All right. Before we begin with the message,
let's seek the Lord in prayer. Our Father, thank you for this
day and for this opportunity to gather, whether in this place
or virtually by way of the internet, to gather in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ to sing his praises to hear his word, and
to have our hearts strengthened with grace. Father, I ask that in this time
you would give me wisdom, clarity of thought, to teach those things
which will be helpful to those who listen. I pray for those who are sick
and ask that you would heal them. I pray for those who are undergoing
other sorts of trials. Lord, uphold them, give them
strength. We pray, Lord, for those whose
livelihood has been stopped by this virus and the measures that
are being taken in an attempt to control its spread. Lord,
provide their needs. and show to them that indeed
God can be trusted, not only with the things of the life to
come, but even with the things of this life. And Lord, work
in us that we would watch out for those in need. And if you
have given us plenty, that we would open our own resources
and help those who are in need. We pray for the brothers in India
Lord, many in that continent, in that country, are suffering
terribly, especially those of the lower caste levels that no
one cares about. We thank you for Brother Parshu
and for the Doss brothers and others of your faithful men in
that area who are doing what they can to meet the day-to-day
needs of these outcasts, of these untouchables. and that they are
taking the opportunity when they deliver food to them to tell
them of the bread that comes down from heaven, the bread of
life. We pray that much good for your
kingdom will come from those efforts. We pray also for the
brothers and sisters in Africa, for they, in a similar fashion,
are struggling during these times. And we thank you, Lord, that
we who have put our trust in you can know that you will sustain
us in all circumstances, give to us what we need, that we can trust that our Heavenly
Father knows what we need and will supply our need according
to his riches in Christ Jesus. Bless our nation. If it is in your will, Father,
we pray for a quick end to this pandemic. In the name of Christ,
we pray these things, amen. In Titus chapter two, verse one,
we read, you must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. I want to preach this morning
on the subject of sound doctrine. Now, doctrine is one of those
words that often repulses people. I've heard people say things
like, well, I don't want to hear doctrine. I want you to tell
me about Jesus. And I said, well, what would you like me to say
about Jesus? Well, tell me about how Jesus is the substitute for
us sinners. And I said, well, that's doctrine.
And they said, well, OK, then tell me about how Jesus is the
Son of God. I said, well, that's doctrine.
You see, the word that's translated doctrine simply means teaching
or instruction. In fact, sometimes the Bible
simply uses the word word to refer to this doctrine. In another place of the scripture
it speaks of the sound word. And I know that we associate
doctrine with deep, dark, and mysterious
things that they teach in seminary and only use words about that
long to describe it. And I can understand why people
don't want that. Who has any need of the complicated
mess of truth that men make up and try to make it sound intelligent
and wise by inventing special words to describe it? We don't
need that, but we do need doctrine. We need instruction. Actually, both those who claim
not to like doctrine and those who seem to revel in it and make
their boast in doctrine often do not understand what it is. I said it's just teaching, just
instruction. But not all doctrine is good
doctrine. In 1 Timothy chapter 1 verse
3. It says, as I urged you when
I went to Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command
certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer. Now our
translation says false doctrines. I didn't check the other translations,
but in the Greek, the word actually simply means other doctrines.
