Apostles & Scripture (12/10/2000)

Park Meadows Church

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Okay, I think Otis is getting better because he came up to me after the sermon this morning and said, well, you mentioned you were going to finish this afternoon.

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He said, what if I was going to teach this afternoon? I said, well, I said it'd make a great sermon for next

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Sunday morning. I mean, he kind of laughed and said, well,

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I don't think I'm quite ready. We'll wait one more week. So I think he is getting better every week.

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Praise the Lord for that. Now, his daughter is in grave condition, though, I think, here in the hospital.

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And if they don't move her to Dallas, I think it's going to be a bad situation.

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So you might be in prayer about that. Okay, well, let's start in the book of Revelation, chapter 22.

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I suppose one of the questions we'll answer this afternoon is, does the Bible have a back cover on it?

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Is it complete as far as our dispensation here in the church age?

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And is the written word complete? I think when we get to heaven, we're going to certainly learn new things, don't you?

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So I'm not talking about that time period or that place in God's plan, but on the planet right now, is his word complete or can mystics still add scriptures?

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Now, let's look at Revelation 22 and right at the end of verse 17.

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Well, let's go ahead and read all of verse 17. It's a beautiful verse. And the spirit and the bride say, come.

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Now, that's a good witnessing verse, isn't it? The Holy Spirit is convicting the world of sin every day, part of his ministry, convicting the world of sin and of their need for God every day.

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And the bride, on the other hand, or I shouldn't say on the other hand, but in conjunction with the

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Holy Spirit, working together with God, should say, come. And let him that heareth say, come.

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The new people that get saved, they start out right then, starting to tell others to come.

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And let him that is a thirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

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And what a beautiful verse. Let him that is a thirst. You know, a person has to come to the place where he recognizes he's thirsty, doesn't he?

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And nobody will be saved if that doesn't happen. But when they get to that place, they're not far from the kingdom of God when they start getting a little bit thirsty.

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And so it's our job to be inviting so that because we never know what stage different people are in as far as God's work in their life.

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You might happen to be the right one comes along right at the right time and invites them and they come. They come in.

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And that's a wonderful thing in life when that happens. Now, let's go to verse 18. For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book.

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If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.

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And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and from the things which are written in this book.

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Some have said that this these verses apply only to the book of Revelation. That's their conjecture.

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They would have to prove that, I suppose. There's no reason to believe that, however, because there are similar verses in the

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Old Testament. Let me give you just one that's very similar in Proverbs 35.

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Every word of God is pure. He's a shield unto them that put their trust into him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove that you now be found a liar.

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And there are other places in the Old Testament to say identically the same thing. It just so happens that this one ends up right here in the last book of the

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Bible, in the last chapter of the Bible, in the last few verses of the Bible. And we have to understand that the prophecy that's discussed in verse 19 was begun in the book of Daniel.

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So it's probably started in Genesis 315, actually. So I think that it's fairly clear that God is teaching us not to add or take away words from this book.

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And I think that as we see this is written right close to AD 100, this is ringing just a little bit.

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Greg, if you turn it down just a little bit for me. It's kind of interesting that the

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Jewish temple has already been destroyed at this time.

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Jerusalem has been destroyed at this time. The apostles are all gone except John, and he's not going to be on the earth too much longer after this point,

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I suppose. But at this point is when God gives the exhortation not to add or take away from this book.

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And I think that will come into play a little bit later as we look at this study. Let me give you a couple of other interesting verses to look at.

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First, turn to 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 1, and we're going to look at Jude 3.

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Both of these books are written very late. They're some of the older books of the New Testament.

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In fact, I can't find any books written after these other than the books that John wrote.

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So they're coming at the end of what we would call the apostolic age. And look at chapter 1 verse 1,

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Simon Peter, now this is in 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 1. Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our

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Savior Jesus Christ, grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ.

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Now, I want you to look at the phrase, like precious faith. And then turn to Jude 3 and keep that phrase in mind as we read

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Jude 3. And just notice that the grammar in the Greek and the English says who have obtained, which is past tense.

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In Jude 3, get my notes over here in order.

