Okay, well will you turn back
with me to the book of Acts? We started in Acts chapter 1
last week. Remember we're moving into a
phase of trying to reach out to this community around us with
the Gospel of Grace and I thought it would be good to look at some
messages from the Acts of the Apostles, the building of the
early church. And the question I want to answer
this morning is pretty fundamental. In fact, I've struggled over
this message, because in the one sense, I think it's so simple
and foundational, and yet in another sense, I've wondered
about its suitability for a Sunday morning. But anyway, I'm confirmed
in the resolution to go ahead with it. How do we know the truth
of God? There's a new fellowship starting
off and looking for God to bring in new people and they say, how
do you know what you believe? What you're saying is different
to what other churches are saying. How do you know it's true? How
do we know the truth of God? Well, let's have a look at how
the early church knew the truth of God and where is the foundation? Now, look in Acts chapter 1 and
verse 9 and let's remind ourselves of the situation that they were
in. These disciples had been chosen
from among ordinary men. They hadn't been to any theological
seminary or the school of the prophets or anything of the sort.
They were just ordinary men. Tax collectors, fishermen, you
name it. They were just ordinary people
and Jesus chose twelve of them to be with him. One of them ultimately
betrayed him. Judas betrayed him. But there
were twelve of them and they'd walked with him through three
and a half years of ministry. They'd heard of him. They knew
from their scriptures that a Messiah was coming. And they'd walked
with him and they'd heard his gracious words. They'd heard
that never man spake like this man spake. They'd heard that
he spoke not as the scribes and Pharisees but as one having authority. He spoke the words of eternal
life. He told them that He was the
way, the truth and the life. He told them that He was the
resurrection and the life. He told them that whoever is
in Him, though he die, yet shall he live. They knew all of these
things. They knew that their God was
coming to earth and they said, as Peter said, when he said to
them, who do you say, who do men say that I am? Oh, they say
you're one of the prophets come again. You're perhaps Elijah
reincarnated or something like that. But who do you say that
I am? and with that enlightening that
comes from God alone. Because Jesus said to him, flesh
and blood hasn't told you this. Peter said, you are the Christ,
the son of the living God. You are God. I believe, said
Peter, looking at a man, just like I'm looking at you now,
looking at a human form. Peter said, I believe that you
are the infinite God who upholds all things by the word of his
power become flesh before our eyes at this moment. And all
of their trust and all of their hopes rested in him. and then
they'd seen him taken to the cross and they hadn't understood
and they'd seen him crucified and though they said they would
never betray him yet Peter did exactly what Christ said and
denied him three times before the cock crowed he denied him
and the anguish that that brought down upon Peter these things
that they'd been through and there was that terrible crucifixion
weekend those amazing things that happened And then, the resurrection. And they saw the risen Christ.
And as we were looking last week, by many infallible proofs, they
saw Him, and He came, and spoke to them, and taught them. He
opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures.
