Stop Debating and Start Obeying

Hey, this is Dr. Ray Self. Thank you so much for tuning in to my show, episode 205. I cannot believe I've done 205 episodes of Self Talk. Today, I want to talk about something critical about God. We spend a lot of time arguing over the Bible, do we not? And everybody has different opinions, “you must do this, you have to believe this,” and it causes division between the churches, between the denominations, between people, between families. But the answer, I think, is very clear in the Bible to all the arguments and to all the debates. What does God want? Stay tuned and find out. This show is brought to you by the International College of Ministry, enrolling right now. Get your degree in ministry, theology, or Christian counseling at icmcollege.org. God bless you, and thanks for listening.

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Welcome to my show, Episode 205. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for today. I thank you for everyone listening to this show. As they download it and hear my voice, I pray that my voice would speak the truth that your Holy Spirit would speak through me and open up the ears of anyone listening to hear what you want them to hear and know what you want them to know through this show. In Jesus’ name. Amen. 

I– I've got to be honest with you. I get grieved sometimes just flipping through social media. I, I have a tendency to be a little ADD, and I flip through a lot of stuff, and I hear a lot of teachers and a lot of uh, ministers and pastors, and they all have so many different opinions of God and the Bible and scripture; and it seems like it's just a constant argument and debate. And they're also very confident, you know, I mean, listening to a guy just recently, “You have to be baptized to be saved. If you're not baptized, you're not saved,” and he's arguing with that. And then you got people arguing with him and ar– arguing against him and for him. Then there was somebody arguing about the Sabbath day. “The Sabbath day is Saturday; it is God's requirement for us, this is what we have to do.” And then there was a, a man talking about tithing, how critical that is, and another man talking about how tithing is not in the New Covenant, it's not part of the New Covenant. And then we had uh, the Reformed Theological people talking about predestination and how God has already determined through His sovereign will what's going to happen. He gives us this irresistible grace which causes those who He has chosen to be saved. And then there's people arguing in– about pre-tribulation rapture, mid-tribulation rapture, post-tribulation rapture. And what's sad is they get kind of egotistical about it. And not only argumentative, but they– the people who disagree with them, there's a put down, and there's some sarcasm and um some intellectual superiority and uh, baiting and um, sarcasm and criticism, and…it's just a lot of stuff going on…And um…you know, and, and I, I don't agree with a lot of what I hear– and then, you know, you have the Catholics arguing that they are the only true church, that they are the church that Jesus actually established and Peter is the, the original Pope and all the popes have descended from him and they got that, that argument. Then the people arguing that that's absolutely false, and it's just constant. And you go, “Who do you believe? Who do you believe–” Oh, the Mormons. Gosh, the Mormons have been on there about, you know, their, their true religion. And then the people arguing about some of the crazy stuff that God was actually– they believe God was married and God one time was a human who became a God and, which to me is kind of crazy and stuff. But if you get what I'm saying is, there's just a lot of arguing. And, and everybody says, “I've got the truth–”  “No, he has the truth–” “No, she has the truth.” Well, who do you believe? What do you want? 

Now-- excuse me, I got, got a cough here. Just a minute…Oh, that was a good cough. You know, this is going to sound ridiculous, but it reminds me of golf. You say, “Golf?” Well, there are hundreds of golf teachers on social media all teaching the right method to play golf and to swing a golf club. And so many of them contradict with each other. It's like, well, who do you believe? It– it's almost like, like…all these medical opinions that are online. Remember, during COVID, who do you believe? Vaccine's great, vaccine's terrible. Mask is great, mask is terrible. Who do you believe? Who do you believe? Well…Now listen, I'm not going to claim that I'm the world's greatest the– theologian. I do have a doctorate in theology, and I do think I have an understanding of the word of God and, I could debate all these guys, um, and I could argue, and I think I could make really good points, but I hate to argue. I hate the conflict, I hate the stress of it. I know people that like to argue, and they get enjoyment out of it. I don't– do not get enjoyment out of arguing. You know, I know what I believe, and I believe what I believe is correct, although I've had God show me different things, and I have been wrong. I'm not, not perfect, but I think I'm very solid theologically, I do believe I am. 

