REFORMCON2016 | Live Stream: Durbin on Sola Scriptura

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Jeff Durbin spoke at ReformCon on Sola Scriptura. For more, go to Apologiaradio.com

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Welcome to the fourth and final day of ReformCon 2016.
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What do you guys think, ReformCon? What do you guys think of this? This is like, this is the conference for like, our people.
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Right, this is like, it's like look around. It's like, these are my people. This is so good.
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Can you imagine like, what it's gonna be like next year, and the year after that? This is like, this is gonna be so amazing.
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Such an amazing idea. I heard that Jeff got a message from Scott Oliphant, and he's like encouraging him, because Van Til's legacy is gonna be living on, and things like this.
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Man, just so encouraging. And again, like, we are so honored to be a part of this.
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I loved Apologia, but now, being here, I love
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Apologia. Right, right? This church family, just serving so well.
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They got, they like, put all the kids to work. That is brilliant. Straight up child labor.
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I support it. Very, very well done. You guys are smart. Yeah, like,
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I love Apologia so much now, if I wasn't married, I'd like, stalk Apologia from the bushes,
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I think. Like, I really, that went over really, really weird. That was supposed to be a joke.
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I'm like, making myself look really creepy. So, I think you guys know this next speaker.
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He's gonna come up here, and he's gonna tell you all about the importance of Sola Scriptura. Please welcome to the stage,
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Jeff Durbin! Thanks, Les.
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All right, we'll have to keep our eye on Les. So, final day.
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Praise God. You guys enjoyed it? It's been a real blessing to have you guys here, and to be able to fellowship with you guys, talk with you guys.
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This week has obviously been a lot of work, and it's been a difficult thing to put on.
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It's been expensive, but it has all been worth it. Some of you guys are telling me how much it's blessed you, and how encouraged you guys are, and I want to let you know that it goes both ways.
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We really are grateful that you've come, and we really are grateful for the amount of time and money that you guys have invested to be a part of this conference.
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That really means, it means a lot to us. So, we do want to do it again next year. We want to do it again next year.
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And so, I guess what you can do to help with that is just let people know. Let people know it was a great time.
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Let people know that you learned a bunch, and encourage people when we start letting people know about the time, the date, the location, just join with us in inviting people to come to this.
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We hope that every year we can grow this, not for the purposes of simply having a conference, but we really strongly believe what we're teaching, and what we're talking about.
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We want to get that into the minds and hearts of believers across the country. And so, it's a real gift to us to be able to even be a part of this.
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We're humbled by it. Let's go ahead and pray, and we're going to get into a message today.
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The importance and necessity of Sola Scriptura. And I want to come at this question, this problem, from an epistemological standpoint, the theory of knowledge.
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How do we know what we know? How do we have justified true belief? Really, that's a fundamental question that's being talked about on Monday at philosophy classes and epistemology classes at secular universities and at Christian universities.
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It's not simply a Christian problem or question. This is really fundamental to life.
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How do we know what we know? How can we make truth claims? How do we know that it's true?
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And so, the question of Sola Scriptura is much deeper than, I'm not a papist, right?
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I'm not with Rome. I'm not with the Pope. I'm a Protestant, that sort of question. This is really an epistemological question.
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So, let's go ahead and pray, and let's get into it. Father, thank you. Thank you for this week.
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Lord, when we look back at the things that took place to bring this on, it really is humbling because when it gets before us and when it all takes place and then the dust settles,
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I mean, we can really see your hand in all of it, and we're just grateful.
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God, we just have to confess to you our total dependence upon you and how very, very thankful we are that you have gotten people here safely, everyone who's in attendance, but also the speakers.
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You've allowed us to receive them and to hear from them, and you, as Nate said yesterday, cause every beat of the heart, and that's a gift from you, so we wanna acknowledge it right now.
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We can't thank you for every possible thing, but we can thank you for this and this time we've had together.
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Thank you for all the food we've had this week. Thank you for all the fellowship. Thank you for this place that has protected us from hell outside, and thank you for the air conditioning.
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God, I wanna thank you first and foremost and supremely for your son, and we wanna thank you for your word, which is a light to our feet, to our path, and I just wanna ask that,
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Lord, through this time we have together, that you would allow me to speak clearly and communicate clearly the essential nature of knowing your truth, loving your truth, and standing firm on your word.
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I pray that you would allow this message to be a blessing to your church, wherever we're at, and that you would firm up our commitments to your word,
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God, through what we talk about today. Please bless this message, coming from a person who's unworthy to give it, and myself, and I pray that people, again,
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God, would forget me and remember you and what they learn here from you.
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In Jesus' name, amen. So, there's so many places we can start, and we can get into this discussion of epistemology, how do we know what we know.
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The topic is the importance and necessity of sola scriptura, and there are so many places throughout the
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Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, that we can begin unfolding this, and not simply proof texts, like, oh, look, here's a text that looks like it says sola scriptura, but really, it is the larger narrative, the larger story.
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It is all the fundamental aspects of what it means to have God's word that we can launch from to get into the question of, well, what is the importance and necessity of sola scriptura, that doctrine that was heralded in the
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Reformation? We know what I said to you guys the first night, Reformed folks, especially with beards and gauges and tattoos, you like the
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Reformed t -shirts, right, with John Calvin on the t -shirt, George Whitfield on the t -shirt,
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J .C. Ryle on the t -shirt, but we also like the t -shirts that have the solas, right? Sola scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide, solus
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Christus, soli deo gloria. The Scriptures alone are the only infallible rule of faith and practice for the church.
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We are saved by grace alone, from beginning to end. It is grace alone, nothing added.
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We are saved and justified through faith alone, that is, solus Christus, in Christ alone, in Christ alone, and it is all to the glory of God alone.
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And here's the thing about being Reformed, when we say those things, not like many modern evangelicals who might have sort of a suspicious commitment to those things, when we say those things as Reformed folks, we mean it, we mean what we say.
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When we say sola scriptura, we mean sola scriptura. It is the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
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It is really the only ultimate rule of what we can truly trust and believe.
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It is infallible, not like any confession, not like any creed, those are formulations of what it actually says.
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And so these are all the way over here as a substandard just testifying to the truthfulness of this standard.
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And when we say as Reformed folks, sola gratia, we ought to mean what we say. We ought to mean really, truly by grace alone.
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From the beginning, we're talking before the world even was spun into motion. Before God really cast the universe out into motion,
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God had planned to save a particular people knowing all about them, well about them before He did it.
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And He chose to save in His love, all to the praise of His glorious grace. When we say through faith alone, we mean truly through faith alone.
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It is trust in Jesus Christ. It's the reception of Jesus Christ and casting of our trust and commitments of faith to Him that justifies us, that brings us into a place where we can say we are declared righteous.
