<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dunlap SDA Church

P. Gerard Damsteegt

Lifestyle and the Interpretation of the Bible

Let's ask the Lord for a special blessing.

Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart and thoughts be acceptable in your sight.

Oh Lord, our Savior and Redeemer, send your Holy Spirit.

I don't know how many of you remember this magazine.

And I don't know how many read the whole thing, because this was the week of prayer, the annual week of prayer.

And the theme here is really dealing with lifestyle.

And the first chapter here was by Elder Wilson, and it says, Your word is a lamp to my feet.

Now I read through the whole thing and I was inspired how lifestyle can be a means of witnessing.

And then I thought about my upcoming sermon and I thought, hey, can I do something about lifestyle?

And I read through the Spirit of Prophecy and some other things, and I noticed that lifestyle, your and my lifestyle, is intimately related to the way that we interpret the Bible and the result of our interpretation.

And that was not at all touched in the week of prayer, So I decided to let me just present this here.

Because we are living in a very momentous time, we see dark clouds coming on the horizon, and the Bible is plenty of statements there how to prepare.

Daniel 12 verse 1 we find there the statement in regard to the preparation there, Michael stand up and then there will be a time of trouble such as never was.

Now this is not the time of trouble that you find in Matthew 24.

But this is when the King of the North will make its final attack during the time of trouble.

And so that is a tremendous time and many will not survive that time.

At the same time, when you look at Revelation 13, verse 15 and 17, we see that the beast, the second beast, moves on the earth so that people will be worshipping the beast and his image.

The pain of death, and not only death, but a worldwide boycott.

If you turn there to Revelation 12, verse 17.

This is after the 1260 years of tribulation, you know, where Satan is trying to destroy God's people, but he has not been successful because in verse 17, and it says, the dragon was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Because he has not been able to eliminate God's people, the remnant, those that remain faithful.

Now, what is the characteristic of this faithful remnant?

Oh, yes, it says they keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus.

Now the question is, do they still keep the commandments of God?

And this is all in the context of, do we love Jesus with all our heart?

Because if you don't do this, you're not able to keep all God's commandments and you certainly doesn't have the gift of God, which is a testimony of Jesus.

So what does the book of Revelation further tells us?

That God has a special gift for you and me, if we are the remnant, at the end of time.

At the same time, Revelation 19, verse 10, talks about the prophetic gift that a number of people have, that are the prophets, but Spirit of Prophecy says about the final gift, in the final days to show how we have to be faithful.

So This is a gift so that we will succeed in all the difficulties and are able to keep God's commandments.

Because you can profess it, but are you keeping it?

And that is only through the special gift that God has given.

Now, last week our pastor had a magnificent sermon on the disunity, remember?

So we know the church is full with just unity, but how we can make it, change it into unity.

It's a concern how Adventists interpret the Bible because that impact everything.

We know how to impact this, we know how to interpret the Bible.

Our church has produced many books of how to interpret the Bible, but that is not all.

The question is, how do we become a church united?

And frequently our disunity has to do with the way how we look at the Bible.

About lifestyle, some believe this, other 1 did.

And then they said, okay, you know, it's up to you.

That will not help us, but what does the Bible teach?

The spirit of prophecy indicates that using the proper rules of interpretation is not the most important thing.

Now that you may be surprised, you know, I mean, I wrote whole papers on what Ellen White says how to interpret this.

But then here it is, she says no, that's not the most important thing.

So what is then the most important thing?

A more important factor is a lifestyle dedicated to Jesus and to following the light that Jesus has already given me.

And yet Here is a brother that has completely different views.

In fact, I belong to the Biblical Research Institute, and there we come several times a year together and discuss the issues that separate us.

Books, papers, some are 20 pages, some are 200 pages.

And we have to go through this and analyze this, what is the problem.

So it is not doctor so-and-so or scholar so-and-so, but what is his lifestyle?

And normally we don't talk about lifestyle when we look at our papers.

No, we want to look at the arguments, not how they live.

And yet Ellen White says it is more important how they live the truth than following rules.

And so each 1 of us, if you have difficulty, we have to ask ourselves, how do I live?

Lifestyle impacts, as Jesus says, how readest thou?

Here is a lawyer who wants to catch Jesus and says what is the most important thing in the law?

And so, your lifestyle explains why you or other Bible students who apparently use the same biblical principles arrive at opposite conclusions on the meaning of the text or passage.

We have seen it demonstrated at the General Conference in 2015.

Here are all the delegates and scholars and whatever you can find, and there were 3 questions.

And we didn't agree, and 5 years later, we have had conferences after conferences and we still don't agree.

And this is not only for you, but also for me.

The impact of lifestyle on spiritual discernment.

Anything that lessens the physical strength and feebles the mind and makes it less capable of discriminating between right and wrong.

So here is Lifestyle, our physical lifestyle, had to do with between right and wrong.

Back to Menu

Lifestyle and the Interpretation of the Bible

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Jessica Trinh Weekend

The Desire of Ages

39m

Help From Above

1h

Faith and Works

42m

God's Love Stories (Noon Meetings)

6. From Sikhism Hinduism to Seeking Him

1h 42m

The Judge, the Widow and the Adversary

50m

GYC SE 2013 Plenary Sessions

Sin is a Four Letter Word

55m

Plenary

For Such a Time as This

1h

Jesus on Prophecy

01 Prophecy Unfolds Today

48m

Love and Hate

41m

Antichrist: The One You've Never Known

Antichrist, Episode 7: Substitute

31m

OYC 2011 Plenary Meetings

Wisdom vs. Rubies, Part 2

1h

Christian Martin Weekend

The Battle for Love and Influence: How Satan Targets Our Godly Impact

47m

Sound Doctrine