1689 London Baptist Confession Of Faith (part 6)

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Father, thank you for this beautiful morning for all the Common grace that you give us each and every day how we are permitted such beauty such joy
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Really the grandeur of your creation Father how you sustain us each with daily breath daily bread shelter all these things but father
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Most of all we gather this morning to worship you father son and spirit because you
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Eternal exalted Condescended the person of the
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Lord Jesus Christ to come to earth take on a human body and redeem fallen Human beings just like us
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Lord the gospel of Jesus Christ is what brings us here and father we rejoice and we worship you and we pray that each one here would be
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Edified by what we speak about this morning in Jesus name. Amen. Well, you know,
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I have the privilege of Really one of the great privileges
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I have is I get to talk to you guys Not just on Sunday morning, but throughout the week and Friday night.
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I was with some great theologians Andrew Smith and Joey D Filippo and we were talking about therapeutic moral
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Deism and what is that? Any of you who were there
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Friday night should readily know. Oh Nobody was here. All right therapeutic moral deism.
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What is that? Okay Okay, you believe that there's a
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God you believe he should be operating your behalf you believe that you should be good and You know, we could summarize it this way it's good to be good and it's nice to be nice Why do
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I bring that up if you go to the average Evangelical Church in the
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United States today Today Sunday, what are you gonna hear when you go in there next week is
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God's week for you this week. Not so much what? What are you gonna hear on a weekend week out basis weekly basis, what do you hear
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Feel good topics God loves you. What's that?
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Prosperity. Yep, be the birth best person you could be and and you know what
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I would combine those two You know God loves you and be the best person you could be and you're kind of there but there's one more element to it that God loves you and I mean,
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I want to break out into Billy Joel. He loves you Just the way you are Don't go change in to try and please him, right?
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I mean, that'd be a nice worship song, right? Don't go change in. Oh, don't record that Don't go changing to try to please him and as we we come to this morning
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I mean we're going to get we're gonna get through sufficiency of Scripture probably and ultimately to the Trinity and other things and And I just thought this is the difference and I remember being at RC Sproul's Church, and I'm not recommending we do this, but it was kind of a little breathtaking
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Everybody's meeting and greeting, you know before the service and then all of a sudden there's you know Like a little bit of a warning and then they say, you know, there's this voiceover and I think he recorded this ahead of time you know, it's like You have left the profane and are about to enter the holy, you know
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And and you know, it's only it's an RC's voice. So it's like You have left the profane and are about to enter the holy
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And you know, they walk the Bible down the aisle and everybody's standing up and everything and there's a difference in That approach to God and to Scripture than what we see in the average
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Evangelical Church instead of God being our buddy Instead of God being our pal instead of Jesus being
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Pardon me, you know in the worship songs our boyfriend, you know our long lost love
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There's an exalted view of God that says we are low he is high we are base and he is exalted and We lose that and I don't mean we here at BBC I mean generally speaking in the evangelical world
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We lose that because we focus on this Therapeutic moral deal is deism.
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How does how do I make my life better? How you know, how can I be a better neighbor all those kind of things and how is
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God going to help me? Make my life better That's not why we're here
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We're here to worship, you know and to recall the exalted nature of God and to be
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Again amazed that he would stoop down and save us that's the message of Christianity and I I think we just lose so much of that.
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We we get lost in the weeds of you know, how do I Improve my daily life.
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How do I improve even my daily walk? Listen if we come in and you know week after week, it's like six ways to better study your
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Bible eight ways to Better be a better husband or whatever. Those are good in good things in and of themselves
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But they are not the gospel and they you know, sometimes they get confused with what the gospel is or how we should even view
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God okay, so Talking about the sufficiency of Scripture.
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We were talking about proofs last week I Do think it's important to remind ourselves, you know the difference between general revelation and specific revelation that is general revelation is
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Creation, okay. Yeah, you know the things we see around us and they tell us about the nature of God But general revelation true or false general revelation in and of itself creation
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Can save somebody False why there's only enough to condemn
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Bob, you know, would you teach the rest of this class that those? That was beautiful There's only enough to condemn
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Because what can be known about God and where we find this by the way Romans 1.
