Well, I hope I have the right phone number here at Truth Time Radio.
I love your podcast.
I appreciate the clear explanation about the forgiveness that we have and the differences between the gospels and the dispensations.
Hey, it's great stuff.
It's liberating, knowing that we're forgiven, and now that he deals with us on the basis of faith.
Great work, my friend.
P.S. I can never look at Scripture the same again.
It's wonderful.
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Okay, buckle up.
Today with Scripture, we're going to demonstrate how many teach the Gospel of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 in error.
We want to direct your attention to verse 2.
Verse 2 of the gospel of our salvation, here where Paul talks about believing in vain.
Instead of considering what Paul says so we can all speak the same thing, many today choose to lean on their own understanding.
But pay close attention today.
Give careful consideration to what we're saying, and perhaps you'll see this for what it is.
Here, Paul wrote, "By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain."
There it is.
This is what we're talking about.
But before we get to that, back up, look at the, "if ye keep in memory."
It does not mean, hey, you better keep remembering this if you want to stay saved.
That's nonsense.
The, "if you keep in memory," here means, if you remember what I told you when I was there with you.
That's what it means.
This is what Paul is reminding those there at the church of Corinth.
Now, with that out of the way, the next part of the verse, "what does it mean to believe in vain?"
The answer is clear.
It's clear when we simply use synthesis.
When we compare Scripture with Scripture.
What many miss is that, "unless ye have believed in vain," well, that is answered in this very chapter.
Right here, under our nose.
Just keep reading, and the answer appears to us in verses 12 through 14.
Verse 12, "Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?"
Verse 13, "But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen?"
Watch closely.
Here comes the answer.
Verse 14, "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain."
Wait, what?
I thought to believe in vain described those who didn't believe.
If Christ be not risen, the word, "if," watch it now, the word, "if," is key here.
It signifies a condition.
If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
So what does it mean to believe in vain?
Paul said, if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not risen.
Meaning that I lied to you, and my preaching is in vain.
And if my preaching is in vain, then so is your belief.
Why?
Because you believed a lie.
There's our answer.
And it is not that you didn't believe.
That's not the answer.
It's that you believed a lie.
Today we're discussing the fact that no one has ever believed Paul's gospel in vain.
No one.
That's impossible.
Because his gospel is true.
The only way for someone to believe his gospel in vain is if it were a lie.
So, let's not be lazy Bible students and not search the scriptures.
The term, "in vain," will always mean without effect, without the intended result.
But the context can vary.
This is why it's not wise to word search without considering context.
That's for lazy men.
So don't go word search the term, "in vain," take what you learned, run off and misapply it somewhere else.
Truth hidden in plain sight right here in the very same chapter that so many confuse.
Hopefully you're seeing this, the fallacy, the fallacy of what is commonly taught about this.
But hey, we've got to get this right because this is our gospel.
We can't jack around with this.
If Paul commanded us to consider what he said and speak the same thing, how about we do it?
Seems simple enough, right?
But preachers, they come to this verse and say, "to believe in vain means you didn't believe."
Some insist on being ignorant.
If that's you, then go ahead and do so.
I can't stop you.
If Paul can't cure your ignorance, TTR hasn't got a chance.
To believe in vain doesn't have anything to do with someone not believing the gospel.
Get that in your head.
That's not good hermeneutics, and what you're doing is eisegeting.
You're eisegeting.
You're inserting into your, you're inserting your own opinions into God's infallible word.
No, no, no, no, no.
Let's just, let's stick to sola scriptura and keep ourselves out of it.
According to God, the 1 Corinthians 15 to "vain belief" is when someone believes a lie.
Just let it be that.
Just let it be what it is.
It's actually the opposite.
A complete 180 from what some teach.
When we finally come to that place in our Bible studies where we decide to follow context instead of a man, God's word opens up like never before.
When context is allowed to take priority over fallible men, fallible men such as myself, the truth cannot help but burst through.
Believing in vain depends on the speaker, not the hearer.
It's been taught backwards.
It's not, "did the hearer believe what they heard," it's,"did the speaker tell them the right thing to believe."
If what you believed was true, then you did not believe in vain.
And it doesn't matter if somewhere along the way, somewhere down the road, you forgot it.
If you ever believed it, you're saved.
You were saved and sealed.
You can fall down, bump your head, get amnesia, do whatever you like.
If you ever believed the gospel just one time, you didn't believe in vain and you're locked in for heavenly places.
Get in here, look at it, discover this truth for yourself.
For far too long, the preacher has put the burden on you, when in actuality, the burden is on the preacher.
It's his responsibility to show himself to be an approved workman who speaks truth, not lies.
That way, if his hearer hears him preach the gospel correctly, that way, if someone believes what he says, they cannot have believed in vain, because he told the truth.
But hey, if you don't do like those of Berea, test what that preacher says, you might find out you believed a lie that landed you out there in vain beliefsville.
That's next door to the twilight zone.
You've got to get out of there.
You've got to escape.