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We are declared righteous before God because we are in Christ alone. That is the only place there is salvation.
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There is no other. It is only in Christ. You cannot find salvation in the church.
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You cannot find salvation in your good deeds. You cannot find salvation anywhere else except in Jesus Christ and in and through all of His work that He accomplished.
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The story is so grand and majestic and big and it makes human beings look very, very little.
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It's difficult to get around the fact that we have nothing to do with this. It's all God. And the
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Reformation really talked clearly, spoke clearly, heralded clearly the truth that it was to the glory of God alone.
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What is? Salvation? Yes. The Word of God? Yes. The world?
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Yes. Everything to the glory of God, solely, ultimately to the glory of God. There is no boasting whatsoever.
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And as Reformed folks, we truly mean that. And when we get to the Scriptures and we say, well, like, what did the
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Reformers mean when they said sola scriptura? Well, ultimately they meant, we would say, what the Bible means when it speaks to these truths, what many in the early church taught when it comes to questions of knowledge or truth, that the
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Scriptures alone are the only infallible rule of faith, and again, where do we go to begin? So I think a good place to start that gives the larger story of what we're getting at here when we say sola scriptura is
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Matthew. The Gospel according to Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew speaks very directly, if you can open your
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Bibles, to the Gospel according to Matthew. Matthew chapter six, sorry, seven. Seven, verse 24.
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Matthew 7, 24. Now, I do actually begin a lot of my lectures and my messages on apologetics in Matthew.
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Dr. Van Til, Cornelius Van Til, said that this is the place where it all begins.
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This is where the fight starts. And not just a fight with the atheist, or the agnostic, or the skeptic, or the critic of the faith, or the
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Mormon, or the papist, the Romanist. This is the broader story.
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This is where the fight begins with everybody. Matthew chapter seven, verse 24. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
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And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
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And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
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And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.
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It's amazing. I think I have to confess something. As a Christian, I think we get jaded a lot.
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We do. I think we hear the word gospel, and we're jaded to that term often.
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We hear about Jesus Christ, and we get jaded to the beauty of what he's accomplished and who he truly is.
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We get jaded a lot. And I think when you read text like this, you can see these grand statements made by the
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Lord of glory. God becomes a man who just speaks, and he just speaks, and it is gold pouring out of his mouth constantly into the world.
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And you see so much of it, and I think you just become at times indifferent to it. I think, you know, we do. We just, you're like, oh, no big deal.
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It's just God talking to us. It's just God becoming a man, living among us and saying things to us, and it's all just golden, and it's beautiful, and it's all true.
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And I think we get jaded to these massive moments in time where this unbelievable epistemological statements and claim is made.
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How do you know what you know? Philosophers through time, they fight, and they bicker, and the new generation rises up, and this guy says, oh,
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I've got it. I've got the answers now. Let me formulate it. I got my PhD and all my work, and I've spent my time.
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I can figure it out. I know Aristotle and Socrates. I've read Hume, and I've read
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Kant and Nietzsche. I know these guys, and I think I finally have the place positioned where I can say
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I know. And you can read philosophy textbooks where people get together, and they write an essay or an article, and they say, well, this is the way.
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And before they've finished talking on the microphone, the next person pushes them out of the way and runs up and says, no, no, no, no.
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He's nuts. This is the way. This is how we know. And then the next guy comes after him in the next essay and says, no, no, no, no.
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They're both out of their minds. This is the way. Philosophy, 2 ,000 years of philosophy since Christ has gotten absolutely nowhere.
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Nowhere. They make claims, they get shot down. They make claims and get shot down.
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They're internally inconsistent and collapse. They find themselves in a place like David Hume, the
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Scottish skeptic, where when he thinks about a simple problem like induction, that is simple, by the way, it is for the
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Christian. The order of the universe, uniformity in nature, the future being like the past.
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How can we depend upon it? How do we have any connection between our thoughts, abstract ideas, laws, whether they're abstract, universal, invariant laws of thought, or if it's laws just in the universe, how do we solve the problem?
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For the Christian, it's simple. And it's not a God of the gaps. It's a God of the facts.
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It's God carries everything along to its intended destination. Jesus Christ upholds the universe by the word of His power,
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Hebrews chapter one. But the skeptic, the unbeliever, the person who does not position themselves on the rock, can't figure it out, and so you'll be like Hume.
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You'll say, when I think about induction, I just get into my easy chair and start drinking. Because I can't figure it out.
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I don't know the answer. They cannot position themselves on a platform where they can say, this is how and why.
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This is the ultimate standard. This is the final authority. They can't do it. And yet, Jesus here in Matthew chapter seven says something that you have to stop yourselves from being indifferent to.
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You have to stop. We have to stop ourselves from becoming jaded to this magnificent claim of Jesus.
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You could just miss it. You could just accept He's the Christ, He's the Messiah, and so it just passes right by you.
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You don't realize what a huge statement this is. Jesus brings life down into two foundations with two kinds of people with two ultimate destinies.
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Two foundations, two people, two ultimate destinies. He says, over here, there's a rock.
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Over here, there's sand. Over here, there's a wise one. And over here, there's a foolish one.
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Now, this one that's built upon the rock will weather the storm. They'll make it through.
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Now, notice that Jesus actually talks about the issues of life coming and actually beating down on both houses.
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So the person who stands on the rock doesn't miss the storm. The issues of life flood and they come, but there's a rock.
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And so here's this storm, the issues of life, they come and they beat down on both houses. Deep questions, hard questions, the issues of life, of failures and brokenness and difficulties and trials and storms, the issues of life come.
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They beat down on both houses and the wise one's on the rock and this foolish one is built upon the sand. And Jesus says, the wise one weathers the storm.
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They make it through the storm. The house is still standing in bright and shining glory.
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When that sun rises again after that storm clears away and dissipates, that house is still there.
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It's fine, it's doing fine because it's built on something that matters and that lasts. It's a foundation that's true.
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It can make it through. And this foolish one, Jesus says, his destiny, because he's not built upon the rock, the destiny is desolation, desolation.
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It doesn't work, it doesn't mean anything. And here's the thing, there might be a chance that maybe some years ago without the internet, maybe you didn't get a chance to sample some of these floods.
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Maybe you didn't get a chance to really taste and to visualize what a flood and a storm can really accomplish.
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I remember, goodness, the timing of it escapes me at the moment, but a couple of years ago, it might have even been a year or two ago,
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I got to see these floods come into Japan via them internets, okay?
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Got to see it, I watched it, and I just couldn't stop. It's just one of those things you get on YouTube and you're just there for like an hour and you catch yourself like,
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I don't even know how I got here, but this is pretty sweet. I'm watching all this take place in Japan, these floods just sweep through these cities and it was just astonishing.
