Well, like I said, I thought
I might talk this morning a little bit about God's word. The first thing I did is I just
kind of went through and I gathered a few verses of scripture that
I basically gives different names, some of the different terminology
that's used to talk about God's word and everything. And so I'm
gonna breeze through these. If you wanna follow and turn,
you can, or if you just wanna write the scripture down to go
back and look at them. But basically, it's not necessarily,
I'm not gonna exposit these verses necessarily. I'm just gonna read
the verse and show you the different names that are used for the word
of God. In Nehemiah. In Nehemiah chapter 8 and verse
3. It says, and he read therein
before the street that was before the water gate from the morning
until midday before the men and the women and those that could
understand and the ears of all the people were attentive unto
the book of the law. So one phrase that is typically
used of God's word is the book of the law. Now I will, Make a little side
note point out here just for Us long-winded preachers that
they were there from morning until midday and all ears were
attentive So Ezra was a long-winded preacher
it seemed like I Anyway, we see that the term for God's word
is the book of the law over in Psalms chapter one. We find another term for God's
word. In verse two it says, or I'll
just start at verse one. Blessed is the man that walketh
not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is
in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day
and night. So here, the word of God, we've
seen it was called the book of the law. Here, it's just referred
to as the law of the Lord. Now, whenever we're talking or
the Bible talks about the law, sometimes it can mean many things.
It can be talking about specifically the Ten Commandments. Sometimes
it could be talking about the whole book of the law that was
given to Moses about everything that had to do with what they
were and were not to do, not just the Ten Commandments. And
sometimes the book of the law is referring to the first five
books of the Bible. Sometimes the book of the law
is talking about all of the Old Testament. And so the context
kind of has to bear out what it's talking about. But one of
the phrases used for God's word is the law of the Lord. Matter
of fact, in the Psalms, you'll find that is the most common
phrase used is talking about the law of the Lord. That's probably
one of the most prominent ones in the book of Psalms. Excuse me. In John chapter five,
In verse 39, we see another term for God's word. John chapter
five and verse 39. It says, search the scriptures for
in them you think you have eternal life and they are they which
testify of me. This is Jesus speaking to the
religious leaders there. but we see that the term for,
and of course, here at this point, it's the only thing is the Old
Testament, right? The New Testament had yet to
be written at this point when Jesus is speaking, and he's referring
to everything in the Old Testament as the scriptures. We also see
that later in Peter, whenever Peter talks about Paul's writings,
he said Paul's writings were scriptures just like the others. And the only scriptures that
they had was what was in the Old Testament. And so they recognize
that as the scripture. So when someone says, well, yeah,
but we're in New Testament, our scriptures is the New Testament. Well, that's not true. The scriptures
are all the Old Testament and the New Testament are the scriptures. But that's, like I said, another
word or term used for God's word. Romans chapter one, we find that,
The word of God is referred to as just that. Romans chapter one and in verse
one, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle,
separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised afore
by the prophets in the holy scriptures. So here we see that the Bible
is called the holy scriptures. We seen in John, it was called
the scriptures. Here's called the holy scriptures.
That doesn't mean that there was one section better than the
other section. Okay. What John was talking about
was just the plain scriptures. Paul's talking about the holy
scriptures, a better set of scriptures. It's still referring to the same
thing. Uh, It's also funny that in chapter
or verse two, we see that he says, which he had promised to
for by his prophets in the holy scriptures. He's speaking about Paul being
called an apostle and separated into the gospel of God. So that
means in the Old Testament, there is talk of there being those
who will be separated to the gospel. So that'd be kind of a neat thing
to study out and go find where Paul was referring to. We won't
talk about that today, but go find what Paul was referring
to and see what that's talking about. But if you don't believe
in predestination, Paul was called to be an apostle separated unto
the gospel of God, which he had promised to for by the prophets. So we see that that's called
the scriptures, the holy scriptures. James chapter one, we find another
term that the Bible uses for God's word. James chapter one, starting in verse 21. Wherefore,
lay apart all filthiness and superfluity, I never can say
that word right, superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with
meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your
own selves. For if any be a hearer of the
word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural
face in a glass." And so we see here in 24, or excuse me, 22
and 23, that the term for God's word is word. It is the Word. Now, likened
to that in Philippians 2.16, we see that that term is used
in conjunction with life whenever we look at Philippians 2.16.
