Scripture\'s Sufficiency Over Mysticism

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Ebendroth, and we have, we,

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Mario and I, have been filming a few days ago. And then today, this is the eighth show

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I think we've done. And the great news is there's so many topics in the

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Bible. And if you think about the infinity of God and His greatness and how many

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Bible verses there are, how many Bible verses are there? 31 ,000 or something like that. And so we've always got things to talk about, right?

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It never ends. Plus, it's good to re -hear things and talk about things a second time and third time, et cetera.

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Speaking of which, King, the new book is out. This part's not in the regular book, but my friend

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Stephen designed the cover, how the sovereignty of God changes everything. If you understand the sovereignty of God, it'll help you with prayer.

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It'll help you understand unconditional election. It'll help you with corporate worship. It'll help you with desiring to see the

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Lord come back. Kind of a summary and a more law gospel, gospely version of a book that I put out years ago that you can't, maybe you can get,

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I don't know. So anyway, it's on Amazon. Tell your friends, subscribe, hit like. And I think we're gonna be on American Gospel Television as well.

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There are many series that we filmed on American Gospel Television. The Cancer Series, Cancer's Not Your Shepherd, that's on there for free.

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There's a paywall for some of the other shows on sanctification called Sanctify, Law Gospel, Gospel Assurance, and others.

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So anyway, for whatever it's worth. You can always write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

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If you wanna buy 10 books or more, have an email question or something like that, feel free to do that.

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In the past, when I was interviewed by people, nobody calls me now, but when I was interviewed by people,

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I would often get asked this question. What's the biggest problem in evangelicalism?

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As I survey evangelicalism, and of course I don't do it omnisciently, but as I just kind of generally look and I try to keep in the know when it comes to trends or heresies or fads or discussions, what do

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I think is the biggest problem in evangelicalism? I'll tell you what

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I used to answer. I don't know if I'll still answer it that way because I could talk about celebrity. I could talk about self -promotion.

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I could talk about trying to get famous. I could talk about trying to have writers for speaking engagements and costs and fees.

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I could talk about Trinitarian problems that people are teaching, heresies and eternal functional subordination,

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ESS, EFS. There's all kinds of things now that I could talk about, but I still think this is a big problem and maybe the biggest problem.

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And that is the problem of, drum roll, see you next week, mysticism.

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Mysticism, somehow receiving God's truth from within instead of receiving

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God's truth from external sources, i .e. the Bible.

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So today on No Compromise Radio, I want to talk about this deadly, invasive, yes, maybe even parasitic thing called mysticism.

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And I want you to escape its stranglehold because it can really get you into places that you don't want to be.

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I think it's an axiom. It's a statement that says, as your view of scriptures increase, your view of mysticism will decrease.

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And sadly, on the flip side, if your mysticism increases, your view of scriptures will decrease.

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You are to be a Berean. Actually, the Bible teaches Berean context,

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Acts 17, where they're commended. Local church is more than one person, but it's good to have discernment is my point.

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And it's commanded, not just commended in Acts 17, but commanded in 1

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Thessalonians 5 to examine everything. So I want you to think about mysticism.

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And the word mysticism comes from the Greek word that has the idea to conceal.

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And when I looked in a book on mysticism, it had at least 26 definitions.

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And one man said, mysticism begins with a mist and always ends in a schism. That's our show for the day.

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It starts with a mist and ends in a schism. One man said, popular

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Bible teacher, the mystic disdains rational understanding and seeks truth instead through the feelings, imagination, personal vision, inner voices, private illumination or other purely subjective means.

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And so I want you to get guidance. I want you to have communion with God through the scriptures, not through experience and intuition or instinct or anything apart from the word of God.

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Now we're gonna talk about experiences a little bit later and certainly experiences aren't wrong, but they're not dogmatic.

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So today on No Compromise Radio, I want you to run from trying to receive God's truth from the inside.

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And I want you to go to an external source. Now I'm sure it's in my notes someplace, but I want you to be reminded that when

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Adam sinned, it affected him totally. We use the word total depravity and total depravity is not utter depravity.

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People are as bad as they could be. Hitler was nice to his dog. Well, until he euthanized the dog, but for a while he was nice to his dog.

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We know that even the worst people sometimes, there's honor among thieves or whatever.