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I mean, seriously astonishing. It's almost like you watch it and you go, is there any possibility, that's like the end of the world.
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Right, that's like the book of Revelation kind of imagery right in front of me, this flood sweeping everything away. How in the world does
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Japan still exist, right? That's how big this is in scale, is that this water comes rushing through and you see cars running forward and water floods in, the car like stops and spins around, you see cars fighting to turn themselves around to get away from the water.
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It's like something out of a movie, they're just driving down the street with water rushing behind them and they're just trying to get away, right?
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Houses pushed across these plains in Japan, just floating with people in the windows like, you know, just the house off the foundation and just washed away.
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That imagery really sticks with us now, we get it. Here's this flood coming, here's a house floating away and here's a house that still stands at the end of that storm and that's what
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Jesus says here. You've got two foundations, two people, two destinations, a rock, a wise one, the one that makes it and you have sand of full and desolation.
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Jesus says, which one are you gonna stand on? And notice that he brings this down. He doesn't qualify, he doesn't ask for anybody to give him a stamp of approval, he doesn't do this.
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We do that, we do that, we often do.
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Well, how do you know? Well, because this guy says this or because this evidence over here or this over there.
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Well, how do you know that? What makes you the authority? Well, because of this over here and this over here and because I got my degree over here.
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How do you know that subject, that thing? How can you be an expert in that field? Well, come over here and look in my office right here.
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Look, I got this diploma right here and this one right here and this one right here and I studied in this university and this guy was my teacher over here in martial arts.
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It's interesting how this issue of authority works a bit and just so you know, there are like awful martial arts schools all over the place.
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Like, seriously, there's just amazingly, amazingly bad martial arts schools. Just be, if you've never done it before and you wanna get your kids into karate, this is a side note, this is for free, okay?
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I'm gonna help you guys out here. Be really, really cautious in the martial arts. Like, where you send your kids to school.
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I mean, I know people that didn't know any martial arts at all and one guy came into my school years and years and years ago and he was like, hey,
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I'm gonna open my own karate school. I'll pay you $25 ,000 if I can use your name.
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If I can take Jeff Durbin karate and put it up on the thing because that, by the way, used to matter.
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Like, you know, that name really counted for something in martial arts. I worked hard to build that name and so I'll pay you to put your name here and I remember that this guy had never done karate in his entire life.
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I said, well, who would teach? He said, well, we'll work on that. I said, well, like, you're gonna open the school?
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Like, when? He said, well, like two weeks, we got a lease. Who's gonna be the instructor?
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Well, we'll figure it out. I'll teach for a while. You'll teach for a while? Have you ever trained, bro?
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Like, do you know anything at all? Well, no, but I'll have your name up on my school. It'll say
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Jeff Durbin's karate at my school and so I said no. I said, well,
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I would never do that. You can't use my name. You would be teaching people garbage and you'd essentially be robbing people.
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You don't know anything. You don't have any authority to do what you're doing. In a martial arts, it works like this. You point to your master.
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You go, what kind of training do you have? Well, what are your belts and degrees? And you have to show people. You go, this is my degree right here.
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I got my fourth degree master right there. It says Jeff Durbin, fourth degree master in this combat system right here.
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And this is the grandpappy right here, the grandmaster. He's the guy that points at me and says, yes,
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I acknowledge that he has authority and he knows what he's doing. Now, in martial arts, it works like that.
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That's just the stuff of life. We say, okay, here's how you know that I know what I'm doing. Here's my certificate. Here's my degree. This guy's my grandmaster.
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And the lineage works its way all the way back. Well, who taught that guy? Well, this guy taught that guy and this guy taught that guy.
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These are the things that they did so you know that they really know what they're doing. But Jesus, like the thing stops with him.
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He's the ultimate grandmaster, right? When everyone points down the line to say, well, how does he know and where's his authority from ultimately,
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Jesus goes, it works like this. If you don't build your life on the rock, then you're on sinking sand and you're gonna be destroyed.
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Now, you might be saying, well, is that really where it goes? Is it an issue of authority and truth claims? Yes, because look at their reception of the claim.
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Look what they said in verse 28. And when Jesus finished these things, the crowds were astonished at his teaching for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes.
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So what does Jesus not do when he makes this claim? He does not appeal to a scribe or a rabbi or anybody else to buttress his claim.
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He needs, watch, no corroboration. Grant, you gotta grasp that, that's huge.
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Don't forget it. Jesus needs no corroboration. His claims are self -authenticating.
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When God speaks, listen, when God speaks, he needs no one's stamp of approval.
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Everybody else's claims are measured up against his. When Jesus says in John 17, 17,
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Father, sanctify them by your truth.
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He says, watch, John 17, 17, you can't forget it. John 17, 17, John 17, 17, it's yours for good.
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You're welcome, okay, it's easy. John 17, 17, he says, thy word is what?
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Is truth, thy word is truth. Sanctify them, Father, by your truth. Your word, your word is truth.
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And the word there in the Greek is essentially the plumb line. I've never done this, but I have friends who have.
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Gone to Haiti, Mexico, places where they need to help build stuff for people, and they build houses, and they oftentimes do them in really the old school way.
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They have to do it with tools that aren't as up -to -date, and they have to just use what's in front of them.
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And so I've had friends who have actually done this. They've used the plumb line. They've used the standard where you can see, okay, is it right?
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Is it true? Now we're just like, I'm gonna get my smartphone, I'm gonna download that app right now, okay?
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And you get that little app right now where you can do like the leveler, and like is it right? Is it true?
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Let me see here. My wife, by the way, thinks that I'm cockeyed. She thinks that everything that I put up is off somehow.
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And this is an area of sanctification in our marriage. Because no matter what goes up on our walls,
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I will put it up, and it will literally be perfect according to science. It's the truth.
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She'll say, it's off! And I'll say, I think your eyes are lopsided, because that is not off.
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I use the measuring, I got a little app right here that tells me it's exactly right. And I'll even go up to it, and I'll put the thing on it.
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I'll say, look, true, true, true. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, true.
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And she'll say, no. I don't care what your device says, it's not true.
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And the problem with her methodology is that this is a fact.
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It's true. Not your eyesight, not your perception, not what you figure, not kind of how you, hmm, look at it, right, not the opinions, because she'll always do this, and some of you guys know, because you've been in the house when we've had this conflict.
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We put this thing up. By the way, one time I took this, she went and paid for this amazing Bible verse thing, be still and know that I'm God, right?
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Be still and know, it's covered up with paint now, so all my hard work, okay? It took me like six hours to get this thing up.
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It's like little letters, you gotta position every letter out there. And there gotta be some simple way to do this, but every single letter has got to be, and I was like, boom, okay, perfect, okay, perfect.
