If you have it with you today,
digital or however it is you look at the Word of God, I want
you to find the second letter to Timothy by Paul. I want you to look at finding chapters
three and four. When we are working in the series
and for the most part, expositionally preaching topics It becomes frustrating,
and I say that every week, and I know that people get tired
of hearing it, but I have to be honest, it's very hard to
say what text do you preach on this particular topic? And you
can't preach a verse because a verse is contained within a
paragraph. Paragraphs contained within a
thought and thought contained in the argument and full rhetoric
of the writing is contained within the letter. So you cannot just
say this verse means this if you don't know what that book
means. The letter knows one thing about
scriptures is highly synergistic. It's always congruent to the
next. And I believe not only in what
we call solar scriptura, but solar pistols. In other words,
I believe that if we had the letter to Timothy, we could tear
it out. If there's the only thing we ever had, we could learn all
we needed to learn from that letter. We would need to go anywhere
else to know what that letter is teaching. Well, that's impressive
stuff. Now you can learn all sorts of
stuff, Wikipedia. But I want you to know, as Protestants,
we have been birthed out of the traditions of men, excuse me,
saved out of the traditions of men by the gospel of Jesus Christ
that is given only through his word. And in the Bible of this part
of the world, I have come to find after 16 years or so of
not being in this part of the world, coming back, I've come
to find that this portion of the world, most people would
say, I believe the Bible. And I believe what the Bible
says. And I believe the Bible is true. And all this stuff that
comes out of their mouth. And you go, wow, we're amongst
brethren. We're amongst company. We're common children and a united
faith. But after almost two and a half
years back in the Bible Belt, I found that most people who
say they believe the Bible believe not the Bible at all. They don't
believe Scripture at all. They believe what they've been
told, or the ditto heads of Christendom. In other words, the people, they
know the right words and they can say the right stuff. Well,
the Bible teaches this. The Bible teaches that God helps
those who help themselves. Nowhere is it to be found. It's
not there. Well, the Bible says that Jesus
says this. The Bible teaches that this is
the gospel. The Bible says you must do this
to be saved. It's not there. It's not there. And though we might touch on
those issues in future sermons throughout the summer, today
I want to hit the foundation of one of the pillars of the
Reformation. I said, well, I'm not Reformed. Yes, you are. If
you're not Catholic, you're Reformed or you're agnostic or atheistic,
either one. You're either part of the Reformed tradition of
Protestantism or you are not Christian. Well, I'm evangelical. You can be evangelical if you're
not of the Protestant tradition, you're Catholic. And back in
the days of Martin Luther and John Calvin and Zwicky and others,
they at the same time in different places across the world without
email and Facebook and text messages, God pushed in their heart a surprising
common theme. And it was that the Bible is
for the people of God. And the scriptures have been
sustained by the power of God throughout history, up to Christ
and now since Christ. And men have come in with their
thoughts and traditions and have thwarted and twisted the word
of God, thus creating a new God and a new faith and a new belief
system that is damnable beyond all damnations. And yet everybody says, I believe
the Bible. But they reject historical explanation of what scripture
is, they reject the need for lengthy study and prayer over
scripture before they stand and preach it. They reject the need
for the Holy Spirit to speak rather than men and their creativity. They're concerned more with what
people think about what they say and how they're going to
relate to it than whether or not it's true and that the power
of God through the scripture is going to take a dead, blind
individual and bring them to life and give them eyes to see
and a heart to have holy affections, to transform that wicked affection
to holy affection in the blink of an eye. But we believe the Bible, they
say. We believe the Bible, but nothing they do and nothing they
say comes from the fact that they would believe the Bible.
And I'm emphatically passionate about this because it is through
the word of God that God saved me. It is through the God of
the word of God that God sustains me. I'm amazed that I'm a Christian
at 40. I'm amazed that I was a Christian
at 30 and I was amazed I was a Christian at 20. I was amazed
I was a Christian at 10. I can't believe it, because if
it was up to me, I would not be a Christian. God's word alone
sustains his people. God's word alone saves his people. There's no recipe for salvation.
There's no Roman road to get to Jesus. The road to Rome goes
to Rome. And Rome is apostate. There's no E-E-F-A-I-T-H. There's none of that. I'm trained
in it all, certified with the plaques to prove it. But what
saves someone is when their ears hear the Word of God and that
in that hearing, the Holy Spirit glows in their hearts and gives
them true ears to hear what is said. And so today, I want to really
bounce on the idea of one of the pillars of the Reformation,
what is called Sola Scriptura, which means. Roughly, the word
of God alone, what it does not mean is alone is the word of
God. It means that by the word of
God alone, does someone know Christ alone who saves? By grace alone, through faith
alone, for the glory of God alone. That is the foundation of what
Christianity is. That is the foundation of what
Protestantism is. That's the foundation of what
historical Christianity is. And it had lost the word of God.