But the key to God, the bottom line, is everybody's seeking the truth. Well, the bottom line is God has something for us, right? The Bible is His instruction book for us, but everybody interprets it differently. What does God want from us? How do we please God? How do we know what is correct and what we're supposed to do with everybody telling us, “You got to do this,” “no, don't do that, this is the way,” “no, that's not the way, this is correct,” “no, that's correct.” What do you do? Should you tithe? “No, tithing is, is Old Covenant, it's not in the New Covenant.” What if you– what if I work on Saturday, am I disobeying God? I heard one dis– “Oh don't– can't, can't ever remarry if you're divorced,” you know, all this stuff. And it gets irritating. 

And so the answer– I'm going to give you an answer, and I'm–  this maybe sound confident, but I believe the word is very clear. What is the answer? I'm going to give you the answer. This is what God is wanting from you. The bottom line is, all these people arguing. They're arguing, “This is what God wants.” They're arguing, “God wants you to tithe, God wants you to, to observe Saturday as the Sabbath,” uh, “God wants you to know that the Catholic is the, the true church” or the Mormon Church, or the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church, I don't know which one it is God wants you to know this. Well, I'm gonna tell you what God wants you to know, and it's in the Bible. Now hear me very closely, this is very important for you to understand. Jeremiah 31:33. Now, just listen, and I'm going to explain it to you, and it's going to give an answer to what does God want from you today? How do you please God? What does God want? Jeremiah 31:33, “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after these days, says the Lord.” Now, this is a prophecy. Jeremiah's prophesying about the future. So, “‘This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds, I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people,’” okay? All right? Then he goes on to say in verse 34, Jeremiah 31:33 and 34, “No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brothers, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” Well, obviously talking about the forgi– forgiveness of sins. He's talking about the New Covenant when Jesus comes. But he says interesting– he says, “I will write my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” Well, the law of God is God's requirements, right? Where is He going to put it? He's going to write it in our minds and in our hearts. 

So now let's flip to the New Covenant, and we go into the book of Romans, and I believe this is Romans chapter 8, and I want to go there real quick. In Romans chapter 8, couple of key scriptures. Romans 8, chapter 4, “that the righteous judgment, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit,” okay? “For those,” verse five, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, those who live according to–” “live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.” So he's talking about those who walk not accord– not according to our flesh and our natural tendencies, but we walk according to the Holy Spirit. Then, if you go down to uh, verse eight, those who are in the flesh can't please God. That means if you're in the flesh, that means doing the natural things, not listening to the Holy Spirit. But if you keep going down, verse– key verse, key verse, verse 8:14. Chapter– Romans chapter 8, 8:14, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” God wants us to be led by the Holy Spirit. He said in the Old Covenant, He would write His law - His law is His requirements, His law is what He wants from us, right? He's– now, He puts everything of Him, He gives to the Holy Spirit who lives within our heart. So, what is He saying here? He's saying in the New Covenant the– “My requirements are met not by living naturally in your flesh, but by living by the Holy Spirit.” 

What does God want us to do instead of arguing theology and arguing if the Sabbath is the right day and, and do we tithe, do we not tithe? There’s the Catholic Church, the one true church– what about those Mormons? What about those Baptists? He wants us to listen to and obey the Holy Spirit. And when we listen to and obey the Holy Spirit, we are doing what God wants us to do. You could argue till the cows come home - excuse that expression, I'm from Tennessee - but what He wants from you. See, He wrote the law upon our heart and then He says and we shall all know Him. Through the Holy Spirit that's living inside of us, we know God. We know what God wants, we can know what God needs, we can know what God desires, we can know the direction He wants us to go. It's all about the Holy Spirit. 

