What is Your Authority?
by Dr. Ken Matto
(John 7:15 KJV) And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters,
having never learned?
One of the major reasons that the leaders of Israel hated Jesus so much was
simply because they were living by a corrupted form of religion and here the
Lord Jesus comes on the scene and starts speaking to them in their own language.
I am not speaking of the Hebrew language, I am speaking of the language of
Scripture. They did not know that the Lord Jesus was the author of the
Scriptures since He was the Great I Am of Sinai. He astonished them that someone
could actually know the elements of the Law without having gone to school to
learn them. In fact, even when He was twelve years old the Lord astonished all
the Doctors of the law. (Luke 2:47 KJV) And
all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.
Here was the Great I Am of Sinai standing before them but as a young child.
Here is a great encouragement for every believer.
(Psa 119:99 KJV) I have more understanding than all
my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.
How does one gain more understanding than their teachers? This is not to say
that God does not ordain Bible teachers but it should be the desire of every
true Christian to excel in the study of the Scriptures to the point that they
know more than their teachers. We have the greatest mind in the universe opening
the Scriptures to us and that is the Holy Spirit.
(1 John 2:27 KJV) But the anointing which ye have
received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as
the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and
even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
When you sit down and study the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit will open your eyes
to the truths of Scripture. Some understanding may come from a multitude of
times of searching and studying, Some understanding will come immediately. The
great thing about studying the Scriptures is that you may read a verse a hundred
times and it makes no impact and suddenly you will be reading that same passage
and then it just about jumps off the page at you.
The thing that made the Jewish leaders angry with Jesus was the fact that Jesus
came preaching a pure doctrine and that pure doctrine was a threat to the putrid
religion they were teaching. By the time Jesus came on the scene, the teachings
of the Hebrew Scriptures had become very corrupted. This happens when a
Scripture is made subject to the one who is teaching or commenting. The reason
why there is such a great gulf between the teachings of the unsaved and
teachings of the saved is because the Bible is a closed book to the unsaved
while it is an open, living book to the believer. The Bible is also a closed
book to those who choose to veil the true meanings of the Scripture according to
a system of religion. There is a man on Pal Talk who continually claims that
Proverbs 1:29 is the overriding verse in the Bible which teaches that people
have free will to accept or reject Christ. (Prov
1:29 KJV) For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the
LORD: What this man neglected to do was to use the
Biblical principle of hermeneutics and that is to compare Scripture with
Scripture. If you compare Proverbs 1:29 to Ephesians 2:5, you would see that the
free will interpretation of Proverbs 1:29 falls flat on its face.
(Eph 2:5 KJV) Even when we were dead in sins, hath
quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
Ephesians 2:1 & 5 teach that man is dead in sins and when we know this fact, we
will know why those mentioned in Proverbs 1:29 did not choose to fear the Lord,
simply because dead men have no choice, they are dead. Yet, the erroneous
isolation of Proverbs 1:29 has allowed this man to build his entire doctrine and
teaching on whatever he wants and that is free will.
This is done in the pulpits and the classrooms of the major seminaries all over
the world. If a school or church espouses a certain doctrine, then they will
filter the entire Bible through that system. Look at the system of
Dispensationalism and you will see that the entire Bible is filtered through
that system. Now a person walks into a dispensational church where they espouse
the doctrine of a literal millennium and then asks how they fit one thousand
years into Matthew 24:29. (Mat 24:29 KJV)
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and
the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the
powers of the heavens shall be shaken: If you notice
in this verse, it speaks of a time of tribulation and immediately following that
tribulation the sun is darkened which means the moon will not give its light,
plus the stars are beginning to fall from heaven. This means that the universe
is disintegrating, it does not mean the world is going to go on for another
thousand years. So what will be the answer from those who are the church
leaders? They will approach that person and ask them to leave the church.
The sad thing is that we live in a day when those who espouse the Bible as their
source of understanding rather than a man made system or some theologian, are
being made outcasts in the churches. Church leaders today are more steeped in
the teachings of men than in the teachings of Scripture. When you ask them about
this, they will tell you that they are bible believing Christians. The sad truth
is that if your theology is filtered through a man like Scofield or John Calvin,
then you are a system believing Christian rather than a Bible believing
Christian. Now there may be much Bible taught in various theological systems but
those Scriptures are being filtered through whatever system is adhered to. This
is the normal operations of all churches today. The Bible is a secondary book in
the majority of churches. That sounds wrong but listen to your Pastor to see how
many theologians or other pastors he quotes along with the Bible, if any Bible
at all.