By the 16th century had lost it. It's a God purpose to revitalize
his people and bring them out of the depths of tradition and
out of the darkness and death of false interpretation. He realized
during that day of Martin Luther that the common person could
not even read the Bible. It was not translated into their
language. And those who centuries before had tried to put it into
their language were burned and killed. For it was a place where
bishops and the vicar only had access to such things. So I've been praying about how
to really focus on this and teach, not just I don't want to talk
about the errors, I want to show you the truth. the truth of what
the scripture teaches about itself. And I can't convince you through
apologetics or historical archaeology. I can't convince you through
history nor scientific evidence that scripture is true. Even
if I did, it wouldn't mean that you believed in Christ. So those efforts are really fruitless
in the context of evangelism. They're fruitless in the context
of holy living. Those efforts are only good among
brethren who like to really just celebrate the glorious, the glory,
glorious beauty of God and how he works all things in the history
of man for his good, for his glory and for his decrees. And so as Timothy is receiving
this letter by his mentor, Paul. Paul spent a lot of time with
Timothy as a young boy. And as you as you look at first
Timothy, you see that Paul had taken him under his wing. But
Timothy was no stranger to the word of God, raised with a Jewish
mother and a Greek father. And a grandmother that was devoted
to the scriptures, Timothy was taught in the scriptures, and
as Paul laid hands on young Timothy, He says to him, I pray that God
would fan into flame this good deposit that I've entrusted to
you, that you've learned from your mother and your grandmother. And that you would entrust it
to reliable men who could teach others also. And then going now
into his second letter, Timothy is dealing with a lot of problems
in Ephesus. And one of those problems is
that he was looked down upon because he was not purely Jewish. Because his father wasn't Jewish,
another one of the problems that he has, because he was actually
young, probably, I would say, in his mid to late teens, and
he had been given the head or chief eldership over an entire
city. And another problem is there
were a lot of people who were charlatans. What does that mean?
That means that they're for their own glory and for their own fame
and for their own ministry. They began to start doing things
their own way and teach the scriptures and their own understanding of
their own philosophy. And there were many who claimed
the name of Christ, but yet they walked in darkness. They ran
after the flesh. They ran after lustful desires.
They ran after greed. They ran after fame. They ran
after the hope of having relationships. They ran after the hope of if
I could just get this, I'd be happy. They ran after a dead
happiness. And there were some even in the
apostolic support ministry who were helping Timothy, I mean,
helping Paul and Barnabas and others in their ministry of planting
churches and giving scripture to the people of God who have
read word from the truth, who had left what we call orthodoxy,
which means right opinion and gone to what is called heresy,
which means of one's own opinion. And Timothy names, or Paul names
them in his second letter. He names them by name. He says,
these brothers have swerved from the truth. So he tells Timothy to flee his
youthful passion to pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace with those
who call on the Lord with a pure heart, have nothing to do with
foolish, ignorant controversies. You know that they breed quarrels.
The slave of God must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to everyone,
able to teach patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents
with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance,
leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may become they
may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil
after being captured by him to do his will. And then in chapter
three, I'm going to read the whole chapter. And I'm going
to read the first eight verses of chapter four. No, I'm not
going to exposit all of that, but I'm going to focus on one
specific thing. But I need you to have this in
your ear so I can talk freely about the one thing. But understand
this, Paul writes, that in the last days in which we are in,
the days after Christ ascension, there will come times of difficulty.
For, because people will be lovers of themselves. They will love
themselves. They will be lovers of money.
They will be proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their
parents. They will be ungrateful, unholy,
heartless, unappeasable. They can't be satisfied. Slanderous. They'll talk bad about everybody.
Having no self-control, they will be brutal, not lovers of
good. They will be treacherous, reckless,
swollen with conceit. Lovers of pleasure rather than
lovers of God. Having the appearance of godliness. Hear that, church? Having the
appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. have nothing to do with them,
Paul tells Timothy. For among those people are those
who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened
with sins and led astray by various passions. We get a picture here
that these adulterous, wicked people who claim to be in Christ
are doing things through their teaching and through their living
that are dividing families and are destroying lives. akin to
those people who kidnap women in their sleep. He says it's
like the man that goes into a house and abducts a woman. Like those armed militia who
have abducted those hundreds of girls. Oh, big strong guys. Why don't they come stand up
to some of us men? That's what Paul is saying, that
these people who teach this garbage and live this way, they're just
like that. And he names those who would
oppose Moses, they're always led astray by various factions,
always learning, but never able to arrive at the knowledge of
the truth. Those men who oppose Moses, they oppose the truth. These men oppose the truth. Men
who are corrupted in their mind, that means they're crazy. They
can't see truth and disqualified regarding the faith. They're
not believers. They're not brothers. No matter
what they say or what they say they've done or what they've
confessed before God and men, it's not witchcraft. It doesn't
matter what they say with their mouths. It matters if God has
restored them and made them alive in their hearts. But they will
not get very far for their foolishness will be plain to everyone. I
want you to hear this, as was that of those two men. You, however,
young Timothy, have followed my teaching. In other words,
you've you've seen what I've taught. You take note of you
have you followed it. Not just done like I've done,
but you you remember, you've seen it. You've been following
me like you follow someone on Twitter. You get to see what
they're doing and say, follow someone on Facebook. You get
to see what they're doing. You follow an athlete in the paper.
