Whenever the Lord designs and desires to bring revival and reformation to His people, the devil tries to fight it and destroy it; have you noticed that? One of the ways that the devil tries to fight it is by bringing in all manner of false teachings, false doctrines and fanaticism to get people confused. We are going to study about that tonight. We are going to look at many texts. Hopefully, we will get a chance to look at some hard texts of Scripture to see what you think about them. Before we do that, we have been advised by a prophet that we should never open the Bible without prayer. We should seek for the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truths. Do you remember that Jesus premised the disciples, "When the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth" John 16:13.

The Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit has to be working on your mind, either in meeting or in private when you are studying it, if you are going to understand it. So, I would like to invite you to kneel with me as we pray and ask the Lord to guide us as we study His Word.

Father in Heaven, we thank You for truth, the precious truth that we find in Your Word and the present truth that You have given to us to understand the times in which we are living. 0 Lord, as we are living in that time that the Bible predicted when every wind of doctrine would be blowing and that Satan would come and send deceivers with such great power that if it was possible, even the very elect would be deceived, Lord, we realize that unless your Holy spirit should enlighten our minds and help us understand truth, we will be deceived with the deceptions of this time. So we humbly pray that Your Spirit will come into our heart and our minds and teach us the truth and give to us a heart to obey and follow You. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

We were studying this morning in our church service from the third chapter of the letter to the Ephesians. By the way, if there are some of you here who are in the process of memorizing various epistles in the New Testament, Ephesians is a good one to memorize. If you have problems being discouraged, before you are through the first chapter, it will just lift you right up above all of that discouragement. It is a wonderfully encouraging book I do not know of any book in the New Testament that so quickly brings a heavenly atmosphere and peace into a person's mind.

"That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height--to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God" Ephesians 3:17-19.

We studied this morning that Jesus said in John 14:6,

"I am the way, the truth, and the life."

If Jesus is dwelling in my heart by faith, then I am walking in the truth. If I am rooted and grounded in love, I will be walking in the truth because love does not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth (1 Corinthians 13).

I asked you the question this morning, Are you rooted and grounded in the truth? I read to you a reference this morning where Ellen White said that less than one third of our workers (not our church members but our workers, that is, our ministers and teachers) are rooted and grounded in the truth. Unless every one of us are rooted and grounded in the truth, we are never going to go through the time of trouble and live to see Jesus come. It will not happen. Every single person who goes through to the end and is alive and ready to see Jesus come is going to be rooted and grounded; let me tell you, every single one; there will not be any exceptions. So, is it important to be rooted and grounded in the truth? It is very important.

How do we become rooted and grounded in the truth? We are going to study that tonight. Look first of all at 1 Corinthians 2:4, 5. Paul says,

"My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God."

The first thing that I have to understand if I want to be rooted and grounded in the truth is: I can never become rooted and grounded in the truth just by studying or gaining knowledge. The Holy Spirit has to work in my mind. Notice what Paul says further down in this chapter in verses 11 and 13.

"For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.

These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but in which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual."

If you are going to be rooted and grounded in the truth, you have to be able to compare spiritual things with spiritual things. Let me give you an example:

Have you ever studied about the 144,000? Have you noticed that among Seventh-day Adventist Christians that this is a topic of interest? And it should be; there is nothing wrong with that Have you talked to people in this world about who they think the 144,000 are? Do you know who many of them think they are? Wet it says that there are 12,000 each of the twelve tribes of Israel and they are virgins. One person says, "Those must be 144,000 young Jewish boys." What is the problem? Well, they do not know how to compare spiritual things with spiritual things. They do not understand spiritual things so they cannot understand what it is talking about; they have no idea what it is talking about We will never understand what the Bible is talking about unless the Holy spirit works on our mind. Look what it says in verse 14.

"But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

So, a first prerequisite if I am going to become rooted and grounded in the truth is that the Holy Spirit must be working on my mind. Are you praying every day when you study the Bible and saying, "Lord, please send the Holy Spirit to teach me the truth as I study"? Does Jesus want you to receive the Holy Spirit to understand the truth? Oh, yes. He promised it; that was the main theme in John 14, 15 and 16. Over and over again Jesus talked to His followers saying, "I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit." We have to open our heart and our minds to the Holy Spirit Let me try to explain it in a way that is easy to understand. If a person is polite, would he come to your door, beat it down and walk in, or would he knock first? Okay, now, is God (I say this reverently) courteous and polite? Oh, yes. Will the Holy Spirit force Himself into your heart and make you know the truth? No, He will not. He will not beat down the door into your heart. Unless you invite Him in, you need not expect that He will come in. That is why Jesus says in Revelation 3:20,

"Behold I stand at the door and knock. [He is not going to beat it in; He is not going to force Himself in. He says, "I'm standing at the door, knocking." If any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in."

