th th Yeah. Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 70 from the Hardback Tymnal.
Number 70. Holy, holy, holy. And let's all
stand together. Number 70. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty
Early in the morning my soul shall rise to Thee Holy, holy,
holy, merciful and mighty, God in three Persons, Blessed Trinity. ? Holy, holy, holy ? All the saints
adore thee ? Casting down their golden crowns ? Around the glassy
sea ? Jerobim and Seraphim ? Falling down before thee Which wert,
and art, and evermore shall be. ? Holy, holy, holy ? ? Though the
darkness hide thee ? ? Though the eye of sinful man ? ? Thy
glory may not see ? ? Only thou art holy ? ? There is none beside
thee ? Perfect in power, in love and purity. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. All thy works shall praise thy
name in earth and sky and sea. ? Holy, holy, holy ? ? Merciful
and mighty ? ? God in three persons ? ? Blessed Trinity ? Please
be seated. Good morning. We're going to be in the first
chapter of Luke this morning for the first hour. If you'd like to turn with me there
in your Bibles. A couple of announcements. Somebody said this place looks
like a den in your house. So we don't have a place to store
the blankets and pillows and whatever else you might have
there in your pew. So I would ask you to please
take them home today. You can bring him back Sunday
week. Hey, it's OK. It looks like a
den. We're not going to have room for it next Sunday. So please
take all your paraphernalia home with you today. All right? This Friday. will be the first
meeting of our conference and I trust that you are in prayer
for the Lord to bless that time together. Very much looking forward
to it. There's a sign up sheet on the
back table to sign up for the cleanup during the conference.
If you could take a look at that and volunteer. And I know Emily
has sent out an email asking for help with the food. So if
you please could respond to that if you haven't done that yet.
Okay. You have your Bibles open to
Luke. Chapter one. Let's go to the Lord and ask
his blessings on our time together. Our merciful Heavenly Father.
We come into thy holy presence as we've just sang. Looking in faith. To the finished work. And glorious
person. Accomplished salvation. Of thy
dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ, for all our acceptance before
thee. We ask father that you'd be pleased to bless your word.
Pray that you would make it a double edged sword. That it would cut
and that it would heal. Lord, we pray that it would be
made alive. and that your Holy Spirit would
lead our hearts in faith to see more of the glory of Christ and
to rest more of our faith and hope in him. We pray father for for Chris
and for Donnie and for Todd and we ask Lord as they prepare for
this coming weekend that you would Speak to them and give
them messages that we need to hear and messages that would
exalt Christ and that would edify the body of Christ and messages
that would be used of you Lord to to open the eyes of the blind
and. To save the lost and. We ask it in Christ name. For
his sake. Amen. And we're just going to
deal with the first four chapters of Luke chapter, first four verses
of Luke chapter one this morning. And the reason why is because
we're going to start this morning a journey through the book of
Acts. We finished Malachi, uh, this past Wednesday night and
um, And we'll, as the Lord directs, be going verse by verse and chapter
by chapter through the book of Acts over the next however long
it takes us. But in Acts chapter one, which
we'll see in the second hour, Luke makes reference to a previous
letter that he had written to Theophilus. Now there's a lot
of speculation as to who Theophilus was. It doesn't really matter.
Theophilus's name, which we'll deal with in more detail in the
second hour, means a friend of God. And God's word is addressed
to his friends. He said, I no longer call you
my servants, for a servant doesn't know what his master does, but
I call you my friends. For everything that I received
of my father, I've given it unto you. So this is a word to the
friends of God. And we know from the title that
he gives Theophilus in Luke chapter one, that Theophilus was probably
some Roman governor. He calls him most excellent Theophilus,
which was a title that was given to nobility. And we're reminded
of what the Lord says. He says, not many of you are
noble. The Lord doesn't save many. that
are in positions of nobility. But he didn't say not any of
you. He said not many of you. And
so when the Lord tells us in 1st Timothy that we're to pray
for kings and for those in authority, for God has all kinds of men
to be saved from nobility, from the greatest to the least. That
is not a consideration for the Lord. He does a work of grace
in men's hearts regardless of their status in this world. So
that's all we'll say about Theophilus. Luke, on the other hand, is referred
to in Philemon by the Apostle Paul as a fellow laborer. And
we know that Luke was a traveling partner of the Apostle Paul. In Colossians chapter 4, Luke
is referred to as the beloved physician. And we cannot be for
certain that it's the same Luke that wrote the Gospel of Luke
and the Acts, but most have have thought that probably it is.