It says, holding forth the Word of life, that I may rejoice in
the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored
in vain. Paul had held out the word of
life. The words of God, the words of
Christ particularly, that's who handed them down to Paul, he
considered those words of life. Jesus said I'm the way the truth
and the life Jesus is life in him there is life and life abundant
right Jesus is life and the words that came from Jesus are the
words of life where you know whenever Jesus said are you gonna
are you gonna leave me Are you going to go away too like these
other people going away? And what did the disciples say?
He said, well, where will we go? You're the only one that
has the words of life. Jesus has the words of life.
And so, as we're looking here, all these things has to do with
the words of God, God's words. Everything in the Old Testament,
everything in the New Testament, these things is written down.
Now, a lot of people say, well, yeah, that was all written by
man. Well, the Bible tells us very clearly that all the men
who wrote these things wrote under the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit inspired that
writing. Okay, those men weren't inspired
in and of themselves, but they were in the Holy Spirit inspired
them to write what the Holy Spirit gave them to write. Brother Royce
always says it this way, if it was the writers themselves that
were inspired, then if they wrote out a grocery list and that grocery
list would be God's word. It isn't that, okay? It isn't
that, it's the Holy Spirit conveyed to them the things to write,
and they wrote it down. And we can see that from Genesis
to Revelation, 66 books in this Bible, and you can find all this
information on the internet right off the top of my head, I can't
quote it all, but how many writers there were, in three different
languages over the course of so many thousands of years and
66 books, and all of it has a central theme, a central meaning, and
none of it contradicts the other. I mean, you have a fisherman
riding on the level of a theologian. You have a man that was called out of nothing
to be grew up in the bulrushes and then into the palace of the
pharaoh. But then you have a man like
John and a man like Peter who were fishermen. And they're all
writing and all of them are writing the same things and are writing
and not contradicting each other. You can't even do that now. You
know, Larry's got these books out here. If I would try to go
and write on the same thing that Larry wrote, you know what, me
and Larry are probably gonna contradict each other somewhere
along the way. If I just tried to copy that
book that Larry wrote, I bet you could probably go back and
read it, and I'm copying it word for word and writing it down,
I'd probably miss a letter here, miss a letter there, and that's
gonna get messed up. but you find throughout the scriptures
there is a cohesion, there's no contradiction, but yet all
of it speaks and is perfectly united in the exaltation of Jesus
Christ. I mean, you think if it was written
by a man, a man 3000 years ago is not going to say the same
as this guy today. He's going to have something
different to say about it, but yet it doesn't. So it is, it's
the word of God. It's the word of life. It comes
from God. All scripture, the Bible says,
is given by inspiration and is profitable. And so we should
take heed to it. And in Revelations chapter 22,
we see, that it's simply called the book.