He showed them the key, that these are the words of eternal
life, and these are they which speak of Me. he preached to them,
he expounded to them the Scriptures and beginning at Moses and the
prophets he expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things
concerning himself because that's the message of this book from
start to finish for 40 days by many infallible proofs they saw
him and walked with him and then they come to this 40th day and
in verse 9 he'd spoken these things and while they looked
on, while they beheld he was taken up and a cloud received
him out of their sight and they were looking steadfastly toward
heaven they seen him taken up into heaven 40 days after his
crucifixion now look at the verses that we read right at the start
Psalm 68 Psalm 68 in verse 18 it says this you have ascended
on high you have led captivity captive you have received gifts
for men yes for the rebellious also that the Lord God might
dwell among them blessed be the Lord who daily loads us with
benefits even the God of our salvation he that is our God
is the God of salvation and unto God the Lord belong the issues
from death imagine they're watching him he's gone up into heaven
what do you think's in their minds? I'm sure what's in their
minds was this scripture you have ascended upon high we're
watching scripture being fulfilled have we not these last three
and a half years watched Scripture being fulfilled. Have we not
heard Him cry on the cross, My God, My God, why have you forsaken
Me? Speaking the words of the Psalmist
in Psalm 22. They were seeing the fulfillment
of Scriptures and Christ had opened their understanding regarding
the Scriptures that they might understand the Scriptures and
have that spiritual sight that comes only from the Spirit of
God. and he was about to pour out his spirit on them that they
might teach and preach with power using the gifts that he would
give his church we read about them in Ephesians 4 he ascended
on high and in the Psalm it says and gave gifts for men and in
Ephesians it quotes it gave gifts to men to his church apostles
messengers of the word of God of the truth of God prophets,
pastors, teachers, evangelists those who take that message so
that those who are without Christ might hear from a man that is
sent might hear that message of truth in the gospel and hearing
might believe and believing what they hear they might call for
blessed is he who calls on the name of the Lord they might call
upon him call upon him for salvation Lord whilst on others you are
calling do not pass me by This is what it was. They saw all
Scripture as speaking of Christ and of God's marvellous work
and the salvation revealed in it. God's marvellous work. That's
the Gospel. To God belong the issues from
death. He has done a marvellous work,
he says in Isaiah. We'll refer to it shortly. He's
done a marvellous work, a marvellous work of salvation that man will
never understand, that the wisdom of men will never ever fathom
out. But it's a marvellous work in this. that He remains just,
perfectly just, in condemning sin, in punishing sin, in doing
that which He must do to be God. The God of the universe must
do right. He must punish sin, and yet at
the same time, in the Lord Jesus Christ, He punishes sin, but
He's able to justify the sinner. And that's all of our hope. And
that's all of the things concerning the issues from death, For the
soul that sins, it shall die, but in the Lord Jesus Christ
there is life, abundant life. I am come that they might have
life and have it more abundantly. It's salvation. The God of salvation,
why does he call himself the God of salvation? It's salvation
from the condition of sin, from the guilt of sin, from the condemnation
of sin, from the consequences of sin. its salvation to newness
of life. And they saw it all completed
in Christ's finished work. His finished work on the cross,
the days he spent with them after his resurrection, and then there
they saw scripture fulfilled. He was ascending into heaven
and they saw him go. They saw justice established. They saw the work finished, scripture
fulfilled. And so what did they do? They
obeyed the command to go and wait. As we saw last week, they
were told to go and wait for the blessing of the Holy Spirit
to be poured out upon them. They obeyed that command and
they went back to Jerusalem to wait. How long were they to wait?
Not long. Just another 10 days. The day
of Pentecost. They weren't told it precisely,
but if they'd known their Scriptures, they would have been able to
work out that it wasn't long. It was like the Passover. You know
the Passover is the amazing type of the crucifixion of Christ,
when that perfect lamb was slain in the place of the children
of Israel, that they might come out of Egypt, that its blood
was painted on the doorposts, and 50 days after that was Pentecost. Pent, the Greek, five, Pentecost. It was when the law was given
at Sinai, 50 days afterwards. Something was going to happen
50 days afterwards. Pentecost was symbolical of the
ingathering of God's elect following the Passover. It was the ingathering
of his elect. And there they were, they were
to go and wait. They'd waited 40 already, they'd seen him ascend
into heaven, another 10 days to go to the day of Pentecost.
And they were waiting in that upper room. They were praying.
They were in prayer and supplication in one accord. He's told us to
wait. Let's pray in accordance with
his word. Lord, you've told us to wait
for the promise. Give us that promise. Give us that promise
in your time. And there they were. They did
what they were told to do. Now while they waited, I want
you to see how they handled the scriptures and also incidentally
Peter's sincere error. Peter committed what I believe
is a sincere error in this first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Not many of the commentators
say this, but I firmly believe that this is the case. What they
did was, while they were waiting, Peter stands up from verse 15
onwards in chapter 1 and starts to speak. And he's talking about
Judas. They were 12 apostles. And he's
talking about Judas. who betrayed Christ. Judas had
been friends with all of them, the friend of Christ. Judas had
been that friend. You know, Judas, that none of
them knew, come right up to the Last Supper and they were going,
well, who's going to betray you? You know, they weren't all going,
oh, but it's him, you know, Judas, we've seen his traits of character.
