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We're looking at the four questions that we must ask when we study the word of God or read the word of God so that we gain a clear understanding of what's spoken to us and what is addressed to us. What is it that we apply? We can't just take any passage of Scripture and try to apply it to ourselves. In our last session, we took a look at what God said to Joshua as he was to supposed to. As he was to lead the children of Israel into the promised land.

And God said to him, look, you obey the law of Moses, you obey what I taught Moses and that what he has taught you and written down for you. And you do that and I will give you prosperity in whatever you do. I will make you prosperous and I will give you good success. And oh, how many times well meaning Christians have taken verses like this and said, oh, I'm going to claim that. And I'm going to claim it for my job, I'm going to claim it for my business, I'm going to claim it for my finances, I'm going to claim it for my health and that.

I remember a youth pastor that worked for us at one point. He said, you got to have faith. Just believe anything. Faith pleases God because without it, you can't. Which faith? In what? You can't have faith in something that is out of context, something that's not written to you or about you, and try to make it work. It doesn't. And so to be scriptural and biblical and take a passage out of its context can be wrong just because God said it or because God told Joshua these promises.

You can't take these promises and apply them to yourself. Not all promises in the book are ours. So we need to recognize that another example of a misinterpretation and misapplication of the word of God is this woman, Hannah. Hannah had a problem. She was barren and she was grieving over her barrenness.

She couldn't have a child for years and years. And rather than read this to you, in First Samuel, chapter one, the first 20 verses, Hannah is praying to God. And you can't audibly hear what she's saying, but you see her lips moving. And her husband takes a look at her and he says, she's drunk. There's a lot of humor in the word of God, by the way, and he thinks she's drunk.

And he tells her, I wish you'd stop drinking. And that's not at all what was going on. She was praying to God, asking God to give her a child and God intervened in her life and gave her a child. Now God is speaking here as he gives a promise to Hannah. He's speaking to Hannah specifically, and particularly at a time when barrenness was considered a problem in your relationship with God.

And for what purpose? Why was he speaking to her? It was for the purpose in Hannah's life to demonstrate the true prosperity and fruitfulness of the womb of a godly woman. But we can't go people that. That can't have children and that try for years and years.

Can people have read this and said, oh, I'm going to claim what God told Hannah for myself. And they pray and believe that God is going to intervene. If they do have a child, it's by coincidence because it's not God doing that. Cannot take that out of context. When you read the Book of Psalms, there are big problems in the misapplication and misunderstanding of the Book of Psalms.

I mean, there is a lot of misapplication. There's a lot that we can learn about God in the whole Word of God. It's all profitable for us. It's for our learning. Paul says it's for our encouragement, for our hope to know that what God promises us, he will in fact deliver and he will fulfill his promises to us.

But to take passages of Scripture and try to apply them to yourself is very erroneous. The Book of Psalms is a classic for that. And just as a big picture to understand the Book of Psalms, there are five specific sections that present Christ in the Book of Psalms. And there are books inside of the 150 Psalms presenting Christ in the first section as Redeemer, then as Deliverer, then as Avenger, then as King, and then as Blesser. It's all part of the Davidic covenant and it's fulfilled there.

It's expounded on and explained and expanded in the Book of Psalms. So we need to understand that when we read and study the Book of Psalms, the next thing is that that people in the Old Testament needed to rely on the grace that is resident in God's I am Jehovah name. God gave that to Moses and since then to the nation of Israel. He has said, I will be to you all that you need for me to be. And in the Book of Psalms, we see God as one who restores, one who protects, one who gives victory in battles, one who gives victory in life, etc. etc.

So understanding that that was a completely different time when God spoke to a different group of people. We can't just extract from the book of Psalms and try to assume that that's all spoken to us and about us.

Another example is the book of Proverbs. How many times I've heard the Proverbs chapter three, misquoted and misapplied Proverbs, chapter three. We're just going through many examples of the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Scripture to make a point about these four questions in verse one of Proverbs chapter three. My son, forget not my law, but let your heart keep my commandments. So here's God's law, God's commandments, what's going to happen for length of days and long life and peace, shall they add to you?

Well, we can't go back to the law, try to keep either the Ten Commandments or the 613 commandments that are written in the book of the Law, and think that God is going to give us long life.

Verse 3. Let not mercy and truth forsake you. Bind them about your neck, write them upon the table of your heart. And when you do that, when you listen to what God says in his word to Solomon, who writes these proverbs, and to the nation of Israel, God says, I'm going to bless you for that. And with that.

So verse 4, So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. And when you do that, when you obey my law, when you bind it in your heart, when you exhibit the mercy and the kindness and truth from the law, then what's going to happen as part of that? Verse 5. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.