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And she invites friends over. And she'll say, she's always awkward about it.
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She's like, this is our home, and there's our Bible verse, and this is this, and this is our kids, and this is our little dog, and there's the
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Bible verse he messed up right there on the wall. No matter who came in our house, it was always, and this is the
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Bible verse he messed up. And every time I'd say, it's not messed up, it's science. And what does she do?
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She tries to get a collection of people to go along with her, and they're wrong along with her.
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Why? Because she influences them. She's like, it's off, isn't it? It's off, isn't it? And they're like, no, she's like, it is off, it's off.
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It's off, right? And she gets people to go with her, because now she gets the crowd who says, well, now, no, it's not true, okay?
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The problem is, I've got the standard. It's right.
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And that's the word behind thy word is truth.
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Standard, right? It's true. Okay, here's the thing you don't do. If you have a wall that's going up in Mexico, and the wall isn't in line with the standard, this is right, this is true, and here's this other standard that comes alongside of it, and you're trying to say, okay, is it right?
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Is that wall true? Is it gonna hold up? What you don't do in Mexico, or any other place you're building houses, is you don't go, and it looks off, so let me bend the standard.
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Ah, now it's true. Why? Because it matches the wall now, you see?
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Here's the standard. If something is crooked, if something is leaning, if something is off, it doesn't seem like in accordance with it, you take the wall, and you push it up to where it matches the standard.
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And when Jesus says, thy word is truth, sanctify them by your truth. Father, thy word is truth.
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His word is the measuring line, the plumb line, the standard by which we all get corrected.
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We don't bend his word and his standard to our lives and our positions and our beliefs.
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Jesus says he has all authority.
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Now here's what happens in our society today. Unbelievers, skeptics, critics of the faith hate that about Jesus.
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Here's what I'm gonna say. For them, get over it, and for us, stop giving in.
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Jesus isn't asking for their approval or their permission to rule over them. He already does. Jesus says in Matthew 28, 18 through 20, he says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
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Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Let's say it again, all authority. Where? In heaven and where? Now say it with me now, loud, guys.
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On earth. That's something we gotta accept and believe. Jesus has all authority. He doesn't ask for anybody's permission to speak truth to them.
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He doesn't ask for anybody's position to rule over them. Jesus does rule, has all authority, and his claims are self -authenticating, and when he spoke to these people, when he made the claim of the rocks, the people, the destinations, they caught it.
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They said, he speaks as one having authority and not as one of their scribes.
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The scribes were like me and martial arts. You gotta point back to your guy, and then your guy, and you gotta go this guy, and then that guy.
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Jesus doesn't do that. He doesn't go rabbi. He doesn't go this guy or that guy. Jesus says, because I say, I say.
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Now, as Christians, we go, well, because he's God, and we go, well, that makes sense, but to them, it would have been this grand moment where they're going, wait a minute.
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Like, you're not even speaking like thus sayeth the Lord. You're saying thus says me. The prophets would do that.
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They would say, God says, God says, God says, God says, and Jesus is now walking among them.
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He's like, I say, me. Unless you believe, Jesus says, egoi me,
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I am. You will die in your sins. Huge. You're a slave to sin.
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I'll set you free. Huge. So these are epistemological questions.
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Epistemology is the question of knowledge, the theory of knowledge. How do we know what we know, and the world has to deal with these problems.
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Again, this isn't just simply a Christian thing. This is not just a Christian trick, right?
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Let's talk about how we know we know. This is what everyone has to worry about all the time. And the identification of the reformed faith, the identification of the reformed faith was the primacy of the revelation of God.
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There were two principium, as Dr. Oliven will say at times, there were two principium.
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One was God as he is. God as he is.
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What's he like? Who is he? God as he is. Triune God. What are his attributes? He's like this.
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These are foundational in the Reformation. The next is that God has spoken.
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He's given a revelation. Now watch this. You might think, well, that just seems so utterly basic, and like, you know, can we get bigger than that?
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We get more complex questions. You will search that out for all eternity and never get to the bottom of that one.
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God as he is and the fact that God has spoken. God has given to us his word.
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It's the material we work from. Yes, listen, we affirm as reformed people that Jesus Christ has built his church.
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We affirm that he's given to us a church government. We affirm that we are not solo scriptura.
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Me, under a tree by myself out in the wilderness with my Bible and Jesus, right?
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We affirm the church. We affirm that God is moving in the church. I happen to believe that God's kingdom arrived on time as planned and it will do what
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God said it will do. I believe it broke into history. John the Baptist, first thing out of his mouth in Matthew 3, that it's broken into history.
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Jesus says broken into history, that it's in fact there among them. The apostle John, the apostle
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Paul, the kingdom arrived, and I believe that the Bible teaches that that kingdom would come into history and it would never be destroyed.
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Daniel 7, 13 through 14, Daniel's looking into night visions. He sees this divine son of man who receives worship, by the way, in your
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Old Testament. That's God, the son of man. He sees the son of man in the night visions, and what's he say?
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He says he came up to the ancient of days. Up. Was presented before him and to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.
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His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. I believe that.
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Reformed people believe that Jesus brought his church, that he's spoken, that it would never be destroyed.
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But the Reformation spoke clearly about something. Because God has revealed himself and God has spoken, we have a treasure.
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We have a treasure of certainty about what God says.
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How do we know? Well, God has spoken. He's given to us this material witness of his word.
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Here it is in history. This is what God has given to us. It is theanoustos.
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It is God breathed revelation from God. Here it is. Here's the material witness.
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And of course, as Christians, we can draw from that material witness and start formulating all of these confessions and these creeds saying, well, okay, this is what that looks like.
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And someone says, well, where'd that come from? Well, this is the material it came from right here. This is the witness. The Christians in the
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Reformation recognized that the word of God is the very standard by which we get everything else.
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And what the Reformers knew was that people are sinners.
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Sinners gonna sin. They are. The Reformers knew it, that sinners sin.
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They say corrupt things. They fail. Our heroes fail.
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And those believers in the Reformation that poured out their sweat and their blood and their tears for a legacy that we stand on, they recognize that people try to twist and distort
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God's word. It's all over our Bible. False prophets, false teachers, false doctrine.
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The New Testament is filled with corrections of doctrine from people who claim to know
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Jesus. And the Reformers understood that this is the measuring line. Everything else has to move towards it.
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If it's off, then it goes away. That's the standard. This is what God uses to sanctify his people and his church.
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The Reformers understood the scriptures are the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
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It can be trusted. I wanna say this, it's about more than Rome.
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Catch that, this is important. Protestant means protestant. We are protesting the claims of Rome.
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That's historically where it comes from. We protest you, we protest where you've gone, we protest what you say.