What has to happen in your heart before Jesus can come in? What has to come out before Jesus can come in? All moral impurity has to come out before Jesus can come in. The purpose of confession of sin, of repentance, of faith and trust in Jesus, is that through His blood, through His righteousness, our sin will be taken away. Our moral impurity will be taken away, and then Jesus will come in; the Holy Spirit can come in. Unless the Holy Spirit comes into my heart, into my life, there is no chance that I will ever become rooted and grounded in the truth. Paul says that the things of the Spirit of God are foolishness to the natural man. He does not understand it So, the Holy Spirit must come into my heart and life.

"Then as a little child come to God, presenting yourself as suppliant at His feet; for we need not ascend into the heavens to bring Jesus down, nor into the earth to bring Him up; for He is ever near us. He says, 'Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.' How willing is Christ to take possession of the soul temple if we will let Him! He is represented as waiting and knocking at the door of the heart. Then why does He not enter? It is because the love of sin has closed the door of the heart. As soon as we consent to give sin up, to acknowledge our guilt, the barrier is removed between the soul and the Saviour" ST 7/ 29/13.

Now, the devil tries to pervert any doctrine, any teaching. If you study the Reformation of the sixteenth century, you will find out that there was a man, Thomas Munzer, and other people like him, who almost destroyed the Reformation. Luther, to escape the wrath of the emperor and the pope, was hidden in a castle in Wartburg, but at the risk of his life, he left the castle and went back to Wittenburg. Why did he go back? Because the Reformation was about to be destroyed. How was it about to be destroyed? It was about to be destroyed by fanatics. These people believed in receiving the Holy Spirit, but they said, "Now that we have received the Holy Spirit, we no longer need the Bible. The Holy Spirit just tells us direct" What do you think about that? This almost destroyed the Reformation.

If I am going to be rooted and grounded in the truth, the Holy Spirit must be in my mind; but how does the Holy Spirit work? He works through the Word.

"Unless we are intelligent in the Scriptures, may we not, when this mighty miracle-working power of Satan is manifested in our world, be deceived and call it the workings of God; for the Word of God declares that, if it were possible, the very elect should be deceived. Unless we are rooted and grounded in the truth, we shall be swept away by Satan's delusive snares. We must cling to our Bibles. If Satan can make you believe that there are things in the Word of God that are not inspired, he will then be prepared to ensnare your soul. We shall have no assurance, no certainty, at the very time we need to know what is truth" RH 12/18/88.

How does the Holy Spirit work? The Holy Spirit works through the Bible.

Now, this is not our subject tonight, but when I was at the seminary, I spent a month of my time making an investigation of the subject of the Bible. Do you believe that all 66 books are inspired? I believe that all 66 books are inspired. I do not believe that there are any other ancient writings that are inspired. I do not believe in the apocrypha. I do not believe in the apocrypha of the New Testament or of the Old Testament. Now, you do not usually hear of the apocrypha of the New Testament because almost nobody believes in that; it is too wild. But there are many Christians who believe in the apocrypha of the Old Testament. I do not I believe that all of the books in this Bible are inspired (this is the New King James version) and that you can depend on them. I will give you very quickly, without going into a serious study of this, some reasons why Protestants do not believe that the apocryphal books are inspired.

1) The Jews never accepted them as being inspired, even to the present day or any time in the past.

2) Jesus never quoted from them or referred to them as Scripture, never once. They existed in Jesus' day, but He never quoted from the apocrypha or referred to it as Scripture. Never!

3) The apostles never quoted from the apocrypha or referred to it as Scripture.

4) There are things in the apocrypha that contradict the Bible.

We, as Protestants, do not believe that the apocrypha of the Old Testament is inspired, but we believe that all 66 books of the Bible are inspired.

It is through the Holy Spirit working on your mind as you study this Book that you become rooted and grounded in the truth. This Book is referred to in the Bible as the Word of Truth. It is referred to that way over and over again. If you are going to become rooted and grounded in the truth, you have to cling to the Bible.