Wonderful promises to the children of Israel. Wonderful promises through Solomon, who writes his wonderful promises that God makes to him about his need for obedience to the law and adherence to the law. And we take these verses completely out of context, not answering these four questions. And we think that we need to trust the Lord with all our heart, and we don't lean on our own understanding. And in all our ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your path.

So we think that God is involved in every single little detail of our lives. He will direct my path to the right job. He will direct my path to the right person to marry. He will direct my path in my health. He will direct my path in my employment.

He will direct my path in in the home that I buy or where I live and where I serve the Lord. All of this, it's all nonsense. It is taken completely out of context, it doesn't answer these four questions in our favor applied to us. So again, very, very careful, and I'm just taking some popular passages that are misunderstood and misapplied in Christendom.

Isaiah, chapter 53, first eight verses. Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? And here is talking about looking forward prophesies to Israel's Messiah, verse 3. He's despised and rejected of men.

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him strict and smitten of God and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions. That's the transgression of God's chosen people, Israel. He is bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. And here's the verse that is so frequently misapplied.

And with his stripes we are healed. Well, people take that and they say, oh, I'm ill, I have a sickness and I'm not going to trust medicine or physicians because God is going to heal me. And it's based on the stripes that the Lord Jesus Christ was smitten on. That is not what this passage means at all. And answering these four questions will tell you clearly it does not apply the atonement of Christ.

The stripes of Christ when he was beaten and crucified are not meant to bring physical healing. This is all about the spiritual healing of the nation of Israel through the work of the Messiah as their Redeemer.

Another passage and I realize we're speeding through these, but it's important for us to do that because I just want to highlight the things that we completely mistaken and misapply. Jeremiah, chapter 29. And I've heard this promise through to and through Jeremiah, misapplied and misused over and over again. Jeremiah chapter 29 and verse 11. This is who is God speaking?

Who's speaking? God is. Who is he speaking to? His children, the children of Israel, at a time when God was speaking to them about what he's going to do and what he expected them to do. And beginning at verse 11 of Jeremiah 29.

Well, look at verse 10 for context. For thus saith the Lord that after 70 years be accomplished. That's when this applies. At Babylon I will visit you and perform my good word towards you in causing you to return to this place. It's a particular time in the history of the nation of Israel in, in the courses of punishment that God is going to bring promise and deliverance.

Verse 11. For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. I have good intentions for you. And we take that and we say, well, God intends everything he does to us and for us and with us, it's all going to end up well. That's just not reality.

In life, not all circumstances end well. Not everything that happens to us is for our good. And this not a promise to us and about us, because evil does come to us. And so recognizing what God does and says and to whom is very important.

Read on in verse 11. And then verse 12. Then shall you call upon me, and you shall go and pray unto me, I will hearken unto you, and you shall seek me and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, says the Lord, and I will turn away your captivity. He's speaking to the children of Israel who are in captivity.

He's going to set them free and bring them back to the land. And I will gather you from all the nations, from all the places where I have driven you in judgment, scattered all over the world, and I will bring you again into the place where I caused you to be carried away captive. You see the context here? And who, who God is speaking to and when and for what purpose. You can't just rob God's word.

You can't just lift passages of Scripture out of their context, out of answering these four questions and begin to claim it for yourself. It leads into all kinds of problems. Now we go to the Book of Matthew. We see there that the Lord Jesus Christ is commissioning his 12 apostles. And here's what he says to them.

Verse 5. These 12 Jesus sent forth, commanded them, saying, don't go into the way of the Gentiles, don't go to the city of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils freely you have received, freely give. So here are God is speaking.

Christ is speaking to whom? To his 12 apostles. At a time when he was here on earth, he commissioned them to do a particular work. He told them not to go to the Gentiles, not to go to the Samaritans, but only go to the Lost sheep of the house of Israel. And you're supposed to preach, proclaim the king, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

That's what God wanted to accomplish with the nation of Israel. That which had been promised since the world began is now about to be fulfilled. We could go on and on and we could look at the prayers of Scripture that have been used and misapplied. Going to look at that in fundamental number six, how God is empowering us today. How we can't take the power that God gave that was resident in his Jehovah name, that grace that was there for them.

We can't just take that and say we're going to apply it to us. God has a completely different power for us. It's all resident in the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the Revelation of the mystery. That's fundamental number seven. Then we have what are the commissions, the misapplication of the commissions in Scripture.

Thinking that the great commission, Matthew 28, or the commission in Mark or Luke or John or Acts, when our commission is in second Corinthians, chapter five, we'll look at that in fundamental number eight. And John Claussen has done a great job at detailing these commissions and you can find them on our website.

