 This verse applies to Israel. This verse applies to the church. This verse applies to that king. This verse applies to that people. How do I know which parts of the Bible apply to me and which ones don't? There is a reason why God has given us all of his word for us to grow in. He says to grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord. As a matter of fact, Paul says that he says that all scripture is inspired. All scripture is inspired by God and possible for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the men of God may be adequate equipped for every good work. But does it also say that all scripture applies equally? No, it does not. There are some passages that just do not apply to us. There are some times where he says something to let's say for a particular king. I'll give you 15 years. Well, we don't apply that to our lives, do we? There are times where the Bible tells someone to go and take these people and to utterly destroy them. Well, that's not for us either. How do I know then which passages apply to me that I could use, which one applies to someone else, and that I just simply learn from? How do I know? A couple of things need to be taken into account. Number one, all of what he's given, he's given for us to learn from, either if it's applied directly, primarily, or if there's a secondary application. For example, he says in Romans 15.4, he says, for whatever was written in earlier times, was written for our instruction so that through perseverance and encouragement of the scripture, we might have hope. That's just simply telling us that we can look back and see and have encouragement and hope, because one, what God has done, but then also two, to see what not to do. We have plenty of examples of men doing things on their own without God. Remember, Jesus makes a statement, apart from me, you can do nothing. And so we have an example, plenty of examples of people who go without God on their own, and we see the fate of that. That applies then, and we see that also even in our lives today. But what also needs to be remembered is that God does not change his work. We can take comfort in his promises that he has. He's not going to change his promise. If he's made a promise, it either has come to pass, or it will come to pass just as he says. As a matter of fact, he says that my covenant, I will not violate, nor, and this is important, will I alter the utterance of my lips. Meaning he will not change. That's literally what the word for alter means. He's not going to change. He's not going to differ in any sort of way. He's not going to make it fit to where it doesn't fit originally, but he's put someone else in his place, or he's changed it. God knows the end as well as the beginning and everything in the middle, and even what could happen. This is God we're speaking of. And so when he declares something, it is going to come to be exactly how he says. So he's not in the ballpark, closest good enough, sort of God. No, he is precise. So when he gives us his word, he intends for us to follow his word. As the word says, your word have I hidden in my heart? Why? So I may not sin against it. The question is though, how then do we know which passages are for primary application? Which one are for secondary applications? Which ones are descriptive? Which ones are prescriptive? Meaning that which ones are we told to do? Before I give you a couple of rules to kind of live by, let me give an example. Someone asked, what about Eve? Eve was told that her desire would be after her husband. But how do we know then though, that's only for Eve and not for all women? Well, God does say in Genesis 316 to the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply your pain and childbirth in pain. You will bring forth children yet your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. Question. Here's how we can see some things even without seeing other verses. Do we see this happening now? Do we see women bringing forth children in pain and childbirth? We do see that. That's not the most pleasant activity that a woman can think of. It's joyful, the experience of what comes after, but the process, not so great. But it's that last point that is the issue, yet your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. The issue is though, is this reiterated anywhere else in the Bible? Well, sure, there are plenty of passages that we see that this order that God has ordained for men and women, we see that reiterated over and over again. We see that as it relates to running the church in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. We also see this in 1 Timothy 2, 1 Corinthians 11, and then certainly in the passages like Ephesians 5, 22, 23. And so we see this being reiterated. So if the Bible reiterates something that previously would not have been known if it had not been reiterated, we can understand, we can take for sure that that passage is to be applied evenly across the board to all people, especially if it's not stated specifically to a certain group. In other words, if God is not saying, the right is not saying to you or sometimes to you only, this is for you, we can get an indication just by context and who and what is writing and who's been written to, which takes us into some of the rules that we need to look at. First of all, who was writing? Who was speaking? Who's been written to? Who's been spoken to? And then why are they writing and why are they being spoken to? And then also, this is important, when is this happening? It's vitally important to understand that if something is being stated, when it's being stated and what was stated previously. Because here's the question. Did the writer or the speaker intend for the audience to understand it? How did he understand it? How did he take anything that was given to him, either by God or from someone else, and how does he intend for anyone else to take it? Did the audience understand what was being spoken of? When Moses states that in six days you shall work and on the seventh day you shall rest. And then he equates that to the six-day creation. How do these people understand six days? Well, they understand what a day is and they understand what the number six