Now, something comes up right away. This is a fairly good size book It does not look very big because our Bibles are usually in fairly small print. If you took a Bible and you printed it with normal print on normal pages the way most books are printed, it would be a great big book; but we put it on onion skin paper and print it with small print so it is relatively small The Bible is a relatively big book If I must study this Book to be rooted and grounded in the truth, if I am going to be rooted and grounded in truth, does that mean that I am going to have to do some research? Yes, it does. You do not become rooted and grounded in spiritual truth just by coasting through life. One reason that there are so many Christians who never become rooted and grounded in the truth is that they do not take the time to read and studyj4j,et me read you a statement on this.

"We are not safe when we are content to float along with the current, believing because some one else believes. [Have you ever seen somebody like that? They believe it because such-n-such preacher believes it.] The questions of truth that are submitted to us, are of vital interest, in contrast with the idle traditions that are sustained by human authority and church pretension; and we must, through fervent prayer and deep and earnest research, become established and settled, rooted and grounded in the faith, and know, each for himself, that we have the truth. If we are thus established, we shall not depart from the faith when tested and tried, as some have done" RH 9/4/88.

So, is it going to take some research to become rooted and grounded in the truth? Yes, it is. It is an unfortunate thing that there are so many people who, instead of doing the research so that they can become rooted and grounded in the truth, depend upon their feelings. Have you ever meet somebody who depends on their feelings? They put a lot of weight in their impressions and feelings. This has been going on for a long time. In the book The Great Controversy, on page 496, Ellen White talks about what happened in heaven when the great controversy began. It says, concerning Satan,

"All the powers of his mastermind were now bent to the work of deception, to secure the sympathy of the angels that had been under his command."

What was the devil trying to do? He was trying to gain sympathy. Sympathy is a feeling. I have observed the following a number of different times. A man will get mixed up with some error, some deception, and for some strange reason, his wife will get mixed up with exactly the same error in teaching. Have you ever seen that happen? I used to wonder, how does that happen? Two people in the same family both just happen to get mixed up on the very same thing. A large part of what is happening has to do with sympathy. We talk a lot in our families. We gain each other's sympathy; we affect each other's feelings; and that affects the way we think.

Feelings, sympathy--the devil was out to secure the sympathy of the angels.

"Many are the ways by which Satan works through human influence to bind his captives. He secures multitudes to himself by attaching them by the silken cords of affection to those who are enemies of the cross of Christ. Whatever this attachment may be, parental, filial, conjugal, or social, the effect is the same; the opposers of truth exert their power to control the conscience" GC 597.

Through feelings, through sympathy, many people never become rooted and grounded in the truth. They are so greatly influenced by their husband, wife, children, parents, friends or somebody that they love very much that they never become rooted and grounded in the truth.

Well, we have covered several points already. If we want to become rooted and grounded in the truth, the Holy Spirit must be working on our minds. We must understand how the Holy Spirit works through the Word, so we are going to have to do some research of the Word. We are not going to be able to allow our decisions to be made on the basis of feeling. If we do, we will never become rooted and grounded in the truth. But now, let us talk about the person who understands all that He understands that the Holy Spirit must guide his mind. He understands that the Holy Spirit is going to guide his mind through the Word, and he is willing to study. Could he still get mixed up and not be rooted and grounded in the truth? Oh, yes, there are still several ways that the devil can trip you up so that you will never be rooted and grounded in the truth. We are going to look at a whole series of those right now.

We will look at the one I personally consider is by far the most important; then we will look at others that are less important. My brother Marshall used to tell me that he thought that this first one was the reason for almost all fanaticism. I believe that his analysis was correct. Here is the person that the Lord is going to teach.

"The humble He guides in justice, and the humble He teaches His way" Psalm 25:9.

Who is it whom God is going to guide and teach so that they will find out the truth and become established in it? It is the person who is humble. Marshall used to say to me, "1 believe that the main cause for almost all fanaticism is pride," pride of opinion. If I come to the Scriptures (even though I study a great deal) trying to prove my point, it is interesting how I can do that-- find evidence to prove my point Am I humble enough so that I say, "Lord, whatever you want to teach me, I am willing to change my mind on anything, if You show me from Your Word"? Is that your attitude in mind when you study the Scriptures? If it is not, friend, there is no promise in the Bible that you will ever learn the truth, no promise at all. Only the humble are promised divine guidance as they seek the Scriptures for the truth. If I am not humble, if I am proud, I will be led astray.