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Total depravity doesn't mean utter. Total depravity means a whole depravity affecting all,

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W -H -O -L -E. It affects the mind. The fall affected the mind. It affects the will.

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It affects the body. It affects the motion. It affects the conscience. It affects. And so we have to be careful that if we're going on the inside for impressions and feelings and thoughts that come from within, remember that's been affected by the fall.

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Those have been affected by the fall and we can't trust them. So when the

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Quakers come along and whatever, George Fox, looking for truth on the inside, not to trust that because it's been affected by the fall.

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That's why when we look to scriptures and we see Psalm 19 or Psalm 119 and our scriptures are pure and true, and in fact, yes, even

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God breathed, then we can trust them. So today on the show,

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I want you to look to for external sources of truth, not internal sources of truth.

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My goal is Psalm 119, verse 48. My hands also

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I will lift up to your commandments, which I love and I will meditate on your statutes.

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I mean, a quick reading of Psalm 119, that really long Psalm, how many verses does it have, 176 or something?

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A quick reading of that will make you say, oh, I love God's law. It's important.

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It gives me discernment. It leads me into righteousness. It tells me what's right. It tells me what's wrong.

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It guides me. It's a lamp. It's a light unto my feet. Revelation of scripture. I want you to understand that when it comes to mysticism, along with some old writers,

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I don't want you to leave the guidance of the polar star, one man said, to follow a jack -o' -lantern.

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When you need guidance and light and direction, you think, do I want the polar star or do

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I want the sun to give me light or do I want a little jack -o' -lantern? Do I want a little pumpkin carved out a little bit with a tiny little light in there?

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Listen to what the Bible says about scriptures. If someone was a mystic, someone was a charismatic, someone was saying, well, you know,

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God told me and God spoke to me outside the word. First thing I wanna do, instead of just saying, no, that's wrong and it's bogus,

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I wanna start building a case using scripture, how great scripture is and how sufficient scripture is. Isn't that really the issue?

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If scripture is sufficient, what does that tell me about my need for internal truth?

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God talking to me, God doing all these things on the inside, allegedly. 2

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Timothy 3 .15, and how from childhood you have been acquainted, Paul said to Timothy, with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

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When Timothy was a young boy, he was taught the sacred scriptures and he is being taught these sufficient sacred scriptures.

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And it says 2 Timothy 3 .16, I know you know the verse, all scripture, what's he talking about directly here?

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Well, he's talking about all the Old Testament plus what's been written before 2

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Timothy, 1 Timothy. So all the scriptures, Old Testament, 1

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Timothy, and then of course now by implication, everything, all scriptures breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training for righteousness.

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Breathed out by God, God's authority, not human authority, God's word, not just simply man's word.

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And it instructs, it tells us what sin is, it tells us that we're doing the sin and that it gives us correction.

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It says in verse 17, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

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Whatever work there's to be done in a local church, the toolbox is the scriptures.

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And you don't open up the toolbox and say, well, there's no five eights ratchet in there and I'm missing the spark plug ratchet, that's gotta be deeper.

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Everything I need is in there. In other words, the scriptures are so thoroughly equipped that they're not deficient in anything.

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Are the scriptures deficient when it comes to any truth for spiritual growth, any spiritual truth, anything we need to know about God or the way of salvation?

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Scriptures are not deficient. What's the antonym of deficient?

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What's the opposite word of deficient? Yep, that's right class, sufficient. Scriptures are sufficient from soul work to how to get saved, to how to live a godly life, everything we need pertaining to life and godliness is found there.

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And they are not only sufficient, but they are authoritative. And that's when we think of sola scriptura.

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When I say the Bible alone, scripture alone, I'm saying things like the

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Bible is sufficient. The Bible's not deficient, but I'm also saying that it's the final authority.

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That's where I think some evangelicals flounder when it comes to sola scriptura. Yes, it's sufficient, that's certainly true, but it is the final authority.

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By the way, are there other authorities in your life? Of course, government authorities, there's authorities in a home, children have authorities, their parents and dad, people at church have authorities, the elders, but the final authority is found in scripture.

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Now there's something called prima scriptura. Prima scriptura.

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And prima scriptura would lead us into saying, you know what, when it comes to spiritual truth, we can get mystic insights and visits from angels, maybe kind of our conscience might help us.

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And so we wanna be very careful that we don't deny the sufficiency of scripture and that we don't imply that scripture is deficient.

