The Doctrine of Scripture

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Mike Gaydosh will come now and bring us a message on the Doctrine of Scripture.
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I've been here many times, but I'm not sure that I have been here on a Sunday morning.
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I'm usually here during the week for your conferences, but I'm honored that your pastor asked me to bring the word in this hour.
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And I'm going to be speaking about the Doctrine of Scripture, as Pastor Keith has already said.
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This is nothing new, but this is the 500th celebration of the Protestant Reformation that took place October 31st in 1517.
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And so we're going to be looking at what I call the Sevenfold Doctrine of Holy Scripture.
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What does the Reformation principle of Sola Scriptura really mean? And what does it mean to us today in the world in which we live? What does it mean to you personally that the Bible is our only authority? Well, for the past several years, the church that I was involved in in Birmingham, Alabama, I had the privilege of teaching this doctrine to the new members that were coming into the church.
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And when our pastor found that my wife and I were going to be moving to Florida, which we have now done, we live in Port St.
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Lucie, he asked me if I would bring one last presentation of the material, and they would tape it and be able to use it for years to come on their new members as they would come into the membership of the church.
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And as I went over the material, and I'd been over this material more than a dozen times, something struck me that the Fivefold Doctrine of Scripture I'd been teaching for years needed two more things.
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And so I added those two, and now I call it the Sevenfold Doctrine of Holy Scripture.
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And what I'm going to be declaring here are what I believe all who believe in the Bible should affirm and agree with.
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Thirty-five years ago, while I was pastoring a church in Amityville, New York, several members asked me to remain after a prayer meeting to answer some questions that they had for me.
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I was a young pastor.
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I was a new pastor in the church.
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I'd been there just about a year.
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And immediately I realized I was facing a sort of inquisition or tribunal, which I later learned took place because a pastor in another church in Long Island had warned them about my intentions for the future of the church.
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Now understand, that man had never met me nor spoken with me, but somehow he believed he knew what my intentions were for the future of the church.
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He raised doubts in the minds of some of the members.
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The key moment in that impromptu meeting took place when a woman asked me the question, where do you intend to lead this church? I wasn't prepared for the meeting, and my response, which was a genuine response from my heart, was to pick up my Bible, hold it open before them, and respond by saying, wherever this Bible takes us is where we will go.
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That is the precise answer the leadership of this church would give to the same question.
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We go where the Bible takes us.
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No further.
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We go where God tells us through his holy word.
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Let's pray together as we begin to look into the scriptures.
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Our Father in heaven, we are grateful for the mercies that you've shown us in Christ.
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Our only hope is found in his blood and his righteousness.
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I thank you for this church, for the pastor, the elders, for the deacons, for those who serve.
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Thank you for the ladies and their faithful labors for many years.
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We pray now that you'd be pleased to encourage our hearts as we would look into your holy word.
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Without the Holy Spirit, our time will be in vain, and we ask you to be our teacher.
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In the name of Jesus, our rock and our redeemer.
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Amen.
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Well, as we look at the Bible and we ask the question, what is the reformation principle of Holy Scripture, the first thing we have to state about the Bible is we believe in the divine origin of Holy Scripture.
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The Bible comes from God.
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In other words, we are those who believe in sola scriptura.
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We are persuaded that what Scripture says, God says.
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In other words, we do not believe God said it.
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We believe it and that settles it.
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No, rather we believe God said it, that settles it.
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Whether we believe it or not does not in any way affect the Bible.
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It's God's word.
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God is the one who has spoken, and therefore we find all of our trust in him.
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There are three texts I would like to look at, familiar texts.
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What I particularly love about these three passages when it deals with the origin of Scripture is all three passages were written by men about to die.
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When a man is about to die, he lays aside all trifles and he focuses on the most important things in life.
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The first is the Apostle Paul, and you know that the last letter that he wrote was 2 Timothy.
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He wrote 2 Timothy before he died as he was executed in Rome.
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And as he is coming to the end of that letter, as he is writing to his young son in the faith, the Apostle Paul, who is going to say to Timothy in the latter part of this book, preach the word, be instant in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering.
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You know he's going to say that.
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But before he says that, he speaks about the origin of Scripture when he says this.
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All Scripture is, and then it's translated in different translations, inspired by God, or is breathed out by God.