And any doctrine other than the doctrine of Christ is a false
doctrine. Paul spoke of it this way in
the book of Galatians chapter one. He said, I'm amazed at how
soon you've been drawn away from him who called you unto another
gospel, which is not really another gospel. And you say, well, now
that is Paul contradicting himself. No, in the Greek language, there's
two different words that can be translated another. And one
of them means, another of the same kind, and the other refers
to another of a different kind. For example, you tell a kid,
well, you can get yourself a piece of candy, and so he reaches in
the candy jar, and the one he gets out, maybe he finds out
somebody's dropped it, and it's got some dirt and fuzz on it,
and he says, well, I don't want that one, and you say, okay,
get another one. But when he gets another one,
he's gonna get a piece of candy. You're gonna get the same thing
he got before, just hopefully it won't have the dirt and fuzz
on it. But now, when Paul says, you've been called to another
gospel, and the first time, he means that kind of another. But
then he says, but it's really not another gospel. It's not really a gospel of the
same kind. It's another kind altogether
different. In fact, it's not gospel or good
news at all. It's bad news. And so when we're
talking about sound doctrine, we are talking about that doctrine,
which is true, is not false. It is consistent with the things
told to us in scriptures. It is the truth of Jesus Christ. We hear of good doctrine in 1
Timothy 4, verse 6. If you point these things out
to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus,
brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching. It's the word, other places translated
doctrine, the good teaching. that you have followed. So we've got sound doctrine,
and then we've got false doctrine, we've got good doctrine. And
all these various adjectives can be applied to it. But in
the scriptures, at least these, what we call the pastoral epistles,
1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, These were instructions that Paul was
giving to two men who had been his close companions and helpers
in the spread of the gospel. And he realizes that his ministry
is winding up. And so he sent them letters to
give them specific instructions. And when he refers to what we
would call the truth or good doctrine, most often he's saying
sound doctrine. Now what's this word sound mean? The Greek word that's translated
sound, and it's kind of odd in our English language, we speak
of sound and we might be thinking of something you hear, or we
say that something is sound if we mean it's solid and strong
and capable. But this word translated sound
is used 12 times in the New Testament, and Luke, uses it three times,
the Apostle John uses it once in 3 John, and the eight other
instances of this word are found in 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. Now in the eight instances found
in these pastoral epistles, the word sound is always in regard
to faith, Doctrine or words. Paul speaks of sound doctrine,
sound faith, sound words. But in the four other instances
it's found in the scripture, three by Luke, one by John, it's
always a reference to somebody's health. It talks, it's used to refer
to someone being made well. In another place it says, and
we arrived safe and sound. And in the second to third verse
of 3 John, the apostle says, I hope that your body is sound. Interestingly, there is an English
word derived from this Greek word. And it's the word hygiene. Now we know, you know, we're
told practice good hygiene. And right now, with this coronavirus
thing going on, You know, we're told people might not be using
the word hygiene, because I don't hear it as much as I did when
I was a kid. They were always using that word. But we are to
practice good hygiene. Wash your hands. Use hand sanitizer. Don't touch your face. Now, this
is good hygiene. Why? Because it tends toward
good health. And so what is Paul saying here?
When he talks about sound doctrine, he's talking about healthy doctrine,
healthy doctrine. And this implies that there is
something that could rightly be called sick doctrine, unhealthy
doctrine. Unhygienic doctrine. Now how can we identify healthy
hygienic doctrine? Well, there are many identifying
marks of it, and we'll look at some of them later, but I want
to mention this one right now because it's in regard to something
we experience. Healthy doctrine imparts health
to the soul. That's pretty simple, isn't it?
No big words there, but it's the truth. Healthy doctrine promotes
good health in the soul of a man, in the mind of a man. Healthy
doctrine always strengthens the heart of a believer. In the book
of Hebrews, as I pointed out before, it was written to Jews
and was an exhortation to them not to go back to the old covenant
ways, but to stay with the new covenant ways, even if they were
persecuted for it. And as he nears the end of the
book, the writer says, it is good for the heart to be strengthened
with grace. Now, grace is one of those healthy
doctrines. The truth of grace, instruction
in grace tends to strengthen a man or a woman's heart. And
by the word heart here, we mean all the inner aspects of a man. We're not talking specifically
of his spirit. It might be better understood,
his mind and his emotions. That's the heart as it's being
used here. And the heart is made strong
with healthy doctrine. Healthy doctrine will always
discover the sick places in the heart of the believer and apply
needed medicine so as to restore health to the mind. I remember when I was in my teenage
years, my father's father, we called him Pampaw. Pampaw lived
by himself and had By this time, probably for nearly 20 years.
And he was the kind that, uh, kind of cantankerous fellow.
