• Scripture: II Cor. 4:2
• Broadcast Date: 09/14/2015

The apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthian Christians, warns them of men who “handle the Word of God deceitfully”.  (II Cor. 4:2).  When he refers to them as “deceitful” he means being dishonest.  Distorting or deceitfully handling the Word of God.  Let me mention four ways this is done.  First of all, that happens when they deny that the Bible is the Word of God.  Sometimes these false teachers will declare that none of the Bible is true while others will teach that only parts of the Bible is the Word of God.  Either way is deceitful.  The Bible is all the Word of God, period.  We don’t pick and choose what we want, we take it all as from God, which is the truth.  Secondly, we deceitfully use the Word of God when we do not preach it.  All too much preaching is philosophy, little stories, personal illustrations and the like, but never preaching God’s word in it’s fullness.  The true prophet will preach the Word of God in season and out of season.  St. Paul instructs the young pastor, Timothy, to “Preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season.”  (II Tim. 4:2).  When a pastor stands behind that sacred pulpit and preaches anything but the Bible, he is deceitfully using the Holy Word of God.  A third way to desecrate the Word of God is tamper with it, that is, to leave out parts of the Bible.   Like, for instance, the doctrine of hell.  Some so-called pastors never so much as mention it, let alone preach a sermon on it.  But hell is in the picture when you come to the Word of God.  As a matter of fact, Jesus taught more about hell then He did heaven.  He did so because He wanted to warn people of the fact.  After all, He suffered, bled and died on a terrible cross to make a way of escape from hell by believing and receiving Him as their Savior.  Remember, Jesus told us,

“He believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”  (John 3:36).  That is as plain as day, yet some pastors never preach it, never so much as mention it.  That, my friend, is deceitfully handling the Word of God.  The fourth way that pastors handle the Word of God deceitfully is to misinterpret the Bible.  God tells us to “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth.”  (II Tim 2:15).  When we study the Bible we study the context, the person to whom the word is given, the message it intends to convey.  God will never contradict Himself, so we must study and make sure we understand the message.  We have pastors all over the place defending some blatant sin before God, yet they try to make it sound right in God’s sight. Tampering with the Word of God is a tremendous sin in God’s sight.  Listen to what He says in the final verses of the Bible,  “And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”  (Revelation 22:19).

Friend let’s be careful how we handle the Word of God.