You see his stats. You follow what he's doing. You
follow my conduct, my teaching. You follow my conduct, my aim
in life. You know what it is. And you're
and you're not only following what I'm doing, but you're following
after me and my footsteps, my faith. My patience, my love,
my steadfastness, my persecutions and my suffering that happened
to me in Antioch and Iconium and Lystra, which persecutions
I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me. In other
words, I did not die. Indeed, look at verse 12, Church,
all who desire to live a godly life will be what? In Christ, Jesus will be persecuted
while, here's the antithesis, evil people and imposters will
go on from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived themselves. But as for you, beloved, continue
in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing
from whom you learned it. And how from childhood you have
been acquainted with the sacred writings, the Holy Scriptures,
which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in
Christ Jesus. Verse 16, this is the crux of
the test. All Scripture is breathed out
by God. And that word there, Paul made
that word. He created that word to describe
God speaking out Scripture. It's what Peter was talking about
as we read before service. And this scripture that is breathed
out by God is profitable for teaching, it's profitable for
reproof, it's profitable, profitable for correction and for the training
and righteousness that the man of God may be competent. Complete. equipped for every
good work. And then he says, I charge you,
young Timothy, in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who
is the judge of the living and the dead, and by his superiority
in his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of
season, reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people
will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they
will accumulate for themselves. They will hire their own pastors. To suit their own passions. And they'll turn away from listening
to the truth and wonder into myths. As for you, always be
sober minded, walking in joyfully to suffering, enduring suffering,
do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry and we'll
stop there. There's a lot to say, but here's what I want you
to see. Right now in our world, in our country, among our denomination,
in our convention, in our region, in our state and in our city. Men stand behind pulpits and
they say they're preaching the Word of God, and yet they spew
lies. And by the very nature of their
heart, they prove that what they say is false. But yet they say the Bible says
and the congregation goes, Amen. And then the Bible says it goes,
Amen. And so in James chapter three,
verse one, he writes these words. Not many of you should be teachers. For those who teach will be held
to a stricter judgment. We see the Old Testament with
the prophets of Israel, some of the prophets of Israel were
false prophets. And Israel loved those prophets
when God said, repent. and come out from among the Gentiles
and be separate. And the prophets of God would
come in and say, repent and come out and be separate. See, that's
King James there. Be ye separate. Be separated. Israel's trembled in their boots
and they said, oh, Lord God, we can. But then there would
be prophets who would come along and say, no, no, there's peace. There's peace. God's not angry
that you live in paganism. God's not angry that you worship
other gods. God's not angry that you laid
down the disciplines of the faith. God's not. God loves you. You're
his children. He's not going to bother you.
There's peace, peace when there's no peace. Preachers and Christians, Excuse
me, so-called pastors and so-called Christians who, by their actions
and their teaching, refuse to adhere to the sound teaching
of God's word. Are just like the false prophets
of Israel. Who were just like the false
prophets of Baal. Who were just like the false
prophets today. And yeah, we could talk about
the health and wealth stuff. We could talk about, you know,
this and this about your faith. We could talk about the easy
believism. I'm not talking about those false prophets. I'm talking
about people who are in line with orthodox people who stand
there and lead a people and say, thus says the Lord. And then
those same sheep go out into the world and stand on what they've
just been told and they say, this is what the Bible says.
You know what? You don't have to be a teacher
or a preacher in order to be a James 3, 1 person that should
be held to a stricter judgment. If you say the Bible says you'll
be held to a stricter judgment because of that. It's not role,
it's action. And when we say the Bible says
we are saying God has told me this is true. Would you stand
before God and point a finger in his face and say that what
you think about certain things is true because he says it? When
we say the Bible says it, we say God has said it. And when
we're wrong, we make God a liar. The scripture is not a book of
stories. The scripture is not history,
though it contains both. The scripture is not lessons
for life. The scripture is not a lot of
historical documents that we see. The Scripture is not man's
thoughts about these things. The Scripture, as we heard from
Peter's mouth just a moment, is a record of what witnesses
to the majesty of the glory of God saw and heard. And John writes in his first
epistle that which we have seen, which we have heard, which we
touched with our hands concerning the word of truth. We proclaim
to you. This is the message that we have
heard and we now proclaim to you that God is light and in
him is no darkness. So if anyone claims to be in
the light while he walks in darkness, he lies and does not practice
the truth. The problem comes, Church, is
that most people who say they believe the Bible don't even
know what it says. Well, we know that we know we
get it, the Bible's authoritative. No, we don't get it. We don't
get it for all scripts. Scripture. Listen to this is
breathe out by God. There's a movement today. A lot
of movements today on biblical interpretation. One is higher
criticism. Well, let's think about it for
a minute. Let's look. Well, it's not really that. It means this.