And if he got hurt, he wouldn't tell anybody. He'd just wait
for somebody to show up and act as though they should have already
known. But dad went and regularly checked on his father and got
there one time and Pampaw pointed out to him that he had. While
he was walking around the yard, he'd found a stalk of something. It had been cut off. But anyway,
he stepped there, and it made a gouge in his ankle, or in his
leg, just above his ankle. Pampaw didn't have good circulation
in his foot, so that wound began to fester. It got inflamed and
infected. Got pus in it and stuff like
that. Now my dad is, he must be a man of an unusually strong
stomach because he can deal with that kind of stuff. Pampaw tried
to cover it up with some kind of bandage. But dad went over
there and Pampaw stuck out his leg and dad unwrapped that and
I was standing there watching. And oh, what a mess when we got
that bandage off. That red flesh. and the smell of the infection
and all of that. And so dad got, it's something
you can't even buy anymore across the counter, stuff called Pfizer
hex, and it was a good antibiotic cleanser. And he carefully cleaned
up his dad's leg, cleaned the infection out of it the best
he could and got some medicine and put it on there and wrapped
it up. Now, what Pampaw had done to his own leg, was not healthy. He just covered it up. He just put a bandage on it,
didn't cleanse it, didn't put any medicine on it, just covered
it up. And what happened? He got sicker. Dad came, cleaned
it up, put some medicine on, wrapped it up, and then went
back every day or so to check on him, redress the wound, and
eventually that wound closed up and was healed, and Pampaw
was restored to health. Now that's what healthy doctrine
does for the believer. It finds these wounds, these
sores, these illnesses within his mind and it begins to bind
them up and to apply medicine as it were and his sick thoughts
and his sick emotions and all of this, it starts to heal them. Healthy doctrine is like the
warm sun that strengthens the sick. written, the Son of Righteousness
shall rise with healing in its beams." Now in the King James
it said it will rise, the Son of Righteousness will rise with
healing in its wings. But that is just an oddity of
the Hebrew language. I imagine its primary meaning
is wings but then it was used for lots of other kind of things
that project out from a main body. Well the sun doesn't have
wings but it does have beams of light. Now, we all know what
it's like, especially if you've gotten sick in the winter and
it's dragged on for a while and then a sunny day comes. Spring
starts to show up and it's a warm day and you're able to go outside
of your house and just sit in the sun. The sun itself has disinfecting
powers, but the mere fact that you are back in the light and
being made warm provides some, well, it revives both body and
mind. And of course, the son of righteousness
that's being spoken of in that Old Testament scripture is none
other than our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the essence of healthy
instruction. In Ephesians, not Ephesians,
Isaiah 53, it says, by his stripes we are healed. And it's true
that one fulfillment of that was our Lord's miraculous healings
mentioned in the scripture. But the charismatics of our day,
or the Pentecostals, or whatever you want to call them, they seem
to think that Isaiah's prophecy means that we can go around healing
people at will if we just had faith enough. And that's not
true. But the continual instruction,
the continual declaration of sound doctrine, which we shall
see is nothing other than the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,
it will provide healing for the soul. Sound doctrine. What is sound
doctrine? Let's look back at 1 Timothy
chapter 1. We'll begin reading at verse
8. We know that the law is good
if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is
made not for the righteous, but for lawbreakers and rebels and
the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who
kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers
and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers. You
know, folks that like to keep believers under the law, and
they like to say, well, you know, I live under the direction of
the law. You say, well, look here, which
one of these are you? Are you the murderers of mothers and
fathers, or maybe you're the adulterers and perverts? Were
you a slave trader? Paul's talking about not just
the law, but the whole concept of law. Why does there have to
be law? Because there are people like
this. But law was not written to restrain decent people, because
they don't need restraint, do they? But he says the law was written
for these kind of people and for whatever else. That is whatever,
whatever other kinds of conduct, attitudes, things like that,
that conforms, excuse me, that is contrary to sound doctrine
that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which
he entrusted for me. Actually what he's saying is
law is for those who don't believe the gospel. But sound doctrine, healthy doctrine,
is that which is consistent with the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now man-made religion is based
on bad news. Now if it's going to be consistent
with the glorious gospel of the blessed God, and let me re-translate
that, it's not as though this translation is technically wrong,
but if you read it strictly it says the gospel of the glory
of the blessed God, and that word blessed actually could be
translated happy. So we're talking about the good
news of the glory of the Happy, satisfied God. Now, if sound doctrine is according
to the gospel, and the word gospel simply means good news, then
sound doctrine is always good news. Man-made religion is based
on bad news. So it's a sick doctrine that
makes its followers sick. But when sound doctrine is preached,
even those doctrines which may be distasteful to the flesh become
an occasion for joy. Let me give you some examples.
We believe a doctrine, we believe it's sound teaching, a doctrine called total depravity.
Most people don't like that doctrine. They're perfectly willing to
accept partial depravity, but not total depravity. And they
think that partial depravity is good news. It's not. Partial depravity is bad news.