So we know that he was a fellow laborer. And in 2 Timothy chapter
4, Paul in writing to Timothy says, Demas has forsaken me for
he loved this present world more than the things of God. And Luke
alone has remained. So Luke was Paul's faithful companion
in the ministry of the gospel. Because of what Luke says in
chapter 1 of the Gospel of Luke, it's probable that Luke was one
of the 70 that the Lord anointed to preach the Gospel. You remember
after he chose the 12, he chose another 70 disciples and sent
them out two by two to preach the Gospel because Luke says,
I've been an eyewitness of these things from the very beginning.
Now, I've titled this message, The Certainty of God's Word.
The certainty. of God's Word. Let's read these
first four verses together and hopefully this will be a preparation
for the study in the book of Acts and for the things that
the Lord would say to us from that passage. For as much as
many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration
of those things which are most surely believed among us. Now,
the last thing I want to do is try to prove that the Word of
God is the infallible, inerrant, inspired Word of God. And Luke
doesn't attempt to do that. He says, I've come to declare
unto you. Not to defend, not to argue,
not to debate, but simply to declare this is God's Word. And every time we look to scripture,
we, as God's people, are confident that this is the word of God.
And I know some would say, well, I'm not confident. Well, my response
to you would be that you do have a source of authority. You do
have a source of authority. Perhaps it's another religious
book written by one man like maybe Muhammad wrote the Koran
or Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormons or perhaps it's a
creed or confession or some tradition of man-made religion that's passed
down by man but you have, everybody has a source of authority. Perhaps
it's science and education and knowledge that's the source of
many people's authority. I would I would warn you that
every time a new scientific discovery is made, it disproves things
that they just were certain were true in the past. How reliable
is so-called science as a source of authority? And then the majority
of people would say, well, I'm my own source of authority. I'll
just sort it out for myself and I'll decide what's right for
me. And I would say to that person that, You have set yourself up
on the throne of God, and you're not a good source of authority. God's word is. And we don't question
it. We don't debate it. We don't
argue it. We declare it. And that's what Lucas said, and
I'm declaring unto you. Look at what he says. I'm declaring
of those things which are most surely believed among us. There's no question about these
things. We believe them with absolute
certainty. A follower of Martin Luther in
the 16th century wrote these words when he said that we're
to have unity in the essentials liberty in the nonessentials
and charity in all things. And that statement has been quoted
over and over again by religious men who want to make essentials
nonessentials. Now, I'm all for that statement,
unity in the essentials, liberty in the nonessentials and charity
in all things. But the question is what are
the essentials? And what are the non-essentials? Whether or not the reference
to Luke being the physician was a reference to the Luke that
wrote the Gospel of Luke, I don't know. That would be a non-essential.
We're not going to break fellowship over something like that. But
election's not a non-essential. The sovereign work of God and
the covenant of grace, choosing a people according to his own
will and purpose, that's not a non-essential. That's what
Luke's talking about here. He says, I'm declaring unto you
the things that are most surely believed among you. All believers believe that God
is absolutely sovereign in salvation and they don't make that a non-essential. All believers believe that they
are apart from the than the saving grace of god they are depraved
uh... totally depraved unable to make
a decision unable you read people say you know what we're sinners
and we're saved by grace and then they'll talk about uh... you have to make a decision uh... that's that's that's not a non-essential Man, left to himself, doesn't
have a free will to choose God. His will is bent against God. He is at enmity with God. He
hates God. And he's dead. A dead man can't
choose. You see, that's not... Luke's
saying, I'm declaring unto you. I'm not arguing it. I'm not declaring
unto you those things that are most surely believed among you. I love the spirit that God has
given to Luke to make such a clear declaration. You hear people say, well, you
know, whether Christ's death was was sufficient for all men
and efficient only for the elect, or who Christ died for is anonymous. So we can debate that. That's
an in-house. I hear people say, well, those things are in-house
debates. You know, those are things that Christians are to
just, you know, no. No, we declare unto you that
the Lord Jesus Christ successfully accomplished the salvation of
God's elect. And this is most surely believed
among you, that not one drop of his blood was wasted, that
he actually put away the sins of God's people once and for
all by the sacrifice of himself. That's most surely. You see, God's people believe
these things. They believe it. Why? Because
they've been taught of God. They've been taught of God. John
chapter 6, they shall all be taught of God. And everyone that's
been taught of God comes to Christ. Isaiah said, they shall all see
eye to eye. So when the Lord says these things
are most surely believed among you because they were declared
by God and you believed them. Why? Because the Lord taught
you they were true. That Christ is not, you know, I was reading
a book this week and it was talking about the essentials of the faith.