Revelation 22 and verse 19, scripture say, 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. So the
scriptures are also known as the book. Now, there's probably
some other ones I might've missed, but there you can see that the
word of God is used with several different things. Now, as I mentioned,
they can be descriptive of a few different things, like the Old
Testament in Mark chapter seven. And again, like I said, I want
to kind of fly through this portion, just kind of introductory stuff,
but there's some other things I want to say about the word
of God, but just this introductory stuff about the names and what
it describes. Mark chapter seven and verse
13, yes, 13. It says, making the word of God
of none effect through your tradition, which he had delivered and many
such like things. Now he was speaking of the Old
Testament there. These men were making the word
of God of none effect by their traditions. God had laid out
how the priesthood was supposed to be and how their worship was
supposed to be. And those men had made that of
none effect. regard God's word, and they wanted
to do things their own way. And brother, listen, that's happening
today, right? There are churches all over the place that are saying,
I don't care what the Bible says about how we're to meet, how
we're to worship, who's supposed to be what and how that gets
to that point or anything like that. We don't care about any
of that. We just want to do it our own way. It doesn't matter
long as the word's getting out, right? It doesn't matter as long
as we're praising Jesus, right? It doesn't matter as long as
people are being one to Jesus. That's the things I hear all
the time. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't
matter. What doesn't matter? Have you ever asked yourself,
what are you talking about that doesn't matter? What doesn't
matter? Well, what doesn't matter is,
in your mind, is it doesn't matter what the Bible says. It doesn't matter what you say
the Bible says, is usually what they're meaning, I can do it
the way I want to do it. Again, a good example of that
is, and I've got the book back here and you can go through and
see, a lot of these Protestant reformers during the 15th, 16th
century, all of them were saying, we know that the original mode
of baptism was adults by immersion. John Calvin, Martin Luther, both
said that. They knew. That was how the first
church practiced and followed baptism. It was a believer, an
adult believer, in immersion. But yet then they say, so the
scriptura, we're only gonna do what the scriptures say. Regulative
principle, we're only going to do and conduct our worship the
way that the Bible says to do it. And then they say, but yeah,
we can change baptism to sprinkling, to pouring, to infants. And it's okay. When they said
that, we know that's how it was, but yes, there was changes that
took place. One of the reasons that they said it took place
was because a lot of the regions, there was no place to do it in
warm weather. And so they had to do it in cold
weather. So instead of immersing somebody,
they just would sprinkle or pour on them because it might be dangerous
to dunk them in cold water. And so, but anyway, I didn't
mean to get off on baptism or anything like that, but that's
just the thing. They say, I know that's the truth, but I'm going
to go ahead and do it this way. And as I mentioned last week,
even the West Minister Assembly, it was split. It came down to
one person's vote on whether or not they were gonna include
believers' baptism by immersion in the West Minister Confession
of Faith. There was half of the delegation there that fought
to say, we need to put this in there because we know that's
what the Bible teaches. And one man's vote, Changed and made
it where all they put in is what they believed about about infant
baptism and about sprinkling and pouring and So it's like
it doesn't matter what the Bible says It's what we want to do
and that's what we see today in modern Christianity we make
the God Word of God of none effect through our traditions and And
we're just as guilty of that. Baptists are just as guilty of
that. I'm not just down on the Protestants. Baptists have their
traditions and they don't get away from their traditions either.
And it needs to be what the word of God says. And if our tradition
doesn't line up with the word of God, you know, traditions
are fine if they're grounded in the word of God. Traditions
are just fine. If your tradition is the tradition
of scripture, that's just fine. And long as it doesn't go against
the word of God. But brother, we can't hold to
something if it ain't found in the word of God and impose that
upon other people. In Romans chapter nine and verse
six, the word of God is described in a different way. There it
was the, speaking of the Old Testament, but here in Romans
chapter nine and in verse six, It says, for this is the word
of promise. Now this, again, this is talking
about where Christ came to Abraham on the plains of Mamre and said
that Sarah was gonna have children, remember? Okay, and it's the
word of promise. So this is describing, sometimes
God's word can be God's revealed plan. See, God was speaking and
revealing his plan to Abraham and to Sarah. And so that revealed
plan was God's word. God has, is there still God's
revealed plan today that we have? Absolutely. The Bible speaks
of the second coming of Jesus Christ. He is coming back. And the Bible tells us about
that. So God's revealed plan is given to us by the word of
God. So God's word is also a showing
of his revealed plan. Matter of fact, we see that all
these men with the Old Testament was seeing that God's revealed
plan was that there was a Messiah coming. and that they had these
things. Brother Larry, I was telling
Sister Louetta earlier, Brother Larry did a message on David
preached Jesus Christ a week or two ago, something like that.
I listened to it this week. And he brought out the fact that
those Old Testament men, they knew not only that there was
a Messiah coming, but they knew that that Messiah was gonna be
their only righteousness. They knew the gospel. They preached
the gospel. Abraham was preached the gospel.