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Now, here's a question for you on No Compromise Radio. Does the Bible ever tell you, does the

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Bible ever command you to tune inwardly, to look to yourself for the answers, to look for your own intuition, to your own inner voice?

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No. Are there any verses in the Bible that's talk about meditating on God's word, meditating on God's law, thinking about it, chewing on it, wondering about it?

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Are there promises given to those who, like in Psalm 1, the ultimate man who looks to scriptures, but also all those who would follow the ultimate man?

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Yes. Say, well, where are you going with this? Here's an illustration of mysticism that's super popular.

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Do you hear from God in prayer? That's an example of mysticism.

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God speaks to me in prayer. That's mysticism. Because God doesn't talk in prayer.

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God talks to you through scriptures and you talk to him through prayer. Now, if you're praying and a verse pops into your mind, okay,

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I'm not talking about that, but prayer is not listening to God. There's no biblical command to listen to God when you pray.

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Rather, it's to talk to God. When I was first a pastor, experiencing God by Blackabee was very popular, especially in Southern Baptist circles.

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Here it says in that book by Blackabee, prayer is a two -way fellowship in communication with God. You speak to God and he speaks to me.

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Now, when I was a kid, I liked comedians and I still like comedians. There's a few now that are not dirty, so I can listen to them.

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But there was a comedian named Lily Tomlin. And here's what she said. When we talk to God, we're praying.

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When God talks to us, we're schizophrenic. Like, she's far from being a

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Christian. Blackabee, God, I pray that I will come to such a relationship with you that when you speak,

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I will hear and respond. And he's not talking about the Bible. Oh, don't let anyone intimidate you about hearing from God.

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One critical point to understanding and experiencing God is knowing clearly when God is speaking. How do

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I know? How do I know if it's God speaking or it's me? Jack Hayford said, while alone and quiet, listen with your heart.

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Don't strain your ears for an audible sound. The Bible describes this order of the Lord's communication with us as a still, small voice.

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Beth Moore said, the Lord would speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks with his friend.

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That is part of contemplative prayer. When we sit back and realize it's not just that we have something to say to God, but it's that God has something to say to us.

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Interesting. Even if I took you to the Lord's prayer, the disciples' prayer, when you pray, how do you pray?

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He doesn't say anything about listening. He says things like our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us this day our daily bread as... Give us this day our daily bread.

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And, not as, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors, et cetera.

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How about this? Proverbs 6, talking about God's word.

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Bind them on your heart always, tie them around your neck. When you walk, they'll lead you.

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When you lie down, they'll watch over you. And when you're awake, they will talk to you. It's God's word that talks to you.

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God's word speaks to us, not somehow tuning into an inner voice. The Bible doesn't talk about that at all.

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Jesus said on the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and do it, and who observe it.

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I want you to know the Bible is closed. The canon is closed. In Christ revelation,

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Herman Bavick said, has been completed. There are no words of God spoken to us at all today, except the words of scripture.

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J .I. Packer said it, and I believe it. Let's kind of go no -co a little bit here.

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This morning, I was telling Mario that I'm trying to go back to the diet with intermittent fasting.

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And it's now in no -co time, who knows when, but it's 11 .02

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a .m. I haven't had anything last night after 8 p .m.

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So now here we go. How many hours is that? 16 hours, no food.

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My stomach's grumbling. I'm hungry. I need to get some food. What would you think about me when my stomach is going to growl?

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And I think it's probably gonna growl here any minute. That I would say to you, my stomach growling is

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God speaking to me. You're like, well, yeah, of course he is. He's saying eat, you fool. You're trying to just stay thin for what reason?

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I thought when people get old, they just let yourself go. Of course, if you listen to your stomach and thought that was people talking, that God was talking, you'd say that's crazy.

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But I think evangelicals do that very thing. When I was a kid, I'd watch TV and a man would stand up and he'd put his hand in a little doll and he would have the doll talk.

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And then he wouldn't use his lips, but he would have the dog, the dog, the doll speak.

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We call that what? A ventriloquist. So I'm not gonna use my lips. You don't know that I'm talking and I'm gonna make this guy speak.

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But do you know, I looked up ventriloquist. It comes from the word belly and speaking, venter, belly and loci speaking.