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That is addressing the issue of the origin of Scripture.
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Where did Scripture come from? It came from the very breath of God.
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And so Paul, as he is about to die, believes there is nothing more important that he can say to his young son in the faith.
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As he is ready to literally pass the baton on to him as he is expiring, he wants Timothy to know that Scripture, all Scripture, every individual Scripture, and all in its totality, has come by the breath of God.
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That's the origin of Scripture.
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We're going to come back to that passage a little bit later at another point, but that's the thing that he focuses on first and foremost in 2 Timothy 3.15.
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Second person who is about to die, Peter.
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And you know, Peter, as he writes, Second Peter lets us know that he has been informed by the Lord that he will soon die.
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He will die as a martyr.
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And as he is about to die, what does he write to his readers? He says, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.
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For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
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As you examine those words of 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21, you will find that Peter could not possibly emphasize more strongly the fact that though every word in the Bible was written by men, men who were fallible men, yet these were men chosen by God, prepared by God, and were used by God to give us His Holy Word.
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If people were to ask us the question, or sometimes people will bring an argument against the Bible and say, well, the Bible was just written by men.
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And we might say, well, you're half right.
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It was written by men, but it was written by men who were chosen by God.
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They were chosen, they were prepared, they were equipped by God.
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God's Word has its origin in God Himself.
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And then, of course, the third person who was about to die was our own Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
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And as He was about to die, He prayed.
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And in His prayer in John 17, you remember His words.
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He says to the Father, sanctify them in Thy truth.
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Thy Word is truth.
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Our Lord recognized that the Word of God came from God.
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And therefore, that's where we must always begin.
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Our view of Holy Scripture agrees with the convictions of the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Peter, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that Scripture comes from God.
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And as a result of that, we believe a second thing about Scripture.
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We believe in the perfect nature of Holy Scripture.
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Because the Bible has its origin with God, it takes on the very character of God.
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It is, as it were, like God.
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And therefore, we understand and believe that the nature of Scripture takes on the nature of God.
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And we know that God cannot lie.
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God cannot deceive.
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We believe, therefore, in the infallibility and the inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures.
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Since God cannot lie, Scripture cannot lie.
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Since God is true, Scripture is true.
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Since God is holy, Scripture is holy.
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The psalmist put it this way.
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The law of the Lord is what? Perfect.
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Reviving the soul.
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The testimony of the Lord is sure.
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Making wise the simple.
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The precepts of the Lord are right.
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Rejoicing the heart.
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The commandment of the Lord is pure.
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Enlightening the eyes.
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The fear of the Lord is clean.
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Enduring forever.
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The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
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Do a study on every one of those words.
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Every word that is chosen there is chosen to describe the nature of God himself, which also describes the nature of God's Word.
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In Psalm 12, verse 6, we read, The words of the Lord are pure words like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.
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In Hebrews 6, we read, So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie.
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We who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast the hope set before us.
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Can God do anything? Well, there are some things God cannot do.
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One is he cannot lie.
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And that's his glory.
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That's a glorious cannot.
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God cannot deny himself.
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God is who he is.
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And therefore, he gives us a perfect word.
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And as a result of that, the third thing we believe about Holy Scripture is we believe in the absolute authority of Holy Scripture.
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It comes from God.
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It takes on the character and qualities of God.
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And therefore, it comes with the absolute authority of God.
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Since Scripture comes from God, it takes the nature and character and therefore divine authority.
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What Scripture says, God says.
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And that is therefore the final word.
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That's the reason why I said earlier that it's really not appropriate to say God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.
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No, it's simply God said it, and that settles it.
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Because God is the authority.
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He is the one who has final and complete authority.
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We have been familiarized recently, in these past weeks especially, of Martin Luther's 95 Theses, which he tacked on the Wittenberg door October 31st of 1517.
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But something took place in August of 1521.
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It was at what is called the Diet of Worms.
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And he was given his books, and he was told to denounce the things that he had written.
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And we are told that these were his words.
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Which is my basis.
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My conscience is captive to the word of God.
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Thus I cannot, I will not, recant.
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Because acting against one's conscience is neither safe nor sound.
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God help me.
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Amen.
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Can you say that today? My conscience is captive to the word of God.
