Theology You Can Use - The Sufficiency Of The Bible (part 2)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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well on Sunday nights in the past we've gone through the Old Testament verse by verse and we've covered books, can you remember some of the books we've covered?

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We've covered Genesis, Exodus now we skipped Leviticus but I'll preach that one day, we've covered

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Esther, we've covered Daniel, Obadiah Jonah, Ruth, quite a few books of the

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Old Testament, once in a while we get into a few other detours and we've got a year -long detour that we're in now and we're looking at systematic theology, taking theology that's in the scripture looking at it from every side, what does

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Genesis through Revelation say about a particular topic and so we can look at a point of theology in a systematic way but I believe that theology is practical, would you believe theology is practical?

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If you learn that Jesus is God, is that practical? Certainly in terms of worship how a church is run, there's all kinds of different things and so we've entitled this thanks to Pastor Steve's insight,

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Theology You Can Use learning theology but making it very practical and I want to do that tonight with the topic of the sufficiency of scripture is the

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Bible sufficient? Do you really believe that it is? And tonight we're going to look at is the Bible sufficient in counseling?

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Is the Bible sufficient in evangelism? Is the Bible sufficient in running a church?

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Is the Bible sufficient in addressing issues out there about women's roles or gay marriage, whatever it might be?

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Is the Bible sufficient for everything in life? And I think we all know the answer but I think we can flesh it out a little bit tonight.

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We've looked at different words from Wayne Grudem's systematic theology we've looked at the word clarity, that the

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Bible is clear can you think of some other words we've talked about regarding the Bible? Sufficiency, yes we talked about, so clarity, sufficiency authority, good.

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Infallibility or inerrancy, good. And there was one more we talked about and that was the word canon. Which books are in the canon?

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The 66 books of the Bible from Genesis through Revelation. But tonight part two on sufficiency that God's Word is completely, wholly, 100 percent sufficient for everything we need.

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And just like Luther said a long time ago that I quoted last week, I have covenant with my

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Lord that he should not send me visions, dreams, or even angels. I am content with this gift of the scriptures which teaches and supplies all that is necessary both for this life and the life which is to come.

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That is to say that Luther didn't want to have something more he had everything in front of him with the scriptures and that's why he poured his life into studying the scriptures.

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Certainly other things compete for God's Word. We talked about traditions by the way could come from different backgrounds, theological backgrounds

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I did read this week 2nd Maccabees chapter 15 verse 38 an extra biblical book which would be in the

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Roman Catholic canon and prophets don't write like this and I just thought it was so strange that you'd never hear

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Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel any of those men say something like this but in the intertestamental period between the book of Malachi and Matthew, 2nd

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Maccabees 1538 reads this way if my book is found well -written and aptly composed that is what

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I myself hope for. If cheap and mediocre I could only do my best. Very unlike the prophets of Malachi and Amos and Hosea and we have this competing tradition, this competing almost scripture to some and that sometimes influences us as Christians.

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We have other things like the Constitution we have Robert's Rules of Order, we have to have that for the church to run properly we have confessions and creeds.

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The Westminster Confession says 1689 says, Savoy Confession says, you know some people believe that the creeds are equal to the

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Bible the Bible is not good enough so we have to have a creed so we can understand it you know what we call those people that believe a creed is equal to the

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Bible? Apostles creed, Nicene creed what would we call those kind of people? And to think

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I almost canceled service tonight for those of you who are visiting Sunday night you know if I ask a question we expect an answer you can do it out loud but I usually like proper answers, precise answers, scriptural answers we call those prescriptionists and they take the scripture and the canons of their own tradition found in a confession of faith and they put them on the same plane and we think statements of faith are good but they're subservient to the

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Bible obviously. Sometimes people have visions and mystical kind of experiences and they say well that's just as authoritative as the

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Bible, all kinds of things but as we looked at last week 2 Peter 1 .3 is very clear seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.

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Everything we need is found in scripture. Why don't we just turn to a passage we're familiar with as we're setting up tonight

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Psalm 19, you know it very well, it's a mini psalm of Psalm 119 both about the

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Bible. Sometimes when I'm kinda feeling dreary and I think I need to study the Bible more than I'm doing or I'm just studying it mechanically for a

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Sunday I love to read Psalm 119 but there are how many verses in Psalm 119? Many, I believe 176 but Psalm 19 is a miniature version of Psalm 119 and I've preached on this passage many times you've probably heard many messages on it but just to remind us again before we get into a little bit of other insight on sufficiency of scripture

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Psalm 19 is clear as was 2 Peter 1 or 2 Timothy 3 that we looked at last week the law of Yahweh, the covenant -keeping name of God, His personal name, the law of the