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Thank you so much You did get this I'd be so disappointed Romans 1 tells us that we know that there's a
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God and we know something of the nature of God by looking at creation but mankind suppresses that truth and unrighteousness so that they are
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Condemned Exactly as Bob said so there's enough information in creation to condemn but not enough to save now
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I think I might have Might have read this last week, but let's go back to the 1689
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London Confession of Faith Sufficiency of Scripture says the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory
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Comma I like that Necessary for his own glory comma man salvation comma faith and life comma is
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Either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture, I think the
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Westminster Confession says, you know, it's Nestle necessarily inferred, you know or implied whichever whichever it is in the
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Holy Scripture In other words, there are inferences there that can be drawn out of Holy Scripture that are
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You know necessary for our understanding to I just which nothing at any time is to be added
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Whether by new revelation of the Spirit or traditions of men and again, as I said last week that both gets at Roman Catholicism with the traditions of men and any kind of new faith religion or the
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Anabaptists of that time with regard to Revelation of the Spirit, you know and And it gets at this you can't be a 1689
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London Confession of Faith Church or you know subscribing church and say God told me the
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Spirit revealed to me. You can't say that why because it says whether by new revelation of the Spirit those things are expressly outside of What we believe in what we hold to we believe that Scripture is sufficient and that excludes
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God told me Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the
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Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the word
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And where would we find that referred to in the Bible this inward illumination of the Spirit?
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Where's that found? Have I been with you so long? Where would we find that in Scripture?
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It's not in 2nd Corinthians it's in 3rd
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Corinthians you are fired 1st
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Corinthians there are 16 chapters pick one chapter chapter 2
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Very good class Verse 14, why don't we read that since it's so familiar just just jog our memories a little bit
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There's some there's some just really key passages when we're trying to understand the value of Scripture Romans 1 is 1 right because we know that Scripture has value beyond creation and 1st
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Corinthians 2 14 And if somebody would read that please 1st
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Corinthians 2 14 Yes, Gary. Go ahead Okay. So what does that tell us about the
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Holy Spirit? He enables understanding and without his enablement You can't understand the
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Word of God So, you know What what else do we know about the gospel generally it is foolishness to those who are perishing
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This is the same concept and really, you know, I mean we have these chapter breaks here But in 1st
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Corinthians chapter 1 Paul says the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing but to those who are being saved
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It is what is it? the power of God so We have here in 1st
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Corinthians 2 14 kind of a similar thought expressed a different way but he says, you know, basically when you come to Scripture you can't understand it without The enablement of the
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Holy Spirit, but that also implies what that if you have the Holy Spirit you can understand scripture
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See And that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God and government of the church come to human actions and Societies which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence according to the general rules of the word
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Which are always to be observed not that much. They're just basically that we can understand it it is right to have
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I think we could say just Inferring from there that is right to have a government of the church and that there are some things that even our society would tell us that we can impose on the church, but the government of the church
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All that aside, let's move on and talk about scripture some more What is scripture sufficient for?
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When we say it is sufficient. What is it sufficient for? You know and I've mentioned before, you know, if we're going to teach a class in Algebra, I would like to teach a class in algebra.
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That's where it's fun If I want to teach a class in algebra and I want to use the
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Bible as my textbook am I gonna succeed Probably not.
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This is I'm sure from Waldron. He says the Bible is not all sufficient for every conceivable purpose
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You know if you want to learn about Football or what you Americans call soccer see what
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I did there. Thank you The scriptures would not be helpful
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But the sufficiency of scriptures does not mean that they are all we need for purposes of learning mathematics or whatever
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The Westminster divines confess their faith in the sufficiency, but not the and here's a nice word
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Omni -sufficiency of scripture meaning it is not Sufficient for every conceivable purpose same thing.