Well, there's other things, numerology, all sorts of stuff like that.
There's there's what I call pretexting. Let's take that little phrase
right there that sounds good and we'll expound philosophically
upon it and we'll make it sound right when we say it. So that's
what the Bible means. No, it doesn't. And there's the
red letter Christians. There's the little Christ's movement.
That Scripture's good, but what's most important is what Jesus
said. When Jesus says that he is Scripture,
John says that Jesus is the living word. The Scripture says that
what Paul said is what Jesus said. Not what Paul said Jesus
said, which is a Muslim apologetic. But that Jesus spoke, Paul wrote. So when Scripture is exposed,
when Scripture is exposed, when Scripture is preached, we're
actually standing in the gap saying that this is me standing
here. But the words that you're hearing
about the truth of Scripture is actually the voice of God.
It's a tall order. And that's why there's no room
for philosophy of life messages from from the Scripture. That's
why there's no room for better live your life this way or looking
for some good stuff or there's no room for, hey, you want to
be a better dad, want to be a better dad, fall in love with the glorious,
most beautiful thing that ever existed in the cosmos, who breathed
life into you and gave you the family that you have, fall on
your face in worship and watch what God can do in your marriage. That's how you become a better
dad. You want to be cool and famous? Well, you're headed to hell.
For a man that looks to find his life has lost it. But a man
who loses his life for the sake of the gospel surely will find
it. Friends, people abuse you when
they abuse the Word of God. They abuse you. They abuse you
emotionally. They abuse you spiritually, which
affects you physically. People abuse the Word of God
and they take Malachi and make you tired of everything you've
got. And if you don't, you feel guilty. When Paul very clearly
teaches in 2 Corinthians 9 to give as God has given, as you
feel compelled by the umption of the Holy Spirit, not grudgingly,
but joyfully. Because God is able to Make all
things abound to you by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. People tell you, well, there's
some false teachers down the road and the Bible says this
and they're teaching people not to listen to the teaching of
the gospel. And that's what Paul was telling Timothy was happening
in his day, and it's happening today. People who are standing
in the pulpits of Southern Baptist churches in Evans and Tattnall
County are teaching people not to listen to the gospel. Last
week, right now, in Stillmore and Emanuel County and other
places, heard it with our own ears. The people have told us,
Oh, my God, what's going on? What's this mean? What it means
is that they're lost, they're unregenerate and they're the
workers of iniquity and they are twisting the words of God
and they are keeping people bondage. As Peter talks about, they savage
those people under the shepherding that they cannot themselves follow. Breathe out. God is not form. God, the father is spirit. And
as Jesus says in John four, that there's no place or way of worshiping
except in spirit for God is spirit. And the only other aspect of
that worship in spirit is that we worship in truth. And the
only truth that God gives to the world is through his word
that he wrote through the hands of men. So the supernatural reality of
God and the spiritual metaphysical presence of God from all eternity,
from eternity to eternity, as he, as he envelops the infinite
cosmos with his hand. How does infinite hold infinite? You can't grasp that. But God
says that his only means of revelation is that he would take the ineffable,
majestic, eternal essence of his being and he will write it
on paper. And that's the word of God. The authority of God's word is
that you get to open as Moses. Moses was such a blind man because
God had not opened his eyes. And as Paul talks about the blindness
of the people of old, he makes known the mystery of the gospel,
who is Christ Jesus, the living word of God. Moses, when he was
on Mount Sinai and we see in Hebrews where we see the picture
of that, you have not come to it, to the tempest. You've not
come to this mountain. And the voice of God rumbled
out and the people at the base of the mountain feared and they
said, please don't let us hear. We don't want to hear this anymore.
And God was there with Moses and the fullness of the kind
of glory, the Old Testament calls it, of God enveloped the mountain
with a cloud. And Moses was there and God had
Moses take down his word. And then Moses was holding the
word of God in his hand. He says, oh, God, can I see your
glory? Can I see your glory? Can I just
look upon your face? And God says, no one can look
upon the face of God and live, but I will let you see the back
of my robe as I walk by. And so it says that the Spirit
of God moved and walked by, and Moses glimpsed and saw the tail
end of the train of the back of the robe of God, and that
just at the glimpse of that which was not even God, he came down
from the mountain and his face shone. with brightness like the
face of an angel. And it caused the people to scream
in horror and to shirk back in fear and lay on the ground and
say, please cover your face. But we cannot stand to see the
reflection of the back of the reflection of the glory of the
majesty of God. Would you please cover your face,
Moses? But what Moses didn't realize that he knows now is
that he had the fullness of God's glory in his hands. He had the word of God, God saying,
you cannot see me, but I will show you who I am. Have no other
gods before you. Worship me with all your heart,
with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength,
with all your flesh. Worship me. Love each person
as yourself. Don't lie. Do not steal. Do not
covet. Honor your father and your mother.
