Bible Basics: Part 3 Session with Michael Pearl from the Big Texas Shindig

Transcription

[music]

Michael Pearl: "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." So he said that the scriptures were not privately interpreted.

What does that mean? That means that when God spoke to Isaiah, Isaiah didn't say, "Now let's see, what did God mean by that? Okay, here's what he meant…" Then Isaiah takes his own words and he privately—that is, personally—organizes the thoughts that God gave him into words—Isaiah's words—and speaks those words, and says "Now this is what God said, give or take, something like that."

The end result of what Isaiah wrote down was that every single word came from his mouth, came from the pen, was the words of God, the exact number, the exact words, personally chosen by God. That's what the church has always believed. Even you now, most of you believe that…with one caveat.

God commanded them to write, "And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words, I have made a covenant with thee, and with Israel."

"Write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia," he said unto John. The scriptures were written because God commanded his prophets to write down his words and disperse those words to the people.

God commanded them to write, "…that this word came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Take thee a roll of a book," that's like a scroll, "and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee."

"Then Jeremiah called Baruch…and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord, which He had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book." "They asked Baruch, saying,"—I'm skipping some of the verses here to condense this—"Tell us now, How didst thou write all these words at his mouth?"

So here was an unbeliever who questioned the words Jeremiah had written down, didn't believe they were the words of God because they were an affront to him. So he said, "Exactly, tell me, how did he do it."

"Then Baruch answered them, He pronounced all these words unto me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book." So Baruch was a scribe; he was a secretary for Jeremiah. Jeremiah pronounced the words and Baruch wrote them down and the end result was the Word of God. Now the king had those words destroyed, and Jeremiah went back. God said, "I want you to write them down again, and add some words to them." Those words are what we find in the book of Jeremiah.

"And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished,"—write all the words until they were finished. "And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful." The "words"—again, notice the word words—"the words" you write down "are true and faithful."

Most of you, nearly all of you, believe that in the original autographs the words were true and faithful. What you don't believe is what the Church has believed up until modern times, that God continues to be faithful in the preservation of his words in a book, so that you can hold in your hand, in English, Arabic, Syrian, Hebrew, Coptic, Spanish, French, Russian—many languages, many vernacular languages—you can hold in your hand a book that contains nothing but the words of God, only the words of God, nothing beyond the words of God, and you can believe every word that's in it, because the Holy Spirit is giving it by inspiration at this very hour.

I'm going to prove that. [laughs]

Deuteronomy 31:24, "He said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful." You know, that's not Deuteronomy, that's Revelation. I've got an extra reference in there. I put this together the last day.

"And the writing was the writing of God, graven upon tables." Habakkuk: "And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it."

God said to a prophet, "I want you to write this down and make it such good, clear, plain text, that a fellow can run along with a scroll in his hand, reading while he's running."

[music]