like 25 years. I must just not be able to understand it right now. Because I haven't been saved long enough. Instead of just trusting what the Word of God actually shows me, that's why we're doing this New Testament reading through, because I want you to trust what the Word of God says. Because for one, I'm going to make mistakes sometimes. And two, you're going to grow a lot more spiritually if you spend a lot of time reading the Word of God, rather than just showing up for church and hearing some preaching from time to time. You'll learn and grow more if you do personal Bible reading. And we're never going to be afraid of people reading the Bible around here. The more you read it, great. The Holy Spirit's never going to guide you wrong. It's the spirit of truth. Now, in Exodus chapter 34, this is what it says starting in verse number 1. And the Lord said unto Moses, Cue thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou breakest. And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mountain. And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mountain, neither let the flocks nor herbs feed before that mountain. Now I want you to think about these first three verses that are mentioned here. Are these instructions complicated or simple? When he's told to climb a mountain, nobody comes with you, these are very simple instructions. If you look at verse 1, 2, 3, God is giving Moses extremely simple instructions, but they're not easy to do. Climbing a mountain is not easy. That's difficult. See, the Word of God is simple, but it's difficult to do. See, all of us know we're supposed to read the Bible. That's simple, that's plain, but it's not easy to do. All of us know we're supposed to go soul winning, but that's not easy to do. It's not that we don't understand what we need to do, it's just sometimes we choose not to do it because it's difficult, because we don't want to. So the Bible's not meant to be complicated. It's actually meant to be very simple, but it doesn't mean that it's easy. Now salvation is easy. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and now shall be saved. Living the Christian life is not easy. It's difficult. It's hard to wake up and spend time in prayer and reading the Bible and memorizing the Bible, but it's not complicated for us to understand that we need to do that. It's very simple what God is telling Moses, but he's asking a man that's over 80 years old to climb a mountain. Now I'm not 80 years old, but I'd imagine it's probably pretty tough to climb a mountain when you're 85, 90, 100 years old. It's probably pretty difficult. So the instructions are very simple, but they're not easy to do. Notice verse 4. And he hewed two tables of stone like under the first, and Moses rose up early in the morning and went up onto Mount Sinai. So he's climbing a mountain as the Lord had commanded him and took in his hand the two tables of stone. Now I don't know how heavy these stones were, but even if something is light, I think it's called in America, I think it's called the fireman's carry or something like that when you have weights that you're holding. It can be a light weight for people that have lifted weights before, but when you walk with them for a while, it starts to get very heavy, doesn't it? I mean, you go to the grocery store, and you just have a couple bags of food. It's not heavy, but if you're walking a great distance to get back home or to the chimney or whatever, it starts to get heavy, even though it's not very heavy. He's carrying two tables of stone, and he's not a young man. He's not 30 years old. He's not 40 years old. He's an older guy. Remember, he started his ministry when he was 80 years old. So the instructions are very simple, extremely simple, but they're very difficult to actually do. It's the same thing with Christian life. Turn back to Habakkuk 2. And so the first point is very basic, that we need the Word of God. The second thing is that the Word of God is meant to be simple, but let's look at the third point in Habakkuk chapter 2, which is where we get the name for this sermon. And the Lord answered me, verse 2, and the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision and make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it. Okay? Notice what he says. I want you to write the vision, write it down, make it plain so they can actually see what's being said. What's the reason for that? That he may run that readeth it. You see, we're not going to be able to successfully run the Christian race if we don't know what we need to do. Okay? Hey, look, as my son grows up, he's going to get a lot of rules from me. I'm going to be very clear with him what they are. I'm not going to be complicated where he doesn't understand what I'm talking about. You say, why? Because I want him to actually do it. Right. I mean, if you want your son or your daughter to clean their room, you're not going to make it complicated so they don't understand you. Why? Because you want the room to be clean. Yes. Right? I mean, it's just common sense that these dispensationalists don't get. If God wants us to run the Christian race successfully, he's going to make it plain. He's going to make it simple and understandable. Why? Because he wants us to run the Christian race. He wants us to be able to do it successfully. Turn to Genesis 1. Let me give you a couple of examples of this before we go to Genesis 1. You know, you don't need to... Think about me as a new parent. What if it took me 25 years of study to walk away and understand, wow, I'm supposed to spank my son. I had no idea I was supposed to spank my son. I just figured it out. It's