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Okay, let's look at this verse. It says, Beloved, when

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I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

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The phrase the faith is commonly believed refers to the

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Christian faith, the true Christian Bible, Christian belief.

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And where it says that the faith was once delivered unto the saints, it's interesting to note that Jude, as I said, is one of the last books written in the

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Bible. Only a couple or three we know that were written perhaps later.

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We know Revelation was the last book written, maybe some 30 years later. And maybe 1st, 2nd, and 3rd

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John might have been written between these two. But other than that, it's one of the older books of the

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New Testament. And so by this time, it says that the faith has been delivered and is delivered once delivered unto the saints.

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Now let's look at the grammar in this verse just a little bit. The word once found there where it says was once delivered is the

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Greek word hapax, which means one time or once for all.

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Now the emphasis, the way that we know this means once for all is because this word comes from two little

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Greek words. Commonly, that's the way the Greek language is. They put little words together to get new words.

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The first word is hapax, which means absolutely all or every one of something.

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Absolutely all or every one of something. And the second little word is alfa, which if it comes to be the first letter of the alphabet, we would call it alpha.

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So figuratively, it is the first letter of the alphabet. So it means only or the first.

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It is often used in comparison in the sense of privation, which simply means that in the sense of being the only thing.

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So it's the only thing. So when you put that together, you come out with once delivered, once only delivered or only once delivered in the meaning of the

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Greek. So it says that pretty good in the English. It puts it in the past tense, but it's emphasized in the

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Greek so that if you read it, it would be this, earnestly contend for the faith, which was only once delivered unto the saints.

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Well, that certainly fits a lot of other scripture, but it shows us that the faith has been delivered and that they had the faith as late as close to AD 70, about the same time that Titus and the

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Roman legions came through to destroy the nation of Israel. And so if that is true, that the faith was delivered to them, these early first century

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Christians had the faith and it was delivered only once, then that implies very strongly that God did not continue to deliver it by giving them more scriptures.

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Now, Revelation 22, 18, which we just read, certainly closes the book and says at this point, we don't add to or take away any more from this book.

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In fact, if you do, the curses that are found in this book will be added to you. Now that's pretty stern warning.

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And a lot of people nowadays don't really seem to care much about that verse, that they're not afraid of what it might mean.

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But certainly I would think any true believer would be, would take that as a very stern warning that you don't continue to add scripture.

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Now, I want to go to this for this afternoon with the rest of our time.

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There were basically two kinds of people that God used to pin his scripture in the

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New Testament, in the sense of the New Testament. We know in Hebrews chapter one that we studied last Sunday, verses one and two, it shows us that there is a slight difference in the way that God gave his word in the

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Old Testament and the New. You might want to turn to that in case you were interested. We weren't all here last

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Sunday, so you know what I'm talking about. Hebrews 1 .1, it does show a comparison, but it also shows a slight contrast in the fact that the second verse starts with the word hath.

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It's almost like it's saying it was this way, but now it's this way. God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son.

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The same son who is appointed heir of all things, the same son who made the worlds, the same who is the brightness of his glory and express image of his person.

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That's why he's called the word. He is the one who can best transmit the heart and mind of God to God's people because he is the express image of God and the brightness of his glory and so forth.

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So we talked about that last time. So the New Testament, the only sense in which is slightly different is that it is the revelation of Jesus Christ to God's people.

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And Jesus gave a lot of it while he was here. But if you remember from the message last time, he told the apostles, there's a lot of this

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I can't give you yet because you're not ready, but I'm gonna send my Holy Spirit and he will cause you to remember everything

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I've said. And he will teach you new things that I hadn't taught you yet because you weren't ready for it. And that's how

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God gave the New Testament is through the apostles and what we might call a

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New Testament prophet, which is identical in my mind to an Old Testament prophet. I've done a study on the word prophet.

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The grammar itself, the word literally means foreteller. And I defy you to find one passage in the scripture where the context doesn't show that a prophet that you can find, find a prophet where the context doesn't show that he can tell the future.

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And the reason he can do that is because God tells him of things to come. No man could do it in and of himself.

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So that's what a prophet was. And there are a lot of right reason I went to some ends to talk about that is a lot of commentators like to say that the

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New Testament prophets were different and that they're really just someone who speaks forth God's truth. And that's not what they were.