Do not commit adultery for adultery is a blasphemy against the gospel
because man and wife and their sexual relation is a picture
of Christ and his church. Paul says in Ephesians five.
You hold the glory of all of my glory in your hand and you
look to that and you want to see me and one day I will send
my son that the glory of all my glory will be revealed to
you and you will see me in my fullness face to face. You see
that? And that's what Stephen preached
in Acts chapter seven. The prophets have preached, God
gave his word to Moses and he's preached and all the prophets
have preached and you've killed them and even the one to whom
they pointed and then they killed Stephen. So when Paul says that all scripture
is breathed out by God, That's what he means. And we have seen his glory, glory
as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And from his fullness, we all
receive grace upon grace upon grace. From Moses, we receive
the law. From Christ Jesus, we receive
grace. No one has ever seen God He who is at his side has made
him known. So what I want you to see from
this as we wrap up. I haven't even gotten to the
text. I want you to see just in this
that we've looked at today, that the scripture is the measure
of the voice of God. When you think of measure, we
call this the canon. The word canon means measure.
It's the measurement. It's the rule in which we say
it's the Bible. The canon of Scripture is what
we measure to say. And for those of you who want
to learn some history in the next few months, we're going
to do some more history classes. People are wrongly informed that
the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century created the Bible,
they did not. They took all the garbage that
would begin to circulate against the Scripture and said, forget
it, we're going to come together, we're going to agree that these
are the books that we've had since the days of the apostles
and no more will be added. But these are some good letters
over here, and so we're going to call them the Apocrypha. Which
means non-apostolic, non-authoritative. These are neat historical writings,
but they're not Scripture. That's why the Catholic Church
has the Apocrypha. And the Word of God is the measure
of the voice of God. If we say God says this, God
is this, God believes this, God wants this, God wills this, God
desires this, then the Scripture doesn't teach it, then we're
wrong. When people say those of the reformed tradition are
going to hell, they're wrong. And they need to be willing to
stand and stand toe to toe with a Bible in their hands, and if
they're good enough, the Greek Testament. And defend the position. Many people have ascribed wrongly
the word of God to every every every area of life we have, you
have, we all have. But ultimately, scripture is
authoritative because of the measure of the voice of God. God breathed
out his word and the world left into existence. God said, and
it was. God said, let there be light,
and there was light. God said. Jesus and the apostles
affirm the creation account as valid scripture of the breathing
out of God. Jesus, who is God, said that
it was. So if we can't understand it
or grasp it or come to conclude in our logic or rationale, oh
well, I guess then you're going to have to be born again to see
it, Nicodemus. Because you can't grasp how something
of age appeared. You can't grasp how an old earth
just went, there it is. Because you're of the flesh,
and the things of the flesh are flesh, and the things that are
born of the Spirit are the Spirit. We've got to be of the Spirit,
or we're not in the faith. God's face is revealed through
the measure of His voice through Scripture. Christ is the Word
incarnate. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was God, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was in the beginning with him, and nothing that was made was
not made through him. And Paul says in Colossians that
he was before all things, and through him all things were created,
and that by the Word of his power he upholds the creation, all
of it. In Hebrews chapter one, it says
that many times in many ways, God has spoken to us to the prophets.
But in these days, he speaks to us through his son, who is
above all things, who is above all creation, who is greater
than every man and even the angelic host of heaven. For of whom has
God ever said, this is my beloved son. And the most great, the
greatest creative work of God through his word. is when you
hear the word of God today and all of a sudden you see Christ. You see the face of Jesus Christ
and it overwhelms you with a beauty and an affection that you've
never seen. And repentance and faith come
and things are changed. And you live your life not in
your own flesh or ability, even for sanctification, but in the
fullness of the promise of God who saved you and justified you
before him in Christ, who has taken your sins on him. Therefore,
you are no longer condemned. It's not just the measure of
the voice of God, the scripture is the measure of the saints
of God. There's persecution that comes for those who what? Desire
to live a godly life. So when God breathes out his
word and breathes into you life through Christ, then there's
a transformation that takes place and you are different. You are
no longer the old, but the new. Behold, the new has come. We
are new creatures in Christ. And though we may have a little
bit of smelliness from time to time, we may have a little temptation
from time to time, our affections are transformed. It's the measure of the saints.
It's how we measure whether or not someone's profession is truly. Truly. Truly rebirth. If you have love for one another.
