Mike,
Have you read this material on the site posted by Ray. Your questions can be answered
with the information already on here. There is no short answer or shortcut; you just need
to get down and start reading and Praying.
Here is some information you need to understand:http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,6452.msg51860.html#msg51860 Excerpt from: FOUNDATIONAL TRUTHS
[How much truth does it take to set one FREE?]
Those articles on my site, there are 24 installments in the Lake of Fire, about 28-45 pages long each. But they need to be that long, because I need to cover that material in detail so people won’t come back and say, ‘well what about this, I see you didn’t cover that.’ Yes I did. It would be hard to find some major thing in any article and say, ‘well you didn’t cover this.’ Yes I did.
So I’m thinking that some of the Bible studies (which are for the forum because we put them on the forum), need to be a little bit more simple. I need to just get across a couple of profound points or something.
So I was thinking about how people read my stuff. You know they will spend hours reading it and looking up the Scriptures and then they say ‘that’s it, Ray doesn’t lie.’ But they could never do that themselves.
Some people feel, ‘well I wish I could teach like Ray or understand it or at least answer questions to somebody when it comes up. Because I can’t remember these 2000 pages of stuff that Ray has.’
Well it’s there, so you can look it up you know. Say if you want to know about sheol, I’ve got 2 papers, 30 pages each or more and you can look up any detail or any verse that contains that word and it’s there. But still it’s too much for a lot of people.
People have asked me, ‘can’t you just write a summary of all your papers?’ No, I can not. I absolutely can not and I will not.
Today’s lesson is going to be one thing, one idea. I wanted it to be something that will be really helpful to you. I titled it Foundational Truths, how much truth do you need to set one free? In John it says;
John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
That’s what Christ said. Well how much truth do you need? I mean do you have to go 10 years of studying the Bible and then you are about half free? This is talking about freedom in your mind, of not being really apprehensive about what God is like or what happens after death. I mean having a clear picture of this and being free in your mind. This is what people email me about all the time.
I get hundreds and thousands of emails that say, ‘I’m so confused, I feared for my Uncle Harry, I loved him so much, but he was an alcoholic and he died that way. At the funeral the Pastor said he was going to hell.’ What? Then they go on to say, ‘I read your paper and it was like this giant load was lifted off. I saw in the Scriptures for the first time that God isn’t going to burn anybody in hell for all eternity.’
So I want to give you enough information so that, on a rather simplistic level, you can take on any and all comers, TV preachers or people, you know. Because a lot of us run into people who will argue about Scripture and say, ‘yes God is going to torture people, because it says so.’
Is there a way to learn how to overcome virtually all of these hundreds of Scriptures that they throw at you? I think there is. That’s what today’s study is all about.
So many of the doctrines of the church, they contradict each other, they contradict God, they contradict the Scriptures. They don’t care, I mean even a good friend I had 2 years ago, stated that the Scriptures are full of contradictions. No they're not, I have answered a few of those.
Now you don’t need to be a scholar and you don’t even need to be super intelligent. You don’t need any of those things to understand a truth.
Now here is a good Scripture.
Luke 10:21 “In that hour …”
That hour happened to be when Christ sent out His disciples. He said, if these people would have demons to cast them out and if they are sick to heal them and to teach them about the kingdom of God. And when they returned;
“…Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent (now He talking about the religious leaders, the Scribes, the Pharisees, the Zealots and all those), and hast revealed them unto babes…”
That word babes doesn‘t mean babies, in the Greek babes means minors, like teenagers - young people or an older person, but one that is not formally educated and learned in a lot of things.
“…even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Your sight.”
So in fact it is better if you are not too smart and not too successful if you want to understand the Scripture. Why is that? Because this is what we read in I Corinthians.
1 Cor 1:26 For ye see your calling, brethren (he is talking to the church at Corinth and he said look at yourselves), how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
Okay you see your calling and not many of those…
1 Cor 1:27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
Now why does God do it this way? Well that’s just the way God does things. He likes to do things that way. He likes to make big things out of little things.
1 Cor 1:28 And base things of the world, and things (he’s talking about people not physical things) which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not (in other words, if we say it in the vernacular - those that are nobodies, the absolute nobodies), to bring to naught things that are:
And the reason for all this? Next verse…
1 Cor 1:29 That no flesh should glory in His presence.
One of the requirements to follow God properly is to be humble. It doesn’t mean you have to be weak livered, shy, bashful or insecure it doesn’t mean any of those things. It just means humble, know who and what you are, we are FLESH! We start out carnal flesh, carnal and fleshly - meat - Chili Con Carne - Chili with meat - carnal.
We read in Romans 8 that the carnal mind, the way you think with the natural mind, is enmity against God or doesn’t like God. When you want to do a lot of dirty nasty things, when you want to lie and cheat other people, when you want to be a drunkard or be on drugs or whatever you want to do. You don’t want to be thinking about God when you do those things. Why? It’s uncomfortable! It says with such a mind you are not subject to the laws of God.
Rom 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
george
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