No, not at all. They couldn't tell. They didn't
know who it was. Is it me, Lord? Is it I that
will betray you? You know all things. I don't
know. Who is going to betray you? You see? They knew their
own frailty. But Judas it was who betrayed
them. And Peter says about him that
the one that they'd loved as a friend and walked with, that
he went and did this thing. And look what he says in verse
20 of Acts chapter 1. Where does Peter go to get understanding
of this situation and what they're to do about it? he goes to the
scriptures for it is written in the book of Psalms let his
habitation be desolate and let no man dwell therein and his
bishopric let another take now you read those Psalms and you
read them as the experiences of the Psalmists of David and
of the anguish of David's anguish with his son Absalom who acted
treacherously with him and sought to bring him down and it's all
their first-hand personal experiences and some people read the Psalms
and that's all they get from them you know it's like reading
the works of Shakespeare where you can learn so much about the
human condition and about the way people interact with each
other and some people only go that far But what I want you
to note is the way the Apostles read the Scriptures. And this
is how we must read the Scriptures. He read the Psalms as speaking
of Christ. I know, in this company that's
an obvious thing to say. But it isn't so many other places. It really isn't. Look, he says,
it's written in the book of Psalms. When David was writing about
his anguish with Absalom and all of the other trials that
he had, he was actually writing from Christ's perspective, looking
at what Judas would do, the friend who betrayed him. And he says,
let his habitation be desolate, that's Psalm 69, that we looked
at a week or two ago. Let no man dwell therein. And
his bishopric, his office, let another take. Let someone else
come in, that's Psalm 109, verse 8. Let someone else take his
place. So Peter thinks, well, we really need to choose a replacement.
for Judas, because we're now down to 11, we better do something
about this. But the important point, before
I mention what I think was his error, the important point is,
where did he go to get the foundational principles for what to do? He
went to the Scriptures, to the law and to the testimony. If
they speak not according to this word, there is no light, there
is no truth in them. And this gives us warrant to
read the Scriptures in this way. Do you know one thing that It
really gets to me when I hear people saying about the application
of the scriptures to Christ that you're over-spiritualizing the
scriptures. They say you're over-spiritualizing
the scriptures. No, you're not. We've got scriptural
warrant to spiritualize them in this way. It's written in
the book of Psalms about Judas and Christ and his passion. We
have absolute apostolic authority And quite honestly, we're flying
in the face of what God has revealed to his church if we don't interpret
the scriptures in this way. If we just use it as a book of
morals and of literature of life. Absolutely not. He did the right
thing, but then this is what he did wrong. You see, there
were intended to be 12 apostles, always, like the 12 tribes of
Israel. And you read in Revelation, 24 elders, 12 and 12, representing
the Old Testament church and the New Testament church. But
this is the mistake, I believe, that Peter sincerely made. You
see, because although Peter was an apostle, he was not infallible. He was a man. And as they say,
the best of men are still men at the very best. And that's
not very good. You know what Revelation says
about man? Six, six, six. Do you know why it says that?
There's no sort of weird voodoo about it. There's nothing about
don't drive down the A666 from Manchester to Bolton. There's
none of that nonsense in it. It's this. What's the number
of perfection in scripture? Seven. Seven is God's number
of perfection. What's six? One short. One short. One short. One short. Short of
perfection. It's man. It's man. That's what
it is. And so, there were to be 12 apostles
and the full number was to be made up but instead of asking
the Lord what he would have had them to do which is what they
should have done what do you want us to do about this situation
Lord we're down to 11 apostles what do you want us to do Peter
said this Lord I'm going to do either this or that now we're
going to draw lots to see which one of these two you want us
to do and in that I believe he made a mistake you know how I
know he made a mistake they chose Matthias And to my knowledge,
I don't, somebody might be able to correct me, I don't believe
we ever hear about Matthias again in the scriptures, but I tell
you who we do hear about. We hear about Saul of Tarsus.
