the open for all to see. So it is with our lives of testimony for the Lord. The world is constantly ob serving our lives. They want to know whether the things we say are really practical as well as prac ticed in our daily existence. It takes a real skill to be able to cut a straight furrow. When it comes to the farmer watering the fields, cultivating, weeding, har vesting, all of these are dependent upon a straight furrow. Your en tire life, everything you do from this day forward is dependent up on your "rightly dividing the word of truth." You cannot rightly di vide it until first of all you have studied it so that you can show yourself "approved unto God." Another thing that impresses me is the fact that if the first furrow is crooked, if it does not go in an absolutely straight line, then all the rest of the channels will be crooked. As you look at your life today, if you have not been rightly dividing the Word of God, if you have not been cutting a straight furrow concerning the teaching of the Scripture, all of the other areas of your life are going to be con fused and mis-directed. One of the things that concerns me a great deal is the fact that people think all religions are the same. As be lievers we have a very real respon sibility to rightly divide the word of truth. There is a very grave dan ger in giving heed to seducing fables and to doctrines of devils. That is exactly what some of these false cults are. Apparently, with all of our so phisticated machinery, there has really been no great improvement on cutting straight furrows than in the day of the Apostle Paul. There
has to be the sighting method. This is most generally the only workable technique. For instance, a farmer, as he begins to plow the field, does not just look back, he always looks ahead. He picks out an object at the end of the field, focuses his eye on it, and then directs the trac tor or the animal to that specific spot. There has to be a standard! Maybe a stake, an irrigation pipe, a tree, whatever, but he is never to let his eye leave that mark point. So, in our lives if we are rightly to divide the Word of truth, there are so many things that would detract us. We are going to look back and we are going to look on every side but the thing that Scripture exhorts us is to be looking unto Jesus — the author and finisher of our faith. Otherwise, we are going to have great problems. "Rightly dividing," this is the main purpose of teaching. It is to "divide" the Word of God. That does not mean to put some of it here and another piece over there, categorizing each passage or phrase. It is properly to under stand it. Do not confuse law and grace. Do not confuse the church and the world. Do not confuse carnality with spirituality. We must be given the proper portion un mixed. This is the main purpose of teaching. The last four words of this verse are, "the word of truth." Recently we have come through the nation al elections. Many things were said in the heat of passion and in the excitement and even desperation of the moment. But as strictly a layman, I do not know whether you feel as I do, but one begins to wonder just who you are supposed to believe. It is like one politician
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