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Lord is perfect and by the way that's just not law like Leviticus law, this is

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Torah, this is instruction God's instruction is perfect and when

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I say perfect what do I mean by that? Well here's what the Hebrews meant it meant that it was complete, it lacked nothing it had eight sides of the octagon, it was comprehensive, it covered every issue the law of God is basically reflective of His nature if God is perfect by nature and all -sided and complete and comprehensive in Himself sufficient then

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His law of course would be the same, it does say there the testimony of the Lord is sure making wise is simple and so on and last week we talked about philosophy a little bit, we talked about legalism a little bit and before I go any farther there were some questions about what

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I said about cigarette smoking last week and so I want to address that before we get any farther and talk about the issue of what do we do with the sufficiency of Scripture and how does it apply in counseling and apologetics and ecclesiology and other things

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I don't like cigarette smoking frankly my father died of lung cancer, my mother just died of lung cancer,

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I don't want to promote cigarette smoking bring three friends to church and you get a pack of cools or something

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I mean I obviously don't want to do that, my children have been told and been taught we don't smoke cigarettes, remember when they were first little and they go to kind of a fundamentalist school cigarette smoking is obviously sinful from their perspective and you could see them pointing to people that we would see smoking cigarettes because we'd never see people who smoke cigarettes they're these pastors kids we'll look at somebody smoking cigarettes and they would point and I had to teach them it was not proper to point the comments

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I made last week if taken in context the whole ministry here what I've said in the past I think would be better so let me just reiterate that I said well maybe we should put a cigarette ashtray out in front of the church what

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I mean by that that I'm trying to promote people smoking no but when we see people who are smoking outside the parking lot and then they put their butts out and walk in my question was what is our attitude towards them

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I don't want them to smoke I think if you're gonna smoke you're gonna get lung cancer and die and it's just not healthy it's not good stewardship of your body

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I always think about the money five bucks for a pack when I was a kid I loved to play pinball and I measured everything in a quarter three games five balls each in pinball for a quarter a dollar how many games would that do and everything was based on that so now

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I just think five bucks a day two packs a day ten dollars 52 weeks a year that's 520 bucks a year you've got to make and that's after taxes so you gotta make 700 bucks to take home 520 etc and so I don't think it's good for your lungs

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I don't think it's good for people around you or any of those things but I will still say that there's nothing in the

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Bible that says if you put a cigar to your mouth and smoke it or if you want to smoke a pipe once a week and you're not addicted and you're not hurting people and all these other things that it's going to be sin and I can label that as sin if I smoked a pipe once a week could you excommunicate me it's those kind of issues that we're looking at and so do

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I think cigarette smoking is healthy no do I want to promote it no do

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I think we can be legalistic and somehow look at everybody that smokes and says that's a certain sinful dirty habit when we meet people with bad habits and they're a new

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Christian I don't even talk about cigarettes for a long time why because as they grow what do they do they just have more of a distaste for it remember

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Steve Janay you too know Steve Janay and he used to come to our Bible study and he used to have hair way down to his knees now first Corinthians does talk about it's a dishonor for a man to have longer hair you go how long's too long you know with the collar or what it was way way down he was this ex -heroin addict and he'd come up to the

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Bible study with all these kind of hell's angels kind of guys they weren't hell's angels but my neighbors would think all these motorcycle gangs coming over to Abendroth's house for Bible study when

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I was a kid I was told that if you took your finger and touched the fender of a Harley Davidson hell's angel guy that you would it was like a razor blade they're just regular people well

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I thought here's this guy that wants to learn the Bible and I kinda have a problem not with you know Jesus I'm sure had longer hair than I do but it was just so far down I mean who's that one lady

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Rapunzel or who's got the long hair yeah I just thought come on but I thought

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I'm not gonna say anything to this man because it's not about cigarette smoking it's not about hair length even as you learn the

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Word of God and God works on your heart and you realize what you live for who you are who owns you what

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Christ has done etc the hair will take care of itself year by year you know what happened to that guy's hair he got shorter and shorter and shorter until he was standing out he still had a big handlebar mustache which is pretty cool and he was standing outside with a little vest kind of a suit on greeting people at Grace Community Church welcome to our church so as I'm counseling you the congregation when we meet people who smoke cigarettes you know if you want to tell them please don't smoke in my house when they come over for barbecue that's fine but the way we treat other people we should not gauge their spirituality or try to get them to a a closed room so the first thing we can tell them is you gotta quit smoking that's gotta go because it's not always sinful to smoke