"The vague and fanciful interpretations of Scripture, and the many conflicting theories concerning religious faith, that are found in the Christian world are the work of our great adversary to confuse minds so that they shall not discern the truth. And the discord and division which exist among the churches of Christendom are in a great measure due to the prevailing custom of wresting the Scriptures to support a favorite theory. Instead of carefully studying God's Word with humility of heart to obtain a knowledge of His will, many seek only to discover something odd or original" GC 520.

Are you trying to find something odd or original? Well, you can keep trying; you might find something, but that is no assurance that you will know and understand the truth. You see, the desire to know something that other people do not know is pride, friend. This is right at the basis of a very great deal of fanaticism. We need to be sure that we are coming to the Lord with a humble heart when we study His Word, when we study inspired writings; otherwise, we have no insurance that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth.

Now I want to look at some practical things having to do with studying your Bible and understanding what it says. I would like to read a statement that Ellen White wrote to physician and helpers in the sanitarium.

"There is no excuse for doubt or skepticism. God has made ample provision to establish the faith of all men, if they will decide from the weight of evidence." Testimony for the Physicians and Helpers of the Sanitarium, 79. (All emphasis supplied)

Now this is a principle that you ought to understand. Do you understand what we mean when we say the "weight of evidence"? Can you explain every single scripture in the Bible that has to do with the state of the dead? Most people cannot But even if there are hard texts of Scripture and you cannot explain every one of them, if you search the whole Bible, could you find the weight of evidence on that subject? Yes, you could. For example, if you go through the book of Job, Psalms, the Gospels and some other places in both the Old and New Testament, you will find over and over again that death is described as a sleep. Is that so? You will just find that over and over again. Well now, let me show you a hard text.

"For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you" Philippians 1:23, 24.

Are you aware of the fact that people who do not believe what the Bible says about the state of the dead use this as one of their main proof texts? You may not be able to explain this text, but you should know what the weight of evidence is and not get confused, even if you cannot explain this text I could not explain this text for many years; I can explain it now. This text involves a mistranslation. In the Greek text, it does not say what it says in your Bible. In verse 23, the Greek word that is translated as between is the word ek, and ek never, ever means between. If you look in a Lexicon at the word ek, it will give you the definitions and then it will say ek could mean between. They prove that it could mean between by quoting this text in Philippians. This text is the only proof in the Bible that ek can ever mean between; otherwise it would never mean that. But the word ek does not mean between; it means "out of." So literally what this text says is, "1 am hard pressed out of the two." What are the two choices? He could remain here in the flesh with them or he could die. But he says, "I do not want to stay here in the flesh with you, and I do not want to die either.

What do I want to do? I would like to have an experience like Elijah had; I would like to be translated and go to heaven. I do not want to stay here with you and I do not want to die, either one. I would like to have an experience like Elijah did and go and be with Christ." That is what he is saying. He did not say he was hard pressed between two things; but that he is hard pressed out of those two things. He does not want either one of those; he wants something else.

However, because of that mistranslation, Philippians 1:23 makes a very handy proof text for people who are mixed up on the state of the dead. But are they basing their belief on the weight of evidence? No. So, one of the principles that we need to remember when studying the Bible, if we are going to get rooted and grounded in the truth, is: What is the weight of evidence? If I have thirty texts that all say the same thing and there is one text that I do not understand, am I going to throw the thirty texts out because there is one I do not understand? No. I am going to take the weight of evidence, even if there is some text that I cannot understand. By the way, there are texts in the Bible that I cannot explain. Are there text in the Bible that you cannot explain? But you can still understand the truth that you need to know if you are willing to take the weight of evidence that you can understand. Let me read to you something about what happened in the Reformation with John Knox. He was talking to the Queen of Scotland.

"Said Mary: 'Ye interpret the Scriptures in one manner, and they [the Roman Catholic teachers] interpret in another; whom shall I believe, and who shall be judge?' 'Ye shall believe God, that plainly speaketh in His Word,' answered the Reformer; 'and farther than the Word teaches you, ye neither shall believe the one nor the other. The Word of God is plain in itself; and if there appear any obscurity in one place, the Holy Ghost, which is never contrary to Himself, explains the same more clearly in other places, so that there can remain no doubt but unto such as obstinately remain ignorant' " GC 251.