Saul of Tarsus. Paul, an apostle. He was God's
apostle to make up the full number of the twelve. So anyway, that
was just a little aside. But you see how they applied
the Scriptures. They went to the Psalms. They
went to the Scriptures. And this is what we must do.
Now in chapter 2 and verse 1, the waiting is over. So the day
of Pentecost is fully come. And it was a great feast. And
there would be lots of people in Jerusalem. You see, it's all
in the wisdom of God. that the Holy Spirit times things
to perfection. Jerusalem would be full of people
for the Feast of Pentecost. There was the promise that the
Holy Spirit would come and that that would be fulfilled. And
look, just read with me in these verses. They were all with one
accord in one place. And then verse 2, and suddenly,
they're there waiting. It's the day of Pentecost. They're
waiting. Suddenly there came a sound from
heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house
where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them
cloven tongues, split tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon
each of them. And they were all filled with
the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as
the Spirit gave them utterance. The waiting was over. They were
there in Jerusalem. There was physical symbolism.
to authenticate the reality of what was happening. They were
being filled with that promise that Christ had given them. The
Comforter would come to them. The Paraclete would come to them.
He would show them the things of Christ. He would take that
which is Christ's and reveal it to them, wherever they were,
throughout the world, in all ages. That promise was being
fulfilled, but it was being fulfilled and authenticated by physical
signs. So there was a sound of a rushing
mighty wind. Why the sound of a rushing mighty
wind? Do you remember last week we
read Ezekiel 37 of the Valley of the Dry Bones? What was the
Prophet told to do? Prophesy to the bones and they
came together and skin and tissues and flesh came upon them but
there was no life in them. prophesy to the wind." The wind
is the Spirit of God. And there was a noise of the
wind blowing and the wind came upon them and the Spirit of God
came in and they stood up a mighty army. You see? There are echoes
of this throughout Scripture. The Spirit of God. The word Spirit
comes from the... I forget the derivation. I think
it's Greek, isn't it? The derivation meaning to breathe.
To breathe. Inspiration. Breathing. Wind. and so he comes upon them and
then there's a physical symbol on the outside of them not only
was there the sound but they saw this flame what does that
remind you of? I'll tell you what it reminds
me of when Moses was in the wilderness in the middle of nowhere no thought
particularly for God and he sees a bush that's burning and it
isn't consumed and it's the presence of God is it not symbolical that
the presence of God is with them? I will dwell with them They shall
be my people. I will be their God and they
will be my people." And what was spoken? You see, they were
given these gifts of other tongues, of other languages. Now let me
make it absolutely clear, as you know I'm sure that I will
make it absolutely clear. The modern phenomenon of the
charismatic movement's gift of tongues is, in my opinion, and
I'm absolutely convinced of this, it is an utter and complete lie. It's a sham. It's a lying wonder
of Satan, and it is deluding thousands upon thousands around
the world. It has nothing to do with what
was going on here. When the Spirit of God came upon
these people, they spoke with other languages, understandable
languages. Do you know that you can apply,
I'm just going to be a little bit technical for a moment, but
you can apply the theories of information theory to this phenomenon
of tongues in the charismatic churches, and if you do an analysis
on it, they bear no resemblance to understandable languages with
meaning. It's just gibberish, just noise. It's just noise. It's as much
like writing on the pages of a book as the ripples that you
see in the sand on the seashore. No information there. Do you
know the only information you get from the ripples on the seashore?
The sea was here and it went out. That's it. What information
do you get from these words? Ah, these are the words of eternal
life. It's a world of difference. Absolutely world of difference.