going to be kind of useless once he's a grown man, isn't it? Right. I mean, if you have to spend years and years and years to figure out, it's like, you know, you get married and then all of a sudden, 20 years later you realize, wow, the Bible says my wife should be a stay-at-home mom. It's like, I didn't realize that. Well, you know, it's kind of too late once your kids are already grown and they were in the public school system. Look, if it took you years and years and years to even understand what you're supposed to do, it wouldn't make any sense. You'd be a complete failure then. Now, I understand that there are some deep things in the Bible. We're going to talk about that and explain that at the end of the sermon. But in terms of actually living the Christian life, it's very simple, okay? Because honestly, me understanding the minor prophets, that doesn't affect my day-to-day life. But whether or not my wife is working or not, whether my son is homeschooled or not, that affects my day-to-day life. Do you understand the difference? Right. There are deep and dark things, and we're going to talk about that at the end and show what the Bible says about that. But in terms of your daily Christian living, it's not like God makes it complicated whether or not you're supposed to pray. It's not like He makes it complicated whether or not you're supposed to go to church. He makes it very clear. It's not like He makes it complicated whether or not you're supposed to work hard or be lazy. He makes it very clear. Why? Because He doesn't want you to be lazy. He makes it very clear what the Bible says. Why? That you may run that readeth it. It makes perfect sense. If I want my son to obey me, I'm going to make it very clear what he needs to do. It's the same with God. Now if you talk to anybody that's been to a dispensational church, a heavy dispensational church, they are going to tell you that they were extremely confused with what their preacher was saying every single week. When my wife and I first started talking, she came out of a very heavy dispensational church. And I remember that one time the preacher was talking about the gap theory. Now if you're not familiar with the gap theory, that's great. But unfortunately I'm going to educate you on that a little bit. And you're going to see how confusing this is. Now think for a second. Let's say you just got saved. When I first got saved, I didn't know any verses in the Bible. I could not quote John 3.16 when I got saved. So I was kind of a clean slate. And let's say for example I just started opening the book of Genesis as a newly saved person. The only thing I knew was that salvation was by faith alone and that I was on my way to heaven. So think for a second about if you were in that position. You don't know everything that you do now, but you knew nothing except that you knew you were on your way to heaven because you believed on Jesus Christ, that it was not of works. And let's say you open to the book of Genesis. Chapter 1, the start of the Bible. Let's read verse 1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Now that's not complicated. That just proves evolution. God created the heaven and the earth. It wasn't some big bang. God created the heaven and the earth. Verse 2, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Now I think verse 2 is very simple. God just created the earth so at this point the earth was without form. It was void. He hadn't put all the animals there and everything else. People weren't there yet. It's at the very beginning. To me that's pretty simple. But this is what dispensational teachers will say, well there's a giant gap between verse 1 and 2 in your Bible. Now depending on how long the gap is, it depends on what preacher you listen to. Sometimes they'll say there's a 4.5 billion year gap between verse 1 and verse 2. I wonder where you got that 4.5 billion year number. Maybe the public school system? But they say there's a large gap between verses 1 and 2, and there are these hybrid existing people, whatever, and you know what? God just destroyed all of them, and now we're at verse 2 in the Bible. Basically 99% of human history God doesn't let us know anything about. Now that sounds absurd right at the beginning. That there's a massive gap between verses 1 and 2. I don't know about you, but it's a small gap in my Bible. It's like this big. Apparently they got these massive Bibles, but 99% of human history was before verse 2. First off, did Jesus die for those animal, alien, whatever people that lived? Or not. It doesn't make any sense. Verse 2 is not complicated. You say, well where did they get this? Well turn to Jeremiah 4. Honestly, I should know that I have to turn in the middle part of the Bible to go to Jeremiah 4. As a newly saved person who knows nothing about the Bible, I should have known when I got to verse 2, oh wait a minute, now I've got to jump to this verse in the middle of the Bible. Does that make any sense? Would anybody walk away saying that? Even if you thought there was a gap, which to me I think is ridiculous, because what they'll say is in verse 2 God destroyed the world, and so that's why it's without form and void. I think that's ridiculous, but even if that's what you believe, you would have no idea where to turn in the Bible. You wouldn't have any idea whatsoever. And they're going to tell you, well turn to Jeremiah 4. This is what it says in Jeremiah 4 verse 23. I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form and void in the heavens, and they had no light. So in verse 23 of Jeremiah 4, it says it's without form and void. That doesn't mean it's the exact same