So, if there is a text that I cannot explain, what do I do? I look at the rest of the Bible to see what it teaches on that subject John Knox said that the Holy Ghost will never be contrary to Himself; and if there is one hard text that you cannot understand, there will be other easier texts whereby you will be able to understand the truth you need to know on that subject.

I was in a prison ministry once. A man got up and said, "We know that when a man dies, he goes to heaven." I thought, "That is interesting; I wonder how he knows that" He told us how he knew. He knew man goes to heaven when he dies because of what Jesus said to the thief on the cross. "Truly I say unto you today, you will be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43), except he put the comma in a different place. He would say it like this, "Truly I say unto you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." There is a problem with this, though.

"I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth" 1 John 2:2 1.

I used to use this text a lot in giving Bible studies. "No lie is of the truth." The truth cannot contradict itself. If I really know the truth, there will be no other truth that will contradict what I know; is that right? That is right. Now, if you interpret what Jesus said to the thief on the cross, "Truly I say unto you today," that is, right now while we are hanging on these crosses, I am telling you today, "you will be with Me in Paradise." If you interpret that to mean that he was going to be in Paradise that day, you have a direct contradiction with the Scripture, because in John 20:17, three days after the crucifixion, Jesus, talking to Mary Magdalene, said, "I have not yet ascended to My Father." Paradise is where God is, according to Revelation. So, you have a direct contradiction with the Scripture. Are you willing to base your whole belief on one text which is ambiguous and directly contradicts another text? Are you willing to base your whole theology on that? Well, that is the way that man had his theology based. You see, he did not have the weight of evidence at all.

Having to do with the weight of evidence, when somebody comes to me with a new teaching, one of the questions I always ask in my mind is, "Have you looked up all of the texts and all of the statements in the Spirit of Prophecy on this text? Have you checked it all out so that you know what the weight of evidence is?" If we have not, if we do not know what the weight of evidence is, if we have not checked out what we are studying, if we have not looked up all of the texts and all of the statements, we just have not studied enough yet so we can present our new ideas. The Bible teaches that we should study the Bible in this way.

"Whom will he teach knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just drawn from the breasts? For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little" Isaiah 28:9, 10.

So, we look all through the Bible to see what it says on a subject, and when we know the weight of evidence on a that subject, we are going to know the truth. Did Jesus teach the Bible that way? He did. When Jesus was talking to the men on the way to Emmaus,

"Beginning in Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" Luke 24:27.

What was His subject? His subject was Who is the Messiah? And what did He do? He started in Moses and went through the whole Old Testament and showed them in all of the Scriptures the things concerning Himself, the Messiah. When He finished, they saw what the weight of evidence was, let me tell you. They realized that the prophecies that they had been taught had been misapplied and that the kingdom of glory was not going to be set up yet First there had to come the suffering Messiah who offered His life as a sacrifice. They understood this when Jesus finished because they looked at all of the texts talking about the Messiah.

When you are looking at, of the texts and all of the statements, it is helpful if you remember the context Let us talk about context a little bit When we talk about the context of anything, what are we talking about? How something fits within the whole. Let's look at certain kinds of context Is there a grammatical context? Yes, there is. The statement of Jesus to the thief on the cross has a grammatical context So, it has to do with the grammar, what the actual language says. That is one type of context But that is not all.

Can it have a context relating to time? Oh, yes. Many passages of Scripture have a context relating to time. You read in the very first book in the Bible about Noah. Noah had a message. What was Noah's message? if you are going to be saved, you need to get into the ark Was that true? Well, of course it was true, but that message had a context of time. Today we do not have a physical ark that we are teaching men to get in to. That had a context in its time. You can go right through the Scriptures and find many, many examples like this.

Now, context can not only have to do with time, but it can have to do with place. The context can have to do with whether you are using literal language or symbolic language. You have to know what the context is. There are many people who are mislead by all kinds of teaching because they have not looked carefully at what the context of the passage is. I have been amazed to see people reading prophecy and they will skip back and forth between literal and symbolic; they do not even seem to know what they are doing. Let us look at a couple of texts where there is clear context.

"When His disciple had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said to them, 'Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.' And they reasoned among themselves, saying, 'It is because we have taken no bread.' But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, '0 you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread? Do you not yet understand, or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up? Nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up? How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread?--but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees'" Matthew 16:5-11.