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It is not consistent with God's word. We don't believe it, we reject your authority because it seeks to usurp his authority.
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The Christians knew that, the Reformers knew that. It's about more than Rome. It's a question of knowledge.
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How do I know? Sola Scriptura is not simply a Protestant Roman Catholic issue.
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Sola Scriptura has to do with how do you know anything at all? How do you have knowledge? What do you stand on?
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God has spoken. It's about more than Rome. It's about epistemology. How is knowledge even possible? Listen, what you have in the conflict today between the atheist, the unbeliever, and our public schools and our colleges are pumping out atheists and unbelievers like nobody's business.
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It's a question of a universe of total meaninglessness in their worldview or total meaning in God's.
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And that total meaning is there because God is the reference point. He speaks, we point to his word.
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There is knowledge, there is certainty. That's how we know. Unbelievers have nothing to offer the world in terms of epistemology.
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What do they have? Well, they have their own senses and experience. Let's test it out.
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Let's see if it works for me. Hey, it's pragmatic. It works for me. How do I know? Because it worked, right?
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Or you have the unbelievers that want to depend upon their sense perception. Like, let's test it. Let's see if it works and it works with reality.
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Let's put it to the test. You have unbelievers that depend upon their reason and rationality.
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And they can't even give an account for their reason and rationality. All they can do is just say it's a given, right?
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Unbelievers, by the way, they love that in epistemological questions. They love it. No matter how erudite they are, no matter how grand they seem, smart they seem, intellectual they seem, know this.
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If you reject God and his revelation, his word, you're a fool, a fool.
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And it will come out in something you say. The unbeliever can't even justify when he says, well, we know based upon reason.
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The unbeliever can't even justify and appeal to invariant universal laws of logic.
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You start pressing the unbeliever who believes that his grandpappy was fish. You say, all right, now, laws of logic.
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We got to depend upon those. That's how we know things, because we use our reason and rationality. We use these laws.
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And you say, right, right, okay. Are there really any laws in your universe? Don't you believe that everything is made of matter and that there are no immaterial things?
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Right, everything is all matter and motion, nothing immaterial, nothing spiritual. So these laws, are they matter or are they immaterial?
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Well, they're not made of matter. Okay, so you have laws that I must hold to in a thing that you say doesn't exist.
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The unbeliever has nothing to stand on. His rationality can't get him to knowledge. He can't depend upon his claim to laws of logic.
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And when you press him on it, and you say, ultimately, does it really matter? Well, you go, no, we're just startups in a universe that doesn't care.
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Oh, okay, great, okay. So you're wasting our time. You have no ability to stand on ultimately anything.
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The universe of the unbeliever is the universe of total meaninglessness. Why? Because they have no appeal to God's revelation.
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It's an appeal to themselves, to their own knowledge, to their own claims. And they collapse at every single point.
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When you stand on God's revelation, you're standing on the rock. You have certainty.
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Now watch, watch this. As a Christian, we recognize that we're all finite.
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We recognize that we are all fallible, that I make mistakes. We mess things up, amen?
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Yeah, we mess them up. We blow it. We don't see things right all the time. We mess up our marriages.
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We mess up our relationships with our kids. We mess up questions we thought we knew the truth to, and we come later and say, oh,
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I was wrong about that. Of course, we blow it a bunch. But watch, the beauty of having
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God's revelation as your standard for knowledge is that it's the line that you can constantly measure yourself and your thoughts and your claims to.
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Having an objective revelation from God means that all of God's people can surround that revelation and can be tested by it.
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Not my claim versus your claim, fighting to see which one might make more sense, but we both go with our claims to the revelation of God and we get corrected by it.
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So for example, I think one of the things that's amazing is that we, this, watch this, this is huge. I love this, because people watch.
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People, I had a conversation with someone last week that came out of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
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They came to Christ and they've been struggling a bunch because when they came out of the Bible Watchtower and Tract Society, the Bible Watchtower Tract Society lies to Jehovah's Witnesses and tells them that they have unanimity of opinion.
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We're all the same, we're all the same, that's what they hear. First of all, it's a complete and utter lie, it's nonsense.
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They contradict themselves at every turn. But this person that came to Christ out of the Watchtower came to me and said he really struggled because when they became a believer, they started seeing all these
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Christians with different opinions about things and they didn't know what to do because all these Christians are arguing with each other. Here's what
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I say, have a good cry and come back to reality for a minute. Who does
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Jesus save? Sinners, people that just blow it.
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They have all kinds of different opinions and traditions and they're a wreck. Here's what we need to recognize. One, do we recognize as Christians that God is sanctifying individuals?
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Is he sanctifying us individually, yes? And every Christian grants it. And they go, hey, he's changing me. How do you know?
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Because I know, I can sense it. I hate my sin, I want to love God. He's changing me, he's taking this away and that away. He promises in his word to change me.
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He's changing me, right? We have to recognize something. In history, God isn't just sanctifying individuals.
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It's not just you and Jesus. He's sanctifying his church.
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Which means that yeah, Presbyterians and Baptists, we fight over baptism, right?
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What do we have? The same God, the same gospel, the same standards from his word and we disagree on some issues.
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You know what I believe? The beautiful thing about an objective revelation is that in history, Presbyterians and Baptists are going to surround the same revelation and over time, the
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Holy Spirit of God, by God's word, is going to sanctify his church and one day there will be no more Presbyterians.
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I'm just kidding. It can go the other way. You could say one day there'll be no more Baptists. Praise God.
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Whatever, okay. Here's the point. I believe that, of course, on this side of heaven, we may not come to full unanimity of opinion, but I do believe the
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Holy Spirit of God, via God's revelation, corrects errors in the people of God and we get shaped closer and closer to God's truth by standing around it.
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Because it's the standard. Not our confessions, not our creeds. Those are helpful, useful, good.
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But those are not the standard. His word is the standard. And if we disagree at any point with the word of God, we've got to be humble enough to say, my belief is not true.
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We kick it out and we get shaped by God's word. That's just how we have to live. And watch this. I was in a debate with some atheists last year at the
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Bonson Conference and it comes up. It came up in Douglas Wilson's debate before, so I borrowed what he said.
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I thought it was excellent. So many Christians with so many different opinions. All these different denominations.
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First of all, it's not really that many. When you get down to it, the essentials, it's not really that many.
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The divisions are not really that broad and that big. Even non -denominational churches are just Baptists and just pretending not to be.
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Just Baptists, right? With a cool website, like Tim Hawkins says. Non -denominational means a
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Baptist with a cool website. But you get around this revelation, you have all these
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Christians with differences of opinion. Okay. What I said to this atheist was, all right, so you've got five different Christians.