They were given the gift to speak in other tongues. Why were they
given that gift? Because Jerusalem was filled
with Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. And
they heard the noise and they came together and they were confounded. They were stacked. Can you imagine
it? They were staggered. Absolutely staggered. Because
every man heard them speak in his own language. They were all
amazed. Are they not Galileans? Are these
just not Galilean fishermen and just ordinary people? They haven't
been to language university and studied multilingual linguistics. They haven't done any of that
and yet they're speaking. And the Parthians and the Medes
and the Elamites and those from Phrygia and Pamphylia, they're
hearing them speak in their own language. And what are they hearing
them speak? Look at verse 11. Chapter 2,
verse 11, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our
tongues the wonderful works of God. The wonderful works of God. Not just anything. This is what
they heard them speak. The wonderful works of God. Isaiah
29, 14. Just refer you back to it. Isaiah
29, 14. The Gospel. Isaiah 29, I'll get there eventually. The pages in this Bible are still
sticking together. God says this through the prophet,
Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among
this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder. For the wisdom
of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their
prudent men shall be hid." And you compare that with 1 Corinthians
1, 18 and 19, those verses that talk about the gospel. In utter
and complete contrast and distinction from the wisdom of this world,
from the wisdom of the wise, the wise of this world, God will
do a marvelous work which will stand in complete contradiction
to that wisdom of human thinking. It's a marvellous work. Why is
it a marvellous work? Because it says this, that eternal
life is in the person and work, the doing and the dying of a
substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the marvellous work. That
He represented a specific people given to Him before the beginning
of time. He fully united with them and did everything on their
behalf to establish righteousness and to fulfill justice that they
might be counted the righteousness of God in him." That is a marvelous
work. That is the basis of what we
believe. That's the gospel of particular
redemption which we proclaim. We proclaim to the men and women
of this town we proclaim that message that there is life there
is life in a substitute and that one is the Lord Jesus Christ
and these people heard that gospel of finished redemption of reconciliation
to God they heard it proclaimed miraculously in their own language
this was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit why did they hear
it in their own language? I'll give you two reasons if
you've got your finger still in Isaiah back in chapter 28
of Isaiah there's a judgment pronounced
on unbelieving Israel on God rejecting Christ, rejecting Israel
there's a judgment pronounced and this is the judgment he says
this in chapter 28 and verse 11 he says for with stammering
lips and another tongue will he speak to this people You think
of it, here in Jerusalem, on this day of Pentecost, there
are the Jews who crucified Christ, there are the high priests who
crucified Christ, and what do they hear? They hear another
tongue. God, by another tongue, is speaking
to this people, to whom he said, this is the rest wherewith you
may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing, yet
they would not hear. The words of rest and refreshing
are being pronounced in another language in the middle of Jerusalem
on the day of Pentecost. It's a sign of judgment. You
can read about it in 1 Corinthians 14 where Paul is talking about
the excesses of the gift of tongues. I mean, these words are just
as relevant today. They really are. But if you look
in 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 21, he's talking about speaking
5 words, he would prefer to speak 5 words with his understanding
in a language that people would understand than 5,000, 10,000
words in an unknown tongue, in a tongue of another people. What's
the point of it if you can't understand it? You know, when
I go to France, I may not be able to speak fluently but I
get by pretty well because quite a lot of what I hear, I just
naturally understand. You hear it and you understand
it. But it's interesting, I have absolutely no Spanish whatsoever,
apart from two or three choice words. I have none whatsoever.
And in Spain a couple of weeks ago, it's quite staggering that
when you hear it being spoken, it is just utter and complete
gibberish. I haven't got a clue what they're talking about. I
remember once having a taxi ride in Bremen in Germany, and Marguerite
will find this amusing, but all the way from where the taxi picked
me up out to Bremen airport, She was trying to speak to me,
and I was trying to speak to her, and there was not one word of
understanding between us, because I don't understand a word of
German, and she didn't understand a word of English. And so it
was. You see, it has to be, the Word of God has to be spoken
with understanding. But look what he says, he says,
this is what tongues really are, in verse 21, he says, in the
law it is written, and then he quotes Isaiah, the verse that
we've just read, with men of other tongues and other lips
will I speak to this people, and yet for all that they will
not hear me, says the Lord. Therefore tongues are a sign,
not to them that believe, but to them that believe not. You
see that? It was a sign of judgment on
unbelieving Israel. But secondly, it was the fulfillment
of another. Well, it's not just one verse
in Isaiah, it's throughout the whole of the Scriptures. But
Isaiah 66, 19 will serve us very, very well. Because not only was
it a judgment on unbelieving Israel, but it was the fulfillment
of the prophecy that the Gospel would go to all peoples. I've got the right, 66 and verse
19. And I will set a sign among them,
and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations to Tarshish. To the isles afar off that have
not heard of my fame, neither have seen my glory, and they
shall declare my glory among the Gentiles. You see that? The
Gospel was always intended for the Gentiles, for the worldwide
God would draw his people from all humanity. National racial
barriers would be removed. One gospel, one salvation from
eternal death. The same one for all cultures. There isn't a gospel that's applicable
to one culture as opposed to another. The one gospel for all
cultures. And this gift of tongues, of
speaking in other languages, was one that went on until the
full canon of Scripture, all the Scriptures were completed,
and then it ceased. That's quite clear in Paul's
writings. It's quite clear in church history. Oh yes, there
have been those who've come with lying signs and wonders to try
and pretend that that isn't the case, but that is the case. So
the Word of God was spoken. The Word of God was spoken in
every language. They referred to the Scriptures
and that scriptural message, that wonderful work, that marvelous
work, was spoken so that everybody could understand it, using the
gifts that God had promised He would give when Christ was ascended.