What got the Lord Jesus in trouble with the religious leaders of His day was the
fact that He quoted the Scriptures. What they were living by at that time was a
commentary based religion which could be changed on a whim. The purity of
Scripture has always been the bane of church leaders simply because they are
trained in systems and if they go outside those systems they will be relieved of
their duties. Even in non-denominational churches you will still hear
denominational preaching. How many independent churches teach the dispensational
gospel? By adhering to standard dispensationalism, they are not being
non-denominational. All they are doing is transferring the standard teaching to
a new assembly, which really is nothing new. To teach the same old teachings is
to be status quo. So Solomon is correct when he says there is nothing new under
the sun.
The difference between a true bible preaching church and a denominational
hand-me-down is that the true bible church, when reading the Scriptures comes
across a word like “election” or “predestination” and does not explain it away
according to some system. They face those words and interpret them according to
what the Bible teaches, not a system of theology which the pastor came out of.
Free will people claim that you are God’s Elect if you accept the Lord. Where is
that taught in Scripture? It is taught nowhere but is nothing more than a
filtered teaching. If that Pastor would teach that God’s Elect were chosen from
the foundation of the world, then that would be true bible teaching. We must be
able to discern between true Bible preaching and filtered systematic teaching
with a bias. Once we do that we will be saving our spiritual mind from being
overtaken by a system.
Christians condemn the cults because of their false teachings which will never
lead anyone to Heaven, and that is the way it should be. We need to expose those
cults which promise Heaven but only deliver Hell. Yet, the same principles that
the cults work on are alive and well in the church. Cults are very systematized
and so is the majority of churches. Walk into any Methodist, Baptist, Reformed,
Lutheran, etc., and you will see systems in place. If you go outside their
parameters, you will be asked to leave. This is the plight of the true Bible
based Christian. If you hold to the Bible alone and the Bible contradicts a
church’s creed, confession, or commentary, then you will be asked to leave. It
is a shame that many Christians have been booted out of their churches simply
because they clung to the Scriptures as their authority and that is the major
issue. What is your authority? Is it theologians, commentaries, confessions,
creeds, or a systematic theology? In fact, 165 Christians were kicked out of
Gardendale Baptist Church in Corpus Christi, Texas because they refused and
rejected the Purpose Driven Church agenda coming into their church. They were
literally thrown out because they refused to follow a man and his twisted, new
age based system. Aren’t we supposed to be following Christ and not men? Welcome
to our church!
The Lord Jesus Christ held to the true teachings of Scripture and that went
against the leadership. One reason they feared Jesus so much was because they
were afraid that Rome was going to come and remove the leadership. It is the
same in the church. If a Pastor is making $50,000 a year and all the perks, do
you think he wants to be proven wrong on theology in front of an entire church
and risk losing a cushy position? This is why those who hold to the Scriptures
as their only authority will not be welcomed in the majority of Churches. Don’t
feel bad, you are in good company, the Lord Jesus was ostracized because He held
to the Scriptures as His authority.
So don’t think it strange when the fiery trial of rejection comes upon you for
holding higher the Word of God than the words of men. We have come to a point in
history where the interpretations of men have become the standard by which we
govern a church. The modern Protestant Church has come to condemn the practice
that the Roman Catholic Institution held for many years and that is that only
the clergy were qualified to interpret the Bible. Wait a minute, don’t be so
quick to say amen because in the modern Protestant Church we have the writings
of men which interpret and interpolate the Bible according to a system. So what
is the difference? There principle is the same. The Christians who sit in the
pews are counseled from the pulpit that they need to study their Bibles and when
they discover a legitimate Bible truth which goes against what the church is
teaching, they are castigated and handed church approved literature to change
their views, or better yet, to get them back into the mindless acceptance of the
infallibility of the pulpit. In essence, the Protestant Clergy do the same thing
as the Catholic Clergy. They quash the teachings of Scripture in the light of
their favorite theologian or established teachings.
There are two main reasons why the Protestant Church in modern times has
suffered 90% loss of power. Number One, they continue to foster the use of
modern prostitute versions, and number two, the writings of men have superseded
the Scripture in usage in the churches. Find a church that doesn’t have a book
rack or book table stacked with the Pastor’s favorite theologians. In
conclusion, I want to stress that you continue to study your King James Bibles
and don’t let yourself be diverted into commentary land as your primary source
of material. The Bible is not the final authority, it is the only authority,
because it has no equal on this earth. No commentary is a living book like the
true word of God. Stick with it until your last breath. (3/4/05)