REFORMCON2016 | Live Stream: Durbin on Sola Scriptura

Welcome to ReformCon 2016 and the Final Day of the Conference

Welcome to the fourth and final day of ReformCon 2016! What do you guys think, ReformCon? What do you guys think of this? This is like, this is the conference for like, our people, right? This is like, it's like, look around!

It's like, these are my people. This is so good. 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. 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.

Man, just so encouraging. And again, like, we are so honored to be a part of this. I loved Apologia, but now, being here, I love Apologia. Right? Right? This church family, just serving so well. They got, they like, put all the kids to work.

That is brilliant. Straight up child labor. I support it. Very, very well done. You guys are smart. Yeah, like, I love Apologia so much now, if I wasn't married, I'd like, stalk Apologia from the bushes, I think.

Like, I really, that went over really, really weird. That was supposed to be a joke. I'm, like, making myself look really creepy. So, I think you guys know this next speaker. He's gonna come up here, and he's gonna tell you all about the importance of Sola Scriptura.

Please welcome to the stage, Jeff Durbin!

Thanks, Les. All right, we'll have to keep our eye on Les. So, final day. 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.

This week has obviously been a lot of work, and it's been a difficult thing to put on. It's been, you know, 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.

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. That really means, it means a lot to us.

The Epistemological Question Behind Sola Scriptura

So, we do want to do it again next year. We want to do it again next year. 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. 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.

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. 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. We're humbled by it. Let's go ahead and pray, and we're going to get into a message today. 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. 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.

It's not simply a Christian problem or question. This is really fundamental to life. How do we know what we know? How can we make truth claims? How do we know that it's true? And so, the question of sola scriptura is much deeper than, I'm not a papist, right?

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. So, let's go ahead and pray, and let's get into it. Father, thank you. Thank you for this week.

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, I mean, we can really see your hand in all of it, and we're just grateful.

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. 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.

We can't thank you for every possible thing, but we can thank you for this and this time we've had together. 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.

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, 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.

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, 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, God, would forget me and remember you and what they learn here from you.

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. The topic is the importance and necessity of sola scriptura, and there are so many places throughout the 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 a larger narrative, a larger story, 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 Reformation?

We know what I said to you guys the first night, Reformed folks, especially with beards and gauges and tattoos, you like the Reformed t-shirts, right, with John Calvin on the t-shirt, George Whitfield on the t-shirt, 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 Christus, soli deo gloria, that's the scriptures alone are the only infallible rule of faith and practice for the church. We are saved by grace alone, from beginning to end, it is grace alone, nothing added.

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. 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.

When we say sola scriptura, we mean sola scriptura, it is the only infallible rule of faith and practice, it is really the only ultimate rule of what we can truly trust and believe, it is infallible, not like any confession, not like any creed, those are formulations of what it actually says.

And so these are all the way over here as a substandard just testifying to the truthfulness of this standard. 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.

From the beginning, we're talking before the world even was spun into motion, before God really cast the universe out into motion, God had planned to save a particular people knowing all about them, well about them before he did it.

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, 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, we are declared righteous before God because we are in Christ alone, that is the only place there is salvation, there is no other, it is only in Christ.

You cannot find salvation in the church, 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.

The story is so grand and majestic and big and it makes human beings look very, very little and it's difficult to get around the fact that we have nothing to do with this, it's all God. And the Reformation really talked clearly, spoke clearly, heralded clearly the truth that it was to the glory of God alone.

What is? Salvation?

Yes.

The Word of God?

Yes.

The world?

Yes.

Everything to the glory of God, solely, ultimately to the glory of God. There is no boasting whatsoever. And as Reformed folks, we truly mean that. And when we get to the Scriptures and we say, well, like, what did the 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 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 Matthew. The Gospel according to Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew speaks very directly, if you can open your Bibles to the Gospel according to Matthew, Matthew chapter six, sorry, seven, seven, verse 24.

Matthew 7, 24. Now, I do actually begin a lot of my lectures and my messages on apologetics in Matthew. Dr. Van Til, Cornelius Van Til, said that this is the place where it all begins. 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 Mormon, or the papist, the Romanist, this is the broader story. 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. 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.

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. 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.

It's amazing. I think I have to confess something. As a Christian, I think we get jaded a lot.

We do.

I think we hear the word gospel, and we're jaded to that term often. We hear about Jesus Christ, and we get jaded to the beauty of what he's accomplished and who he truly is. We get jaded a lot. And I think when you read text like this, you can see these grand statements made by the 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. 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 know, oh, no big deal. It's just God talking to us. It's just God becoming a man, you know, living among us and saying things to us, and it's all just golden, and it's beautiful, and it's all true, and I think we get jaded to these massive moments in time where this unbelievable epistemological statement and claim is made.