Because partial depravity implies partial goodness. And if there's
any goodness in you, then God is going to require all the goodness
from you. Partial depravity is a sick doctrine
and it makes those who believe it to be sicker and sicker as
they spend their lives trying to improve themselves so as to
gain the blessing of God. But total depravity, you say,
well, that's hopeless. How could you call that good
news? How could you say that it's good news to tell a man
that he's never done anything good, that it's impossible for
him to do anything good, he can't do anything positive, he doesn't
even have the natural power to respond positively to the gospel? Well, I'll tell you why it's
good news to me. I already knew all of that about me. I'm glad
to find out that the scriptures teach that that's the kind of
person I am, and then says, but there's salvation for people
like you. You see, despite what men say,
they have this gut level understanding that they are sinful beyond their
ability to do anything about it. And when we find out that the
scriptures say the same thing, yet still speak of the salvation
of sinners, then we can say, oh, then it includes even me. Here's another reason that total
depravity is good news. When you have been convinced
that you are totally depraved and completely incapable of doing
anything that would gain you the blessing of God, you can
quit trying. You can quit wasting your energy
in a doomed effort. There are many people today going
to church, however they're able to do so, They're not going because
they want to go. They're going because they feel
that if they do that, that gains them some points with God. And
they've been spending all their life going to church that way.
In fact, maybe even going to church two and three times on
Sunday and making sure they go to the midweek service as well.
And they have their devotions and they're reading the Bible
and they're doing all of this religious work because they're
operating under the sick doctrine. of partial depravity. But once
they find out that nothing they do is going to advance their
own cause with God, they can quit beating their head against
the wall. Here's some more sound doctrine.
We believe in unconditional election. We believe that men are saved
not because they chose him, but because he chose them before
the foundation of the world. Now people will object to that
and say that's not fair. Everybody deserves a chance.
Quite frankly, nobody deserves a chance. Nobody. And so if God chooses to save
anybody, it's an act of his grace. If he chose nobody and sent the
entire human race to hell, could anybody raise an objection against
him for doing that? No, that is the just reward of
what we have done. Not only this, we recognize that
we are stubborn, that we are hard-hearted, that we have hearts
of stone that are not responsive. to the message of the grace of
God. The natural man does not receive
the things of the spirit of God, neither can he know them for
they're spiritually understood. Now understanding those things
about ourselves and that our will is corrupt and perverse
and will not under any circumstances choose God. Isn't it good news
to find out that God chose some? And once God has revealed his
gospel to you and your cause to believe, and then this healthy
doctrine begins to work upon your soul and your way of thinking,
and you start seeing things in a healthy way, that causes your
heart to rejoice. Because here's what I found.
I am a believer, but I'm prone to unbelief. Yes, I've chosen God. But there are times when I've
wondered if I shouldn't unchoose him. I said, a believer would
never do that. I beg your pardon. We do it all the time. Every
time we sin, that's what we're doing. Isn't it good to know? that our salvation is not based
on our choice, but is founded on the solid rock of God's unchangeable
will. He said, I am the Lord, I change
not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. Why? The sons of Jacob were always
going back and forth. They'd say, oh yes, we'll worship
Jehovah, we'll be faithful, and they'd go on for a little while.
And it wouldn't be long, they had their idols going again.
Why didn't God utterly destroy Israel? because he had chosen
them and he never changes. Well, another aspect of healthy
doctrine is effective atonement. Some call it limited atonement.
That's not really a good word for it because that's not how
the Bible describes it. But in the end, it's essentially
saying the same thing, for what it says is this, everyone for
whom Christ died shall be saved. Now some say, well, that's not
very good news, because that would mean there's some people
that Christ never died for, and they just don't have a chance.
Well, if Christ died for everyone, The same way, if he died the
same way for everyone, and yet most everybody ends up in hell,
what good was the death of Christ? But we find in the death of Christ,
the fulfillment of everything that God required in punishment
for sin. And once God has been paid the
required payment for sin, then those sins are gone and will
never be brought up again. I'm convinced that everyone for
whom Christ shed his blood, they shall in days to come be presented
in the presence of God, faultless and full of joy. I don't preach a possible savior. I don't preach a maybe redeemer.