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I mean, they did do that, but that's, I mean, preachers today do that too, but that's not all they were. They were a true biblical prophet in the sense of a foreteller.

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So God used people like that. And also the apostles to write the New Testament from memory of what they had heard,

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Jesse. Okay, let's turn there.

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Acts, Acts one, one and two. The former treatise have

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I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach until the day in which he was taken up.

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After that, he, through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen.

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Very good. In fact, I'm gonna put a cross reference with my pen right beside Hebrew one, one.

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You might wanna do that also. And then also over there where Acts one, one is put

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Hebrews one, one. All right, well, it says there that it was given by the

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Holy Spirit through the apostles. So I wanna take a look at what the Bible says about an apostle for a few moments this afternoon.

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First of all, the word apostle means and in pretty much similar to the modern word ambassador.

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Now, what is an ambassador? What does he do? He gets shot at mostly if he's from America, but what does an ambassador do?

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He's a representative from one country to another, one place to another.

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And so if we think in terms of the outside of time dimension and the end time dimension,

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I mean, they're representatives from the other place to here. And when you look at second

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Peter chapter one, verse one, it says, Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

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And so he's a servant, which is doulos, the bond servant, but he's also an apostle, which means an ambassador from, it comes from a

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Greek root word, which means to be set apart. So he is not, the apostles are not like all the rest of us.

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They are in the sense that they're saved and they're Christians and they have those responsibilities and duties, but they had an additional calling or setting apart.

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It means literally to be set apart and sent out as ambassadors from one place to another.

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So Paul was a bond servant and an ambassador of Jesus Christ, set apart and sent out.

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So the first question we'll ask is how many apostles were there? If you look at Matthew chapter 10 in verse two,

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Luke chapter six, verse 13. Let me slow down a little where you can get these in your notes.

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Matthew 10 to Luke 6, 13, Luke 9, 1,

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Luke 22, 14, Luke 1, 26.

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And then that talks about the 11, all the rest of those verses talk about the 12. It calls them the 12, the 12, the 12, the 12, references the 12 all the time, except for Luke 1, 26, where it says the 11, because by that time

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Judas had fallen. And then you go into Acts 9, 27, you'll see the 12th added back in.

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And that, in my view, was the apostle Paul. That's the one God chose to take the place and the one that I think that the

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Old Testament scriptures spoke of. I don't, I think that is the true case. Now it speaks of the 12 in all of those verses.

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You have to understand, however, that the word apostle is very similar in the Greek to the word angel in this sense.

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Let's take angel, for example. The literal meaning for that word, if you look at it in the Greek, is a messenger.

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But when we use the English word angel, we always think that it's an angel with wings or however you picture an angel.

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Probably has more wings than you think they have. But anyway, that's how we picture it. But there are some times when the word angel is put into English when it doesn't mean an angel.

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It literally means a messenger, like in Revelation where it talks about the angel of the churches. I think it could easily be talking about the pastors.

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It could be talking about an angel, but I think it's talking about the pastors, which means the messengers. Now this word apostle is very similar because it can, if, in other words, in the

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Greek language, you could use this word simply to mean an ambassador or someone sent to give a message.

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So it can have that meaning. And in that sense, there are more than 12. But there is also a sense in which angel means an angel.

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And there's also a sense in which apostle means one of the 12. And that's the word that I'm talking about, the sense of the word, the apostle, where it talks about the 12 in all those scriptures that I gave you.

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So there is a special mention of the 12. And since one of them turned out to be of the devil,

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Paul took his place. So there are still 12. Now let's look in Revelation chapter two and verse two.

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I give you just a couple of examples. I know thy works and thy labor and thy patience and how thou canst not bear them which are evil.

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And thou has tried them which say they are apostles and are not and has found them to be liars.

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So Jesus Christ himself commends the church for condemning people who claim to be apostles when they are not really apostles.

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Now, when we go into Revelation 21, 14, getting pretty close to the end of the canon, it says, and the wall of the city had 12 foundations and in them the names of the 12 apostles of the land.