See, if you sit against me today and you make me more angry than
I've ever been in a long time because the spirit of God lives
in my flesh, Kung Fu Judy Taught my spirit in me. Sorry, I didn't
mean to get ridiculous. The Spirit of God in me grieves
and I can't stand it. And I want to fix it, even if
I have to die for you to make it right. When false teachers come against
us, do something. Let's tell them what they are.
Let's put them in their place. Let's show the world they're
not going to step on us and get away. Wait a minute. That's not
the way Christ did it. He stayed silent. He remained
quiet. But he did correct those in error
with gentleness, patience. Why? That God may grant them
repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. Repentance means
a change of mind, mostly agreeing with God that sin is wicked and
he is holy and he is right and just in his Judgment against
sin. But then more than just the mind
changing, the new heart creates not just a mind change, but a
heart change. And the heart change produces
an action change or at least a desire to see righteousness. So it's the measure of the saints.
So when people preach a false word and they say, don't worry
about these people who teach the Bible incorrectly, you just
stay away, see them running in the restaurant, walk the other
way. But we profess to be brothers, doesn't the scripture say that
we should sit down and reason together and correct it? And
as long as it's up to us, strive for peace. You don't have a responsibility
to those in error to correct them lest they perish in their
sin. No, sir, I will not have a meeting
with you. No, sir, I will not stand and debate with you. No,
sir. But these same people will set
definitely in a public venue, bash the word of God. And in
doing so, they smear the name of Christ. And they bring reproof
upon. The scripture is the measure
of the voice of God, the measure of the saints, it's also the
measure of our wisdom. We get to see Christ, we get
to understand him, we get to worship him and intimately be
enveloped in his presence forever. It's the measure of faith. Romans
10, 17, for faith comes through hearing, but hearing comes through
the words of Christ. It's the measure of truth. The
Word of God is a measure of goodness. What is right? What is wrong?
What is holy? What is wicked? It's the measure
of what is supposed to be true so that we can understand what
is an error. It's the measure of correction. How do we correct
those who are wrong? How do we reprove those who are
walking in a way that their lifestyle doesn't line up with their profession
of faith? It's also the measure of completeness.
And the man of God, as it says there, And this text that the
man of God may be competent, complete, equipped for every
good work. It's a measure of completeness.
The word of God shows us what the pastor should be doing. It
shows us what his nature should be, his character should be.
It shows us what a Christian ought to feel and how how he
or she ought to look at things. It changes our worldview from
me, me, me to let me give of myself for you. It changes our heart. We're compelled
to share that which we love the most. You want to know what people
love? Listen to what they talk about. I have conversations with my children
about their future spouses. I actually had this very conversation
just this week. How do we know? How will I know,
Dad, if the guy that I'm supposed to marry is godly? I said, listen
to me. Watch what he says. He can say
he loves Jesus, but he's not desiring to be in the Word of
God. Run like the wind, Forrest, run. He's a liar. It's a measure of completeness. The problem is, Francis, that
the Scripture is heard, but it's not followed. Always learning. but never coming to the knowledge
of the truth. Having the what? Picture of Godliness, but denying
His power. You know what denying the power
of Godliness is? What does Paul say in Romans
116? For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it
is the power of God unto salvation, first to the Jew, then the Gentile.
What does Peter say? For God's divine power gives
us everything we need for life and Godliness. What does Paul
say in Titus? that the elder puts in order
what is remaining through the teaching of sound doctrine that
accords with sound doctrine. Ah, a prisoner, not a prisoner,
a slave, a servant. He is a prisoner of the Lord,
but not in that text. A slave of God, Father Jesus
Christ, for the sake of the faith of the elect of God and their
knowledge of the truth which accords with God. And this is
the introduction to Titus. People think the gospel is just
some thing, a presentation. It's not. It means God speak. It's a transformation of the
word evangel, which is evangelism. It's where we come from. We ism
the evangel. And the word evangel means good
news. That's it. It's not a spiritual
thing. It's a human. It's a fleshly
thing. How can we explain good news? How is the good news given? Through the word of God alone,
sola scriptura. That's what it means. So they say they believe, but
they do not believe, and so thus they forsake the word of God,
and in doing so, they reject the Son of God. Knowing facts
about Jesus, saying they're true, is not being born again unto
eternal life. Being born again unto eternal
life comes to the hearing of the Word of God. Correctly being taught. The Scripture is not heard. These
false teachers prove that they don't believe the Scripture when
they forsake the commands of Christ in matters of faith. Love
your enemies. Now we'll talk about them on
Facebook. Now we'll slander them at the
restaurant. You know the president. Honor
the emperor. Is that honoring the emperor?