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I just said Surely this is clear from the qualifying statement of the confession all things necessary for his own glory
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Man's salvation faith and life. Those are the things that the Bible is sufficient for God's glory man's salvation faith and life and if we you know compare that to something like the four spiritual laws we would find out that You know, it's a lot more sufficient than that The Bible is not sufficient for all that we do but it does speak to all we do
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Sufficiently as to the glory of God the way of salvation and the path of duty
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When we think about the sufficiency of scripture Does any verse come to mind
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I mean we've just been kind of talking about the implications and this again is not a a direct quote, but I think an
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M an implication of this I'm gonna have to go to the right well,
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I'm Well, I'm struggling with that. If if scripture is sufficient for everything that we need with regard to the glory of God For our salvation for faith in life, then what does that mean faith in life?
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If you're struggling trying to figure out how to Pay your bills can scripture help you out.
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It's a yes or no question. You have a 50 -50 chance Gary Thank you, because I you know, the easy answer was no and I was gonna say wrong
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Thank You Gary Yes, biblical script biblical principles can help you what you prioritize how you you're going to spend your money and if you
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Prioritize according to biblical principles. I pretty much guarantee you're going to be able to pay your bills
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Can it help you with regard to your marriage? okay, so Follow -up question if it can help you with regard to your marriage, why would you then go to a secular?
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marriage counselor to tell you what you want here
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Oh, honey, he's no good. You need to divorce him Here and here's let me just let me just follow this up I think a lot of When you go to a
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Christian bookstore, what do you find a lot of in the books section? Psychology self -help.
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Why is that? That's what well, that's what sells and we all need help, but there's an underlying theory here, right?
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Which is what? We're the source of the help The Bible is not sufficient.
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The Bible is not enough. You know if you went in there and you said, you know, I need Help with my marriage.
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I need help with Let's see. What else raising my kids? I need help with etc, etc, etc
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And they pointed you to a bunch of books that were written by people who only focused on Applying the
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Bible to these passive or to these problems people would say well, I don't need that Right, so what sells what sells our books where they say, you know what?
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Here's here's how you fix your marriage, you know the 30 -day plan to fix your marriage or the whatever because or Actually marriage books probably don't even sell so much how to feel better about yourself all these kind of things
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Because people don't like what the Bible says. They want to hear what they want to hear like Becky was saying here
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The sufficiency of the Bible means it's soul sufficiency It is sufficient to achieve the purposes of redemption or I'm sorry of redemptive revelation without supplementation by new revelations or traditions of men
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Okay Now on to 2nd Timothy 3 verses 15 to 17 and I guess we should read that Well, somebody read 2nd
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Timothy 3 verses 15 to 17, that's right I thought you were typing a translation of just even thinking, you know, we talked about Theo new stars
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God breathed out Inspired You know as you go into that Christian bookstore every single book in there
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You can't say of one of them. Let me put it the other way. You can't say I have a single book in that store It is inspired
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Not in the genuine sense of the word right not one of those books can be said to be inspired not one of those books is written by God doesn't have
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God the Holy Spirit as its author and When we think about that then all these self -help books all the feel -good books all the you know
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Wisdom books, whatever they're whatever you want to call them really kind of it puts them in their place
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Here's the Bible. Here's everything else Now at least if there are books based on the
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Bible you can say well at least Those books would be a step below right but books that are just based on I want to say sophistry, you know the wisdom of men or aka sophistry
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Those books are dispensable He says
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Waldron says this is the assertion of verse 15 the sacred writings, which are Able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation here is the explicit assertion that the scriptures contain all the wisdom necessary for our salvation and Once you have salvation, what else do you need exactly?
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I mean we could say nothing. That's not I mean We need nothing else. We could want other things but salvation is
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Way better than the alternative There there is the assertion of verse 16 all scriptures profitable for teaching for a proof for correction for training and righteousness the term translated profitable in the new
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American standard means useful beneficial advantageous He goes on to say the fourfold usefulness of the scriptures enumerated here by the
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Apostle surely implies that the scriptures are a sufficient handbook for young pastor
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Timothy He faced a bewildering array of needs in Ephesus Which demanded in turn many kinds of ministry?