See, the Bible, this word that I hold in my hand, this precious word of God that's preserved down through the ages, it is axiomatic.
It's self-evident.
It answers itself.
Our job is not to rearrange it and make it fit with our predilections.
My job is to study it, believe it, then convey it in a manner that makes it clear.
I need to use plain speech.
Not mansplain, but Godsplain.
My job is not to privately interpret what I read to make it say what I want it to say.
Today, this, my friend, is happening in record levels, right under your nose.
1 Corinthians 15:2 is vitally important.
It's the gospel.
And here Paul tells us that if what he wrote about the resurrection was a lie, our belief would have been of no value.
There is no value, no benefit in believing a lie.
If you believe a lie, you've believed in vain.
Watch what he wrote next.
Verse 15, "Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ, whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not."
See that?
Don't miss it.
To believe in vain is about the false testimony of the witness and not those they witness, to.
Paul would be nothing more than a false witness if his testimony was that God had, quote, "Raised up Christ, whom he raised not up."
Read it for yourself.
Stop repeating the preacher lie you've learned.
Consider what Paul said, and the Lord will give you understanding in all things.
1 Corinthians 15:2 is the gospel, and here Paul says, "If Christ did not rise, then I'm a false witness with a false testimony, and if you believe the words that come out of my mouth, as a false witness with a false testimony, you have believed in vain."
Friends, we're told not to let any man, Ephesians 5:6, let no man deceive us with vain words.
Vain words are words that are what?
Not true.
Believing in vain is believing words that are not true.
It's about the speaker who lied, not the hearer who didn't believe.
Mm, this is good.
So good to walk in truth.
You see, these false teachings, they get started, then repeated on YouTube, behind the pulpit, TikTok, or at a Bible conference.
Then a few more pick it up, tag, you're it.
And the lie, it makes its way halfway around the world before the truth can get its shoes on.
It reminds me of when I was in track and field, I ran the 50-yard dash, shot put, high jump.
But I guess my favorite was the 220 and 440 relay.
We had a real good team.
If you ever ran a relay race, you know that if the handoff goes bad, it's over.
You don't want to drop the baton or exchange it outside of the marked zone.
You don't want to be disqualified.
Well, today, some teach things that are outside the marked zone of Romans through Philemon, and others teach things inside the zone, but twist it all up, wrest the scriptures.
Hey, they should be disqualified.
They're out there passing along the false doctrine baton.
Then the next guy takes it, runs with it, and passes it to someone else.
Left unchecked, it turns into one big out-of-control snowball.
Okay, we're going to put you back into some more music here in a moment.
So in closing, let me say this.
If you're out there teaching the gospel of 1 Corinthians 15 wrong, please stop.
It's incumbent that we get this right.
We just demonstrated a couple of podcasts ago how in your Bible, when you see, "the faith of God," those words, "the faith of God," it is never God having to have faith.
Never.
Not once.
God is the object of faith, and the object of faith never has to have faith themselves.
So, as good Bible students, let's stay consistent.
We must call it as it is, and not as it appears.
You can come to the words, "faith of God," and run with it, take off without digging in and studying the context, and you wind up making assumptions which leave you in a mess.
Same goes with fallen from grace.
At first glance, the phraseology, "fallen from grace," can appear to describe someone who has fallen into sin.
Both religion, I mean, you've seen this, you've watched this and heard it for years, both in religion, and Hollywood, they are prime examples of twisting this up.
All sorts of news media outlets, you'll often see a story break about an actor, maybe a sports icon, or someone in the music industry, that has fallen from grace.
But to this day, not once has their definition of fallen from grace lined up with what God says about it.
Their definition always has something to do with a person getting caught up in something they shouldn't have been involved in, some sort of sin, but as we broke it down in our fallen from grace four-part series, that's not what it means.
Their fallen from grace is different from God's.
Same goes with the gospel of 1 Corinthians 15:2 that we're talking about today.
Unless you have believed in vain, God's definition of, "to believe in vain," is different from that of most preachers.
A first-glance knee-jerk will have us believing what they say, but you dig a little deeper and you'll find out it reveals something altogether different as we've successfully demonstrated here today.
The magic cure to all the confusion is found in one of the most overlooked Bible verses besides 2 Corinthians 5:19, and it's 2 Timothy 2:7.
2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 7, Paul plainly says, "Consider what I say, and the Lord give the understanding in all things."
But most don't believe it.
Paul's my apostle, you'll say.
I follow him.
Lip service.
That's what that is.
Instead of opening the book for themselves, considering what Paul wrote to us, most are out here heaping to themselves all sorts of teachers who do not speak the same thing.
And they excuse it by saying, "Oh, well, I just eat the meat and spit out the bones."
Oh, okay.
I didn't know that's how our pattern Paul told us to do it.
I didn't know that.
Book, chapter, and verse, please.
No, Paul gives us no such instruction.
Matter of fact, he says the opposite.
"I beseech you that ye all speak the same thing and there be no divisions among you."