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You see, if you believe in the authority of Scripture, then you know that your responsibility in life is to find out what God has said, and then do it.
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Not decide whether you're going to do it.
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Once you have seen what God has demanded of you, repent and believe the gospel.
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And you know that unless you do that, you will perish.
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Under the authority of God, there is no other way.
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He has established the only way that is safe.
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You may recall that back in Deuteronomy, the people were about to enter the land of promise.
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And they were entering a land that was peopled by other people who had many other authorities.
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They listened to voices from above.
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But it was not the voice of God.
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And listen to what the people were warned about.
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In Deuteronomy 18, beginning with verse 9.
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When you come into the land that the Lord your God has given you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.
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There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering.
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Anyone who practices divination, or tells fortunes, or interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a necromancer, or one who inquires of the dead.
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For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.
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And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.
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You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, for these nations which you are about to dispossess, they listen, that's a key word, they listen to fortune tellers and diviners.
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But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.
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Now does the Lord leave them without a word? No.
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He says immediately then, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me, from among you, from your brothers.
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It is to him you shall listen.
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God did not leave us without a word.
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He did not leave them without a word.
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But the word that he left them with and us is the prophet of God.
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Those men who spoke from God.
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And you will recall one of the most dramatic incidents in the New Testament is found in what we call the Mount of Transfiguration.
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Remember that incident? Our Lord took three of his disciples, Peter, James, and John, upon the mount.
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And who appeared and suddenly began to talk to Jesus? Do you remember? Moses and Elijah.
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The representatives of the Old Testament word of God.
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The law, the prophets.
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These two men suddenly appeared and were speaking with Jesus.
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And what were they speaking about? The upcoming Olympics? No, they were speaking about Jesus' soon exodus that was going to take place in Jerusalem.
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They were speaking about his death.
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And what's significant about that you recall is what had just happened previously.
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In the passage in Matthew 16, you remember that Jesus asked the disciples, Who do men say that I am? And they gave all different answers.
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And then what was the next question he asked? Who do you say that I am? And Peter responded, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
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The Lord said, Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven has revealed it.
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And what did Jesus immediately do? What did he immediately do after that confession was made by Peter? Do you remember what he did next? He took them aside and told them of his coming death that would happen in Jerusalem.
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How did Peter respond to that? He took Jesus aside and he rebuked him.
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And Jesus immediately now turns to the same Peter who had just a moment before made this grand confession and he says, Get thee behind me, Satan, for you are mindful of the things of man and not the things of God.
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And so when they go up on the Mount of Transfiguration and that same Peter is there, what are they discussing together? Moses, the law, the prophets in Elijah.
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They're discussing his soon coming death that was going to take place in Jerusalem.
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And do you remember what happened in this dramatic moment? I mean, we see some dramatic events in Scripture, don't we? We see the parting of the Red Sea and the crashing of the Red Sea upon the enemies.
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That's a pretty dramatic moment.
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Our God is a God of drama.
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Well, here in this dramatic moment where you have Moses and Elijah speaking with the Lord Jesus, we suddenly have something happen.
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It says, He was still speaking with them, and behold, a bright cloud, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.
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Listen to Him.
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You remember what the words were in Deuteronomy 18? You're not to listen to these other voices.
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You are to listen to Him.
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That is the one that God raises up as the prophet of God.
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In this most dramatic way, God the Father speaks from heaven and tells the disciples they are to listen to Jesus as the final prophet.
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And do you remember what happens when they lifted up their eyes and the cloud disappeared? Where were Moses and Elijah? They were gone.
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Who was left? Jesus only.
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That's drama.
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That's a dramatic effect to show us that Christ is the end of the law.
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He is the one who came to fulfill, and therefore we are to listen to Him.
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The absolute authority of Holy Scripture.
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And we see it portrayed even in the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.
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You remember the three temptations that Satan brought to our Lord? They were all answered with exactly the same thing.
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What was the formula that he used all three times to each temptation? Do you remember? It is written.
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And he quotes from Deuteronomy.
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Even the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the final prophet of God, when He was fighting against the evil one, even though He Himself was God incarnate, He brought Scripture against the evil one.
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And He left us an example.
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That's how we are to fight Him as well.
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We must know the Word of God and be able to use it as the weapon.