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They're going to five different rooms with the same Bible. They come out and they have five different interpretations.
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Where's the variable? Is it in the Bible or the people? It's in the people, not the
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Bible. And so the argument, where there's so many different opinions, is a good argument not to trust people.
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Says nothing about the Word of God. My opinion, my practice, what I think, what I believe, ultimately has little to do with what is actually true.
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God's revelation is the truth. So we have, again, in the world today, mostly a conflict between a universe of total meaninglessness and a universe of total meaning with God.
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Now, what's the biblical standard? Let's just do this rather quickly. The biblical standard, we can do so much, so much.
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I would encourage you guys to get Dr. White's book. It's a little book. If you haven't read it yet, you need to read it. Sola Scriptura by James White.
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He does, of course, an excellent job, as Dr. White always does, in really fleshing out this doctrine. If you haven't read
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The Forgotten Trinity and Sola Scriptura, you need to buy those books. You need to sit down next week.
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You need to read them. Turn your TV off, turn your Facebook off, and read those books, okay? You need to know those truths and those doctrines.
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It's very, very important. Okay, so here's the thing. When we go to the Bible, we need to figure out, okay, what's a good place to start?
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I think that you can do this in many ways, but here's how I decided to cut the cake today, okay? Deuteronomy 13, verses one through four is a starting point of God's standard.
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Deuteronomy 13, verses one through four. Deuteronomy 13, one through four.
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By the way, if you're into New Covenant theology, you're still allowed to read this, okay?
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Deuteronomy 13, verses one through four. And this, I think, regardless of what your differences of opinion might be on the law of God, I think this shows you a solid principle by which to stand.
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God's standard of revelation. If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says let us go after other gods which you have not known and let us serve them, you should not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams.
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For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the
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Lord your God and fear him, keep his commandments, and obey his voice. And you shall serve him and hold fast to him.
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So what's the standard? This is like ancient standard for God's people.
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Here's the point, God has spoken, he's revealed himself, he's condescended, he's come into history, he's said stuff about himself, he says this is me, this is me, and then now this prophet or dreamer of dreams comes, watch, and the ministry looks good.
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There's miracles and signs, it looks actually like a legit ministry, a legit Christian ministry.
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It looks real, right? And God says this, you are to obey my commandments and my voice.
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They heard God, they knew what he said, they knew what the standard was, so God is saying look, the prophet says this, he says go after a different God.
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God says you listen to my commandments, my voice, that's what I said, and that's how you know they're false.
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So this is really from the very, very beginning the standard, now watch, it goes, watch,
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I'll back it up a little bit more. Let's back the question up a little bit more. How about we go to the beginning of creation?
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Where's the first conflict? In the garden, right? And here you have God speaking. This is an epistemological question.
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How do you know God creates baboons, giraffes, whales, mosquitoes, trees, all these different galaxies, sun, the moon, the beauty that's set before us, mountains, oceans, his image in the garden, right?
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Now, God says this but not that. He says what? He says the day you eat of it, you will surely die.
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There's the claim. God made a claim. He said the day you eat of it, you'll surely die.
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Now Satan comes in now, he deceives Eve, Paul says by his craftiness, and what?
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Now it's a conflict between Satan's word and God's word. Satan says, hath
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God said, did God really say? Did he really say? Did he really say that? He says you won't.
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You'll be like God's, knowing good and evil. Watch, it's not that experientially they'll know, experience good and evil.
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It was that you'll be like God's, knowing good and evil, determining good and evil for yourself. You'll be autonomous.
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You'll decide what's true and what's not. Do you see it? That's the point. This whole conflict of epistemology and how do you know what you know goes back to the very beginning, brothers and sisters.
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It's not a problem of Hume. It's not a problem of Kant. It's not a problem of Socrates and Aristotle and the
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Stoics. This is a problem that goes back to the very beginning. It's a question of hath
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God said. God speaks and he says this. This is the way things are.
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Now Eve and Adam both make the grave sin and error of thinking to question
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God's claims. That's so simple.
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That's where it begins. God says, now Eve is deceived. Adam sins with a high hand against God.
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Looks good to me. And so this fight takes place in history between God's claims and anybody else's.
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And that fight unfolds through history. It gets into Deuteronomy and God says this. Look, if he says this, he leads you after a different God and it's not according to my commandments and my voice, destroy that prophet.
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They're a lying prophet. God is testing you to see if you love the Lord your God. And I believe in the
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Reformation. That was a big purging and testing where God was purifying his people and his church to send his gospel out into the world.
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How? Because he was taking his word, which is a rock, and destroying the other claims.
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Deuteronomy 13, one through four is a good starting place. Jeremiah, go to Jeremiah chapter 23.
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We're just gonna again unfold this a bit in the scriptures. Jeremiah 23. This one is fire.
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Jeremiah 23, verse 16. Thus says the Lord of hosts, do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes.
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They speak visions of their own minds. Watch. Not from the mouth of the
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Lord. They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, it shall be well with you.
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And to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, no disaster shall come upon you. For who among them has stood in the counsel of the
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Lord to see and to hear his word? Or who has paid attention to his word and listened?
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Behold, the storm of the Lord. Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest. It will burn upon the head of the wicked.
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The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intent of his heart.
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In the latter days, you will understand it correctly. I did not send the prophets, yet they ran.
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I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way and from evil of their deeds.
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Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away?
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Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him, declares the Lord? Do I not fill heaven and earth, declares the
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Lord? I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesied lies in my name, saying,
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I have dreamed. I have dreamed. How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesied lies and who prophesied the deceit of their own hearts, who think to make my people forget my name by their dream that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name in Baal?
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Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully.
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What has straw in common with wheat, declares the Lord? Is not my word like fire, declares the
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Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the
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Lord, who steal my words from one another. Behold, I'm against the prophets, declares the
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Lord, who use their tongues and declare, declares the Lord. Behold, I'm against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the
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Lord, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness when
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I did not send them or charge them so they do not profit this people at all, declares the
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Lord. What's the standard here? God's word, God's standard, God's speaking.
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Here's the point. God expects his people to recognize the difference between the truth and a lying prophet.
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And what's God's standard? My revelation, my revelation, my revelation, my word.
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I didn't send them, they say he says, and I didn't say I'm against them. And watch this, watch, watch, watch.
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These are religious folks. Do you realize that? The false prophets in this day declaring he says when he didn't say, capture this, capture this, look like Christians.
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They look like Christians. They look real, they look legit. So what's God say?
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You are to measure them by my speech, my revelation, my word.
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If this lying prophet contradicts what God has said in his revelation, reject the prophet, stand on God.
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That was the standard then. Isaiah 8, 20. What's the standard in Isaiah's day?