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Did you know back in the day in religious circles that the noises produced by the stomach were thought to be voices of the dead speaking and you would go with your stomach growling to an oracle and she or he would tell you what those dead people were saying through your stomach growling.

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And I know what you're saying. You're like, that's crazy. If people listen to their stomach growling, but I think it's about the same thing.

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I'm not trying to be mean. I'm not trying to be rude, but I don't want to have you listen to your heart.

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The heart is desperately wicked, deceitful above all else. Who can know it? You don't wanna listen to your heart.

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Now we could talk about an intuition or a gut feel about business, or I think I should do that or I think

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I should do that. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about hearing from God, from the inside.

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My stomach just growled by the way. Yes, almost on cue. Grandma, what are you saying to me?

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You miss me. Is Brandon Shurie wants to play these on American Gospel Television?

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Wow. Adam's sin affected me. I don't look on the inside.

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I need revelation from the outside. As the old New England primer said, in Adam's fall, this is

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A, in Adam's fall, we sinned all. How about Romans 7? Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of death.

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Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. J .C. Ryle said, there are very few errors in false doctrines of which the beginning may not be traced to unsound views about the corruption of human nature.

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So when it comes to false doctrine, lots of them stem back to what happened with the fall.

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How about this? Proverbs 28, 26. Are you ready? I state my case. He who trusts in his own heart is a fool.

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So why am I gonna listen to my own heart? No, no, I'm to listen to God's counsel. I'm listening to counsel of other godly people.

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I'm not to say my own heart's telling me this. And what's worse, I don't care if you have intuition to make a business decision or not, but just don't say

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God told you. Just say, it's what I think. I made a little tea, pros, cons,

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I weighted them. And I thought, you know what? I just, I need to trust my sense about this because it's an informed sense.

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It's informed by business and profits and margin and time and everything else. It's not God saying, do that.

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This whole inner light thing in the Quaker faith denies that man is depraved.

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Friends, remember, Paul said, I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing.

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Not God's word, that's for certain. Scripture comes from the outside external source so it's not tainted or corrupted.

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We live in a life that's curved in, Latin, in curvatus in se, directed and inward self.

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Dr. Barnhouse was a preacher in Philadelphia. 10th Presbyterian, Boyce took over for Barnhouse.

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And also Dwight Pentecost was trained under Barnhouse. C. Everett Koop, I think used to be the

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Surgeon General here in America. He was gonna operate on Dr. Barnhouse.

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And he was in the room after the operation and Dr. Koop comes into Dr. Barnhouse, Donald Gray Barnhouse.

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Well, the operation was, I think, a success. Barnhouse, good.

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Koop, do you know, Dr. Barnhouse, that during the operation, I held your heart in my hand? Heart surgery.

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Barnhouse said, could you see that it was deceitful above all else and desperately wicked? One man said, there's enough evil in the heart of even the best of sinners to make another devil.

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So why do I wanna listen to myself? And by the way, and again, this is probably gonna be mean -spirited, most of the people that I know that wanna listen to themselves, they don't know scripture that well.

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Now, maybe they're new Christians and they've come in a charismatic background, a Pentecostal, and so they don't know the scriptures.

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Okay, I understand that. But the more you know scriptures and study scriptures, the less value you put on God speaks to me from the inside and mysticism and dreams and revelations and angels coming to talk, et cetera.

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The more you study God's word, the less you need to rely on those. And so I'm glad you read the

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Bible and study the Bible, but I just hope you keep doing that. Psalm 19, to help you with that.

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The law of the Lord is perfect reviving the soul. God's law is perfect, it's complete, it's whole.

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Now I wanna ask you the question, is your intuition perfect? Are your dreams that you receive perfect?

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Are your instincts perfect? How about this? Let's get straight to the point. Feelings.

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Feelings just are feelings, that's all. Feelings are good, feelings are human. Jesus, the perfect man had feelings.

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There's nothing wrong with feelings. Just remember, caboose, engine. Feelings, God's word.

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It is Luther who said, feelings come and feelings go and feelings are deceiving. My warrant is the word of God.

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Nothing else is worth believing. And so feelings are the caboose. So if I have to confront another

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Christian, I don't feel like doing it, but the Bible says to do it. Then after I do it, I feel good.

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I feel relief that I did what the Bible says. We don't go on feelings and somehow claim them to be

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God's word. God doesn't speak to you by means of impressions.