event. That is in Genesis chapter 1. That's ridiculous. But you know, honestly, if you keep reading in the book of Jeremiah, you're going to see that what they're saying doesn't make sense. Because notice verse 27. Verse 27. For thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate, yet will I not make a full land. Now according to them, He made a full land. Well here in verse 27, I will not make a full land. Verse 28. For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black, because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it. The whole city shall flee from the noise of the horsemen and bowmen. Now wait a minute. If there's horsemen and bowmen, how did He just destroy everything? He didn't. There's horsemen, there's bowmen in verse 29. They shall go into thickets and climb up upon the rocks. Every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell therein. The reason why they're fleeing is because of the horsemen and bowmen. So if you're going to say they got destroyed, you still have the horsemen and bowmen. It doesn't make any sense. You could even look at Jeremiah 4. This is not the same thing as Genesis chapter 1 at all. All it's said in verse 23 is that it's without form and it's void. Now, you say, well that's interesting in verses 27 through 29. There's horsemen, there's bowmen, He won't make a full inch, that just proves it. You say, is that how you know that what they believe is false? You know how I know the gap theory is false? It's very confusing. That's how I know. It's complicated. It's confusing. The Bible's not meant to be confusing. If you have to bounce around in the Bible like that to prove your point, it's not true. The Bible's meant to be simple. Look, if I get up here and preach something and I'm like all over the place, and you can't follow and you need this five page manual to see every single verse I use, what I'm saying is probably false. That's the truth. The Word of God is not meant to be complicated. It's meant to be simple. And when you have to bounce to the middle part of the Bible in the second verse of the Bible, that is the most confusing thing I've ever heard. I remember when my wife heard that preach and she was talking to me on the phone, she's like, it's so confusing. She's like, that's not true, is it? I was like, no it's not. I mean, it's super confusing. When the Bible is extremely confusing, what they're saying is probably false. Now turn to John 3. Honestly, that's pretty confusing. But honestly, there's something else dispensationalists teach that is even more confusing, in my opinion. Now you say, why did they come up with this weird thing, the gap theory? Because when you're dealing with people that are false prophets or people that are lifted up full of pride, they want to seem like they're really intelligent. They want to seem like they're more intelligent than the people in the pews. And so they have this really complicated thing that the only way you can understand this is if you went to seminary and you read all these books and you read all these charts. You would never walk away with that. You'd never be able to figure that out. And so they want to seem like they're really intelligent, so they come up with this really weird system that only they are going to understand and say, well you know what, you have to spend years and years studying to understand it. Well, that's too bad for someone who newly got saved that wants to live for God and has no idea what they're supposed to do because the Bible is so confusing. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And honestly, when you're talking about rightly dividing the word of God, if you just take all these parts out and say that they don't apply to us, there's so much that we wouldn't know what to do. In terms of homeschooling our kids or spanking them, you wouldn't know you were supposed to do that. Normally you go back to the book of Proverbs to look at the verse where sparing the rod, he hated his child. It's very clear, it's very plain, because the whole word of God is meant to be for our prophet. It's not what they teach. But there's something else that they teach that is incredibly confusing. And let's look at John 3.16. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Now this is very simple, isn't it? Whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. If you understand what dispensationalism teaches, though, I'm talking about the mainstream where there's seven dispensations. They believe those are different plans of salvation. They believe that before Jesus rose again, this is before Jesus rose again, that they were still saved by their works. That's what they believe. Now wait a minute. Jesus is saying it's by faith alone. So how do they answer that? And quite honestly, you look at the whole book of John, this is all before Jesus rose again except for the very end, and all the verses we use when we go soul winning, those are before Jesus rose again when they say salvation was by works. That's what they believe. Dispensationalism teaches that after Jesus rose again, then it's by faith, but before that it was by our works. Well how do they answer this? Well they say that Jesus was preaching salvation was by faith alone. They don't deny that. They say He's preaching by faith alone foreshadowing what would one day be true. They admit He's preaching a false gospel. Now they won't say it's a false gospel, but they'll say that yes, salvation was by works during that time here, and yes, Jesus was preaching faith alone, but it was going to eventually be by faith alone, so He was preparing them. I mean that is so confusing. I mean my question