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I think it's unwise we don't want to be addicted to things and we could talk about this more even under the auspices of conscience and legalism and liberty and everything else but my comments last week as you know

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I'm prone to do is I'm very hyperbolic and I also don't I use shorthand and so sometimes just to get your attention

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I look at every angle of this whole issue but overall I've talked about cigarette smoking before don't think we should do it but if I see somebody smoking a pipe

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I'm not gonna have a freak out attack on them because it's not a sin to smoke tobacco that I can find in scripture it is a sin to get drunk by the way wine can you imagine as we try to assault some of our legalistic tendencies here and our church would be more legalistic than it would be antinomian that is to say our church would say there are more rules than less rules because a lot of us got saved out of no rules but I don't want to put a higher imposition on anyone and how they live and act and breathe and do anything else higher than the

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Word of God I mean here's what Psalm 104 says verse 14 God causes the grass to grow for the cattle and vegetation for the labor of man so that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine from which makes the heart glad so that he may make his face glisten with oil it's from God it's

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God's making it's God's doing and God has given people sex and people distorted but it doesn't make sex wrong

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God has given us alcohol and if we distort that and misuse it it doesn't make it wrong we're the ones with the problem it's like the gun right guns don't kill people people kill people using guns and so God gives us good gifts and we being perverse and unregenerate before Christ we kind of tweak those things so I just wanted to give some explanation about the whole cigarette deal before we got any farther does anybody have any questions about that or where we stand as a church

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I don't want to promote smoking but I also want you to think when people come in with tattoos all everywhere spikes and things in their mouth you know

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I always listen to people talking I like to listen and I hear that kind of click of the metal to their teeth and I realize they've got a big tongue piercing

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I think they just need to come to our church I want all kinds of people like that to come to our church so when we people see people smoking or if you ever see a cigarette thing up there and the deacons

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Chris Bowman has to clean out the cigarette butts it's because we love people we love sinners we love people who haven't arrived how many people have arrived before they got here how many people have arrived now we're just in process

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I think it is a sin for children to smoke especially because if dad the king the sovereign says children you may not smoke and the children have basically one thing to fulfill the requirements of God when they're really young and that's honor your father and mother by obeying there are times when things are sinned daddy says no and you do it anyway that's sin comments about that I didn't think

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I was going to get into smokeology tonight but that's okay okay alright sufficiency of scripture regarding counseling what about counseling let me ask you this if someone comes to you in the middle of the night or calls you up and says

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I've got a problem what do you do I have a Christian friend he calls me I'm a Christian what's the first thing you do call the pastor call your friend who knows a little bit more call your psychologist friend what do you do are you competent to give biblical counsel answer you are competent to counsel not because Jay Adams wrote a book on it but because Romans chapter 15 says that you're able and let's just go there we're not going to do it expositional verse -by -verse study tonight but I want to encourage you that if in the sovereignty of God you are given an opportunity to give people the

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Bible for comfort and counsel even tonight Fred coming up kind of the last minute we don't have our reader

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Fred comes up and reads and encourages us even through the framework of Ron and Cheryl and Andrew and Anitra we are competent to give counsel because we have the

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Spirit of God we have the truth teacher who dwells within us and we have the external source the

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Word of God Romans 15 14 concerning you my brethren I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness filled with all knowledge and able to what admonish counsel put sense into one another you're able to do that these people at Rome by the way most of them were what illiterate these are people that aren't that smart they're not that educated they haven't been to MIT or anyplace else these are

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Roman citizens the kind that have to dig themselves into the catacombs that Kim and I went to in Rome because you get killed if you don't bow the knee to Caesar we are competent to give counsel and I want to try to encourage you now in the next few moments that you when called upon in the middle of the night can help someone no matter what it might be sometimes

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I have to say as a pastor there's someone in my office someone in my study they've got some problem that is so discombobulated and so wrapped up and muddled up and mixed up because of the sin

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I kinda think of sin like a little kind of like dirt thrown into water and just makes everything muddy you ever taken black kind of dye and just dropped it into a water beaker and just starts getting darker and darker and darker

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I mean sin just muddies everything up they have pastoral counseling classes and seminary I just thought this is all kind of pretty much bogus because I'm gonna go out to New England and then there's gonna be a unique situation

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I'm gonna say oh yeah that's case counseling manual number 1406 it doesn't work because case counseling manual 1406 couldn't think of some of the things we think up of get ourselves caught up into so I want you to know that you have the

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Bible and you can be you can be helpful sometimes I just have to say I don't know the answer you don't know the answer as the counselee but who knows the answer what do we know faced with a problem let's go to God and see what he thinks about it and there's a great article called sufficiency of scripture in counseling by Wayne Mack used to be a professor at the