I do not declare a doctrine that says that God's crowning achievement,
that the success of it is dependent upon whether or not you accept
it. I preach an invincible savior who in his own body bore our
sins upon the tree, and when he did, he put them away, and
they shall never be brought up again. We used to sing a chorus at 13th
Street, did you hear what Jesus said to me? They're all taken
away, away. Your sins are pardoned and you
are free. They're all taken away. The gospel
is not an offer, it's an announcement. We preach it and appeal to people
to believe it and all that, but when God comes and declares His
gospel, He is making announcements to His people. Through the preaching
of the gospel, He comes to those whom God chose and He says to
them, your sins are all pardoned and you are free. They're all
taken away. And we could go on with the doctrine
of irresistible grace. I heard the daughter of probably
the most famous evangelist of the 20th century, and she said,
God's a gentleman, and he won't go in where he's not asked. Really
now? Talk to the folks in Sodom and
Gomorrah. I think he went there, and I don't think they let him
in. God's not a gentleman, he's God.
And he goes where he wants. And I'm glad that he has a grace
that I do not have the power to resist. Because if I had the
power to resist that grace, I would. And the perseverance of the saints,
which I prefer to call the perseverance of God. Boy, that's good news. He that began a good work in
you will perfect it until the day of Christ. So sound doctrine is accordance
with good news. Every part of sound doctrine
is good news. And then sound doctrine is always
in accordance with the glory of God. You know, modern contemporary Christian
music, and I have no problems with whatever
style of music, people want to use to worship God. There is
no good or bad style of music. There may be stuff that we're
more accustomed to or that we like better than others, but
music's just music. But what they say is important.
And so much of it, it seems to me, is taken up with, oh God,
we worship you. We do this, we do that. We bow before you. Why are we
talking about us so much? Are we trying to impress God
with how worshipful we are? Instead of telling God that we're
worshiping Him, let's just worship Him. And if we're worshiping
Him, we won't have to tell Him we are. He'll know it. Everything,
every bit of healthy, hygienic doctrine for the glory of God. We could go back through those
same doctrines I just mentioned to you and find every one of
them glorifies God. Total depravity glorifies God
because it says that all the righteousness for which we are
blessed came from Him, not from us. Unconditional elections for
the glory of God for it says that the salvation of sinners
is by His will. Effectual atonement glorifies
Jesus Christ and says He's not a failure, that everyone He tried
to save, He actually did save. Irresistible grace glorifies
the Spirit of God and His invincible sovereign power to reach into
the dead hearts of men and create life and faith and love for God. Perseverance of the saints takes
the spotlight off of us as we try to press on and all that
and says, well, if we do press on and we must press on, that's
true. But if we do, it's only because God continues to work
in us. He's the one that perseveres
and that makes us persevere. And then sound doctrine is always
in accordance with the happiness of God. Now that word blessed. It's the
same word that our Lord used when he said, blessed are the
poor in spirit. Blessed is this, blessed is that.
And actually we use part of that word in the English language.
You know how we talk about small things in terms of micro, M-I-C-R-O,
and that's from a Greek word meaning small. And then we talk
about big things, as macro, M-A-C-R-O. And this word translated blessed
is actually the word macro, enlarged is what it's talking about. You
know what it's like to feel so full of life, you're enlarged.
So full of good things, you are enlarged. That's what he's talking
about. Now, the gospel of the glory
of the blessed or enlarged or happy God is the gospel that
declares God to be happy with all that is going on. I have listened to evangelists,
you know, and they want to pull at your heartstrings and everything,
and they try to get you to come to Jesus just to be sympathetic
towards God. I've really heard that. Sounds
like nonsense, you say. Well, yeah, it's unhealthy doctrine.