David was preached the gospel. Those prophets knew the gospel
and was telling the gospel, looking forward to that day when Christ
would come. And even whenever you get into
the New Testament, before Christ came and his baptism, those men
that were there, even before John the Baptist, those men during
that time was looking for a Messiah to come. So whenever John the
Baptist came on the scene, whenever Jesus came on the scene, all
those men, especially those religious leaders, They all began to question,
is that the man? Is that the man? Is that him?
They went to John, are you the man? He said, no, I'm not the
man. The man that's coming though, I can't unbuckle his shoes. But
he's coming and he's the Lamb of God who takes away the sins
of the world. And so there was God's revealed plan, and that's
as much as God's word as anything else, even though it hasn't happened
yet. God's revealed purpose or plan that he's given to us about
the second coming of Christ, we can take that as fact, even
though it hasn't happened yet. We know it's going to happen
because God's not a liar. And so that's as much as God's
word as whenever he's saying something that's happening directly
right now. It's God's revealed plan. We
see it's also God's completed revelation. Look if you would
in Colossians chapter one. Colossians chapter one verse
25. It says, whereof I am made a
minister according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me
for you to fulfill the word of God. Even the mystery which hath
been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his
saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the
glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in
you, the hope of glory. so here we see here the completed
revelation God had a revealed plan in this case the inclusion
of the Gentiles salvation of the Gentiles and I'll just be
honest there's some study that needs to be done here I think
in the wording of Paul because he says here even the mystery
which had been hidden from ages and from generations but now
is made manifest meaning that it was already there but is now
just being brought to light. Something was already there being
brought to light to whom God would make known what is the
riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles. Now it's
being told to not only you, but the Gentiles, which is Christ
in you, the hope of glory. And I think he might be, and
I'll have to look at this a little bit further to make sure I'm
not just reading this superficially and making a wrong assessment,
but I think he's talking here Of course, we know other scriptures
corroborate this also, but the Old Testament saints had Christ
in them by His Spirit. We see that, I believe it's in
Peter, where it says that the prophets looked into these things
of your salvation by the Spirit of Christ that was in them, okay? I think what this is here, the
Christ in you, the hope of glory, their hope of glory in the Old
Testament was Christ in them. They were indwelt with Christ.
Of course, we know that to be true. The Bible says that if
you have not the Spirit of Christ, you're none of His, right? So
if those Old Testament saints didn't have the indwelling of
the Holy Spirit, then they weren't His. Everyone thinks that that
started at Pentecost. That didn't start at Pentecost.
They had that before Pentecost. But here we see that this is
the revealed plan coming to completion. We see that it is being completed
here. So sometimes God's word gives
us a complete revelation of what he's talked about in the past
that has been not yet revealed. He tells it to us, but it hasn't
been manifested. I guess that's the word I should
have used, is manifested in that. And so God's word can be prophesied,
and it can be factual, and it can be, what's the term I want
to use? It could be, Retrospective, he's
going back and saying, what I said back there, here it is. This
is what good example that Larry used in his message is whenever
Peter was talking about David and all the things that was going
on with David. And he said, this is what David
was talking about. He's talking about Jesus's resurrection.
whenever they stood up in that council and they said, this is
what Amos was talking about and he was talking about the inclusion
of the Gentiles. We can't make that say what the premials want
to, you know, the dispensationalists want it to say, okay? God is
revealing post-Judeo-Christian prophetically what that was. That's why we say anything that
we see in the Old Testament, whatever you think that means,
if the New Testament takes a spin and says, that's what that really
meant, we gotta take that word, not our theological systems,
not our eschatological persuasions, we've gotta take what the Bible
says. So whenever the Bible says that what David was talking about
is the resurrection, And whenever Amos was saying that, and it
was talking about the Gentiles, we've got to say, well, that
was obviously wasn't talking about something else. We got
to say what it says. And so the word of God becomes
now a word of completion or post-prophetic completion, a fulfillment of
what was said in the past. Luke chapter five. We learn that
the word of God is also described as the message about Christ or
of Christ. Luke chapter five and verse one. And it came to pass that as the
people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by
the lake of Gennesaret and saw two ships standing by the lake.