the essentials of the faith. And one of the essentials of
the faith was that God loved everybody. That's not an essential
of the faith. That's never been believed by
God's people. God's love is particular. It
is effectual. It is eternal. And it is for
His people, for His sheep. I declare unto you the things
that are most surely believed among you. Coming to Christ is
not a choice. You hear people say, well, that,
you know, we can have a difference of opinion about that. No, we
can't. No, we can't. You did not choose me. I chose
you. I made you willing in the day
of my power. I opened the eyes of your understanding.
I took out your heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh.
I unstopped your ears. I made you to come unto me. It's
irresistible grace, isn't it? God's people say, that's my experience.
That's what I believe. And I believe that's what God
teaches. That's what he's declared unto me. You know, different groups of
people say, well, you know, you could, You can fall away. If sin would cause one to fall
away, then the flip side to that coin is an awful thin pancake
that doesn't have two sides. The flip side to that coin is
that you come to God by not sinning. We know that's not true. The
Lord is faithful to forgive and to keep and to draw his people
unto himself. And he's not going to lose one
of his sheep. It's called, well, the doctrine is called the perseverance
of the saints, but in fact, it's the perseverance of the spirit,
isn't it? The preservation of the saints
by the perseverance of the spirit of God, he will persevere. And
when we don't believe, he continues to remain faithful to his people.
Now, turn with me to the book of Jude. Jude. Right before Revelation. Jude. Verse three. when I gave all diligence to
write unto you of the common salvation. It doesn't mean that
salvation is common. It means it's common to us all.
You see, all God's people believe the same thing. They have the
same gospel. They don't debate those essential
truths. They hold to them. It was needful
for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly
contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints,
for there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of
old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men turning the grace
of God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and
our Lord Jesus Christ. Still happening, isn't it? Still
happening. False prophets creeping in unaware,
denying the essentials of who Christ is and what he's done. And Luke says, I declare unto
you that which is most surely believed among you. These things
are believed by God's people. And the Lord said they were ordained
to this condemnation. Why would God ordain false prophets? Well, he told us why. He said
it's necessary for heresies to be among you in order that those
which are approved might be made manifest. You see, the ones that
aren't approved of God will fall to the heresy. They'll compromise
the truth of the gospel. They'll say, well, it doesn't
really matter. Or it could be this way, it could be... But
those who are approved of God will hear the heresy and they
will say, no, no, that's not the way it is. So the Lord sends
these heresies among us in order to divide the sheep from the
goats. I want to be on God's side, don't
you? So he calls it a common salvation. Paul said that his conversion
was a pattern for all that believe, that he was a blasphemer He says
that of himself, that's common of every child of God can say,
you know, there was a time when I didn't believe God, there was
a time when I blasphemed God, there was a time when I was an
injurious man, and God stopped me in my tracks. I wasn't looking
for God. I thought I was doing the service
of God. Saul of Tarsus thought he was serving God, didn't he?
