Following the Savior's Words

by Dr. Ken Matto
 
(Mark 11:2-3 KJV) And saith unto them, Go your way into the village over against you: and as soon as ye be entered into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon never man sat; loose him, and bring him. {3} And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and straightway he will send him hither. (Mark 11:5-6 KJV) And certain of them that stood there said unto them, What do ye, loosing the colt? {6} And they said unto them even as Jesus had commanded: and they let them go.
 
One of the hardest things we believers have to do is to follow the words of the Savior. In today’s verses we see that the Lord gave His disciples specific instructions on how to procure the colt that He needed to ride into Jerusalem. Jesus told them exactly what to say and when they were approached as to why they were loosing the colt, they spoke the words that the Lord had told them. This shows that obedience to the Lord will always yield the will of God. What if these disciples, instead of using the Lord’s words, went into a long discourse on why Jesus needed the colt? They could have been there for hours. In my own life, I have always been suspicious of “over-justification and wordiness.” Whenever you ask someone a question and they give you the answer 10,000 words later, something is wrong. This method the Lord gives us is also a principle in witnessing to others. There is no need to go into any type of sermonizing when someone asks us a question. In fact, the shorter our answers the better off we are, and the people that we are speaking with will not have to try and decipher the answer they seek within the long answer. Shorter answers are always more acceptable. (James 5:12 KJV) But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.
 
This is why sometimes our speech betrays us. Instead of staying with Scriptural answers, we begin to take the Scriptures and add emotionalism or some other embellishments and then the gospel gets lost in it. I have personally heard Bible teachers ask questions where they were not sure of the answer and instead of admitting it and going to find the answer, they would rather go into a long dissertation which has nothing to do with the question asked, and instead of an answer being given, the questioner is left in total confusion not having their query answered. The Bible calls the Christian “Ambassadors.” This means we represent the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. The Ambassador of any country does not have the authority to make up policy for their government, instead they carry the policy of their government to the government of the nation they are Ambassador to. The policy handbook of Heaven is the Bible, the written Word of God. We are to speak the Scriptures to a lost and dying world and we are not to add our own thoughts and desires to the Scriptures. Our testimony to the world must never be lost in wordiness or adornment with our own ideas. When the Bible speaks with “Thus saith the Lord,” we must never try and soften the stern statements that God makes. We must never play down any of the true doctrines of the Bible by supplanting them with doctrines that we would like to see taught. For example, the Bible does not speak of an Age of Accountability and therefore we must never espouse a doctrine like that which is hatched out of pure emotionalism. If a doctrine does not exist in Scripture, then we are not to teach it. If a doctrine exists in Scripture, then we must teach it without prejudice. The temptation to soften the truths of Scripture must be quashed at the outset, because if we don’t, then we will slide head first into teaching false doctrine. If the Bible says “Election” then it is “Election!” (02/07/03)
 
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