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So there are only 12 apostles if you're using the strictest definition of the word to mean what

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Jesus called apostles. Now, secondly, I would follow that with this question.

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Once the last one of those 12 died and there were not any more on the earth, did you have apostles left?

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Some people say yes, but I think not. There are 12. And so when 12 are gone, there are no more.

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Now, I'm not talking about when we get into the tribulation period and so forth, but at that particular time, and as far as the true apostles that Jesus chose, there's always only gonna be 12 because that verse we just read in Revelation shows that very clearly.

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Now, second point, a sign of an apostle is that they must have been given commandments from Christ after the ascension or at some point.

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Turn with me to John chapter 16 and verse 12. John 16, 12.

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I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. And you have to ask who the you is.

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And if you go back and you read the passage, you'll see that he's speaking to the ones that were,

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I believe the ones that were in the upper room. Certainly you could limit it to that group, but it's to those who were with him, closely followed him as apostles and disciples.

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How be it when he, the spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak.

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And he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me. So the Holy Spirit is gonna glorify Jesus for he shall receive of Jesus's and shall show it to these people, these men and all things that the father hath her mind.

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Therefore said I that he shall take of mine and he'll show it to you. And we studied that last Sunday in detail of how he said very clearly,

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I'm gonna give you what to write later after I'm gone. I'm gonna send the Holy Spirit.

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He said, I know that you don't want me to leave, but he said, it's expedient for you that I leave because unless I leave the

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Holy Spirit cannot be sent, but I'm gonna send him. He's gonna bring to your remembrance everything I said. He's also gonna show you these new things that I didn't tell you because you couldn't bear them at the time.

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You couldn't have understood them. He'll give you those things as well. And these are the men who ended up writing the scriptures, the

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New Testament scriptures. Ephesians 3, 5 says, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the spirit.

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So they were able to write these things because the Holy Spirit brought them specifically to their remembrance or taught them these things.

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And he was only teaching them what Jesus told him to teach them. It was Jesus's word. So this is the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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So Jesus, the entire New Testament is given to you straight from Jesus. It is

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Jesus is, Jesus is the final revelation of the father.

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He said, if you've seen me, you've seen the father. I and the father are one. The third thing is that these must have walked with Jesus.

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Acts chapter 1, 20, for it is written in the book of Psalms, let his habitation be desolate, let no man dwell therein and his bishopric let another take.

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He's talking about Judas. Wherefore of these men, which have accompanied with us all the time that the

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Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the same day that he was taken up from us must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.

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The thing is, these men had to be a witness of Jesus Christ. These particular men went on to choose a man that I don't think,

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I mean, I'm just conjecturing. I don't know. I've heard people argue about it back and forth. I used to have a friend that used to just love to talk about this topic.

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Maybe it's because it's hard to prove, but you can have your theories on it that this man that they chose when they drew straws was not the one

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God chose. And that Paul was the one that was supposed to be the replacement and they weren't patient enough and they didn't wait.

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That is so like us, isn't it? That we want to jump on in and do something because God's timing doesn't suit us.

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We would tend to have done it the way these men did. I really feel we would. We want that replacement so we feel comfortable.

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But in so doing, they did show a requirement of an apostle that they had to have seen Jesus Christ.

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I mean, to be one of the 12, they had to have seen him while he was here.

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John 15, 26 says, but when the comforters come, whom I will send unto you from the

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Father, even the spirit of truth, which proceeded from the Father, he shall testify of me. And ye also shall bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning.

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A fourth idea here is that they saw him after his death on the cross.

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Acts 1, 3 says, to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

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And you can see the only exception to this is Paul. If you want to hold it to walking with him from the beginning, he did not walk with him from the beginning, but he got to walk with him for the same number of years.

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Isn't that interesting? Do you remember how many years he spent out in the desert of Arabia with Jesus? Three years.

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And so he does fit all of these requirements of an apostle. And then

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Acts 1, 13 says, and when they were come in, they went up into the upper room where abode both

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Peter and James and John and Andrew, and it actually names the 12, including

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Judas in that particular verse. Then Acts 4, 33, and when great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the

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Lord, with great power, they gave witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and great grace was upon them all.

