Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

The Inspired Word

Louis Torres

The Inspired Word- Part 1

The Inspired Word- Part 2

The Inspired Word- Part 3

The Inspired Word- Part 4

All right, let's pray together so we can begin.

Our loving God, thank you so much for the privilege we have to study your precious Word.

We pray for your guidance, and we thank you in Jesus' name.

The whole week is titled Inspiration, and the reason why is because with all that has taken place around us, most people do not realize that the real issue underlining this whole controversy is whether or not you can trust the Bible.

It may have the title of Women's Ordination, it may have whatever other name, but the real underlining attack is whether or not you can actually trust the Bible.

And you may think, well, that's strange for Christians to question whether or not you can trust the Bible.

But it should not be strange because we know that we are in a great controversy.

And because we are in a great controversy, if you want to steer people in the wrong direction, given the wrong compass.

There was a flight that had just finished bombing Germany, and they were on their way back to their base.

However, when they noticed the instruments, The instrument was telling them that they had overpassed where they were supposed to be landing.

The problem was that they knew they were not supposed to be at that point by a certain time.

So what they did was they concluded that somehow the enemy had affected their compass and they decided not to pay attention to it until they actually reached the time that they knew was supposed to take to reach their base.

However, they ran out of gas and landed in the desert in Africa.

When they finally located the plane, they found that 1 of the airmen had walked over 200 miles, because the desert is so large that even 200 miles is not sufficient.

And when they took all the instruments on the airplane, they found that all the instruments were working perfectly.

And what happened was simply that their compass was working correctly.

And what actually took place was that there was a tailwind that drove them faster.

And because they didn't understand that the tailwind had driven them faster than they were supposed to reach their point of destination, they assumed that the compass was wrong.

And so, if you believe that the Bible is your compass, never assume—what did I say?—never assume that the compass is wrong.

The problem may simply be that other factors may be confusing you, but the compass never goes wrong.

Jesus used the Scriptures, if you look at chapter Matthew 4 through 7, we're not going to read it right now, but most of you are acquainted with what is called the Beatitudes.

And the Beatitudes basically is Christ expounding upon the principles of heaven and what those principles are and how they are to impact the lives of those who would be believers.

So in the chapter 4 through 7, he uses scriptures to correct wrongs or ideologies or cultural or otherwise to establish a truth or to encourage faithfulness and obedience.

So the Scriptures was a main focal point of direction, And any time that Christ wanted to establish the truth, he always pointed to the Scriptures.

Whether he was dealing with a cultural issue or a principle, he always turned to the Scriptures.

He also pronounced the Word as the only source of power over temptation.

And unequivocally stated Matthew 4, verses 1-10, and unequivocally stated that it was that which proceeded out of the mouth of God.

He said to the devil, man shall not live by, breath alone but by, every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God." And when he said, every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God, he was quoting Moses.

And so Jesus simply established the Bible as the authority for every issue in life, and that through it man can find salvation.

I was just teaching a class via Skype to my class over in Oregon.

My wife and I still run the School of Evangelism.

We've compressed it to 40 days as opposed to 3 and 1⁄2 months.

And so we have the students right now over there.

And because I'm over here, the only way I can teach is by Skype until I get over there.

So I was just teaching this principle, and I want to share it with you.

If you take the first 2 chapters of the Bible, and you take the last 2 chapters of the Bible, their mirror image, In other words, the first 2 chapters, Genesis 1 and 2, speak about Eden being created, man being created, a perfect home, perfect diet, perfect face-to-face communion between man and God, perfect harmony between man and man, and that there was no death, there was no sorrow, there was no pain, there was no cry.

If you go to the last 2 chapters, you find the same thing—face-to-face communion, a perfect home, the tree of life.

The Bible, then, is to tell you how to get from point A to point Z, from Eden lost to Eden restored.

Those first 2 chapters, the last 2 chapters are God's ideal for His people, what it was and what it shall be again.

And any doctrine that does not fit within that scope, there's something wrong with it.

Any doctrine that does not fit within that scope, there's something wrong with it.

I have worked on now for many years on 28 presentations showing every doctrine from Eden to Eden, how you can trace all of our teachings from Eden to Eden.

And so, Christ then came to reinforce that which he had taught his people that they can count on, and that was the Word of God.

Because God is the source of the Word and the source of life, Jesus confirms that the words which I speak unto you, they are what?

Then you have to accept that which God says gives life.

It is through the exceeding great and precious promises found, of course, in 2 Peter 1, verse 4, of the word that we might be partakers of the divine nature and escape the corruption of the sin the world threw at us.

In other words, through the Bible, there are over 3, 000 plus promises that are written there for the specific purpose of you becoming a partaker of the divine nature.

Now that may seem a little strange, because you would assume that God is the only 1 that has divine nature.

But apparently from what the promise says, God wants to recreate in each 1 of you his image, and the way he does it is through the exceeding great and precious promises.

So that through the promises, as you partake of them, it is like eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

The more you partake of the Word of God, the more you behold his character, the more you become like Him.

And that's why it says, as you behold, you become changed.

So if you want to become Christ-like, then you behold Christ.

If you want to become like anything else, then you behold that.

And so, in order for you and I to escape the corruption that's in the world through lust, we need then to have in us that which can effectively nullify or destroy that which can change us into a corruptible thing.

We need to become incorruptible, and the only way to do that is through the incorruptible Word of Christ, through His Word.

Now, it is by taking heed to that Word that a young man can cleanse his way, Psalms 119, and not sin against thee.

And by hearing it, faith awakens, Romans chapter 10, of course, verse 17.

Therefore, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

He never made his words subject to dissecting.

On the contrary, it was to be the dissector.

And so Here's the statement, for the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any torch sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow.

It's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

So the Lord intended for his word not just to be a book like any other book.

He intended that book to actually have within it the element that energizes and enables you to accomplish that which otherwise you could not accomplish in your own strength.

Now if you're wondering why I'm trying to move ahead fast, it's because I have a lot to cover.

Having such an element as this at our reach, I would certainly be afraid of any attempts to cut out any part as what?

And I'm referring to the new hermeneutics, which is called the principal historical hermeneutics that has just been introduced as a new way to interpret the scriptures by some in our division and so He intended that the word be maintained intact because the scriptures are filled with many, many cultural situations such as, for example, the cultural aspect of in those days, you didn't have a child, you can get your husband to have a child with some other, a concubine of something.

But in those days, it was culturally acceptable.

So there were many cultural things that were there in the Scriptures.

In fact, the Scriptures is saturated with a lot of things that have occurred throughout history in the biblical times that were obviously quite culturally acceptable.

However, the Bible's writers never gave in to the intimation that you could do away with any portion of God's inspired writing because of some cultural issue.

In fact, none of the Bibles is written from a cultural perspective.

And I'm making a statement that some will challenge me at, but any time that God inspired something, even though it might seem to be cultural, he inspired it because it was the right thing.

There were circumstances that demanded God to give certain counsel, and sometimes it's not understood correctly, so people think it's a situation ethics matter.

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The Inspired Word

The Inspired Word- Part 1

Transcript

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