Now we know this is Jesus here is about to speak and the people
had come to hear, but what does it said? The people pressed upon
him to hear the word of God. So they knew that what Jesus
spoke was the word of God. Now we're fortunate that some
people has put it in red for us. So we can flip through the
pages real quick and find where Jesus speaks. Although sometimes
the people get it wrong in the red. Sometimes there are things
that are in red that shouldn't have been in red. And sometimes
it's in black when it should be in red, but that's neither
here nor there. That doesn't take away from what
the scriptures say. It's not about the color of the print,
but, It does make it convenient for us to find the places where
Jesus was speaking a lot of times. However, we see here that whenever
Jesus spoke, it was considered the word of God. Now that makes
sense though, doesn't it? Right? Because why? What's the
biggest glaring reason why when Jesus spoke, it was the words
of God? Yeah, he's God. When God speaks,
it's the words of God, right? He wasn't mimicking something
that God. Now, Jesus did say, I only do
and say the things that my Father told me to say. But if you remember,
the Father, the Word, and the Spirit all indwelt the body and
man, Jesus Christ, in its fullness. And he had the Spirit without
measure. He was the everlasting Father.
He is God manifested. What God is, however you want
to put it, Trinitarians or all the other groups of people, Molinists
and all these other people, however you want to say it, whatever
you want to think, the Bible is clear that Jesus, the man,
is God in the flesh. And Colossians makes it very
clear. The Godhead, meaning, That tri-part thing that you
want to hold out, Father, Word, and Holy Spirit, was all in that
man, body, Jesus Christ, and He manifested the invisible,
uncontainable God. Break the Godhead up as much
as you want to break him up. I'm only going to say what I
can say from scripture. And all I know from scripture is that
whenever Jesus spoke, he spoke the words of God because he was
God manifested in the flesh. He wasn't just a third of God
manifested in the flesh. He was all of God manifested
in the flesh. And then we see in Acts chapter
four, Acts 4, verse 31. Acts 4, verse 31. It says, And when they
had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together,
and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake
the word of God with boldness. Now who's speaking here? Well,
the Christians, let's just, we'll put the tag Christian on it,
but the Christians are speaking here and they're speaking the
word of God. And what about the word of God
are they speaking about? Well, obviously within the context
here, we see that they begin to speak about the things of
God. They begin to speak of the things
of Christ. And the multitude of them that
believed were of one heart and of one soul, neither said any
of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own,
but they had all things common and with great power gave the
apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and great grace
was given upon them all. Okay, so they were speaking of
the Gospel. They were speaking of the work of Christ, His death,
His resurrection. They were telling each other
and speaking to each other these things. So here we see the Word
of God that was being spoke here is the Gospel that we speak,
the Gospel that we preach, the Christian's Gospel. It's the
Word of God. See, it doesn't have to actually
come from the lips of God. to only be considered the Word
of God. If it's the Word of God that came from God, but conveyed
through us, it's still the Word of God, right? If it's the Word
of God that came down, but is printed in this book that I have
here before me, it's still the Word of God. Now, Larry may have to remind
me of this, or one of y'all may remember this, and I'm trying
to remember the commercial I think it was E.F. Hutton. When E.F.
Hutton speaks, people listen, right? You remember that commercial? I'm probably putting a deal on
my age, but when E.F. Hutton speaks, people listen. What that meant, what that was
conveying in that commercial is E.F. Hutton was an authority
on his particular line of work. and that he was such an authority
that soon as he starts to speak, people shut up and listen because
they know if he's saying something, it's going to be good, right? Now, think about this. We have the word of God. A lot
more important than the words of E.F. Hutton. We have men that
are propped up, and again, we'll go back to this Billy Graham
thing. They listen to the words of Billy
Graham. Oh, if Billy Graham says that, we need to listen to that.