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He must often have asked himself. How am I to meet these multiple challenges? Paul's assertion is to the effect that the scriptures are able to equip
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Timothy for every ministry He is called upon to give Every ministry he is called upon to give everything that he needs to minister to the church at Ephesus and thereby by inference everything that we need
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Was given to him Verse 17 that the man of God may be adequate equipped for every good work
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This assures us that the scriptures are not merely moderately useful to the man of God But thoroughly sufficient for all his needs as a man of God so we have
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Scripture and the question remains, you know, what else do we need for life and godliness? Peter says that pertaining to life and godliness we have everything that we need
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Paul wrote to Timothy you have everything you need for basically for ministry. What else do we need nothing?
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Waldron says this doctrine is no excuse for mental laziness the sufficient Sufficiency of scripture does not negate the necessity of the spirits teaching this doctrine is no excuse for intellectual pride
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The scriptures are not sufficient or clear to the one devoid of the spirit meaning if you don't have a scripture or if you don't have a spirit you can't
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Understand them, but it takes study and work to apply the scripture to all these things
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Scripture is sufficient. We need nothing else. Let's talk about the clarity of scripture. Is it clear?
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Again the London Baptist Confession of Faith 1689 says all things in scripture are not alike plain in themselves nor alike clear unto all
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And I think we we mentioned last week 2nd Peter if we didn't let's go there 2nd Peter 3 verses 15 to 18
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Amen. Well, I you know, I remember the first time I studied this. I Don't remember when it was but I remember the first time studying it and just thinking this is amazing
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The end of verse 16 in particular as they do the other scriptures
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So Peter writing believers here In that book of 2nd
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Peter and he says listen people distort some of the things that Paul writes in his letters just like they do the other
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Scriptures meaning that Peter understood that the things written by Paul were what?
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Scripture so this idea, you know that maybe Paul changed things he invented.
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I mean you ever heard that Paul invented Christianity Just just bogus
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Peter understood by the Holy Spirit he understood that these letters written by Paul were
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Scripture themselves Alderman says the sufficiency and clarity of scripture do not therefore negate the necessity of the church's ministry
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This caution is mostly in our day in the classic passage Is the clarity and sufficiency of scripture for the work of the pastor teacher that is specifically emphasized in other words, listen
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We don't want to distort No one should want to distort
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Scripture That's what the unstable Do these lawless people they twist them, you know to their own destruction
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The plain meaning of scripture can be known and it can be understood and it demands study
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But we use the scripture because we know that it is sufficient that is clear It can be understood and then we apply it to the given to the situations as needed questions about sufficiency or clarity of scripture
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About the fact that it it is God breathed. It's sufficient. It's Everything that we need pertaining to life and godliness
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Okay, if I saw a book called how to live and walk in the spirit written by Rick Warner Benny Hinn First of all, let me just separate those two because if I've found a book like that by Benny Hinn I Wouldn't really need to search it and see if it was true or not.
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I could just round file it Rick Warren I would at least examine what he had to say and as soon as he started talking about garages and 1970s music or whatever he was talking about.
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I'd probably throw in the trash, but a Book that was called what did you entitle it?
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How to how to learn to walk in the spirit I would expect it to walk me through biblical passages, you know, probably starting in the
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Psalms, you know, and Then going through passages like what we just read through That's what
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I would expect and I would expect you know some Encouragement and some exhortation based on the text and based on sound hermeneutical principles, of course of those
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Two men wrote it. I'd probably be disappointed What was there a point to that?
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Well, here's what I say about Christian radio. I think it you know like with anything Let's just put it this way
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Christian radio is much like a Christian bookstore, right? I mean, these are businesses they have to stay in business.
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So they put on to some extent they put on what's popular. It's interesting A few weeks ago we had a call here to the church from Alaska and they were wanting to put no
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Compromise radio on the radio and I was talking to the lady and she said basically they have a hard time getting
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You know biblical shows to put on the radio and So she wanted to put no compromise on I was like how much do you you know?
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How much is it gonna cost us nothing? Okay sold sold the price is right But but you know, it just calls for a discernment you can't you know
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Just like you can't go into the bookstore and expect everything. You're gonna read is going to be good You can't expect everything that you're gonna hear on the radio is gonna be good.
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Same same thing. So Does that help? I mean that's kind of what you have to do.