is. And so they understood that six literal 24-hour cycles would have been it if someone were to say, well, no, he didn't mean that. Then it would have been up to them to explain how then would these people have understood six days. Remember, we are given languages as a form to communicate. We communicate with the full expectation of people to understand what we're saying and then to treat our words as though they have meanings. Words do have meanings, whether it's English, whether it's Greek, whether it's Hebrew, even figures of speeches are given for meaning. If we say it is scorching outside, it's burning up. We understand it's not literally on fire outside, it's just hot and temperature. If we say, hey, that's cool, we understand that we're not necessarily speaking of the temperature, but that's pretty cool, that's pretty nice. We like that. And so since our words have meaning and God is speaking to us in our words using languages, he intends for us to understand those things and to apply them. But the issue again is how do we apply them? Well, again, oftentimes we need to look at context. Who is speaking? Who has been spoken to? Why have they been spoken to? What's happened previous? Is this part of some sort of culmination of a prophecy? Is this a fulfillment of something? Which is why we bring in though? When? When are these things happening? When the children of Israel are being put out of the land in Jeremiah, he's telling them about it. Where does that come from? Is that a culmination of something? Well, sure. God has stated before, even previous to them, entering the land that He's going to put them out. And why? And then we can go and see. They did exactly what God said they would do and would be the cause for them to be put out. And so it makes sense when we read Jeremiah, we understand what's happening. Now I want to give you guys something, a tool that I think is vitally helpful so that you can understand what's happening when it's happening. Two different timelines that I think will really help you. One, an Old Testament timeline and a New Testament timeline. Notice in the Old Testament timeline, we have things divided up between the chronological books and then we have the complementary books. The chronological books being Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, and so forth. These are kind of the history, the order of how things are written, even the approximate date. And then we have complementary books to them. So for example, the Book of Exodus, we have complementary books to it, such as Leviticus and Deuteronomy. They also complement Numbers as well. Then we see we have the prophets, which is also important, because sometimes we have divided our prophets into major and minor prophets. We should not do that. What we should in fact do, divide them up or to see who the prophet is prophesying to. So for example, in the Old Testament, we have those two prophets who prophesy to the northern kingdom when the kingdom is divided, that being Amos and Hosea. But then we've got the majority of, or a larger portion, of prophets prophesying to the southern kingdom, to Judah, that being Joel, Micah, Isaiah, Zephaniah, Bacchus, and Jeremiah. What could they possibly be in prophesying to? And then also when were they prophesying to the southern kingdom? Continuing on, we've got those that are prophesying during the exile, those that are prophesying during the restoration. And then we also have those prophets who prophesied to the nations, to the Gentile nations. Nahum, Obadiah, Jonah, that are prophesying or bringing word to God, of God to Jews, but to Gentiles. And then similarly we have the Old Testament timeline. We also have a New Testament timeline that kind of gives us an understanding of when they were written and some of the major events that happened at that time. We see also there's here Paul's, the Pauling Epistles, and we can also see here which doctrinal issues are covered in certain books. I think that's also vitally helpful. We have the General Epistles, the Pauling Epistles, and so forth. And so this helps to understand why. Well, when someone makes a statement that you might see someone who's kind of more progressive who will say that Paul evolved in his understanding of women, and so he would say that I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over man, but then he'll come back later and say that in a later book that men and women are equal, there's no, there's no difference between or distinction between male or female. And they'll say, see Paul has evolved. The problem is, though, when we look at the chronology of the books when they were written, we'll see that, wait a second, Paul makes a statement about men and women and there being no distinction before he makes the statement that women should not have or could not have authority or a man to teach. And so that would help to nullify some of these spurious arguments that someone might bring up. And so one question needs to be how would the audience have understood this? How did they receive it? Did the writer or the speaker expect them to understand? Well, God had not given a spirit of stupor or had veiled himself in his words or his writings to the people prior to him speaking parables, and so there'd be no reason to believe that God expected them to not believe or to heed his word. He, as a matter of fact, he commanded them to listen to his words. Something else we want to look at and see is, because there is a distinction between Israel and the church, well, which things are for Israel, which things are for the church, which are for both. One way to see is, is there any sort of iteration of this statement after the cross? Meaning, is there a specific command after the cross that's given to everyone? Previous to the cross, tithing was required. Previous to the cross, obeying the Sabbath was required. Previous to the cross, a lot of other things were required. The issue is, were they reiterated, were they spoken to the people after the cross? The reason why that's important is because if these people who had not heard of what was spoken before the cross, how would they have known how to follow God's rules, his ordinances, if they weren't