How many times has Billy Graham called in in these councils as
counselor to them? What should we do? I've heard
a lot of that in the interviews that I've been watching. People listen to Billy Graham.
People listen to the Pope. People listen to, you know, whoever
is in high regards, high education, high power, whatever the case
may be. If you are of affluence somehow,
somewhere, people listen to you, you know, people are gonna gather
around a trillionaire and listen to what he has to say about how
to get rich. Why? Because he's a trillionaire,
right? If he made himself a trillionaire by these principles, well, I'm
gonna listen to him, okay? People listen to that stuff.
Okay, well, guys, listen. All that's nothing compared to
this Bible. We have the word of God. And it doesn't get as much attention
as EF Hutton did. A lot of times. People don't
care. Oh, God said that? Well, that's
just then. That was back then. That don't have anything to do
with us now. We've changed as a society. God's word has to
change along with it. These are things that are being
said out there. We may not hear it in our little groups. We may
not even hear it in our little community of conservative southern
Missouri. But brethren, that's being said
out there. God's Word has to change with time. And if you
don't believe it, go to the bookstores and look where they've now got
Bibles out there that are gender neutral or even just the opposite. They've made God to be a woman.
And all the references to God as a woman. If you don't think
that that is in our society, it's there. People don't care
about the word of God. They're not listening. We have
the word of God and whenever it says something, we definitely
should listen, right? But we can only listen as God
gives us ears to hear. Now, I want to stop right there
and get kind of got that introduction over. I'd like to look and see
what the purpose of God's word is for us as Christians and look
through there's several scriptures that I've gathered together on
what the Word of God is described at and how that is used in our
lives. And so, we'll probably maybe
take another week, maybe even two weeks, as I look further
into some of this stuff, the importance of God's Word. You
know, we say here all the time, matter of fact, we've said it
on our website before in the past, We said it whenever we
did have a confession of faith that we put out. We say that
God's word is our only rule of faith. that we don't have creeds
and confessions and commentaries and commentators and theologians
telling us what we should believe. It's not about that. The only
rule of faith that we have is God's word. And a lot of people
say that. And a lot of people say that
and don't live up to that. But I pray that's what we have
here. God's word is our guide. God's word is our final authority. This is our rule. that we walk
by is what God's Word says. And if Mike or Larry or Lori
or Beth or Louetta or Rosette or Mark or anybody, if what they
think differs from God's Word, then it's on us to submit to
God's Word and change, right? We have to change to what God's
word says. Submit to that because that's
the authority. And so we take that pretty seriously
here. And that's why in times like
this Billy Graham thing, in times where people are casting stones
of being judgmental, they don't understand. And that was one
of the things I was telling these brethren. They don't understand. You know, we hold each other
accountable here, right? We go to each other whenever
we think we might be in error, or we go alongside someone that
might be following after some crazy wack out there that might
be deceiving us, and we warn each other. And that's because
we love each other, and we truly do love each other. And if somebody
comes to me and corrects me, I don't get mad. There may be
some times where you get in the flesh, you know. But I think
at the end of the day, whenever you sit down and think about
it, especially if you go and look at God's word and what they're
saying and you find yourself to be in need of correction,
you love that person. I've mentioned to you many times
how much I love brother JC for taking me aside and saying, Hey,
you're looking at a few things a little squirrelly and according
to your traditions, look at what God's word actually says. My
uncle Tom, What did the scripture say? What did the scripture say?
What did the scripture say? Quit looking at Norman Geisler and
what does the scripture say? Quit looking at Spurgeon, quit
looking at Fiske, what does the scripture say? And it's a good
thing. And so whenever someone does
that, I love them for that. For you to be able to come to
me and risk a breaking relationship, to risk
a friendship, to risk just even an ordeal happening of argumentation. For you to do that enough to
say, I know this could happen, but I love that person enough
that I need to tell them about that, I need to warn them about
that, that's actually love. And listen, I see that among
God's people who believe this word, who take this word, but
you know, it's among those who really don't take this seriously
that are the ones that say, well, it's not my place, I'm not to
judge, you know, I'm not to, you know, that's not my, you
know, we're just to love each other. If we can just love each
other, you know, what if Jesus just
loved us from all eternity and never came? I'm just going to
love them. I'm not going to go down and
judge anything by any means. I'm not going to judge nothing.