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Isaiah says to the law and to the testimony. If they don't speak according to this word, it is because they have no light in them.
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That was the standard in the Old Testament. How about Jesus?
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Now watch. Jesus is our perfect representative, amen? He's the Messiah, he's the son of God.
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He is what we are supposed to be. He succeeds where Adam fails.
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He succeeds where Israel fails. At every point, and if Jesus, watch, watch.
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If Jesus is not saying things like he does in Matthew chapter seven where he makes himself the standard and he says my word is the standard, you're gonna be on sinking sand otherwise,
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Jesus does point to the revelation of God by which to test their religion.
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And if you go to Mark chapter seven, this is important. Mark chapter seven, this is a fantastic moment.
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I'm so grateful, I'm so grateful to God for his word first of all, but I'm so grateful for this particular passage.
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Because it is Jesus fundamentally in conflict with a respected religious movement of his day that had the word of God, the
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Torah, the Tanakh, they revered it, and they also had a human standard that was almost seen as divinely inspired.
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And in Mark chapter seven, watch it. And when the Pharisees gathered to him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is unwashed.
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For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.
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And there are many other traditions that they observe such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches, there's a little bit of a commentary there.
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And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?
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And he said to them, well, did Isaiah prophesy of you, hypocrites?
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As it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
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You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.
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And he said to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandments of God in order to establish your tradition.
01:00:05
He says, for Moses said, honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.
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But you say, if a man tells his father or his mother, whatever you have gained from me is korban, that is given to God, then you would no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and many such things you do.
01:00:31
Here's Jesus in a conflict with people who believe they had at the time the word of God, they revered it, they respected it, they loved it, they would have sung praises to it, and watch, and watch, and these people had a divine tradition.
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Respected? Oh, we're not saying it's the word of God. We're not saying it's the actual
01:00:57
Torah. We're not saying it's the Tanakh. It's just our confession.
01:01:04
We're not saying that this is actually like breathed out by God, but this is the tradition of the elders, and what they did now is they made that standard up running alongside the
01:01:15
Bible, and they said, well, why aren't your people doing this? And so Jesus says, you say this.
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Moses says this. He says, thus, you make void the word of God for the sake of your tradition.
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Dr. Bonson, I think, put it perfectly in his debate with Jerry Matitix on the radio.
01:01:39
If you haven't heard that yet, by the way, you need to get that. Download the debate between Dr. Greg Bonson and I think it's
01:01:45
Jerry Matitix. Am I saying that right? Jerry Matitix, yeah. They were on the radio. They debated Roman Catholic, Protestant issues, and it's a fantastic discussion, but what
01:01:55
Dr. Bonson brings up, watch, is that if you have the Bible as a standard and another standard running alongside of it, what tends to happen, it's an epistemological problem, when you have two standards running side by side, one standard's gonna end up eating up the other, and in all religions, man -made religions, when they try to borrow from the
01:02:16
Bible and they have a standard running alongside of it, which standard gets eaten up every time? The Bible.
01:02:24
When you have the Book of Mormon and the Bible alongside one another, and you're a
01:02:29
Mormon, which standard takes precedence? The Book of Mormon. When you're a
01:02:34
Jehovah's Witness, what is the standard, the organization and its claims and its teachings?
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When you're a Christian scientist, what is it? The teachings of Mary Baker Eadie. Whatever the cult is, whatever their standard running alongside the
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Bible is, the Bible isn't the standard. This is the standard. This one serves the other.
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Where our standard disagrees with this one, it's our standard that has the victory.
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And Jesus says that, your teachings, your traditions, running alongside the
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Bible, you've made the word of God void, you're a hypocrite. How does Jesus handle, in his day, religious people who held onto the
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Bible but had a tradition that contradicted it? What did he say? Oh, I respect your tradition. I respect that.
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I know you love God. Hey, we're just a little different, right? You're part of the same thing.
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Yeah, you're fine. He said, you're a hypocrite and you've invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition.
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Did Jesus accept the tradition? He rejected it. He said, you contradict Moses, which means you contradict
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God because God spoke through Moses. What was the standard for Jesus when he was confronted with a tradition that ran alongside the
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Bible that contradicted it? It was a respected tradition. He said, away with your tradition and he said, up with the word of God.
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And that is fundamentally what the Reformers were saying. You say, what's the Sola Scriptura issue? It's that.
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Here's Jesus saying Sola Scriptura. This is
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Jesus in conflict with a divine tradition. The Apostle Paul, I don't have time to flesh it out today.
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I would be here for three hours if they let me, but I can't, so the Apostle Paul, when he fleshes out his argument for the gospel, what does he use as his standard?
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His claims? What's he do? Read Romans. What's he doing from the very beginning?
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Chapter one, quote in scripture. What's he do in chapter two? He's pulling from God's authority in the scriptures.
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What's he do in chapter three? He brings that catena of verses from the Old Testament that shows this is what God has always said about our condition.
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Nothing new here except now further revelation testifying to the truthfulness of us.
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This, we are rotten, fallen, dead, sinners, not righteous, no fear of God before our eyes, and now the righteousness of God has been manifested.
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The law and the prophets, watch, notice this. He says the law and the prophets testify to it.
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Do you notice that? In Romans one, he opens up with the holy scriptures testifying to Jesus.
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He says it's the Bible that said this is coming. In Romans three, when he talks about our sinful condition, he has to pause when he says what
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God has done now in Christ and say the law and the prophets bear witness to this. What was
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Paul's standard? That this is a novelty in history? Paul's standard was this is God's word, come to life right in front of us.
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And what does he say when he talks about how we are joined to Christ by faith and justified apart from any work of law?
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Romans 328, therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.
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Someone says, where does it say you're justified by faith alone? How about Romans eight, or 328? Faith apart from works of law.
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Now watch, when he fleshes it out in Romans four, just research this later, in Romans four, what does he say?
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He says, what does the scripture say?
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Do you believe the apostles had authority? You can answer that. Do you believe they had authority?
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Divine authority? Were they inspired by God? Did they speak from God? Even with that, even with that, they still pointed to the word of God as their standard.
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They didn't say, I'm a divinely inspired apostle. Kiss. You know who does that?
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Wicked, prideful, selfish, despicable con artist.
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Spiritual con artists behave in that manner. Divinely inspired prophets and apostles shrink, and they point to God's word.
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And the apostle Paul, as he explains the gospel, when he wants to prove it, he doesn't prove it on his own authority, because I'm an apostle.
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He proves it because he says, God says. Because God says, because God says. The book of Hebrews, come on, it's amazing.
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The book of Hebrews is just like chocked full of Bible. It's like, we wanna show that Jesus is a better prophet, priest, and king.