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With great power gave the apostles witness. They were a special group of people called to witness of the

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New Testament teachings and the revelation of God through Jesus Christ.

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And they were verified by signs and wonders that followed. Now, the fifth point, in fact, talks about the fact that there were manifested signs that these apostles must have to be a genuine apostle.

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We can show this because Paul had to argue for his own apostle hood,

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I guess you would call it. Some people doubted it. And so in giving proof of it, we see these things in Acts 2, 43, it says that fear came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.

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In Acts 5, 12, and by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people.

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And they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch. In Acts 8, 18, and when Simon saw that through laying on the apostles' hands, the

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Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money. In 2 Corinthians 12, 12,

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Paul says, truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds.

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He's defending his own self as an apostle by saying, truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you.

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Now that teaches us there are signs of an apostle and Paul says, I have them and it proves

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I'm an apostle. And the question I would ask you is if any Christian could have those signs, then how would that prove

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Paul was an apostle? If everybody at any time could, or any given person could have these same signs and powers, it certainly would have been a very weak argument to prove that he was an apostle.

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But if these were signs of power that only the apostles had and Paul demonstrated that he also had them, it would be a good sound argument that he is an apostle.

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So I believe that's ample proof that there were things called signs of an apostle that were wrought in power, signs and wonders and mighty deeds that authenticated that these were

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God's ambassadors. And Paul was also one of them. He was the replacement for Judas.

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And then we see it was the highest calling, 1 Corinthians 12, 28. This apostleship is the highest calling and God had sent some in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, and then miracles and then gifts of healings and helps and governments and diversities of tongues.

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And the highest calling was this office of being one of the apostles.

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First here where it says he has set some in the church, first apostles is the word proton, which means first in place, time or order, it means before.

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And so this is the first gift, the first highest calling of the church.

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And when we look in Ephesians chapter 4, 10 through 11, he that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things.

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And he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.

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And so we see the mentioning of this calling. Now, another thing about an apostle is he had to be of Jesus Christ.

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He had to be chosen by Jesus himself. Luke 6, 13 says, and when it was day, he called unto him his disciples and of them he chose 12, whom also he named apostles.

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So they had to be chosen by Jesus. And of course, Paul was chosen on the road to Damascus as we know.

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Acts 1, 2, until the day in which he was taken up after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen.

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So we're talking about the 12. And I do know that the word apostle can be used to mean an ambassador and there are others than these 12.

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But when we're talking about these apostles that had this special calling, there were only 12. Acts 1, 25, that he may take part of this ministry and apostleship from which

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Judas by transgression fell that he might go to his own place.

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So there was going to be a replacement so that there will be 12. And it is

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Paul, we believe. Romans 1, 1 says,

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Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle. So there had to be a special calling by Jesus to be an apostle separated into the gospel of God.

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Verse five says, by whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name.

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And 1 Corinthians 1, 1 says, Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God. Now, there's another interesting verse about apostles.

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And it's in 1 Corinthians. Turn to chapter four and look at verse nine. It says very clearly that these men were set forth last.

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And the word last in the Greek is eskatos, which the word eschatology comes from, which is what the scholars call the study of the last things.

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So it means the last, set forth eskatos, last, final. And it says in 1

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Corinthians 4, 9, for I think that God hath eskatos, or set forth last, us, the apostles, as it were appointed to death.

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For we are made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men. It shows very clearly there was an end to the apostolic age.

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There are a lot of groups that don't believe that. And I'm not trying to knock them at all, but I'm just saying

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I don't agree with them on this. I think that 1 Corinthians 4, 9 and many other verses that we've discussed today prove that there were the 12 and that they were called out last, final.

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They were the final authenticated spokesmen for God in this age.

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And another indication of it is that they were called the foundation of the church.

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Look at Ephesians 4, 11. Now, when we think of a building, can you build a foundation and then go ahead and put some studs in and frame it in?

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Go ahead and put up some drywall and put the roof on and then put another foundation on the roof. What would happen if you poured the concrete up there?

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Some smart aleck's gonna say, that's what they do in Dallas every day. 21 stories. We're not talking about that kind of building.