So then, in verse 12, finally they figured out the context of what Jesus was talking about. What was Jesus saying when He said beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees? He was speaking in a spiritual sense; He was not speaking in a literal sense. He was talking about their false doctrines. Is that what you read in verse 12? The false doctrines of the Pharisees and Sadducees was that leaven, and it would permeate the whole group if they allowed it in. So, Jesus told them to beware of that leaven, and that word leaven has a context. Now, we have not looked at all of the context; it has more of a context than we have looked at yet. If you look at verses 13 and onward, He goes into who the Messiah is, and that has to do with the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. They were all mixed up concerning their teachings of the Messiah. Here is a place were we have an example of context

While we are here in Matthew 16, let us look at another verse to see if you can figure out what its context is.

"Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom" Matthew 16:28.

What do you think of that? Did you know that there have been Seventh-day Adventist theologians who have gotten so mixed up that they have taught that Christ had originally intended to come in the first century? They use texts like this to prove it and make the Bible contradict itself. What does this text mean? At one lime there was a teacher who was convinced that you could not explain this text He asked the students to explain it, but they were not to use any of the writings of Ellen White. My brother was in the class so he looked down through the context of the text and wrote out the answer. The teacher gave him a "D." He said, "You can't possibly explain it that way unless you have read Ellen White's writings, and I told you not to read them." But Marshall had just looked at the context. What is the context of this verse? Look here in the first part of Matthew 17.

"Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him" verses 1-3.

Who did Moses represent? Moses represented all of the children of God who died and were resurrected. Did Moses die, and was he resurrected? Yes. Who did Elijah represent? Elijah represented all of those who would be alive when Jesus would come. Are you aware of the fact that three of those disciples saw the second coming of Christ in miniature within six days of Christ making that statement in Matthew 16:28? You see, that passage of Scripture has a context. Who were the disciples who did not see death until they saw Jesus coming in His kingdom? Peter, James and John. There is a great deal of evidence in the New Testament that makes it very clear that the apostles understood that the second coming of Christ was not going to happen in the first century, that it would be far yet distant in the future.

So we have to look at the context If we make something literal when it is actually symbolic, we will be misled; we will not be rooted and grounded in the truth. This, friends; was one of the great problems with the Jews in the time of Christ The Jews read the prophecy in Malachi 4:5 where it says that before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, I will send you Elijah the prophet What did the Jews believe? They believed that Elijah, the one who had gone and talked to King Ahab, would come in person from heaven before the day of the Lord. Are people, today, getting literal and symbolic ideas mixed up? Yes. Are you aware of the fact that many people today (some are even Seventh-day Adventists) are reading Revelation 11 about the two witnesses who come down and are killed in the street, and they think that those two witnesses are Elijah and Enoch. There is absolutely no evidence for that at all; it is pure speculation. Well, that is what the Jews thought They took that prophecy about Elijah (they had more evidence than modern Seventh-day Adventists have from Revelation 11), the evidence from Malachi 4, and said Elijah is coming back. What did that prophecy mean? What was the context of that prophecy? Was it actually going to be the person of Elijah? No.

"He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah" Luke 1:17.

Look back at Matthew 17:9. After the transfiguration, when Jesus told the disciples not to tell anybody about the vision on the mount until after the resurrection, His disciples asked,

"'Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?' Jesus answered and said to them, 'Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things. But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him' . . . Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist' " Matthew 17:10-13.

Elijah had already come, but because they did not understand the context of the prophecy, they interpreted it literally when it was talking about the spirit and power of Elijah. Elijah came and they did not even know it until it was all over. Now let me ask you, friend, would it be possible for a Christian today to come right up to the end and not realize what is going on until the plagues fall? It is going to happen to many people because they are not rooted and grounded in the truth. They have read the Scriptures, they have read the prophecies, but they have not noticed the context They are not rooted and grounded in the truth. They do not understand the weight of evidence. They have not looked at all of the statements. We could look at a number of other scriptures and show that it is important to read the context if you are going to know the truth. Let me read a statement from the Spirit of Prophecy on this.

