Matthew 16:1-12 - Eating of the Pure Bread of Heaven

Highlights:

* Wicked people sometimes demand miraculous signs as proof of something, but they would not believe and obey God even if God gave them the signs they demanded.

* What the Bible calls "false doctrine" is just someone's opinion, just somebody's wrong idea about God, taught as gospel truth.

* The root of every evil, every sickness, every sorrow, every disappointment in this world is a wrong idea about God.

* Everything we do is the result of something we believe.

* God's Old Testament people, Israel, were ruined because they ate bread to which their ministers had added their opinions, their "leaven", as it were.

And when Israel ate the leavened bread of those ministers ("false prophets", God called them), they took in the wrong ideas about Good that those ministers taught, and they began doing things that were not right.

* In the New Testament, when Paul was old, his converts among the Gentiles forsook him and his gospel because they had begun to eat the bread of ministers who had some opinions about the gospel of Christ.

* Because this New Testament is holier than the first Testament, purchased by the blood of God's beloved Son, teaching wrong ideas about Jesus is a greater evil than teaching wrong ideas to Israel was.

* God is not glorified by my leaven, that is, by my opinions or my ideas. He is glorified when I pass out the pure bread of life: His Son.

* God hates seeing His children given His bread with the opinions of men mixed in with it.

* The truth is not in man; the truth has to be given from God.

* If every good and perfect gift comes from God, then we don't have any good and perfect gifts unless He gives them to us.

* Every truth Jesus teaches us sets us free from human opinions, either our own or someone else's.

* A minister who does not know the difference between the voice of the Spirit and his own opinion is dangerous.

* Truly hearing from God makes the difference between a man of God and ministers who think they are of God.

* Preaching the gospel and hearing the gospel are two sides of the same coin. We all must have grace from God to believe the truth when we hear it. Without that grace, no one can know whether a man is telling the truth or not.

* If you even want to do good, that desire is a gift from Good to you.

* Whenever saints come together before God, the wise have a mind to receive and be changed to be made more like Jesus by the power of God.

* A GATHERING OF GOD'S PEOPLE IS NOT A SOCIAL EVENT; it is a heavenly event, with Jesus present to bless us and to help us - and for us to bless him.

* God's love is so available in Christ to meet our needs that there is no excuse for anyone to sin. But even if one should fall into a sin, God's love is still so available in Christ that there is no excuse for staying in it.

* WE CAN NEVER BECOME MORE LIKE JESUS UNLESS WE BECOME LESS LIKE WHAT WE ARE RIGHT NOW.

Scriptures referenced in this video:

Isaiah 8:18
Luke 16:29-31
Hebrews 11:6
Mark 15:31-32
Isaiah 3:12
Jeremiah 23:9, 31-32
Galatians 1:6
Galatians 3:1
Galatians 4:11
Deuteronomy 13:1-2, 5
Hebrews 10:28-29
Acts 20:29-30
2Peter 2:1, 12-15, 18-21
1Peter 4:11
John 6:48, 51
John 7:18
Galatians 1:7-9
Galatians 4:12
Matthew 23:6-7
Romans 7:18
Mark 10:17-18
John 7:16
John 8:28
James 1:17
Matthew 7:7-11
James 1:5
Job 9:16
Romans 8:26-27
1Corinthians 7:10, 12, 40
2Corinthians 3:4-6
Romans 10:15
Philippians 2:13
Ezekiel 14:1-3, 6-8
Ezekiel 33:30-32
Isaiah 55:6-9