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Oh, I received an impression, an inner prompting. Actually, Blackaby said, if you don't receive impressions regularly, you're not really experiencing

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God. And right now I'm receiving an impression that that's completely bogus.

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God is bearing witness to my spirit. God, yes, your servant is listening.

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Blackaby's book on experiencing God and Bill Gothard's checks in your spirit is completely wrong. Thank you, 10 -4, we're ready to go.

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Whitefield, very famous story, George Whitefield. He got an impression that he would have a son.

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His wife would have a son and his name would be John and he'd be a very famous preacher. His wife got pregnant.

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They had a boy named John and he died at four months old. And Whitefield said later,

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I misapplied several passages of scripture. And then later he said, many good souls mistook fancy for faith and imagination for revelation.

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Feelings, conscience, what I'm thinking, it's just not scripture. It's not authoritative.

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It's not sufficient. It's not God's word. Don't say God is talking to you outside of scripture.

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It's very famous. If you wanna hear God speak out loud, then just read the scriptures out loud. That's the line. How about this?

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Spurgeon said, I'm blaming Spurgeon because this is gonna go straight to the point. To live by impressions is to live a life of a fool and even to fall into downright rebellion against the revealed word of God.

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Not your impressions, but that which is in this Bible must always guide you. The man guided by impressions will always be unstable as water,

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Spurgeon goes on to say. Impressions are unreliable guides. There was a young man,

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Spurgeon said, who was so impressed with the idea that he ought to preach for me on one Lord's day, but I was not so impressed to let him do so.

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Though you, dear watcher, dear listener, have 10 ,000 impressions, yet must you never dare to go by them.

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It is a dangerous thing for us to make the whims of our brain instead of the clear precepts of our

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God, the guide of our moral actions. Hold fast to the word of God, Spurgeon said, and nothing else.

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Impressions are impressions. Feelings are feelings. Hunches are hunches. Intuitions, intuition.

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That's all it is. It's not sufficient. It's not authoritative. It's not on any level of the word of God.

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Psalm 19 goes on to say, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. Impressions aren't sure.

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Internal feelings aren't sure. The testimony of God is sure.

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His precepts are sure. Back to feelings. Lloyd -Jones said, avoid the mistake of concentrating on your feelings.

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Above all, avoid the terrible error of making them central. We have a little thing around here in no compromise world and in my world.

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When I say think, I mean think. And when I say feel, I mean feel. Our world today basically says feel when they're thinking.

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I feel this, that or the other, but I know what they mean, they're saying thinking. So if I'm in a discipleship class, I'll correct them because that's my duty or joy.

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In life, I just usually let it go. Are you feeling that? Are you thinking that? Because that's completely different. If someone says,

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Mike, what do you feel about Jesus calling the book? Well, I think you mean think.

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So I'll answer both ways. I think it's heresy and I feel like I want to throw up when I read it. Those are the two different things.

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Think and feel. Lastly, people are like,

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I have a real piece about something. Sometimes that works, but sometimes it doesn't.

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Jonah had an easy, peaceful Eagles the band feeling when he's in the total not obeying

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God mode. He had a piece about it. He'd gone below to the hold of a ship, laying down and falling sound asleep.

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I don't have a piece about that. Well, okay. Go confront somebody in Matthew 18.

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I don't have a piece about that. Well, I know you don't, but here's what the scripture says. Well, I'm not sure.

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I don't really have a piece about it. Sometimes you can have a piece about something and go do the wrong thing. Just be careful.

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It's the precepts of the Lord, Psalm 19 are right. Rejoicing the heart. My peace in my heart is not, it's not the referee.

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It's not the umpire. It's not number one. I have a real piece about the decision. No, no.

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Study the scriptures. How do you make decisions? By peace? No, how about this? Scriptures, ask for wisdom from others and ask for God and then say, you know what?

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Now I make my decision. So today on No Compromise Radio, I want you to not be misled by your emotions, your feelings, your heart, your conscience, somehow thinking that's

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God's word because really it's just superstition. Go to the external word of God, study the category of bibliology, read

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Warfield on the Bible, whatever you wanna do. But I think it's true. The more weight you put on inner impressions and mysticism, the more weight you put on there.

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This is a bad illustration. Which one do

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I elevate? What do I do? Don't look like this when you're doing a TV show. Oh, I'm past the time.