"In order to sustain erroneous doctrines or unchristian practices, some seize upon passages of Scripture separated from the context, perhaps quoting half of a single verse as proving their point, when the remaining portion would show the meaning to be quite the opposite. With the cunning of the serpent they entrench themselves behind disconnected utterances construed to suit their carnal desires. Thus do many willfully pervert the Word of God. Others, who have an active imagination, seize upon the figures and symbols of Holy Writ, interpret them to suit their fancy, with little regard to the testimony of Scripture as its own interpreter, and then they present their vagaries as the teachings of the Bible" GC 521.

Have you ever seen that happen? A person takes the figures, the symbols of the Scripture, and they have an active imagination, so they come up with all kinds of interpretations. It is happening all over today, friends. Everywhere I go I see this happening. Remember, the Bible has to be its own interpreter. Well, let's look at one more. Let me read to you a statement from Ellen White about getting solid arguments.

"We must not have a sensational religion, which has no root in truth. Solid instruction must be given to the people upon the reasons of our faith. They must be educated to a far greater extent than they have been in the doctrines of the Bible, and especially in the practical lessons that Jesus gave to His disciples. The believers must be impressed with their great need of Bible knowledge. There must be painstaking effort to fasten in the minds of all, the solid arguments of the truth; for everyone will be tested, and those who are rooted and grounded in the work of God will be unmoved by the heresies that will arise on all sides; but if any neglect to obtain the necessary preparation, they will be swept away by errors that have the appearance of truth." Ev 364, 365.

Do you know the solid arguments of Scripture for what you believe? Do you know what the Scripture actually says to prove what you believe? We need to, friend. If you say you believe something, you should have a "thus saith the Lord" to prove that it is really so; otherwise, how do you know that you are not mistaken? What does Scripture really say? I have found that when people ask me questions on the telephone or write letters about interpretations on various passages of Scripture, almost always the first question I have to ask is, What does it really say? Let us look at a verse or two and see what you think about this.

Have you ever met somebody who believes that you should be baptized for the dead? If you have some dead relative that was never baptized, you get baptized for them. Let me show you the passage in Scripture where they get that idea and see if you think from this passage that you should be baptized for the dead.

"Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead?" 1 Corinthians 15:29.

What do you think about that? Do you know that there people who, on the basis on this verse (which is the only verse in the whole Bible that talks about baptism for the dead), say that you should be baptized for the dead. First of all, is there any command by the Lord or by the apostles to be baptized for the dead? No, there is not. What does this verse say? "What will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all?" What is Paul's argument? What is he talking about? Look at the context of this verse. This is after a lengthy discussion on this subject and Paul says,

"Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?" Ibid., verse 12.

And then he goes through a whole list of arguments showing that there is a resurrection of the dead. He said that if there is no resurrection of the dead, why is this; why is this; why is this. He gets to verse 29 and says, now, if there is no resurrection of the dead, how is it that there are people who are actually baptized for the dead? What good would it do to be baptized for the dead if the dead do not even rise? Well, that is an interesting line of reasoning; it would be really crazy to get baptized for the dead if there was no resurrection of the dead. But is there a command here to be baptized for the dead? No, there is not. Some people have read something into this that it just does not say.

Let us look at a harder text Have you ever met somebody who says that there was a time when Jesus was not? That is an Arian belief. It was a heresy back in the fourth century and it has come back into Adventism today. Now, here is a proof text for this. It is right in the beginning of the Laodicean message, in Revelation 3:14.

"And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, 'These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God.'"

So, somebody says as he reads that text, "See, that shows that Jesus was simply the first thing that God the Father created." Here is trouble again with what does this verse actually say? The Greek word that is translated as beginning is arche. Now the word arche can have a passive meaning or it can have an active meaning. The person who believes in Arianism wants to give it a passive meaning. The problem is that then you have a contradiction with a whole series of the Scriptures which indicate that Jesus goes from the days of eternity, the same as God the Father. But with an active meaning, it means that He is the origin of the creation of God. Was Jesus the origin of the creation of God? Yes, He was. The Bible says in Ephesians 3:9 that God "created all things through Jesus Christ" Everything that was made was made by Him. He was the origin, the first cause, the beginning of all the creation of God--beginning in the active sense, not in the passive sense; not a beginning of being a recipient, but the beginning, the Creator.

What does it actually say? Friends, we are going to have to get down on our knees and go through the steps, do our study, be humble enough to accept the weight of evidence and look at what the Bible actually says if we are going to become rooted and grounded in the truth. I want to become rooted and grounded in the truth, do you? It is going to take some work on our knees. It is going to take some work in studying the Bible to look at what really is the weight of evidence. Now we have looked very little at the prophecies. There are all kinds of strange teaching going around today about the prophecies because people do not follow these principles. Let's review them.