is this, because they say during the end times it's by our works again. Can I preach a works salvation? Because I'm just helping people for what one day will be true. I mean isn't that ridiculous? But that's really all the mainstream ones teach that. That's what Gene Kim believes. That's what Robert Breaker believes. I was hoping that would make it in the cut of the documentary. It didn't make it because it's so complicated, but that's what they believe. They literally believe that all these verses that we use before Jesus rose again, that it's by faith alone, they say no, it was actually by works during that time here. But the reason why He was preaching by faith alone was to prepare people for what would one day be true. Now I don't know about you, but that's extremely confusing. Now turn to Galatians 1. Let's see what the Bible says about this. Galatians 1. And this is what it says, Paul the Apostle, starting at verse number 6. Galatians 1. I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. When he says another gospel, this is not another true gospel. It's very obvious from the context, it's talking about a false gospel. Because he says in verse 7, which is not another. He's saying people are preaching what they're calling the gospel, but it's not the gospel. Then it says in verse 8, But though we are an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel on you, and that which we have preached on you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say it now again, If any man preach any other gospel on you, then that ye have received, let him be accursed. What is he saying? Let them go to hell. That's what Paul's saying. That's strong language. He's saying let them go to hell. Now I get it that there's unsaved people in these churches that are not actively preaching a false gospel. But when it comes to these pastors and leaders and these Mormons on their two-year mission, you know what, according to the Bible, let them be accursed. Let them go to hell. Why? Because they're leading other people to hell. Say well that's harsh. Well that's what Paul the Apostle said. This is the word of God. Let them be accursed. And you know what, if Jesus was preaching salvation was by faith alone when it wasn't, he was leading people to hell. That's a damnable gospel if it was a false gospel. Let them be accursed is what the Bible says. And you have to understand that in John 3, Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus. If you remember that, we don't have time to go into it, but Nicodemus is confused on being born again. He doesn't understand what you need to do to be born again. And Jesus is explaining the physical birth and then the spiritual birth. And he's saying that you have to believe. I mean this all goes back to being born again. You receive everlasting life. You go from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive. You become a child of God. It's all tying together. So Nicodemus, from what he knows, salvation is by faith alone. Because Jesus mentions nothing about it being by works there. So if salvation was by works in John 3, then Jesus pretty much just let Nicodemus go straight to hell. Because that whole chapter is believe, believe, believe, believe. If it was some other way, I mean John 4, the woman at the well, it says she believes because she heard what Jesus said. And he mentioned nothing about keeping the law. He said it was by faith alone. So that right there proves that people got saved by faith alone. It's ridiculous to say that while they're preaching a false gospel, that would one day be a true gospel. I mean that's so bizarre. That's so complicated. Now turn to 1 Corinthians 2. And so the whole point of the Word of God being simple and understandable is because God wants us to run the Christian race successfully. He certainly wants people to get saved. That's why he's going to preach a true gospel, not a false gospel. But you want people to run the Christian race successfully. A goal I have is that people in this room are going to grow spiritually every single year. They're going to read the Bible more. They're going to be more zealous. They're going to love God more and more each and every single year. And so when I preach, I'm going to try to make it as simple as possible what I'm saying. I'm not trying to get up here to sound like I'm super-intelligent. That's not my goal. My goal is just to show you what the Word of God says, make it very simple so you know what you need to do. Now it says in 1 Corinthians 2, you say, what about the confusing things in the Bible? Well notice what it says in 1 Corinthians 2 verses 9 and 10. But as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. The Bible says there are deep things. There are things that are complicated. Now turn to 2 Peter 3. And in 2 Peter 3, it's going to say something very similar, starting at verse 15. An account that the longsuffering our reward is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul, also according to the wisdom, giveth on to him, given on to him, hath written on you. As also and also as epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to be understood. There are things that are hard to be understood. Which they that are unlearned in unstable rest, as they do also in the other scriptures, out of their own destruction. See it says the things that are hard to understand, what false prophets do is they focus on the things that are hard to understand, rather than focusing on things that are easy to understand. So they focus, they rest those scriptures on things that are hard to be understood. Verse 17, Ye therefore beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the