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Rightly Dividing the New Testament – II Timothy 2:15 – Part 2

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

Most Christians wrongly divide the word (IITim.2:15) by saying, “The Old Testament is for the Jews, the New Testament is for us.” But much of the New Testament is for the Jews too! Matthew 1:21 says the Lord would save “His people” in Israel (Lu.2:32) from “their” sins. Not until Paul do we read He’d save all sinners (ITim.1:15). So divide the Bible between Paul’s epistles and the rest of the Bible!

In Matthew, not even the Lord Himself said He’d die for all sinners (Mt.20:28), and that didn’t change at Pentecost (Acts 5:30,31). That shows that even in the fifth book of the New Testament nothing changed from the Old Testament (Isa.53: 8). Nothing changed until Paul (ITim.2:6). God always intended to save all men, but no one “testified” of that till Paul. That’s why he’s “the apostle of the Gentiles” (Rom.11:13).

The next verse in Matthew that shows it was written to Jews is Matthew 3:1,2. The “kingdom” John preached was the one Daniel predicted Christ would set up on earth after defeating the kingdoms of men (Dan.2:44). John said it was “at hand” 2,000 years ago, but it didn’t come because the Jews rejected their kingdom when they rejected their King. But that kingdom was for Israel anyway (Acts 1:6), not us.

Unless you realize that, you’re going to think like Jehovah’s Witnesses think, that that kingdom is where you’ll live eternally. Your apostle Paul says that instead, God will “change” your physical body so it can live in heaven (ICor.15:50-52). That change will come at the Rapture (Phil.3:20,21), when your body will be made like unto the Lord’s resurrection body, so it can do the things His body could do, like ascend to heaven on its own power (Eph.4:7-10)!

Matthew also teaches water baptism (Mt.3:5,6). We know this was a Jewish ordinance because the Pharisees didn’t ask John what he was doing, as if he were doing something new. They asked him why he was doing it (John 1:24). They knew what he was doing, for they baptized their priests (Ex.29:4). They asked him why he was baptizing if he wasn’t Christ because they knew their Messiah would someday come and baptize all Jews to make them “a kingdom of priests” in the kingdom of heaven (Ex.19:6). But you won’t be a priest in that kingdom, so you don’t need to be baptized with water.

The healing found in Matthew 6:23 was also for Jews, for priests couldn’t be lame or blind, etc. (Lev.21:17-21). No one today can heal “everyone” like Peter did (Acts 5:16), so we know God’s not giving men the gift of healing. You may want to be healed, but God wants you to know that His grace is sufficient for you in times of infirmity (IICor.12:8,9).

Matthew also says to pray “Thy kingdom come” (Mt.6:10), but we should pray “Thy church go in the Rapture!” Matthew says to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (v.11) but they were heading into the Tribulation that would have come if the dispensation of grace hadn’t interrupted God’s prophecies, and they’ll need daily bread when they can’t buy it (Rev.13:17). God will send them the daily bread of manna (Mic.7:14,15). That’s why Matthew records the Lord as saying to “take no thought” about your next meal (Mt.6:28); but you have to take a lot of thought about it (IIThes.3:10-12).

Matthew says you have to forgive others to be forgiven by God (Mt.6:12-15), despite the unforgivable things that will be done to believers by the beast in the Tribulation. They will have to forgive Antichrist’s government and submit to it because the beast will be a chastening tool in God’s hand, so to resist his government will be to resist the powers that be that are ordained of God. But forgiveness is a work, it is something you can “do” (Mark 11:26), and salvation today is “not by works” (Titus 3:5), it’s by “the washing of regeneration.” Our apostle says we should forgive others because we’ve already been forgiven by grace (Eph.4:32). That calls for “rightly dividing the word of truth!”

The Anniversary of a Church – 2 Kings 22:1-17

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

Israel’s high priest Hilkiah was looking for money in the temple to pay the men repairing the temple (22:1-7) when he found a Bible (v.8). He read it, then read it to Israel’s king (v.9,10). Calling it “a” book suggests he didn’t know what it was. That means Israel’s priests must have stopped reading the Bible to all Israel every 7 years as Moses said (Deut.31:9-12), and that led to neglecting it altogether.

When King Josiah tore his clothes after hearing the Bible read (II Ki.22:11), that suggests that he’d never read it before either. That means the kings before him had stopped reading it every day as Moses told them to do (Deut.17:14-19), and that too led to neglecting it altogether. If pastors disobey I Timothy 4:13, the Bible may be lost to us as well.

Josiah rent his clothes because he’d just heard the Bible say that God would punish Israel in some very specific ways if they disobeyed Him, and when he looked around, he saw those specific punishments, and knew that God was judging them. We’re not under the law that said God would punish His people for disobedience (Rom.6:14), so even if you do see the specific judgments of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 in your life, or in your land, you can know that God is not judging you. You’ll still reap what you sow (Gal.6:7), but that’s just the natural consequence of your sin.

The king sent men to ask the prophetess Huldah about what he’d heard in the Bible (IIKi.22:12-14). She told the king that God was about to send even more punishment (v.15,16), because they were worshipping other gods (v.17).

Christians today do too! Many of our Pentecostal brethren worship tongues, many of our Baptist brethren worship baptism, and 7th Day Adventists worship the sabbath. But the worst idolatry is found among grace believers, many of whom worship the grace message. If you don’t agree with

them on every detail of the grace message, they judge you.

For example, church anniversaries are observances of a church’s birthday, and every time birthdays are mentioned in the Bible, someone dies (Gen.40:20-22; Mt.14:6,10). So some grace believers don’t observe birthdays. Paul is on neither side in this issue (Rom.14:5).

Paul also doesn’t care if you eat meat or herbs (14:1,2). God told Adam to eat herbs (Gen.1:29), but later told Noah he could eat meat (9:3), so we know we can eat “all things” too (Rom.14:2). But Paul adds not to “judge” or “despise” brethren who feel differently about this (14:3).

When grace believers do judge or despise one another over these issues, they are judging “another man’s servant” (14:4), for our brethren in Christ are all His servants. He will judge us at the Judgment Seat of Christ (14:10). If we judge one another in the meantime, we are virtually pushing Him off His judge’s bench and saying, “I got this. I can do a better job of judging my brethren than You can.” You wouldn’t do that at the Judgment Seat of Christ, so don’t do it now!

God is able to make that brother “stand” in that day (14:4). Grace believers often think—and sometimes say to other Christians—“Just wait until we stand before the Lord. He’ll straighten you out, and then you’ll believe as I do!” But Paul says “he shall be holden up” by God in that day, not you.

That’s because no matter what your position is when it comes to issues like this, God is on the side of grace—and we should be too! We’re all smiles when we read Romans 1-13 where we learn how gracious God has been to us. Our smiles sometimes fade though when we read Chapter 14, where God says to be as gracious to others as He’s been to us! But if you miss that point, you miss the point of the Book of Romans, for you miss the culmination of Romans in Chapter 14. And you missed the point of the grace message.