They say, oh, God's up there in heaven, and he so much wants
to save you, and he's weeping because you won't let him save
you. Really now? God is not unhappy. And if he
were, there's nothing you could do to make him happy. But God is perfectly satisfied
with the way things are going. And all healthy doctrine conforms
to that truth about God. And then it's according to the
gospel of the glory of the happy God, all healthy doctrine concerns
God, especially as he is revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
what is the value of sound or healthy doctrine? Well, you look
at 2 Timothy chapter four. Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy
chapter 4, in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who will
judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing
and His kingdom, I give you this charge, preach the Word. And we have shown many times
before that when the Bible talks about the Word, it's talking
about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Preach the Word. Be prepared
in season and out of season. correct, rebuke, and encourage
with great patience and careful instruction, for the time will
come when men will not put up with sound doctrine." And that's true. I was writing up a description of my
life since college. for a friend on Facebook. And
I mentioned that I've been here for 33 years, almost. And this church is no bigger
now than it was then. Now, there's more families represented. But on any given Sunday, there
are actually less bodies present than the first summer we met. And I thought, think to myself,
I know what I've preached. I'm not trying to brag on myself,
because my man never does anything worthwhile except the grace of
God works in him to do it, but I know that what I've told was
the truth. I know that what I've preached is sound doctrine. And
yet it seems that so few are willing to put up with it. Instead, as the apostles say,
Instead, they suit their own desires, or to suit their own
desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers
to say what their itching ears want to hear. Tell me something about how I
can have a good family. Well, I know one of the first
things that's helpful with a good family is to go to church and
hear some healthy doctrine about Jesus Christ. But healthy doctrine
is not about how to raise kids. Well, I want to know the Christian
way to handle my finances. I heard Don Fortner talking about
that one time. You all know Don, and he's pretty
straightforward in the way he speaks. He says, I'll give you
the entirety of Christian economics right now. Pay your bills. Pay your bills. Don't cheat anybody. People want, I remember this. I'm sure Bonnie can identify
with it. We sat under so many messages where itching ears were
listening to preachers who claimed to know what was gonna happen
in the next little bit. Well, who doesn't wanna know
that? I won't deny that I'm curious. It might scare me to death if
I found out what's gonna happen next. Oh, they were always careful
to say, now, I can't say this with certainty, but it sure looks
like things are lining up for Jesus to come back. One of the
most famous of them, and I think he's still preaching, if he is,
he's like in his mid-80s or more, but he came to our church back
before he was such a big shot that he didn't go to individual
churches, he had to have citywide crusades. But he used to say,
I'm no longer looking for signs, I'm listening for sounds. meaning
the trumpet of the Lord. That was over 50 years ago, back in the 60s, he
was saying that. And he's been saying it ever
since, and he's always got a following, and people always listening to
him. Why? Itchy ears, and he's scratching them. And it's not
healthy doctrine. Healthy doctrine preserves us
from becoming those who are unwilling to endure it anymore. Healthy
doctrine produces faith and love. 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 13. What you have heard from me,
keep as the pattern of sound teaching or doctrine, same word,
keep it with faith and love in Christ Jesus. You cannot legislate love. You cannot write enough rules
to make people love one another. But if you declare healthy doctrine
in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the happy God,
men and women will begin to love one another. God's people do
love one another. Now we got flesh, so our love
doesn't always show very good, but we do love one another. So much so that John says, he
that does not love does not know God. And then lastly, healthy
doctrine protects from division and controversy. First Timothy
chapter six. Beginning in verse 3, if anyone
teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound doctrine
of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited
and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest. He doesn't have healthy doctrine,
he's got an unhealthy interest. as an unhealthy interest in controversies
and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, and malicious
talk, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of corrupt
mind who have been robbed of the truth and who think that
godliness is a means to financial gain. You start preaching unhealthy
doctrine. There's a temptation to it because
guys go off to school to learn how to be preachers and they're
kind of put on a track where they gotta keep digging to find
something that nobody else has found before. If you ever find
something in the Bible that nobody else has ever found before, you
can count on it, it's not the truth. It's not healthy doctrine. Healthy doctrine unites the people
of God. It'll irritate the goats, that's
for sure. But we're not trying to make goats happy. Healthy
doctrine brings the sheep together, it does not divide them. May God grant us to hear and
believe and rely upon only that healthy doctrine which God has
given to us in Christ Jesus. Father, bless your word. Thank
you for the healthy doctrine of Christ. Thank you for the
healing it brings to our souls as we hear the wonderful truth
of the gospel, of the glory, of the happy, satisfied, and
contented God. Father, we worship you as the
one who works all things according to the counsel of your own will. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that
you have been made king over the universe and that you rule
it for the good of your people. Holy Spirit, how grateful we
are for what you do for us, because you restrain us from our waverings
and pull us back when we wander, and you will not allow us to
be lost. In all things, God, you are worthy
of the praise. It's in the name of Jesus Christ
we pray this. Amen.