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You can't figure well MacArthur was great So the next guy up is gonna be good, too The day it doesn't work
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Yes true One of the things you know if when
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Jesus was leaving he said, you know, it's better that I leave why because when I leave the
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Comfort is going to come and what's he going to do? The Holy Spirit was going to lead them into all truth, right and So there's a legacy even as you said there when
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Paul knows that he's leaving he knows that his legacy is going to be scripture and scripture is able to You know deal with all these different situations and it is
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Inspired by God. I mean it is when we depart from scripture and this is what I tell people all the time, you know
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Counseling or whatever, you know, what do I do about this? What do I do about that? Here's where my authority begins and ends as long as I can say thus saith the
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Lord and show you a verse that says That then I've got authority as soon as I say, you know, that's a
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Steve Well, this is my opinion and my opinion is you know, it's as good as my 57 years of Life and you know my years of studying the word and everything else are
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I mean, it's fallible But as long as I can say, you know, for example
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Couples living together and they say well we feel it's right for us to live together
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Okay, we know that Jesus died for all of our sins and therefore that's okay. What do you say to them?
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They're Christians, right? They love the Lord Jesus They believe they've been baptized.
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They're born again Just so happens that they're in a period of sin May we sin more that grace may be may abound.
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I mean, what do you say to them and they say well, you know what? We're not sinning more we're actually sinning less
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But what do you say to them? I mean there are multiple multitude.
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I mean I So many places that come to mind here. What do you say to somebody who's in that situation?
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Are they believers? First of all, are they believers? Okay, good.
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I like the maybe right that could be so what do you say to them?
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Okay poor witness Agree with that Okay that they should treat one another like brothers and sisters in Christ before marriage meaning that they don't have the freedom to You know, they wouldn't go around sleeping with everybody else in the church, too.
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I mean that wouldn't be right Scott says they're sitting absolutely if you love me keep my commandments.
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Absolutely Okay, that's exactly right
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Fornicators will not inherit the kingdom of God. There's a problem, right? There's a little disconnect, you know, you want to say well
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You know, we're our sin is just like any other sin. Well, there's a list of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God And that would include fornicators
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And I'm sitting here turning around in Corinthians Yeah, I mean it's in that that section that says
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Yeah, and I'm right on that page right now. There it is Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit it's in 1st
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Corinthians 6 beginning in verse 9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God do not be deceived neither the sexually immoral
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Nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers
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Will inherit the kingdom of God and such were some of you but you were washed you were sanctified you were justified and they'll say
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Well, where's fornicators in there? Well, it's actually in the sexually immoral that's
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Pornia and it has anything to do with sexual immorality, which would include sex without marriage, right?
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It is it's not a it is not a sin to be married. It's a sin to act like you're married and not be married
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You know what what you know in the end what happens to here you go again
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Revelation 22 Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life and they may enter the city by the gates outside outside the city outside heaven are the dogs and sorcerers and The sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
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Listen, you know What do we do, you know in ministry or when you're counseling somebody you apply the
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Word of God to their situation So but somebody says well, we're Christians. We love the Lord, but we're living together
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Okay, well you might be Christians it's possible You might love the
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Lord But you're not demonstrating that and you're not being obedient to his word. So something it doesn't add up, you know
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That's what we need to address. I Saw this thing and we may not get to the
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Trinity here Since I have an appointment here in a few minutes, but I saw this thing yesterday And it was talking about, you know, how are we going to deal with Homosexual marriage in terms of what happens when you know, you have two
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Homosexuals who are married and one or both of them get saved what do you do and And I thought the the council was pretty good because first of all as a church
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What do we what would we what would we say to somebody, you know, they they come in they go look we're homosexuals and we're married we're married by the state and We've come to Christ and we'd like to make things right, you know, can we join your church?
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We're we want to do things, right? We're like, okay. Well, what's the first thing we would tell them? What? Yeah, you're not married
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Now that's kind of shocking isn't it because what you know, I and I say this all the time I say, you know If the state says it's marriage is the marriage.
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Well, that's not true anymore Right because this if the state says, you know, a ham sandwich and a dog are married.
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Is that a marriage and It may get it may come to that. You know, I I saw this this thing.