Then the purpose of our gathering together as a church. Why do we meet together? What is supposed to be going on as we assemble together? We're going to study all of that and see it in fundamental chapter nine. And then finally the various hopes in the Word of God.

And what is our hope? Israel's hope over against our hope. Understand when you look, when you read or study the Gospels, that the book of Matthew was written for a particular purpose. It presented the Lord Jesus Christ as King. Mark presented the Lord Jesus Christ as a human being, as a man.

Luke, I'm sorry, as a servant, God's servant. And the book of Luke was written by Luke the physician that presented Christ as man and. And John presenting the Lord Jesus Christ as God. We need to keep that in mind as we read and study these books. Notice that John wrote his Gospel presenting not the mechanics of individual justification unto eternal life, but he wrote his Gospel to present to the nation of Israel how they as a nation will be saved.

Something very foreign to us because when we think of salvation justification, we think of that as individuals only. We. We have no such thing as national salvation, but there is such a thing for the nation of Israel. And that's what John focuses on in his Gospel purpose of the book of Acts. It's a transition between what God is doing with the nation of Israel.

We see how the nation of Israel sinned against God, rejected her Messiah, and how the nation of Israel was set aside. And God now begins to deal with a new entity, a new creation, which is the Body of Christ. All that needs to be understood, because what we do is we take passages in the book of Acts and we try to apply things that don't apply. And we think that. And by the way, we don't apply it anyway.

We think we do. But when we read in Acts chapter 4, that in preparation for the kingdom, they all the true disciples, true believers, brought, sold their possessions, brought them to the apostles, they distributed it so that nobody had need, that's in preparation for the kingdom, promising that needs would be met. Nobody's following that today. So we pick and choose what we apply and what we don't apply. And we always get into a problem with that.

So when you read and study Paul's Epistles, it's important to ask these questions as well. Why do I say that? For two reasons. Number one, because the writer, the Apostle Paul, he is writing to the Body of Christ. And his introduction in every letter is that he's writing to the church or the churches, and he's bringing God's new mystery Revelation, the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the Revelation of the mystery.

And he's setting forth all of these truths. That is what is written to us. That is what is written about us. That's what we need to take and apply in our lives. Not just take any scripture or all of scripture.

And just, you know, as I've shared with you before, a friend of mine said, you know, scripture is. Scripture is just whatever it means to me, somebody in response to that said, well, then it doesn't mean anything. And that's the truth. And that's the problem. And that is the problem with the church, with the evangelical church today, in that the church is not following the Apostle Paul, not listening to what Paul has to say.

Because God is speaking through the Apostle Paul to the Body of Christ in this dispensation of the grace of God, so that we might understand what justification unto eternal life is, how we are to the provisions that God has made for us in the Body of Christ, how we should live, the power that he has given, why we should gather, what is our role on this earth as his ambassadors?

What is the Spirit of God doing in us as a body, in us as individuals? What is God, the Holy Spirit, doing in his ministry to the Body of Christ? What does The Word of God provide for us how we should live according to the Word of God. Rightly divided. Because that's what the Holy Spirit uses to honor God and to benefit our lives.

That is essential for us, and that's what God has given to us, to the Body of Christ. And to depart from that is devastating. Now, so much that we learned from all the other scriptures. We learn about God's holiness, God's justice, God's long suffering, how gracious God is, but nothing like what we learn from the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the Revelation of the mystery. So I must insist, I must urge you, whenever you read Scripture, whenever you study the Word of God, ask these four questions.

Encourage others to do the same. Help others to study the Word of God. Rightly divided. There's one more thing I want to say about Paul's epistles, because we must rightly divide even Paul's epistles. Here's what I mean.

Not everything that is written in Paul's epistles is for us today. Why? Because there are things that are written in Paul's epistles that were written when the Word of God was not fully given, when the Church was in its infancy, when there was a confirmation of the apostleship of Paul. And so there were things that he did that he was. Things he was able to perform, power that he had, and a ministry that he had where he healed people, where.

Where he spoke in other languages. But all of that, as the Word of God was fully given, those things went away. Read First Corinthians, chapter 13. When that which is perfect has come, that which is imperfect, that is that which is of childish things, are being put away. So the Church, the Body of Christ, is not displaying those gifts today because they're unnecessary and they're not what God is doing today.

The gifts that God has given to the Church is teachers, people who equip people for the work of the ministry and to live life the way God intended for us to live it. So the importance of asking and answering these questions correctly will help us grasp God's plan and purpose for us today and how we are to live in this dispensation of Grace.