• Is the Holy spirit working in your mind? If it is not, there is no chance that you will become rooted and grounded in the truth.
• The Holy Spirit works through the Word.
• We must be humble. It is only the humble people whom God is going to teach the truth; that is what the Bible says.

4) Our teaching in what we understand must not be based on our feelings, but it must be based on the weight of evidence. If it is based on the weight of evidence, we have to look at all of the inspired statements on that subject and find what the weight of evidence is.

5) We have to look at what the context is. What is the context that the Holy Spirit had in mind when this text, this word, this verse, was inspired?

6) What does it say?

I preached a sermon a few years ago for prayer meeting on this subject: "Do you believe what the Word of God says or do you believe what you think it means? Which is it?" People come to me and say, "It means this." Wet remember this: the only way you can know what it means is if you know what it says. God always says what He means and He means what He says.

Do you know what it says? Do you know the solid arguments in the Word of God for what you believe? Friends, God is looking for a people today that will just take the Bible the way it reads, for what it says, and look at the context and accept the weight of evidence and live by it I want to be one of those people, do you? In closing, I want to read to you this statement talking about this very subject

"God will have a people upon the earth to maintain the Bible, and the Bible only, as the standard of all doctrines and the basis of all reforms. The opinions of learned men, the deductions of science, the creeds or decisions of ecclesiastical councils, as numerous and discordant as are the churches which they represent, the voice of the majority--not one nor all of these should be regarded as evidence for or against any point of religious faith. Before accepting any doctrine or precept, we should demand a plain 'Thus saith the Lord' in its support" GC 595.

Friend, if you will do that and if you will study on your knees and ask the Lord to teach you, you will become rooted and grounded in the truth. Friend, there is not much time; we must become rooted and grounded in the truth or we will be blown away with the deception of these times. I have many references here I will not take time to read. Ellen White said in her day that few of our people understood and could explain the third angel's message. I wonder if that is still true or have we gotten any better? or have we gotten worse? How is it with you? If you were brought to a court tonight and examined for your faith, could you explain why you believe the third angel's message and what it is? Could you? If you are rooted and grounded in the truth, you could. You could even do it without a Bible. You could quote the verses and explain exactly what you believe.

A little over thirty years ago, I was at Wildwood, Georgia, for a time as a student. We had a visitor, Elder John Tindall, who lectured to us on Saturday night He started asking questions and we would give him the answers. Immediately he would say, "What text of Scripture do you have to prove that?" We knew what the answer was, but we could not prove it Every time we tried to answer he would say, "You cannot just answer, you have to prove it from the Scriptures." Pretty soon everybody was quiet They knew the answers to the questions, but they could not prove them from the Scriptures.

How would it be with you, friend, if you were taken to court tonight and examined for your faith? Could you say, "The Word of God says. . ." and quote it? Are you really rooted and grounded in the truth? or do you just know a little smattering of this and a little smattering of that? I am concerned about this subject because the last four weekends I have been traveling to various camp meetings. I have talked to people and have found that our people are being blown about with every wind of doctrine because they are not rooted and grounded in the truth. Friends, something has to happen to the people who are going to go through to the end. They are not going to make it unless this situation is solved. We have to become rooted and grounded in the truth and know why we believe what we believe or we are going to be blown away with the errors of this time.

I want to be rooted and grounded in the truth, do you? Are you willing to put in the time? Are you willing to really search the Scriptures on you knees and say, "Lord, teach me the truth"? God has promised that if you really want to know the truth, whatever the truth is, if you really want to know and you get down on your knees with your Bible and say, "Lord, I want to know," God has promised to reveal it to you so you will understand it (John 7:17). But we are going to have to put in the time; we are going to have to get down on our knees with our Bibles and pray, "Lord, teach me the truth so that I can be rooted and grounded in the truth and know why I believe what I believe, so that I cannot be pushed around with every wind of doctrine that is coming." And there are all kinds of winds of doctrines.

The only way out, the only way that you are going to go through to the end is if you are rooted and grounded in the truth. Do you want to have that experience? Are you willing to pay the price?

Abbreviations
Ev --Evangelism
CC --The Great Controversy
RH --Review and Herald