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It's the one offensive weapon that we have in our armor.
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It's the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
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The fourth thing that's true about Scripture is we believe in the complete sufficiency of Holy Scripture.
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Do you believe that? Do you believe in the sufficiency of Holy Scripture? Remember the great hymn writer, George Keith, said it this way.
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How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent Word.
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What more can He say than to you He has said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled? What more can He say? He has given you the book, the Word of God, 66 books in the Bible.
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He has given us all we need, the complete sufficiency of Scripture.
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The Lord reminds us over and over again in Scripture that we are not to add to nor take away from the Word of God written.
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He says that in Deuteronomy 12, 32.
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And He says, Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do.
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You shall not add to it or take from it.
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And then in Proverbs 30, we read, Every word of God proves true.
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He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.
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Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you and you be found a liar.
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In Revelation 22, 18 and 19, I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.
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And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city which are described in this book.
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I may step on some toes when I say this, but so be it.
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Beware of books like Jesus Calling and God Calling.
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These are people who are claiming that the Lord is still speaking to them directly.
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And they write it in books and now they even put it in leather.
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And really what they are doing, they are rivaling the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture.
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The Lord has already spoken.
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I don't care how many people say they've been blessed by those books.
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Those books are leading people away from the sole sufficiency of holy Scripture.
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Beware of tampering with such things.
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It is a dangerous thing.
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It may not be the intention of the people involved, but it is a dangerous thing to start putting down your thoughts and saying, Jesus told me this.
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And you don't have anywhere in Scripture to be able to demonstrate that.
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I mentioned earlier that we would look back at that passage in 2 Timothy 3.16 and 17.
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All Scripture is God-breathed and is what? Profitable.
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And it's profitable for four things.
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And this speaks to the sufficiency of Scripture.
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What's the first thing it's profitable for? Do you remember? For doctrine or teaching, right? For teaching or doctrine.
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The second thing, reproof.
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Third thing, correction.
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What's the fourth thing? Training in righteousness.
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In other words, it is profitable to teach us what is true and the fourth thing, to show us what is right.
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How we are to think and believe and how we are to live and behave.
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Those are the first and the fourth.
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All that we are to believe and all we are to do is contained in the Scriptures, God-breathed.
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But also in the middle, there are these two negative words.
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Reproof and correction.
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Correction and reproof.
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Those are addressing the opposites of truth and right behavior.
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It corrects us when we are thinking wrong and when we are doing wrong.
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And it reproves us when our doctrine is off and when our practice is off.
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You ever come to the church and the pastor preaches on a passage and it happens to be the perfect passage that you needed and it addressed an issue maybe you were talking about.
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I remember when I was pastoring in New York, this would happen so many times.
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People would come up to me and say, were you in our car last night? I said, what are you talking about? Well, my wife and I, last night we were talking about this very thing and you brought it up.
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I remember one dear friend of mine now who the very first time he and his wife visited our church, she was in the crying room with the baby.
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He was out in the sanctuary.
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And as he is sitting there and I don't remember what the sermon was, but as he was sitting there, he was just boiling over with joy because what I was saying was exactly what they had been wrestling with as a family that week.
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And he was wondering, is she hearing what he's saying? And she's in the crying room saying, I'm hoping he's hearing what he's saying.
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And after the service was over, they kind of ran into each other and said, can you believe how God spoke through his word to us today? That's what God's word does.
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It's sufficient to speak to our hearts about the very thing that's troubling us.
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God's word is enough.
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What more can he say than to you, he has said.
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We believe in the complete sufficiency.
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We also believe more briefly in the timeless relevance of Holy Scripture.
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Young people never think that the Bible doesn't address the issues that you face every day.
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People may make fun of it in college and in high school, but the Bible is absolutely timeless in its relevance.
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I can remember years ago when I was in seminary and I would go home during the different breaks that I would have, and I worked in the highway department.
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Andy and Candy, they know about the Babylon Town Highway Department.
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I used to work there.
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And I'll never forget a time that I was sitting with some of the men during lunch, and I just read from Proverbs chapter 5 about the enticing woman.
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And I just read the passage to them.
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And I said, when do you think that was written? They said, well, it could have been written yesterday.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Guess when it was written? 3,000 years ago.