That's the truth. So to the law and to the testimony,
we say, this is our creed. I repeat the opening question.
How do we know what is the truth of God? How do we know what is
the message that we should be proclaiming? It's that which
is declared in the Scriptures. You know I refer to it often
in Romans 10 about preaching. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. How shall they call on that which
they haven't heard about? How shall they... Sorry, let's
get it right. How shall they call on him whom
they have not believed? How shall they believe on him
whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a
preacher? How shall they preach unless
they are sent? So, faith, he says, comes by
hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. The faith that we proclaim,
the faith which Christ's people hear, comes by the Word of God. It's applied by the Spirit taking
the things of Christ and showing them to his people. And so, this
book, they say, what's your creed as a church, Neb with Grace Fellowship?
What's your creed? The Scriptures. The Scriptures.
In as close to the original language and meaning as we can get them.
the Scriptures. That's our creed. We don't have
any other creed. We don't say, oh, we line up
with the such and such a creed. There are ones that are better
than others, by the way, but there's a danger in all of this,
I firmly believe, and you make that your Bible. You make your
creed your Bible. This is our Bible. This is the
Word of God to us. This is our Creed. We have this
wonderful gift of Scripture in clear English. It's preserved.
It's protected. There's a warning at the end
of Revelation neither to add to it nor take away from it.
It's the Apostles' Doctrine. If you look in chapter 2 of Acts
further on, verse 42, and we'll come to this in a week or two,
They, the rapidly growing church, 3,000 souls added on this particular
day. They continued steadfastly in
the Apostles' doctrine. What was that? The doctrine of
Scripture. It was Holy Spirit light of the
Gospel of Christ shining onto the pages of Holy Writ, of Holy
Scriptures. And they quoted it often. You
noticed when Stephen read the passage to us, verse 13 of chapter
2, They were saying, what's going on here? What is happening? This is amazing. We're hearing
the wonderful works of God in our own language. And they were
all amazed and were in doubt, saying to one another, what does
this mean? This is something amazing happening.
Others mocking said, these men are drunk. They've been at the
bottle. First thing in the morning, they're
drunk. This is how they're able to do it. Have you ever known
a drunk man be able to take on the power of speaking in other
languages clearly? Obviously not. Peter says, he
stands up and in the next few verses he says, this isn't the
case. These are not drunken. What's going on? That which was
spoken by the prophet Joel. That's what's going on. What
you're seeing and hearing and witnessing is only that which
God has said. And if God has said it, because
he's God, it must surely come to pass. And you are the witnesses
that it is coming to pass. You see? He goes on, and it's
whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. This
is what's happening. It's fulfillment of that prophecy. I could quote you another example.