And the Lord stopped him in his tracks, and a light shined from
heaven. And the voice of God spoke, and he knocked me off
my high horse, and I found myself in the dirt. And I said, Lord,
what would you have me to do? You see, that's a common experience
for everyone that God saves. Titus, Paul refers to it in Titus
chapter 1 at verse 4 as a common faith. We have some cemeteries
in our city. I know one in particular I drive
by occasionally and it's called All Faiths Cemetery. You know,
you can be of any persuasion and be buried here. There's only
one faith. There's only one gospel. There's
only one God. There's only one church. There's
one. And God's people say, amen. That's been declared and I believe
that. I believe that. Go back with me to Luke chapter
one. For as much as many have taken in hand to
set forth in order. Now I'm sure that Luke would
have been talking, speaking of Matthew and Mark, perhaps John,
we don't know exactly when Luke wrote this, but I'm certain that
there were other letters that were sent to Theophilus telling
him of these things that had most surely come to pass and
that God's people surely believed. But now he says, it seemed to
me the right thing. And he was inspired of the Spirit
of God. Luke was one of those holy men
of old who wrote as the Spirit of God moved him. These words
are not by private interpretation. This is the Word of God. This
is the source of all of our hope, isn't it? Set in order. Now, I can see
Luke, I suspect that in order to be a physician you probably
have to be a detail person. I'm not a detail person. I see
the big picture. I'm so thankful I've got a wife
that's concerned about detail. And I guess we compliment each
other in that regard. But Luke, he's concerned with
the details. He said, I've set these things
in order. in the order that they took place. And those things
which are most surely believed among us. Now, whenever there's
an us, there's also them. These things aren't most surely
believed among men. They're believed among us, among
God's people. Even as they delivered them unto
us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers
of the word. Now the Lord said to the Pharisees
in Mark chapter seven, he said, you have made the word of God
of non effect through your traditions. When the word of God is not our
final authority. Then men set up traditions, and
they test the word by their traditions. And the Lord said, you've made
God's word of non-effect. You find me a church or a denomination
that has a creed or a confession or church tradition, and I guarantee
you, they test God's word by those creeds and by those confessions. And the first word in their confession
will be sola scriptura. We believe only in the Bible.
Why'd you write anything else? Why'd you write anything else?
Uh, we don't do that. We've got God's word, only God's
word, and that's sufficient. delivered unto us. We're not
going to make of non-effect the Word of God through our traditions. This word, and the written word
we're speaking of right now, points to the living word, doesn't
it? And we don't separate the two. That's why Christ is called
the Word of God. that was made flesh and he dwelt
among us. And so when we look to God's
word, we're not saying that our commitment to the inerrancy of
scripture is the source of our salvation. Christ is the source
of our salvation, but our belief that his word is infallible and
inspired enables us to believe everything that he says about
himself without question. We don't have to doubt it. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth from God. This word is our life,
isn't it? Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
comes by the Word of God. This is the source. This is Luke's
beginning, this whole treatise, this whole, this gospel account,
and the letter of Acts has started out the same way, of insisting
that we believe God. And that's all faith is. Faith
is just believing God. Faith is saying, I have no other
source of authority. I have no place else to go. But
I've been taught of God, that his word is true. And I believe
him. First Peter chapter one, verse
23 says, we are born not of corruptible seed. What would be corruptible
seed? man's will, man's works, man's
traditions, man's creeds, man's, that would be, that would be
corruptible seed. We are born not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible, even by the word of God. It's the
word of God that the spirit of God uses to point us to Christ. Turn with me to that passage,
just a moment. First Peter chapter one, first Peter chapter one. Except you be born again, you
cannot enter into the kingdom of God, but we've got to be born
again. Being born again, verse 23, not
of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but my word shall never pass away. Every teal be crossed,
every eye be dotted, every jot and tittle will be fulfilled. God's Word doesn't change. What
else do we have? Everything else is corruptible.
Everything else is changing. Everything else is mutable. But
here we have God's Word. We're declaring it unto you.
We're not trying to explain it. Who can understand these things?
We're not called on to understand them. We're called on to believe
them. You know, there's so many that think you come to Christ
through doctrine. That's not true. You come to
doctrine through Christ. Okay? Once you meet Christ, you
know his doctrine's true. For all flesh, in comparison
now, the Lord is contrasting the infallibility and eternality
of his word, the immutability of his word to us. You say, what
do we have if we don't have the word of God? I'll tell you what
we've got. We've got corruptible flesh. All flesh is this grass. And all the glory of man. Let
man glory in his pride. Let man glory in what he thinks
he knows. Let man glory in his religion, and glory in his works,
and glory in his decisions. But all the glory of man is as
the flower of grass. The grass withered, the flower
thereof falleth away." There's man. He's just like that beautiful
flower. It gets attention for just a
little while, and then it fades away. What is there in that? What hope is there in that? There's
no hope in that, is there, brethren? No hope in that. The Word of the Lord endureth
forever. And this is the Word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. Now there's a whole lot of fundamentalists
that would amen some of the things that I've said about the Bible
being the inerrant, infallible Word of God, inspired Word of
God. that don't believe the gospel.