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But yet it describes exactly the problem that a young man faces when he faces temptation from a flirtatious woman.
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The dangers that are out there.
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It's a father warning his son.
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There is timeless relevance in the Bible.
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There is nothing more timely because God himself wrote the word of God in such a way that it would reach all nations at all times.
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It is timeless in its relevance.
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The issues of homosexuality, women preachers, divorce, abortion, and every other thing that you can think of is addressed in the word of God.
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And thus we go to the Bible, as Paul would ask several times in the book of Romans, what sayeth the Scriptures? What does the Bible say about this? It is timeless in its relevance.
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And the two that I added, that used to be the full lesson.
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The two that I added are these.
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The first, which is number six, we believe in the God-centered orientation of Holy Scripture.
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Holy Scripture is God-centered.
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The Bible begins with the words in the beginning, God.
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From that opening verse to the closing verses of Revelation, the Bible maintains its God-centered and God-saturated orientation over 4,000 times.
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The simple word God is used in 65 of the 66 books in the Bible.
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And you know the only book that doesn't contain the word God, you know what it is? The book of Esther.
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And yet when you read the book of Esther, the hand of God is involved throughout the whole book.
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And intentionally, that book did not include the name of God.
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But yet God himself is present in every line.
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My people are foolish, says the Lord, in Jeremiah chapter four.
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They know me not.
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They proceed from evil to evil.
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And they do not know me.
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In Hosea, the prophet said, for the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land because there's no faithfulness or kindness or knowledge of God in the land.
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My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.
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They don't know me.
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It's a tragic thing that churches today in our country are filled with people who don't know God.
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And tragically, there are pulpits that are filled with men who do not know the living and true God.
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They speak in their own mind.
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They do not speak according to the word of God.
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Andy would know this.
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He lived on Long Island for many years, as I did.
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People would travel.
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How many miles would they travel to come to our churches? And what would they say to us? We're coming here to hear the word of God.
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We've visited church after church and we hear everything, but we don't hear from God.
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We're not hearing the word of God.
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And people would say, Hey, I'm willing to travel an hour to go to a dentist to take care of my teeth.
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I knew people who would fly to Minnesota to their dentist where they used to live to take care of their teeth.
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But they were looking for a church around the corner from their house and they'd be unwilling to drive an hour to go to hear the word of God.
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You want to have a church that is God-centered.
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We read of the Book of Comfort in Isaiah 40-66.
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It begins with these memorable words.
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Comfort, O comfort, my people, says your God.
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Say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God.
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Behold the Lord God will come with might, with His arm ruling for Him.
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We are persuaded that this great book is first and foremost a book about God.
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God, our Creator, our Sustainer, our Redeemer, and our Judge.
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Our worship is to seek to be God-centered and not man-centered because we are persuaded that the first question of the Shorter Catechism had it correct when it said, What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
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The question isn't, What do men want when they come to worship? Not what do men enjoy, what kind of music do men enjoy, but what does God want? We come to worship God.
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We come to seek to give Him pleasure and Him joy as we worship Him.
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If someone is sick and misses church and they would ask one who went, What did you hear in church today? The answer should simply be, We heard from God.
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And when you're not there, you may miss God when He comes in power in His Word.
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And then finally the seventh, we believe in the Christ-centered focus of Holy Scripture.
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Even more precisely, the God-centeredness of Scripture leads us to seek always to have a Christ-centered focus.
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Why? This is what we have learned from Christ Himself as He spoke of the Law and the Prophets.
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You remember when He spoke to the Emmaus disciples as they were heading home after the resurrection that morning.
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Jesus comes up and questions them about what they're speaking about as they were sad.
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And they're a little irritated that this stranger interrupts them.
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And as you know, their eyes were hidden so they didn't know it was Jesus.
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And Jesus says, What is this that you're talking about? And they said to Him, Are you the only one in Jerusalem that doesn't know what's happened in these days? What is the irony of that question? Asking Jesus if He knew what had happened in these days.
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So what does He say? You tell me what happened.
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And then of course they tell what they believed.
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They said, We had hoped, past tense, that He would redeem Israel.
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He was the one we had hoped in.
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And what does Jesus then say to them? Oh foolish and slow of heart.
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To believe in all that God has written.