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, I've got it. I've got the answers now. Let me formulate it.

I've got my PhD and all my work, and I've spent my time. I can figure it out. I know Aristotle and Socrates. I've read Hume, and I've read Kant and Nietzsche. I know these guys, and I think I finally have the place positioned where I can say 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, 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.

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. They're both out of their minds.

This is the way.

Philosophy, 2 ,000 years of philosophy since Christ has gotten absolutely nowhere. Nowhere. They make claims. They get shot down. They make claims and get shot down. They're internally inconsistent and collapse.

They find themselves in a place like David Hume, the Scottish skeptic, where when he thinks about a simple problem like induction, that is simple, by the way, it is for the Christian. The order of the universe, uniformity in nature, the future being like the past.

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?

For the Christian, it's simple, and it's not a God of the gaps. It's a God of the facts. It's God carries everything along to its intended destination. Jesus Christ upholds the universe by the word of his power, 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.

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. I don't know the answer. They cannot position themselves on a platform where they can say this is how and why.

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.

You have to stop.

We have to stop ourselves from becoming jaded to this magnificent claim of Jesus. 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. 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. Two foundations, two people, two ultimate destinies. He says over here, there's a rock. Over here, there's sand.

Over here, there's a wise one, and over here, there's a foolish one. Now, this one that's built upon the rock will weather the storm. They'll make it through. Now, notice that Jesus actually talks about the issues of life coming and actually beating down on both houses, 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, 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, failures and brokenness and difficulties and trials and storms.

The issues of life come. 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. They make it through the storm.

The house is still standing in bright and shining glory. When that sun rises again after that storm clears away and dissipates, that house is still there. 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. 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.

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. Maybe you didn't get a chance to really taste and to visualize what a flood and a storm can really accomplish.

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, I got to see these floods come into Japan via the dem internets, okay?

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 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. I mean, seriously astonishing. It's almost like you watch it and you go, is there any possible, that's like the end of the world, 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 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.

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? 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.

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 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. 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. We do that, we do that. We often do, how do you know? Well, because this guy says this or because this evidence over here or this over there.

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. 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. 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.

It's interesting how this issue of authority works a bit and just so you know, there are awful martial arts schools all over the place, 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? I'm gonna help you guys out here. Be really, really cautious in the martial arts, like where you send your kids to school.

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, I'm gonna open my own karate school, I'll pay you $25 ,000 if I can use your name, if I can take Jeff Durbin karate and put it up on the thing, because that, by the way, used to matter, like 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. I said, well, who would teach? He said, well, we'll work on that.

I said, well, like, you're gonna open the school, like when? He said, well, like two weeks, we got a lease. Who's gonna be the instructor? Well, we'll figure it out, I'll teach for a while. You'll teach for a while?

Have you ever trained, bro? Like, do you know anything at all? Well, no, but I'll have your name up on my school, it'll say Jeff Durbin's karate at my school and so I said no. I said, well, I would never do that.

You can't use my name, you would be teaching people garbage and you'd essentially be robbing people. 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.

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. I got my fourth degree master right there, it says Jeff Durbin, fourth degree master in this combat system right here and this is the grandpappy right here, the grandmaster.

He's the guy that points at me and says, yes, I acknowledge that he has authority and he knows what he's doing. Now, in martial arts, it works like that. 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 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 and 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. 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, 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. Now, watch, 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.

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. 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. He needs, watch, no corroboration. Grant, you gotta grasp that. That's huge, don't forget it. Jesus needs no corroboration.

His claims are self-authenticating. When God speaks, listen, when God speaks, he needs no one's stamp of approval. Everybody else's claims are measured up against his. When Jesus says in John 17, 17, Father, sanctify them by your truth, he says, watch, John 17, 17, you can't forget it.

John 17, 17, John 17, 17, it's yours for good. You're welcome, okay? It's easy. John 17, 17, he says, thy word is what? Is truth. Thy word is truth. Sanctify them, Father, by your truth. Your word, your word is truth.

And the word there in the Greek is essentially the plumb line. I've never done this, but I have friends who have. 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.

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. 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?

Is it true? Now we're just like, I'm gonna get my smartphone out and I'm gonna download that app right now, okay? And you get that little app right now where you can do like the leveler and like, is it right?

Is it true? 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. And this is an area of sanctification in our marriage because no matter what goes up on our walls, I will put it up and it will literally be perfect according to science.

It's the truth.

She'll say, it's off. And I'll say, I think your eyes are lopsided because that is not off. 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.