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This is a first century building. You see my point? You don't take the foundation and lay it back on top because it would crush the whole thing.

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And yet those who believe there are still apostles who can give scriptures or give authoritative speakings for the church, they're just simply putting the foundation back on top of what

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God had already built. In Ephesians 4, 11, and he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastor teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

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And you go back to chapter three, turn a page back to chapter three in verse three, how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words, whereby when we read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not known, not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the spirit that the

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Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body. This was a mystery none of the Old Testament saints could understand at all.

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And even the apostles, while Jesus was on the earth with them, this is one of the things he couldn't share with them.

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I mean, they couldn't understand it yet, but now he revealed it to Paul out in that desert and they would be partakers of the promise to end

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Christ by the gospel. The Jews don't believe that Gentiles can be partakers of the promise, but it's in Christ because Jesus is the seed.

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And then Ephesians 2, 19 is where it shows that they are the foundation. How therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets,

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Jesus Christ himself, the chief cornerstone, and whom all the building fitly framed together, groweth into an holy temple, et cetera, et cetera.

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So it shows that you got the Old Testament prophets who gave us the Old Testament. You've got the apostles in the

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New Testament prophets who gave us the New Testament. They are the foundation. And now we have the faith which has already been delivered.

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Remember the Greek language, the tense I mean of the verbs has been given, has been once delivered, has been once and only delivered.

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Well, this is how it was delivered. It was given by the foundational aspects of the apostles and these prophets.

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Okay, so the apostles and the prophets were the foundation. It says they are built on these things.

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And we don't have to go into a word study of the word foundation. I've got it here, but I mean, the foundation's a foundation.

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It makes perfect sense to us, I believe. So what

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I wanna do next Sunday, we'll stop here with this.

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Next Sunday, today, pretty much what the goal of this afternoon was is to show that the apostles that were called the 12 by Jesus, when the last one died, the apostolic age was over.

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The giving of revelation from Jesus through the Holy Spirit to these people was done.

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And that's why the book of Revelation says, don't add to it anymore. Don't take away from it, don't add to it.

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What I wanna discuss next Sunday, and I don't know if Otis fits better for an afternoon session.

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So we'll just have to see. But I would like to discuss, today we talk about the apostles.

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Is that age over? I'd like to discuss the prophets next Sunday. And I think you'll find it a lot.

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This was pretty much just going through and giving the points of an apostle. But the study on rather the prophets, the gift of prophecy is still here.

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You will find fascinating because there's a lot of controversy on it. But I wanna show you,

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I wanna go into the book of Joel. I wanna go into some different areas and talk to you about what a prophet is.

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And it will relate to the giving of the Old Testament, but also portions of the New Testament.

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And if we can show that the apostles are gone and that the gift, this type of prophet is not here anymore, then

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I think that clearly puts a back end or a back cover to the Bible. And you have

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God's word and it is mature. It is perfect in that sense. The Bible word perfect in the

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Greek use of it throughout the New Testament always means complete and mature. And so as of the writing of the book of Revelation by the apostle

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John in AD 90, the Bible was mature. Not everybody had a copy of the whole thing yet.

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I guess that was, what would you say, Russ? Another 200 years or 300 years before the whole book was canonized.

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But it was on the planet. God had given it. And what an amazing thing.

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So we'll talk about the prophet next Sunday. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you that you've given us the word of God and it is objective.

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It's there for us. It's black and white. We don't always see it that way because we certainly don't have the wisdom that we need and the knowledge that we need to know everything about you and about the word.

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But we thank you that you've given us the Holy Spirit to be our teacher and you guide us into things we've never seen before in your word every day as we study.

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And we can see from the miracle of the way you enlighten the written word so that it goes into all areas of our life.

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Even though it's a finite book between two covers, it's infinite in its ability to meet our daily needs and to answer to every issue in our life because of your

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Holy Spirit. And so Father, we pray that you would be with us as we continue this study on the word of God so that we can clearly understand what we have and the fact that we have an eternal book that you've given us in time.

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It speaks of your heart and your mind and your will. It speaks of you and tells us about ourselves.

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And so may we cherish it and spend a little bit more time in it this week, perhaps, than we had in previous weeks.