I'm just going to love them. We'd be without salvation. Because
the Bible said, for God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten son. That he loved us and while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us. See, Christ stepped in
the way of danger. Christ stepped in the way of
wrath. Christ stepped in the way of judgment. Christ stepped
in the way of people who didn't know what was, who were ignorant
of their own devise. And He said, I'm gonna do this
for you then, because I love them. And so to tell them you're
a sinner is not judging them and saying, you know, I don't
like you. No, that's being loving to them.
For a Christian to come alongside of another Christian and to warn
them, that's not that. God's word is our guide, our
rule of faith. But I find that the people that
really don't regard this, but they regard traditions or ecumenical
feelings, this whole ooey-gooey feeling, I mean, it's almost
like What I'm seeing in the verbiage of these people so much today,
and these young people especially, is this whole hippie movement. repackaged. You know, it's almost
as if the hippie movement has come back and has repackaged
itself in millennialism. Okay. I don't say nothing to
offend. I don't do nothing to offend.
I don't have nothing to offend. There is no way I'm going to
offend you. Matter of fact, I'm sorry because you might've thought
I offended you. There's no grounds for that.
But here, here's a trophy for you. You know, Just in case I've done anything
to offend you. As a matter of fact, I'm going
to go right now and I'm going to do anything I can because
what I just said, take that all back because me saying that to
you might have offended you. I mean, there's no end to it. My thoughts go back and I'll
end with this. This probably shouldn't be the thing I end
with, but was it Pepsi? I had the commercial, I'd like
to see, or I'd like to think, take the world and see, or how
did it go? Live in perfect harmony. My mind goes back to, I remember
that as a kid. Commercial and all these people just showing
them all over the world is holding hands, you know Pepsi's bringing
everybody together You know just it seems that that's what's going
on today at the expense of God's Word at the expense of Walking
in God's Word at the expense of true biblical love We want
ecumenicalism we want unity and Listen, unity at the expense
of truth is not biblical unity. Unity at the expense of doctrine
in God's Word is not unity. What brings unity is the Word
of God. We unify around the truth and the one who told us the truth. That's where unity comes. And
so if unity means I have to go against that, then whatever unity
that it brings is a false unity. See, if we disregard this so
that we might become closer here, whatever we become closer here
is not gonna be this unity. It might be a good social club.
It might be a good getaway for the weekend. It might be, you
know, whatever. But I guarantee it's not gonna
be a biblical one. And it surely won't last. Because just as soon
as your actions go against my actions, the unity quickly erodes. But how is it that we can commune
with each other when we might have differences of thought,
differences of opinion, not understanding the same doctrinal things on
the same levels as each other in different areas? You may know
more about this than me, and I'm down here, but yet we still
can have unity. Why? Because the truth matters
to us. We believe in the truth. We believe
in Christ. And we unify around that. And
we unify around the fact to know that truth is something that's
revealed. And what Larry might know more than I do today, the
Lord may reveal that to me tomorrow. Now I know what Larry knows.
What you know. And vice versa. It's Him that
gives the measure of faith. And so we unify around the truth
that doesn't change. The truth doesn't change. God
doesn't change. Whenever you unify around two
unchanging things, that's where unity lasts. And that's why you
see churches like ours that hold to these, to the true gospel,
to the word of God, and are serious about those things, that's where
you find they may not be huge in numbers, but the rich in God's
love, the rich in doctrine, the rich in fellowship. And so, anyway, those are my
thoughts on those things today. And I may have meant something,
I may not, I don't know, whatever the Lord. gives to you, I hope
it's edifying. But anyway, at least my plans,
unless the Lord directs a different way, I'd like to look a little
bit more at the Word of God next week, especially as it pertains
to us. What is God's Word to us, and
how does it affect us, and what is it for? And we'll start looking
at that next week. Anybody got anything? Larry,
would you like to add any comments or anything? Just Ephesians 3.5.
