Ascertain or Analyze

[ An Advanced Teaching ]

To approach this teaching properly, we are going to have to learn some definitions.

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. -- I Corinthians 2: 14

God is telling you simply and clearly that a natural man, which is a man of the five senses [body and soul], cannot receive the things of the spirit of God. Why? Because they are spiritually discerned. The keyword here is ‘discerned’. That word is closely aligned to the definition of the word ascertain. For the sake of this teaching, I will use the word ascertain in the place of discern. God says that His Word is foolishness unto the natural man of the five senses.

The whole premise of this teaching is that you can ANALYZE only with the five senses, however regarding spiritual knowledge, you can only ASCERTAIN or discern Spiritual knowledge. This becomes dynamically important as we will see.

Ascertain - to find something out for certain; to make certain and definite not by the five senses but by spiritual experience. Ascertain is very similar to the word ‘discern’ in I Corinthians 2: 14

Discern - to separate up; to examine carefully; to investigate, then to make a determination. A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament

We should be able to see the similarities in the two words ‘analyze’ and ‘ascertain’. To analyze, you can only find something out for certain if you do a careful examination,

investigate and then draw a conclusion. The main point here is again that you cannot analyze the Word of God. You can’t take it into a laboratory and perform scientific tests on the Word of God. You need only to believe it and act upon it to get results. It means what it says and it says what it means. Your opinion doesn’t change it or alter it in any way. Again, we will also take a look at The American Heritage Dictionary definition of the word analyze.

Analyze - 1. to separate into parts of basic principles so as to determine the nature of the whole; examine methodically. 2. To make a chemical analysis of. 3. To psychoanalyze.

You should be able to see clearly that this is the work of man and his five senses. You cannot separate the Word into basic principles which allows you to determine the whole. You cannot examine the Word in a methodical manner or to make a chemical analysis of it. As I said before, the Word of God is the Will of God. You cannot analyze God’s Word. You can rightly divided it and that is what is most important. The reason we have so many religions and denominations is because people do not rightly divide the Word of God. Many of these people and organizations guess at what the Word says. They do not do sufficient research and they do not understand that the Word of God interprets itself. You have to work it and study it. Let’s see what God’s Word says about this.

Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. -- II Timothy 2: 15

For your information, those two words ‘rightly dividing’ appear only once in the complete Bible. But more importantly, God says to study His Word so that we are not ashamed because we rightly divide the Word of truth. It does not say to analyze God’s Word. It says to study and to make sure you rightly divide it and then apply it.

What is a good example of rightly dividing God’s Word? I will give one example because it is a major point that is misunderstood and misinterpreted throughout God’s Word, by men and by churches and by denominations. There are at least 50 Scriptures that state in the Word of God that Jesus Christ is the son of God. There are about four Scriptures which appear to contradict those 50 Scriptures. 50 to 4. Even devil spirits called Jesus Christ the son of God. Which one are you going to believe? If you work those four verses and rightly divide God’s Word, you will have to reach the conclusion that Jesus Christ is the son of God and not God. Again, if you rightly divide the Scripture, you will easily see that the Bible will fall to pieces if Jesus Christ was God. I have a teaching about this subject if you have a problem in this area. If some of you remember the beginning of this website, we state that we do not water down the Word of God. We allow the Word to speak for itself. We ascend up to the Scriptures and we allow God’s Word to speak for itself by our own free will. It is the adversary, who is presently the god of this world who causes all of this confusion. To make my point again, we accept and absorb and renew our minds to what God says. We do not take the Scriptures and attempt to analyze them. Five senses man will try to do this.

In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. -- II Corinthians 4: 4

This is where all the problems pertaining to the misinterpretations and misunderstandings of God’s Word emanate from. There is only one thing that can defeat the god of this world, the devil, and that is the rightly divided Word of God. And from the enemy’s efforts, the results are confusion and every evil work throughout this whole present world. Remember, Christ is coming back and he will put an end to all of this. What a great day that will be.