Is that praying for the kings and the leaders? Is that submitting
yourself to the one that God put in office? Don't follow the word of God,
proving that they're false teachers and they don't stand for the
scripture when they forsake the words of Christ and matters of
doctrine. All who the father gives to me comes to me. God
gives his people to the son and all who come to me. I will never
cast out. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4,
we don't practice cunning. We don't twist scripture. We
don't get creative. We just preach the gospel and
people come to faith. And if those who don't like what
we say turn and do something more entertaining, it's because
Satan has blinded their eyes. And the only thing that's going
to take the scales off their eyes is to hear what we just
said. Well, we got to reach them this
way, got to reach them that way. You like Mexican food? Go to
your favorite Mexican restaurant this afternoon and let them tell
you that they just went to cheese and cracker and wine, that that's
what they serve now. I don't want cheese and cracker.
You don't like cheese and cracker? I love cheese and crackers, but I want
a burrito. So let me invite you in to Jesus
and show you something other than Jesus and then go and blow
everything off the table and go, ta-da, Jesus. You're going
to be like, ooh, I don't want to eat Jesus. That's John 6. You don't labor for the food
that perishes, but labor for the bread that endures to eternal
life. I am the bread that comes down
from heaven. Be satisfied in me and live and
never hunger again. People forsake the scriptures
in matters of culture. Well, you don't know. They take
a literal, literal, literal, literal. Well, the Bible says
red. I'm going to wear red. How about the Bible told us that
red was a color back then? There was no blue then, but there
was red. What's that got to do with what
Scripture teaches about anything? Well, you better not wear a skirt
that comes up more than six-tenths of an inch above your knee, or
you're not Christian. You better not put too much eye
makeup, or you're not a Christian. You better not roll cigarettes
up in your sleeves, Are you not a Christian? Garbage. You're not going to
go to heaven by following the law of God. You're not going to have eternal
life by getting right before God and changing your life. A homosexual is not condemned
because he's gay. He's condemned because he was
born of a human mother and father, just like me. A thief is not going to go to
hell because he steals. He's condemned before God because
he's human. And he's wicked before God because of his existence.
And when Paul says, let the thief no longer steal, he's talking
to Christians. Yeah, you're a thief, but you're
justified, you're transformed, so you cannot steal now. But it's not the not stealing
or being sexually pure or telling the truth all the time that puts
us in right standing with God. The Scriptures teach that. Don't
listen to false teachers who teach you otherwise. Because
then you're bound. Where's your joy? You get up
every day and if you're honest, you go, wow, look at the sin
that's still there on the inside. See, I make jokes about Judy
chopping and stuff, but I really feel that way. Except it's not
funny. Trachea grab. That's sin. Be angry. Sin not. I've been trying for
years. And you can't see it anymore.
I'm going to throw something. I'm not going to curse at you.
But it's still there. So where's my hope? In the righteousness
of Christ who sustained my suffering on the cross. And now I'm innocent
before the Father. People mistake the Scripture
due to pretext. Well, Philippians 4.13 says you
can do anything in Jesus. All right, go jump off the Grand
Canyon and fly. Jesus said, I can fly. Man, James did not bounce. But I had faith. It was misplaced,
buddy. You flap your arms all you want,
you're not going to turn into a bird. A tiger can pretend he's a cheetah
and get faster and faster and faster, his straps aren't going
to turn to spots. And I'm never going to have a tanning. It's
not going to happen. Red, mahogany, white. That's
it. There's some things we just can't
do. And we cannot establish our own righteousness by taking a
little piece of passage out of the Bible and saying, see, I
prove it right there. But that's not what it's talking
about. That's not saying you've got a cup of butter in your hands
when you've got a loaf of bread, there's butter in there, but
it's not butter anymore. People forsake the scriptures
when they cannot prove its argument. In other words, well, the Bible
teaches this, and this is what you should believe. Prove it
to me. You know what the Bereans did? They heard Paul. Now, Paul,
a Jew of all Jews in the tribe of Benjamin, part of the Sanhedrin,
knew the Word of God. Then God radically changed him.
Christ radically changed him on the road to Damascus, and
then he became the greatest preacher of the Gentiles. And he goes
to the Bereans and he's saying, the Lord says this, the word
says this, this is the gospel, this is that, this is this. And
you know what they did? That sounds good. Oh, yeah. Let
me check it. The search the script. You're
saying Jesus came. I'm going to search the Old Testament.
It wasn't the Old Testament then, it was just the scriptures. I'm
going to search and see what you're saying is true, Paul.
Don't take offense at it. But you know what it's normally
like? You know what it's like in most churches? And I'm not
against visual aids. But most churches today, pastors
don't even use Bibles. I'm not even saying, if you want
to use a Bible on an iPad, that's fine, too. They've got a list
of a couple of little scriptures they want to use, and that's
it. They flash them up on the screen. Oh, don't worry about
your Bible. You can leave it at home. Don't
worry about it. Leave it where you study it. You're going, where's that? You can't prove it's armament.
People forsake the scripture when they ignore it in matters
of discipline, doctrine, salvation, church polity, the purpose of
the people of God. They ignore its power to save.