I'll say, look, true, true, true.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, true.

And she'll say, no. I don't care what your device says. It's not true. And the problem with her methodology is that this is a fact.

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.

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? 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. It's like little letters. You got to position every letter out there. And there got to be some simple way to do this, but every single letter has got to be, and I was like, boom, okay, perfect, perfect.

And she invites friends over. And she'll say, she's always awkward about it. 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 Bible verse he messed up right there on the wall.

No matter who came in our house, it was always, and this is the Bible verse he messed up. And every time I'd say, it's not messed up, it's science.

And what does she do?

She tries to get a collection of people.

To go along with her. And they're wrong along with her.

Why?

Because she influences them. She's like, it's off, isn't it? It's off, isn't it? And they're like, well, she's like, it is off. It's off. 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? The problem is, I've got the standard. It's right. And that's the word behind, thy word is truth. 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? 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.

Ah, now it's true.

Why?

Because it matches the wall now.

Do you see?

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.

And when Jesus says, thy word is truth, sanctify them by your truth. Father, thy word is truth. His word is the measuring line, the plumb line, the standard by which we all get corrected. We don't bend his word and his standard to our lives and our positions and our beliefs.

Jesus says he has all authority. Now here's what happens in our society today. Unbelievers, skeptics, critics of the faith hate that about Jesus. Here's what I'm gonna say. For them, get over it, and for us, stop giving in.

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.

Go, therefore, 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. 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. 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.

They said, he speaks as one having authority and not as one of their scribes. The scribes were like me in martial arts. You gotta point back to your guy, and then your guy, and you gotta go this guy, and then that guy.

Jesus doesn't do that. He doesn't quote rabbis. He doesn't quote this guy or that guy. Jesus says, because I say, I say. 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.

You're not even speaking like thus sayeth the Lord. You're saying thus says me. The prophets would do that. They would say, God says, God says, God says, God says, and Jesus is now walking among them.

He's like, I say, me, unless you believe. Jesus says, egoi me, I am. You will die in your sins.

Huge.

You're a slave to sin. I'll set you free.

Huge.

Revelation, the Reformation, and the Primacy of God's Word

So these are epistemological questions. Epistemology is a question of knowledge, the theory of knowledge. How do we know what we know, and the world has to deal with these problems. Again, this isn't just simply a Christian thing.

This is not just a Christian trick, right? 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.

There were two principium, as Dr. Oliven will say at times, there were two principium. One was God as he is. God as he is. What's he like? Who is he? God as he is. Triune God. What are his attributes?

He's like this. These are foundational in the Reformation. The next is that God has spoken. 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?

We get more complex questions. You will search that out for all eternity and never get to the bottom of that one. God as he is, and the fact that God has spoken. God has given to us his word. It's the material we work from.

Yes, listen, we affirm as Reformed people that Jesus Christ has built his church. We affirm that he's given to us a church government. We affirm that we are not solo scriptura. Me, under a tree, by myself, out in the wilderness with my Bible and Jesus, right?

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 God said it will do. I believe it broke into history.

John the Baptist, first thing out of his mouth in Matthew three, that it's broken into history. Jesus says, broken into history, that it's in fact there among them. The apostle John, the apostle Paul, the kingdom arrived, and I believe that the Bible teaches that kingdom will come into history and it would never be destroyed.

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 Old Testament. That's God, the son of man. He sees the son of man in the night visions,.

And what's he say?

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. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

I believe that. Reformed people believe that Jesus brought his church, that he's spoken, that it would never be destroyed, but the Reformation spoke clearly about something. Because God has revealed himself and God has spoken, we have a treasure.

We have a treasure of certainty about what God says. How do we know? Well, God has spoken. He's given to us this material witness of his word. Here it is in history. This is what God has given to us. It is Theano Stas.

It is God breathed revelation from God. Here it is. Here's the material witness. 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.

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 Reformation recognized that the word of God is the very standard by which we get everything else.

And what the Reformers knew was that people are sinners. Sinners gonna sin.

They are.

The Reformers knew it, that sinners sin. They say corrupt things. They fail. Our heroes fail. 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 God's word.

It's all over our Bible. False prophets, false teachers, false doctrine. The New Testament is filled with corrections of doctrine from people who claim to know Jesus. And the Reformers understood that this is the measuring line.

Everything else has to move towards it. If it's off, then it goes away. That's the standard. This is what God uses to sanctify His people and His church. The Reformers understood the scriptures are the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

It can be trusted. I wanna say this. It's about more than Rome. Catch that. This is important. Protestant means protestant. We are protesting the claims of Rome. That's historically where it comes from.