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I mean, it's weird The world is getting weirder and well, it's not getting weirder and weirder It's just that things that used to get you locked up forever are now normal this woman professed her love for a
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I think it was a train station and I and I just thought You know, can things get any weirder and the answer is yes, they can and they will
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You know, she needs to be locked up But I'm sure somebody's gonna grant her a license and she's gonna get married to this train station So first of all, it's not a marriage
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Okay, so any kind of restraint we would have about divorce, you know, God hates divorce. Well in this case he has no problem with your divorce because You're not married
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The state says you're married well, like I said the state could say anything and and it will So that's easy, you know and and this article and I think this is even right
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I mean if we if there was a genuine need Let's put it this way.
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I I would say we would do everything we could do hasten the divorce The legal divorce the legal fiction called the divorce
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You know, and then what would we counsel them these two homosexuals who've been living together Okay, you're not married
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You need to Abandon homosexuality and you know, even if they said well we've already done that but you know, we're in a situation where we have kids and We have
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Financial entanglements and it's just easier if we continue living together Yeah, I mean if they were male and female would we say well, you know what as long as you guys stop fornicating, it's okay
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Just stay together No, because we would say look There are people who've known that you guys are a married couple
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Etc. So why would you then continue to live like this for the glory of the Lord, you know to show that a change?
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Has taken place in your life Separate You know be be different don't live like the world expects you to live now.
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It's going to be complicated Because of the financial entanglements because they've been permitted by The state
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To adopt children and to do all this stuff. It's going to be very complicated There's going to be a lot of problems and a lot of difficulties along the way that doesn't mean that we say
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Oh, well, it's too hard We had to do what's right? so we would help those people do what's right, but That hasn't happened yet.
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I'm not saying it won't But scripture is sufficient
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Scripture is sufficient for dealing with these things And we need to not shrink back from that and say
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I don't know what to do Well, let's just take it one step at a time and do the right thing and every step along the way
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I believe that the Lord will bless us and as we continue to do the right thing You know things will things will get clearer
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Any thoughts or questions about that before we close and then we'll pick up on the Trinity next week which is really where I wanted to get because I do think it
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When we study the doctrine of the Trinity when we think about the attributes of God what we're really doing is we're thinking about God rightly as opposed to like I said in the opening
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I think much of Christianity in this country has far too low of view of the
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Godhead thinks of the Godhead in too much of a familiar term and Just really casual manner, but any other thoughts about sufficiency of scripture or even this whole idea of homosexual divorce or anything
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John right? Yeah, and that and here's here's why I would I don't want to draw too many conclusions out of Old Testament narrative passages
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So all I would say is, you know, we need to be very cautious about that about drawing our num are our normal theology out of judges or any passage out of the
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Old Testament That's an a narrative passage. But the the other thing is
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I would say that we need to be really Cautious and dealing with any of these new created
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Relationships and just like I said I think this would be a matter for if this happens a real matter of prayer for the church and for the elders
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And you know to just step by step kind of work through it Because it's not you know, these are not going to be easy situations and to do the
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The right thing every step along the way but also to do the least amount of Unnecessary damage, you know,
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I think it'd be easy to just come in and just you know Send the kids to an orphanage or something like, you know,
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I mean just Go go crazy So that wouldn't be the best the best thing either.
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Oh, yeah. Yeah I mean, I I mean it's almost like what we really should be focused on is not raising money for the parking lot or anything
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Else but raising money for insurance so that when the inevitable lawsuits start, you know, we can afford the legal bills
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Because yeah that that kind of thing would be happening no doubt about it Anyway, I have to get going so let's close in prayer father
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Thank you for your word, thank you that it is sufficient that it is clear Lord there are many muddled situations and just the way our world and our government and those in authority think
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And want to be fair and have it really jettisoned any pretense of the
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Word of God or right or wrong and have really led us to a place where Government is most often by feeling by what feels right rather than by the letter of the law
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Lord, I just pray that you would keep us in our own personal lives from that That you would protect us by your word by your spirits father as a church that we would never depart from what you have revealed to us that You might not need to judge us for doing that Father make us a body and a church and a group of Elders Board of Elders who would love you and your word and would adhere to it