They ignore its security for the saints of God. Preservation
of the saints, your guarantee of salvation has nothing to do
with you. It's only through God's Word. How? Because that's where
you hear the promise of God that he will never leave you nor forsake
you. All who come to me, I will never snatch away. I will never
throw away. Christ died for you. He paid
for you. He bought you. And you belong
to him. And he will not throw you away.
They forsake you when they ignore that it is God's sole revelation
to man. Oh, I had a dream the other night.
Well, good. Maybe it was the Bible. If the Bible doesn't say
what that man dreamt, he's a liar. Well, I had a vision the other
day. Good. Does it gel with Scripture? No, but I saw this and I think
it means this. Well, you think wrong because
God's not a liar. They ignore God's commands of
the church. They forsake it when they ignore that it is the pinnacle
of worship, spirit and truth. Devastatingly, they ignore it
and they miss the place of wonder where God meets man. Friends,
the mercy seat until we see Christ is found here. The mercies of
God, the grace of God is given through the reading of the scripture. People forsake the scripture.
By their actions. And I'll close with these few
thoughts and then I'll pray. People forsake the scripture
by their actions. by the way they treat their enemies, by
the way they treat their family, their co-workers, their siblings
in Christ, by the way they relate to issues or disagreements with
doctrine and church discipline and conflict resolution. People
ignore the Scripture and prove that they don't believe the Bible
when they refuse to be challenged in their own beliefs. You want
to ask me if I'm really saved? I cannot wait to spend five hours
explaining how I know. You want to challenge me on my
doctrine? Good, because if I find I'm wrong, I'm going to hug you
for five hours. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
That's a little creepy. Hyperbole to give a point. People say that they believe,
but they show that they don't truly hold to Scripture when
they rant rather than relish in the glory of God. Problems,
suffering, persecution, hatred, all of these things are opportunities
for us, through God's Word, to worship and relish in His majesty,
knowing that no matter if we get through this or not, we are
victorious. They ignore the Scripture when
Their desire to be right causes them to have disdain for anyone
that questions. Paul says, is that the way you've
learned Christ? How do you learn Christ, beloved,
through the word of God? How other ways when somebody
can teach me what they're not teaching you, what the Bible
says, they're teaching you a false God. Is this what scripture has become
to most professing Christians? Just this. means of abuse. It is the sword that transforms
lives, and I didn't even get into the translation people. There are people who would tell
you, well, if it's not this particular translation, then it's not the word of God
and it's going to lead you to hell. Cry me a river. And I hate to
sound like I'm, but it's really divisive. And these people don't
want to stand at a debate either. They'll do it by themselves,
but never with the church. Jesus prays in John 17. A lot,
he prays in John 17. But specifically in 1717, he
prays to the Father. Father, sanctify them in the
truth. Your Word is truth. The Word of God is the only hope
for you to worship. and being continually sanctified
by the gospel, by Christ. And if we aren't seeing it for
what it is, more importantly, if we're not seeing it for who
it is, we miss it. So my prayer for you is that
you would truly see. See the beauty of Jesus Christ as the
one who is the Word of God and gave himself that you might be
free from the law and the consequences of the law, that you might be
free from the judgment of God. Let's pray. Father, we're grateful that you
love us, that you give us all that we
need. that You bestow upon us Your
grace when we deserve it least. We never deserve it. Lord, I
pray that Your Word would work mightily in our hearts as we've
looked and contemplated what we've heard. Father, it's hard
to drive topically out of this stuff, and I know that it's confusing
for some of us, even for me. But Lord, would your will be
done, would your word hold fast in us? Would you help us to be humble
as we deal with false teaching, as we deal with the false teaching
in our own minds, that we grow and we're thankful that you continue
to give us the grace to see it. Father, I pray for everyone here
today and Lord, Most preciously, I pray for these young men who
have come from the youth home today. And I thank You, Lord, that You've
ordained for them to be where they are, to be a part of that
great institution, Lord, to be a part of a family where they're
hearing the Word of God and they're seeing it. Lord, would You put
it in their hearts and minds to transform them so they would
not Live a life of guilt, fear, frustration as they work out
their fate, but Lord, a life of freedom. And thank you, Lord, that they
honor us with their presence today. Father, we pray for the fellowship
of the saints. We pray for the brothers and sisters who are
working today. They're aggravated, they are. Most of them have told
us. But Lord, help them be thankful for that job. Lord, maybe an
opportunity would come where they could do something else,
but Father, until that day, we stand with them in spirit. I pray that you would affect
revival in our hearts every moment, and that as we go about our day
with gentleness and patience, we would teach the Word of God
as we have opportunity, so that those who are being misled would
know the truth. Lord, keep us from senseless
arguments and help us to argue the scripture as it is written.
For the sake of your name and to the praise of your glorious
grace. Amen.