So now, instead of the law being something you had to read on tablets, the law now  - which is God, His requirements - is inside of us. It's not a tablet. Now, the Bible is good to read, and we should listen to the Bible, okay? God speaks through the Bible. But the Holy Spirit inside of us is God directing us. It's almost like…you remember when you were young, and you had your parents - let's say your dad. And it's almost like, did you want– if your dad wrote out a bunch of instructions on a piece of paper, “Son, this what I want you to do: I want you to take out the trash, I want you to mow the yard, I want you to trim the hedges, this is what I want you to do, okay?” And he, he wrote this out, and you read this, and you say, “Okay, this is what my dad wants from me.” Or what if your dad’s standing right there, and instead of the written piece of paper, he begins to talk to you and says, “Son, let me tell you what I really want. This is what I want you to do. You don't have to mow the grass today, but maybe if you'll mow it next week after it rains and uh, when you have time, I want you to trim the bushes, but um, if you don't want to do it right now, that's perfectly fine.” In other words, your da,d who is there and alive, can talk to you personally and override anything that's been written. Now, I'm not saying what he wrote is not true, and I'm saying God's word is true, but if you want to know how to please God, how to obey God, what does God want for all these arguments? Because see, if you're trying to determine what God wants by listening to your favorite teacher, your favorite theologian, because, it's going to be confusing because they're all disagreeing with each other. There's this constant disagreement, and you're trying to choose who you want to believe. If you believe the Holy Spirit, what He's telling you, and you learn how to listen to Him and recognize His voice, you will never go wrong. God will be happy, you'll be happy, you'll be fulfilled, the angels will be rejoicing, your life will be a whole lot better. 

What does God want from us? He wants us to be led by and obedient to Him who is inside of us. The Holy Spirit is the Trinity. God is our Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. It's all God. God's inside of us, giving us instructions, telling us what's right, He's telling us what's wrong, He's telling us what's good, He's given us power, He's given us authority, He's telling us how to beat the demons, He's telling us how to, how to prosper, he's telling us how to overcome any assignments against us, everything we need for life and godliness. And as Peter talked about, comes through the knowledge of Him, Peter said, and the knowledge of Him is written inside of us because there's the Holy Spirit. So when you are led by the Holy Spirit, you're right. You're right all the time. Now, here's a little bit tricky part because sometimes we don't hear the Holy Spirit so well. Our own thoughts get in there, and we're not sure, or else we…don't– we…He's talking, that still quiet voice, and we override Him with our own noise. And so sometimes we have to, we don't quite get what He's saying, but I know this with practice and with diligence and with prayer, you can learn to hear God's voice very clearly. Jesus said, “My sheep know My voice, and they follow Me.” And that's a learned habit and a learned skill. And when you do that, you're on the right track regardless of all these theologians and their, all their arguments about “You have to do this, don't do this, better do this, can't do this.” Instead of all those arguments, you're going to be right, you're going to be what– God wants you to do, you're obeying Him when you're led and obedient to the Holy Spirit living within your heart. Amen. 

That's what I wanted to tell you today in Episode 205. I hope this show has been a blessing to you. I think it's an important show. Share it with someone, share it with someone, tell people about it, I'd appreciate that. God bless you, thank you for listening.

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In closing of the show today of Episode 205, I just wanted to pray for you. Heavenly Father, I thank you for everyone…who's tuned in to this show, listening to it on whatever device they're listening to. I pray, Father, that your Spirit, the Holy Spirit, will be loud and clear to anyone who tuned into this show. Lord, forgive us for ignoring your voice, or crowding out your voice, or not listening to your voice. Lord, help us to know when you're talking to us. And Lord, help us. Give us the courage and the fortitude to be obedient to your voice of the Holy Spirit, your Holy Spirit residing within us. I thank you, Lord, according to your word, you have made us a temple of the Holy Spirit. I praise you for that. I thank you for everyone listening to the show today. I thank you, Father, and uh, I thank you, there's, there's somebody listening named um, Angel– Angela, and uh, the Lord's touching you now, in Jesus’ name. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Lord. And I lift up Nathan what you're going through now, Father. Touch Nathan, heal Nathan in Jesus' name. Holy Spirit, again, make your presence known to all of us and forgive us for ignoring you when we should not ignore you, because you will always lead us in the right direction. You are God. We give glory to Jesus. We pray in the name of Jesus. And I thank you for everyone listening to the show. Amen. Thanks again, folks, I really appreciate you listening. If you'd like to sponsor me, that would really help me to do this show, to continue this show. And best way to do that is that…my PayPal account, icmcollege.org/donate. Uh, I appreciate you very much. Thank you so much for listening. Be sure and share and subscribe, and tell your friends about it. Thanks so much, and God bless you.