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How do we do so? Because we say, the writer of Hebrews, whoever he was, the writer of Hebrews, goes, because God says, because God says, because God says, because God says, look what
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God says here, look what he says here, and here and here, and that's how you know, because God says. It's a fundamental thing, watch, very simple.
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Here is a massive, amazing, tight, grand philosophical argument, are you ready?
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Epistemological question answered right now, on stage at ReformCon 2016, okay?
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Huge, this is big, this is like 2 ,000 years of history in the making and teaching and philosophy, it's amazing.
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How do you know with certainty? God says, because God says.
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Now there are all kinds of ways that we can flesh that out, philosophical background, we can explain epistemological concerns and questions, we can talk about preconditions of intelligibility, we can really tease this out, and we can show the intellectually rigorous nature of Christianity and just the tightness of this epistemology, but you know what fundamentally it really is?
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God spoke, that's how I know. Jesus' standard was the word of God, Paul's standard was the word of God, but if you want a text that shows you sola scriptura in action in the
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New Testament church, I'd like you to open your Bibles and we'll finish here at First Corinthians, chapter four, verse six.
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We say sola scriptura, do we mean that Christians poo -poo tradition?
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No, our basic confession is the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith at Apologia Church, that's our basic confession.
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We have a catechism, people come to our church to visit, and we stand up to do catechism together, and they're like, people come up to me afterwards, they're like, are you
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Lutheran, or something? Like, this is, what's happening, this is weird, like, what's cate, cat, cate, what?
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Cate, cate, what, like, cat, got your tongue, what, what, catechism, catechism means teaching, we are confessional, we love the creeds, the confessions.
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I love the Westminster Confession of Faith, I think it's an amazing confession of faith. The difference between the two is ours is right.
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Yours is wrong in some places. That's it. Okay, that's the only difference But the point is we're confessional.
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We love I love the church. I love what God has deposited in church I love to truly and fighting in Sibelius.
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I love the Nicean Situation in the Creed. I love Athanasius. He's the patron saint of post -millennialism.
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He's my favorite, right? Okay, Athanasius is awesome that Athanasius agreed. We love tradition, right but anywhere
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I I Firmly believe this While I hold to the confession with all my heart and I teach from it if my confession is found to be at variance with the
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Word of God Down with my confession and if watch this is a problem in the
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Reformed world got to confess to it People cannot be balanced. It seems we all fall off edges
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We go. Well, I don't want to be like people in the modern evangelical movement that are just like so against tradition They they act like we're the first ones to get here.
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They act like there's no history here. No tradition They act like these great minds and the divines of the confessions.
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They act like they didn't give us anything. They ignore them I don't want to be like that. So they fall into like heavy heavy confessionalism where they almost act like Rome with their confession and You don't want to fall on the other side
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Where you act like God hasn't had a church here before the year 2016 We recognize
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Dogma is good When that dogma came from the material witness of Scripture and is consistent with it
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So we want to say yes to confessions but no when they contradict the Word of God and I mean this last thing
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I want to say before I get to the verse because you're hanging on now waiting for the verse Right. I want to say this We have to ask ourselves the question.
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Are we truly Reformed? Do we really believe solo scriptura? Do we really believe that the scriptures alone are the only infallible rule of faith or do we believe that our
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Confession is divinely inspired. I'm not asking us to do away with our confessions. Hang on to them
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But when we start behaving in such a way where we're only quoting our confessions rather than the Word of God, we've got a problem
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It's the Word of God that provides the substance for the confession It's Scripture alone. We ought to know watch our confessions, but more the
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Word of God behind the confession Like this is why because Scripture and here's a good way to say it the confession
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All right. Here's the verse in conflict New Testament 1st Corinthians chapter 4 verse 6
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I have applied all these things to myself and Apollo For your benefit brothers that you may learn by us
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Not to go beyond what is written That None of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another
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Now the construction here and I don't have time to develop it completely But the construction here is set up in such a way that it was like a catch -cry
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So that you may know from us the saying Not to go beyond what is written sounds kind of like The Reformation doesn't it sounds kind of like the catch -cry
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Sola Scriptura The only infallible rule of faith don't go beyond what is written the
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Apostle Paul recognizes their traditions He talks about their traditions, but what does he say in conflict?
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He says this is the standard he says don't go Beyond what is written? That's the standard
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Sola Scriptura the scriptures alone are the only infallible rule of faith. God has spoken and Condescended and revealed himself to people to save to bring redemption and the knowledge of him as Christians we have the beauty
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The blessing the honor the privilege to be able to stand on God's Word and to say this is the word of my father
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This is how I know This word must crush me and anybody coming against it.
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It's the standard always and forever for the church Whether the question is a cultural question in the culture wars
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People say no, that's not your gender and you need to use this terminology and that's not a marriage
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This is also a marriage and that's a marriage and this is law and that's law and this is right and that's wrong We say ultimately this is how we know not my experience not my background not my tradition
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It's the Word of God Where whatever contradicts the Word of God it goes
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That's the standard with the cults What do we say the Word of God over your book with the atheist?
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We say the Word of God over your personal experience and standards God has spoken.
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That's a gift The pagan gods didn't do a lot of talking God spoke to us.
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Let's listen Always, let's pray father. Thank you for your word. I pray you bless
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God went out today for your glory And for the exaltation of Jesus Christ in the world
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God, please bless every single one of us as we Go our separate ways
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Please help us God To be able to articulate the truth of your word
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To a hostile world. I pray that you put fire in our mouths and you make the world would
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In Jesus name Amen. All right
01:16:01
We're gonna get set up here for the live podcast But in the meantime, I make a couple announcements
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Yeah, I think there's one person that cheered so I think it might have been less so a couple announcements
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He's actually gonna come over here a second. We're gonna have a beard off which I'll explain in a second But so there's some reformed crime shirts and those little backpack things left
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Those are all half off to need to get rid of them So if you guys want those, I don't know how much the bags were even you're asking for but the shirts are 10 bucks
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So you guys want one? Grab those And then also I don't I think we only sold one ticket for the beer flight sampler so I'm hoping there's more people going
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So that'd be awesome. So what needs to happen though if you're planning on going to that Pay us Here, so it's 20 bucks.
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You get a four flight sampler And then, you know while you lunch and stuff over there, but we're paying we're paying for the tab
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For the samplers over there. So if you guys are planning on going let's pay up here and then we'll handle we'll handle the tab for that But left three are you want to come on up?
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So some people had entered the beard contest and Half the names were kids and your mom.
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So This is what we're gonna do You have a beard We're gonna have you come up and the crowd's gonna cheer and less it's gonna be the judge
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Tanner to The other other hook the other other hook.
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Yeah, so they're gonna judge or they're gonna be the judges and Am I on The winner gets their pick of a t -shirt that's not