air of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. And so, yes there are deep things, but look, if you don't have a perfect understanding of the book of Joel, or the book of Ezekiel, that's not really going to affect your day to day living. In terms of how we run the Christian race, it's not complicated. Yes there are deep things, and you know what, I'm glad there's deep things, because it keeps the Bible interesting, but you still learn things new, all the time. But honestly, even a lot of those deep things, are just teaching the same truths we already know. Just using symbolism and new things. And so honestly, when it comes to the Minor Prophets stuff, because the Minor Prophets is actually my favorite part of the Bible. It didn't used to be, because when I first read the Bible, I didn't understand any of it. But honestly, I was able to understand what I needed to do pretty early on, even though I didn't understand the Minor Prophets. But you know, when we priest through the Minor Prophets, what we're going to do, is not just focus on things that are just super complicated, but focus on what's practical from those books. Because we're in the book of Habakkuk right here, that's what our text is for this sermon. This is a very practical sermon though, where we see the Word of God and what we need to do, and so that's what we're going to do. But what we're not going to do, is just make the Bible super complicated, where nobody understands what's being said. Yes, there's going to be some deeper sermons, but we're still going to focus on the things that are the most important. Now turn back to Habakkuk 2. And so, the Word of God is not meant to be complicated, like dispensations are saying. And they'll focus on those verses and say, well see, there's things that are hard to understand. Yeah, but you know, most of this is not hard for me to understand. Maybe they just need to get the Spirit of God inside of them, and they'll be able to understand it a little bit better. Because when I read this Bible, most of it's not confusing me. John 3.16, I just read, and whosoever believeth. Now, if I believe what they would, I'd be like, yeah, that's super complicated. Like, wow, you know, it was actually by works then, even though it says it's by belief alone. Yeah, that's super complicated. But you know, the Bible is not meant to be complicated. It's actually meant to be very simple. But here's the thing though, there is one caveat to that. The reason why it's meant to be simple is that we can run the Christian race, but notice what it says in verse 2 of Habakkuk 2, verse 2. And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision and make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it. You see, yes, God made the Bible very simple. The preaching is meant to be simple. I do my best to make this so everybody understands it. But you know, it doesn't really do you any good unless you actually read it. You say, I want to run the Christian race successfully. You say, how do I do that? You need to read the Word of God every single day. Right. Now, we're going to be excited this month because we're going to make an effort, and I believe most people are going to complete this challenge. I think most of us are going to read through the entire New Testament, here starting on January 29th before the end of February. But you need to keep doing that throughout your entire life. You will not run the Christian race successfully if you're not reading the Word of God. And when it comes to running the Christian race, it's not just getting people saved. Just all of it in terms of us having a good personality and not being jerks. Honestly, a lot of people in our movement are jerks because they don't read the Word of God. That's their problem. You hear all these sermons, but guess what? You're not running the Christian race that successfully because you never actually read the Bible about the parts about having patience and not being bitter and being long-suffering. They kind of miss those parts. If you want to actually successfully run the Christian race, that you're a well-rounded Christian and you're doing a good job, here's the key from Habakkuk 2 to that he may run that reading. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be in your house today. This amazing verse in the Bible is talking about running the Christian race and the importance of reading the Bible. Help us all this month to really focus on reading the Word of God. Help us all have 100% participation as a church God. We're all going to learn so much about the Word of God this month, and we're going to grow spiritually to God. I ask you to help all of us through this. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Turn to 363 in your hymnal. 363. 363, Wonderful Words of Life, starting on the first. Sing them over again to me, wonderful words of life. Let me more of their beauty sing, wonderful words of life. Words of life and beauty, teach me faith and duty. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Christ the Blessed One gives to all, wonderful words of life. Sinner, this is a loving call, wonderful words of life. All so freely given, moving us to heaven. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Sweet the aid of the gospel call, wonderful words of life. All for fun and peace to all, wonderful words of life. Jesus, only Savior, sanctified forever. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here in your house. God, we ask you to help us apply this sermon to your lives. Pray this in Jesus' name, amen. We'll have a ten minute break, we'll get to the second service. Amen.