Forgiveness is a great principle of God’s guidance from His Word. My previous teaching was on the subject of ’forgiveness’. It is a difficult part of the renewed mind, so we must work on this principle to be able to forgive people for what they have done. Why is this important? The consequences of not doing this is stated clearly in the following verse.

Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices. -- II Corinthians 2: 11

Brothers and sisters, they must be able to look deep into our hearts and remember what Jesus Christ forgave others for. He forgave the prostitute, he forgave Judas. Do we need to say anymore? Now the point of the above Scripture is that if we don’t learn to forgive, Satan gets an advantage over us. He can more easily trick us and keep us living in sin. Let me tell you one more thing that blew my mind when I learned this. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” If you can believe it or not, condemnation is sin – it is broken fellowship. God knows that when we make a mistake that most of the time, it is not our fault. We were tricked by the god of this world. We are not to blame ourselves, but we should get back in fellowship as soon as possible. Case in point: to never try and analyze what Satan is trying to do. Find out in the Word of God what we should be doing and then you can defeat the devil’s moves. Obviously, that is why it is so important to study. I will tell you that studying God’s Word is not a bummer. It is a lot of fun because you are searching for the treasures in life. The deeper you dig, the greater treasures you will find. Think about me if you must. I am studying God’s Word for about 48 years. Don’t you think I would’ve quit if I found out it was a waste of time? Instead, I found out that the principles in God’s Word work with an exactness and scientific precision every time. Every time!

Now let’s take a look at the natural man who attempts to analyze the Word of God. The following Scriptures are very important. I want you to keep in mind those two words – analyze and – ascertain.

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. -- Romans 8: 5

You can clearly see here that God Almighty has given all living creatures free will to do as they please. You can mind the things of the flesh or you can mind the things of the Spirit. To mind the things of the flesh you need to be carnally minded. Keep that in mind for the next Scripture.

For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. -- Romans 8: 6

Wow! What a tough choice! If you want to keep analyzing or trying to analyze the Word of God by the five senses, the result is death. Now if you want to ascertain the Word of God and be spiritually minded, the results are life and peace. Tough decision isn’t it? There is nothing that the world has to offer you but deception and lies. The present world is full of trickery and deceit. In the above Scripture, I chose the latter half of the Scripture. How can anyone in their right mind choose the first choice? I will tell you how. Unless you have the Word of God in your mind, you have half thoughts. Only the Word of God rightly divided and applied will give you whole thoughts. The many people walking around with no knowledge of God’s Word by their own free will have half thoughts in their mind. In other words, and I’m going to tell it to you like it is, they are partially insane.

So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. -- Romans 8: 8

I strongly suggest that you study Romans chapter 8. The first verse tells you about condemnation which I have gone over quickly in this teaching. But it is as simple as it can be. And you ought to remember that nothing can be too simple. It’s another principle that you need to gel in your life.

Now I would like to close out this teaching with a Scripture in John 14: 17. This Scripture just happens to sum up what I have been trying hard to teach you. You need to be born again of God’s Spirit and you need to be studying God’s Word. Surely there are some of you who will not understand this Scripture, but it is simple if you were able to absorb the rest of the teaching.

Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. -- Romans 14: 17

There is a lot of God’s wisdom in this verse. The people born again should be able to understand the verse. God is saying here that the world cannot receive His Word. They are not born again so they cannot understand the Word and they do not know God. But the people who are born again, God dwells within them and He shall be with them.

If you have experienced some problems with this teaching, just keep it simple – as simple as you can. So I am going to finally end this teaching with a Scripture that has always blessed me and helped me to keep things simple pertaining to some things that I do not yet understand. Here is that Scripture and it is my hope and belief for you that it blesses you as much as it did and still does for me.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter; Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. -- Ecclesiastes 12: 13

We were designed to do what the Scripture says. This is our blueprint for living – the Word of God rightly divided, studied and applied. Just try to keep in mind that you cannot analyze God’s Word. His intelligence is so much greater than ours that we can’t even think about. It’s just too great. So we accept His Word and we go on in this life looking to Him for protection and guidance and to enjoy life.

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