If you were to turn to Acts 15, don't do it now, but there's
the Council of Jerusalem. Should the Gentiles be compelled
to be circumcised and bow to Jewish law? We saw it when we
were looking at Galatians. And what happens? How do they
resolve it? There's the Council of Jerusalem. How do they resolve
it? James stands up and says, what we're seeing is just exactly
what the Prophet Amos said would happen. And he quotes a passage
from Amos which sounds like Jerusalem in the year 2008 is going to
be filled with Jews returning from all over the earth and a
Messiah set up on a hill in the middle of Jerusalem And James
at the Council of Jerusalem says, no it's not, what that prophecy
was talking about was the church being filled with Gentile nations,
with those who are not Jews by nature, by birth. It's going
to be filled with those who become the beneficiaries of the sovereign
grace of God. You see, they quoted the prophets,
they quoted the scriptures. Now in the last couple of minutes,
and I really mean this, I just want you to turn to 2 Timothy.
And I want you to notice a couple of things here, 2nd Timothy and
chapter 2 you see, it's our basis, it's our
basis 2nd Timothy chapter 2 and verse 15 Paul who is about to
die, he's a prisoner in Rome, he knows he's about to die this
is the last letter that he wrote, 2nd Timothy and he says this
to Timothy a pastor, how young he was we don't know, he's often
said he's a young pastor, he calls him his son his son in
the faith. We don't know how old or young
he is, but nevertheless, he was younger than Paul. Study. Study
what? The Word of God. Study to show
yourself approved of God, a workman that doesn't need to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the Word of Truth. But shun profane and vain
babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness. Rightly
divide that word of truth. It should be your foundation.
Study it. Look, it doesn't come in a flash. Yes, it's by the Holy Spirit's
enlightening, but don't just sit back there on your hands
doing nothing waiting for that enlightenment. Study to show
yourself approved. Rightly divide the word of truth.
Steer away from vain babblings. I could mention the modern tongues
movement again. Vain babblings. All they do is
they increase unto more ungodliness. And then look over at verse 14
of chapter 2. Sorry, chapter 3. Chapter 3.
He was to teach it. He was to preach it. And then
over here in chapter 3. Look, he says this. Beware of
evil men. Then verse 14. But continue in
the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing
of whom you have learned them. He's meaning you've learned them
from God. You've learned them by God's enlightenment and that
from a child you have known the holy scriptures which are able
to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ
Jesus. Note this, just reading the scriptures
alone will not make you wise unto salvation. It's only through
faith which is in Christ Jesus and his atoning work that you
become wise to salvation. There are plenty of people who
could claim to study the Word of God more vigorously than we
do, but without the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, without that
faith which is in Christ Jesus, and they entirely miss the point
of it. You become wise unto salvation, you become wise concerning the
issues of death through faith. in Christ Jesus because all scripture
is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine
it'll teach you the truth it's a solid foundation for reproof
for correction for instruction in righteousness instruction
in that righteousness which is in Christ alone for only in Him
is that true righteousness pursue holiness without which no man
shall see the Lord and you only know that and come to a knowledge
of it through the Lord Jesus Christ and nowhere else that
the man of God may be perfect perfect? yes the new man of God
within is perfect throughly furnished unto all good works, throughly
prepared unto all good, you have your fruit unto holiness." The
apostles preached Jesus and the resurrection from Scripture.
We saw it with the Ethiopian who went to the eunuch and preached
the Scriptures to him. And starting at that Scripture
in Isaiah 53, he went on and throughout the Scriptures, preached
to him Jesus and the resurrection. 37 times in the Acts of the Apostles,
you see it written, they preached Jesus and the resurrection. And
what did some of them do? They reacted violently against
it. And what did others do? The noble Bereans, Acts 17, they
searched the Scriptures daily to see if the things they heard
and heard preached were true. And so, this is our foundation. It was the apostles' foundation.
It's what we make our foundation as we go forward to take this
message of truth and light to this area. How firm a foundation,
ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent
word. It's objective. It's clear. It's, in one sense, so simple. but in another sense, who can
plumb its depths. Man shall not live by bread alone,
said Jesus to Satan. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This is
the word that proceeds from the mouth of God, because this is
the word that reveals God's Christ, and in that are the issues of
death. If you would find eternal life,
if anybody would find eternal life, this is where we'll find
it, in Him. or we're going to sing that hymn.