specifically spoken? So the Church of Corinth, the Church of Ephesus, the Church of Philippi, how would they have known to do certain things if they weren't told? And that's the issue. If we see some of the Old Testament commands given, being reiterated in the New Testament, then we can safely say we should go ahead and obey those. For example, have one God that's spoken of in the Old Testament, but it's certainly spoken of in the New Testament. Now, there can be some issues in terms of which one should be applied directly to us. Wouldn't which ones have a secondary application? Which ones we don't apply at all, but we can learn from who's being spoken to. For example, the book of Hebrews is clearly written to Hebrews to Jews, and you'll see a clear Jewish theme from the beginning to the end. It's speaking about how Jews have placed their faith in Christ, but their concern is towards the Old Covenant. Because remember, the majority of their existence has been the Old Covenant and living under the law. And so to move away from that will be difficult. And so he is writing. The writer is writing to comfort them, to let them know that you do not have to go back and worry about what was done in the Old Covenant, because something new has been done. Now he's writing to Jews, but can Gentiles also learn from that? And are there some truths that are given there that are also truths universally? Sure there are. And how we know so is because what's being reiterated as a truth, as a fact, it's also been stated in other books. If you see a theme across other books, a statement, a phrase, a command across other books, well, the rest assured, those are universal and those before the entirety of the church. The Jews were told not to eat certain animals, not to do certain things. Why? Because they were called unclean. The issue is, can we also eat those animals? Or is there a prohibition for us? Well, remember, if we go back and look, the Bible says they are unclean to you. So they couldn't eat certain things because they were unclean to the Jews. However, we see later, specifically with Peter, that he says, do not call what I've cling unclean, or call it uncommon. And then he also adds, if there is prayer or thanksgiving over the food, to which we get our modern day prayer from, saying grace over the food. So we see that that particular prohibition then is no longer in play, at least for us Gentiles. A passage that gets brought up a lot, I bring it up a lot and folks will ask, is this passage just for Israel, such as Ezekiel 36, where he says, I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. Well, Corey, how does that apply to us as Gentiles? Does it apply? And I would say yes, even though he's speaking specifically to Israel, the issue is, is this reiterated elsewhere? Well, all throughout the Old Testament, it's still reiterated, but it's still about Israel. Jeremiah 32, 39, and 40, him putting his spirit in them, and those who he puts his spirit in, they won't turn away from him, nor would God turn away from them. Well, how then does that apply to us? Well, Jesus brings the same thing up, the same two elements that are brought up in Ezekiel 36, water and spirit are brought up in John 3, about someone being born again. The issues of someone being born and the word that's used, there is also a scribe to Gentiles. Jesus makes his point in John 1, and so whatever he's speaking of, about a person being born of the spirit in John 3, he says, so it is to everyone who has been born of God or born of the spirit. And he speaks about this in John 1, that it's to whoever, those that are believing happens to be those that are born. And we get this John reiterated, he says in John 1, John 5, 1, he says, all the ones that are believing or whoever believes in the Greek, it's the pasta, the pisto, one. So all the ones that are believing that Jesus Christ is born of God. He's the same word being born. And so from there, we can see that even though he's speaking specifically to Israel in Ezekiel and in Jeremiah and in Deuteronomy and other places, he also makes us apply to Gentiles. And so to get an understanding as to how we apply these, we want to see if these things are reiterated. That's one thing we want to look for. How does the writer, who's the writer or who the speaker, who are they speaking to? What's the context? What did he tell them to do? Did he tell them not to do anything? If it's a prohibition, is this prohibition reiterated after or later on to other people? Is this something that was given during the law? If this is an aspect of the law, well then obviously it would not be a tenant going forward unless it is reiterated. And so the question is, does the writer intend for the person that's hearing it, the reader or the audience to understand it? And if so, how so? How did they take it? Because if they took it one way, but then we come back and give an abstract or obscure understanding of it, though we weren't there, now we are imposing ourselves on the text and making ourselves the intended audience when that was not the case. It's true that both of us can gain understanding those who were there originally as well as us. And if there's a difference, we might want to work to reconcile the differences because you and I would agree, it's possible to be in a room full of people, in a world full of billions and speak specifically to one person or to one group and have the other group not being involved or I could speak to one person and have it for everyone. I can speak a universal truth but be saying it to everyone. But it's also possible to have it only intended for that one person even though everyone else hears. And so guys, I hope this helps. All the passages are there for our benefit, for our growth, but all of them are not there for our application for us to use. Now, as we say, there can only be one interpretation. There can be many applications and make sure though that the application that you use is what the Bible is after. If the passage is not for you, well then the only application could be is just to learn from someone else's either growth or someone else's failures. And as Paul tells us, to teach what accords would sound doctrine. Amen.