Ephesians 3.5? or by whom you believe, you may
understand my knowledge of the mystery of Christ, which in other
ages, not many, many ages may have been, as it is now revealed
to you, holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, and we've heard
of that, prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be well-bearing
from the same body and partakers of each promise. in Christ by
the gospel. I think that verse five is really
interesting. I need to study that a little
bit more. Yeah. Yeah, it was, there was a revealing,
but not revealed like it is now. They had, I mean, I have to submit
to the scriptures that says that the gospel was preached to Abraham. That's what the scripture said.
So if that's the case, then he had to know something. They knew
that a Messiah was to come. They knew that by that Messiah,
there would be a righteousness given to them. They weren't fully
aware of how that would happen. Job knew that that Messiah would
be physical and would live. David knew that Messiah would
live physically. They knew that he would die. David spoke of his death. David
spoke of his resurrection. They knew that there would be
a dying, but they might not know the fullness of how it all worked. All they knew is that they were
gonna receive a righteousness outside of themselves, and that
the fact that they couldn't keep this law was ever before them,
but there was one to come who would give them a righteousness.
And I believe that's kind of what that speaks of. I mean,
it'd have to be because to say that they didn't know anything
is against scripture too. I mean, the scriptures are very
clear that they didn't know. Yeah. I mean, that was, yeah,
absolutely. Bruce for our transgression and
the fact that he said that he will see the travail of his soul
and be satisfied and by my righteous servant he will justify the many. So yeah, there was some revelation
of that. I believe I can't say that there
was total Revelation though because just like this versus like you
just brought up means that they didn't understand it all it was
revealed in now Like the one I read a while ago where it said
it was told in ages past But it was made manifest now it was
shown forth now, and I think they begin to see that a little
bit better and then of course you look at the on the road to where Jesus met the two disciples
on the road to Emmaus. He took them back in the Old
Testament and told them all the things that pertain to me. And
he opened up their eyes to see that. Well, that meant that their
eyes were closed and they couldn't see everything that was pointing
to Jesus. But yet it was there, they understood some things.
But it was, so yeah, there was a, there was a veiling of some
of those things, but it wasn't completely shut out. Like some
people believe that there was nothing. You know, there was
nothing, they didn't know nothing about the gospel. And it was
the law, it was their law service that was making them right before
God. And that wasn't true. Anyway, yeah, thank you for that.
All right. Well, let's turn, if you would,
in your Gatsby hands. Let's end with a song. 1147 in
your Gatsby. 1147. And we'll sing this to the tune
of the doxology. 1147. I'm sorry, not that big of a
number in the hymn book, but all right. The heavens declare
Thy glory, Lord, In every star Thy wisdom shines. But when our eyes behold Thy
Word, We read Thy name in fairer lines. The rolling sun, the changing
light, The nights and days Thy power confess, And the blessed
volume Thou hast writ. Reveals Thy justice and Thy grace. Sun, moon, and stars convey Thy
praise, Round the whole earth and never stand. So when Thy truth began its race,
destined to spread to every land. Nor shall thy living gospel rest,
till through the world thy truth has run, till Christ has all
the nations blessed. that see the light or feel the
sun. Great Son of Righteousness, arise! Bless the dark world with heavenly
light. Thy gospel makes the simple wise. Thy laws are pure, Thy judgments
right, Thy noblest wonders here we view. In souls renewed and
sins forgiven, Lord, cleanse my sins, my soul renew. and make Thy Word my guide to
heaven. Amen. Brother Larry, would you dismiss us and ask the Lord
to bless the food as well? Father, we thank You for Your Word. It's
unchangeable. We thank You that we can rely upon it and able to stand
the test of time. We pray that You would be with us in this fellowship.
We pray that You would bless this food as we prepare it. And may this be a sweet time
of fellowship. We ask in Christ's name, and
fill with us this week we pray, and may we experience your presence
in a special way. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.