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Ought not the Christ who have suffered these things and entered into His glory.
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And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He expounded the things concerning Himself.
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The Bible is about Jesus.
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And when we go to the Bible, we go to find Him.
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Not just in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament as well.
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We seek to find Christ because the Bible leads us to Christ.
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Paul was able to say, I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
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And his goal was summed up later in saying, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus.
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One of the books that I have outside is a book by Austin Phelps called The Studies of the Old Testament.
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He has an absolutely superb chapter in there entitled, Christ, the Center of the Bible.
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And he concludes with these words.
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One of the first signs by which a traveler in Italy observes that he is approaching the capital of the kingdom is that all the guide boards bear its name.
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From whatever quarter of the compass he journeys and by whatever highway he sees at all corners, the outstretched finger and the words, To Rome.
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The people have a proverb that all roads lead to Rome.
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Similar to this network of highways is the internal structure of the Bible.
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That too is covered over with lines of suggestion which all point one way.
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They converge to one center and that center is Christ.
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The ascendancy of Christ in Christian faith gives character to a Christian's anticipation of heaven.
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Listen to this.
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This is very powerful.
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When you think about heaven, and like me, some of you are closer than you were some years back.
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My dad died.
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I'm 66 now.
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My dad died when he was 64.
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So in many ways I'm going to borrow time.
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My brother's already had two open heart surgeries.
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I'm going to be having open heart surgery sometime in the future as well.
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I don't know how much longer I will live.
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I could live 20 more years.
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I could live two more days.
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We don't know what a day will bring forth.
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But as we think about heaven, what comes to your mind? Well, this is what Phelps says.
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The old mythologies told what they were in pictures of Elysian fields.
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Islam proclaims its nature in its promise of sensual paradise.
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The Scandinavian faith has its Valhalla.
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The North American Indian is happy hunting grounds.
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Last and least of all, poetry and romance disclose their effeminacy in the doctrine of the spirit land of which nobody knows the character.
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The Christian heaven is distinguished from all other religions by this one peculiarity.
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Christ is there.
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Christ is the center of holy thought.
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Heaven needs no sun or moon.
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The lamb is the light thereof.
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When we consider heaven, what we consider is Christ.
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Fanny Crosby, as you know, wrote hundreds of hymns.
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Fanny Crosby, because of an error that was made by a doctor, became blind when she was but an infant.
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She said she had learned years later that that doctor had died of a broken heart.
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She said she wished that she had been able to talk to him and tell him of the gift that she actually gave, that he gave to her.
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She said, the first face that I will ever see is the face of my dear and blessed Lord.
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That is to be our desire, my friends, is to see Jesus.
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I remember years ago, Johnny Cash and June Carter singing a song about when they pass over the river that the first person they'll look for is the other.
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And I knew to myself right then, as romantic as that may sound, that is not Christian thought.
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The Christian attitude is not to be seeing our loved ones.
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We will see them by and by, but our focus is upon Christ.
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Their focus, if they're in heaven, is upon Christ.
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And everything we do, everything we say, we are to be keeping our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
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Is this what you believe about the Bible? Do you believe it has its origin with God and therefore is perfect, that it has absolute authority, that it is relevant, completely sufficient, God-oriented, and Christ-focused? I hope you do, because I do believe that if we believe these things and put them into practice, it will affect the way we live every day, and it will cause others to have a hunger and a thirst for what we have.
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People are going to ask, I want what you have.
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I want that joy.
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I want that peace.
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I want that comfort.
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And it only comes from knowing Christ.
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May God help us.
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Let us pray.
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Our Father, we thank you for your word, for the beauty that is contained in every word.
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How grateful we are that we have not been left to the devices of men that you have spoken, and your word is pure.
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Your word is true.
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Lord, I pray that you would be with us as we continue to worship you today.
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We rejoice in the baptism of a new disciple.
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We rejoice in the privilege of hearing your word, of lifting our voices in song and in praise to the Lord Jesus.
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We look forward to being able to celebrate the Lord's Supper, where we celebrate the Lord's death until he comes.
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We look forward to the fellowship we will have around the table as well.
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Thank you, Father, for the privilege of gathering together as your people today.
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Do not send us home disappointed.
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Give us joy in our hearts, we pray in Jesus' name.
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Amen.