1 Corinthians 1:10.
Nothing about, "eat the meat and spit out the bones."
Nope.
Nothing about that.
Nothing about, "agree to disagree."
Paul didn't speak that wimpy language.
No, he said, consider what I say and get this right.
And while at it, find others who speak the same thing you do. Philippians 3:17.
And once you do, mark them.
Mark them for an ensample.
Your pattern.
Man, Paul lays it down, don't he?
He makes it clear.
But most are full of compromise.
Yes, they are.
If we're to keep the unity, folks, if we want to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, well, we'll not only say we follow Paul, but we actually will follow Paul.
Hmm.
What a concept.
We'll consider what he said and start speaking the same thing.
Because there's one body, one hope, one spirit.
And if we'll truly consider what Paul says here, there's no more meat and bones.
It's just all meat.
A carnivore's dream is what that is.
Stop tampering with God's Word, attempting to make it say something it don't.
We're to be speaking the same thing.
We have something that at one time during his ministry, Paul did not have.
You understand that?
We don't see through a glass darkly like he did.
We don't see through a glass darkly.
We see face to face.
We don't know in part.
We know in full.
Some have yet to realize this.
They've yet to realize that we all, all of us, we have all knowledge.
1 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 2, Paul laid it out.
He came to a point where he finally understood all mysteries and all knowledge.
And what did he do with that?
He wrote it down for us.
Yes, he did.
Some use it better than others, but we all have it.
So listen, as one body with one spirit and one hope, let's take a deep dive in this book and start speaking the same thing in unity.
We should have a sense of urgency and stop allowing our speech to be a sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.
If we don't all speak the same thing, how shall it be known what is piped or harped?
Currently, the body of Christ, we sound like the Mayberry town band on Andy Griffith.
Oh, Mayor Stoner, he was too embarrassed to allow them to go to the state capitol to perform and we're much like they were.
Instead of in harmony, we're out of sync and off key.
They weren't ready for the state capitol and we're not ready for the judgment seat.
If the things Paul wrote are the commandments from the Lord, we would do well to follow what Paul wrote.
If, "the Lord give thee understanding in all things," isn't true, then maybe Christ died for our sins isn't true.
"If I beseech ye that you all speak the same thing," if that's not true, then maybe,"by grace are you saved through faith," isn't true.
And if these are the commandments, if you believe that, if you believe that what Paul wrote is the commandments of the body of Christ, why aren't we following them?
Consider what Paul says and the Lord will give the understanding in all things.
I beseech you, brethren, that you all speak the same thing.
Commandments, not suggestions.
Romans through Philemon is our daily iron.
It'll turn you into Popeye the Sailor Man is what it'll do.
Rooted and built up in Christ, established in the faith, and you'll be able to withstand all that the enemy throws your way.
For your marching orders, get in line and fall in with Romans through Philemon.
As we've said from the beginning, once you see it, you can't unsee it.
Through Paul, we've been given the message of peace, assurance, comfort, hope, but most are not aware of this.
And it's our job to let them know.
Not everyone wakes up at the same time, so our job is to keep being the alarm clock.
In case you've gotten sidetracked, as we're all prone to do, I'm here today to first Corinthians 4:17 bring you back into remembrance of Paul's ways.
"Consider what I say and speak the same thing," has somehow gotten translated into, "eat the meat and spit out the bones."
"Let's agree to disagree."
Hey, do you know what speak the same thing means in Greek?"
Speak the same thing.
Same as it means in English.
But some read it, "oh thank you, Paul, thanks for the suggestion."
Yeah, and if you and I had been back there and tried that out on that little fired up first century Jew named Paul, he'd withstood us to the face and said, "Oh, I'm not suggesting anything. The things I write are the commandments of the Lord."
But Paul, can't we just eat the meat and spit out the bones?
Yeah, if you're someone that can't follow instructions, you go right ahead and do that.
But we're to receive understanding in all things.
We're to walk in unity.
But to do that, we first have to actually believe what Paul wrote and stop pretending.
After we believe it, we follow it.
We apply it.
Okay, not certain of your salvation, you can change that right now because of the perfect sacrifice of Christ Jesus the Son our Savior, God the Father stopped counting the world's sins.
Praise God.
So, regardless of what those who are unable to shake their religious mindset try to convince you of, trusting in Christ, that's the only thing capable of saving our sorry soul.
And once we've put that trust in him, what do we get?
We get his life.
That's salvation.
That's what saves us.
Regardless of what religion says, the ones who missed Paul's revelation of the mystery, regardless of what they say, we had forgiveness before we left our mother's womb.
But we did not have resurrected life.
So, receive the free gift of salvation right now by believing on the One that paid the penalty you couldn't pay.
Believe that on the cross your sins were put on to Christ.
Believe that your sins were buried with him.
They buried him in a tomb and in three days he rose to give you eternal life.
Romans 4:25, the Man Christ Jesus was delivered for our offenses.
He was raised for what?
Our justification.
Believe on him and rest.
Just rest.
Grace and Peace.
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