They've twisted and rested the scriptures to their own destruction.
This is the word which by the gospels preached unto you. If
the gospel's not being preached, the word of God's not being preached.
Stand all you want and holler all you want, declare on the
infallibility of God's word all you want, but if the gospel's
not being preached, the word of God's not being preached. He calls himself a minister of
the word. A minister of the word. This word minister means to be
under the authority of. That's what it means, to be under
the authority of. As a man, if he's a minister
of something, he's under the authority of that which stands
over him. And Luke says, these writers
of scripture, are ministers of the Word of God. Turn with me
to 1 Corinthians chapter 4. 1 Corinthians chapter 4. Verse 1. Let a man so account of us as
of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of
God. This gospel which must be preached,
the glorious gospel of the finished work and glorious person of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the salvation of God's elect accomplished once
and for all, It's hidden from the natural man. When the word
mystery is used in the Bible, it's not speaking of something
that's mysterious or strange. It means that it's hidden. The
natural man can't see it. He just can't see it. And you
and I wouldn't be able to see it either if the Lord didn't
give us eyes to see. And how many times, even after you've
seen it, your eyes grow dim and you feel like a blind man groping
in the dark. You say, Lord, shed the light
of the gospel once again in my heart. Show me the glory of Christ,
lest I forget. Lord, if you don't show it to
me, I won't see it. Paul says to the church at Corinth,
he said, I'm a minister of Christ. I'm under the authority of Christ
and I'm a steward. a steward of the mysteries of
God. Moreover, it is required in stewards
that a man be found faithful. Faithful to just say what God
has said. That's all you want to hear, isn't it? You just want
to hear what God says. But with me, it is a very small
thing that I should be judged of you or of any man's judgment. Yeah, I judge not my own self.
Oh, that the Lord would give us that spirit and be so sold
out to the word of God that it wouldn't matter what anybody
else thought about it. And we would be cautious and careful
not to judge ourselves too closely for we don't know our own hearts. For I know nothing of myself.
He said, I don't even know myself very well. Can you agree with,
you agree with that? You know, I think I know myself
and then I, I don't know myself. Yet am I not hereby justified. I'm not being justified by what
I think about myself or what anybody else thinks about me.
I'm justified by the Lord. Who is he that condemneth? Who is he that condemneth? We're
justified in Christ. Lord, make us faithful stewards
of your word. Go back with me to Luke chapter
one for just a moment. For as much as many have taken
in hand to set forth in order a declaration of these things
which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered
them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and
ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect
understanding of all things from the very first. Now, what other,
what other book can you read where the author can say, I have
perfect understanding of this subject? Perfect understanding. I want to read about someone
who's got perfect understanding, don't you? And the truth is all
God's people have perfect understanding. They perfectly understand that
they are completely, wholly, W-H-O-L-L-Y, dependent upon the
Lord Jesus Christ for all their righteousness and all their justification
before God. They perfectly understand that.
There's no question in their mind about it. These things are
surely believed among them. And that Christ was successful.
in satisfying the demands that the father gave him to save his
people. All things from the very beginning, from the very first,
to write unto thee in order, O most excellent Theophilus,
that thou mightest know the certainty of these things. There's our
hope. With all the things that are
shaken and all the things that are mutable and all the things
that are fleshly and sinful, there is a certainty, a certainty
to God's Word. It's called assurance of salvation. Knowing, brethren, beloved, your
election of God. For our gospel came unto you
not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and
in much assurance. Some people just hear the voice
of a man and others hear the voice of God. And in hearing
the voice of God, they are made sure that these things are true. And they rest all their hopes in the living word. All right,
let's take a break.