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Masters College and seminary and he's got a wonderful article that if you email me I'll send you I'm gonna take some of that material from this tonight do you believe that the scriptures are sufficient for counseling if you use psychological measures then use deny what you proclaim to confess or to believe that is to say if you say scriptures sufficient yet you have to do it

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Maslow Adler Skinner at all believe then you say you believe something but by your deeds you deny what you believe you understand that if you have a methodology then that tells me about your theology no matter how many times you say

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I believe it's efficient if you're gonna say well I have to do what psychology says to figure out these problems then you don't really believe it let me tell you about Christians Christians are new creations in Christ 2nd

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Corinthians 5 Christ is in the believer Colossians 127 the

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Holy Spirit abides in the believer Romans 8 -9 the Christian is the

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Holy Spirit's temple 1st Corinthians 619 John 116 of his fullness we have all received and grace upon grace this is a good question is there anything more that God could give us after salvation than what we already have no but if you switch from dealing with holiness to what wholeness if you switch from dealing to well how do

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I stand before God and deal with sin to how do I feel whole in this whole therapeutic culture you're going to need something else because the

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Bible doesn't address this and then you're gonna start slipping into this body doctors organic spirit pastors spiritual soul emotions psychology

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I met with John Walvoord one time and I love Dr. Walvoord he was a president of DTS for a long time he was trying to convince me to go to leave masters and go to Dallas said but Dr.

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Walvoord you guys are so caught up in psychology and you're telling me that if I don't know a bunch of psychology and I go out to New England to pastor people

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I can't do it I have the Bible and the spirit but I can't help people he said well we have doctors for the body we have pastors for the spirit we have psychologists for the soul

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I think that kind of discussion denies the depravity of the human what let me ask it this way if the

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Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there's any who understands Psalm 53 and if the

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Lord understands that our heart is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked who can understand it then what can we do with human methods to try to get into the mind of the people sometimes

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I think even the counselee or the counselor can even be deceived so what do we end up doing

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I think here's what we do someone comes in to me with any problem in the entire universe and I don't care what it is here's what

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I say Lord you're sovereign you providentially ordained this you want me to try to help the person

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I have two great commandments to love you and love my neighbor I wanna listen I wanna try to then bring the scriptures to bear even if this is my only advice trust in the

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Lord with all your heart lean not on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge Him and He'll make your path straight what else could

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I do for them lots of times you don't need to say let me solve your problem because newsflash

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Christians suffer God's ordained Christians to suffer and we want to extract ourselves from the suffering but what we need to do as counselors

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I even almost hate to use that word counselors we need to come alongside and put our arms around the people while they're suffering and show them real love what am

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I gonna do fix the problem oh let's go see the pastor he'll fix the problem if you've ever come to me for counseling

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I can't really fix the problem here's what I've probably done what does the Bible say about your problem what does the

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Bible say about your solution can I plug you into discipleship can we pray what can we do for you but it's not oh here the problem's gone counseling is coming alongside of one insane you can still trust this

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God with your life no matter even if it's going to kill you I know all kinds of people who don't think pastors are qualified to deal with any kind of counseling because they haven't been taught in psychology now without trying to go through this whole thing because I'm I told myself

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I was gonna stay on on time tonight you guys are all probably laughing at that one we could talk about mental illness we could talk about drugs we could talk about psychotropic drugs but let me just you've heard me preach other sermons about it let me at least say this when someone comes to you who's a

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Christian well let's just back up someone comes to you and who's not a Christian and they need help in their life and they want to be counseled what should you do we don't counsel unbelievers we evangelize unbelievers every time that person comes you need to say to them this is your major problem if you think your problem is this relationship problem that you've got with a boyfriend a wife spouse worker etc you've got a bigger problem that's how do you relate to God Almighty you'll die one day stand before him and you preach the gospel after that when believers come in your job is to help give them the truth come alongside of them and encourage them to look up how about this

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I'll meet with you for 15 sessions for an hour once a week from here on out would that be a good thing for a

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Christian to do? is it is it wrong? of course it's not wrong like sinful but that's what the psychologists do what are we going to solve over this desk let's hear and I'll just I'll talk and you listen and somehow by talking it's all going to be solved if it's by me talking to you about the

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Bible then I think that would be helpful I could probably flatter people and say by the way they said this in seminary this will shock you if anybody ever comes in your office and says

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I'm really bad and I'm just disgusting on the inside you can't believe what I've done and I just don't know if anybody could ever love me you were not to say you're a good person though you're supposed to go you know what but there's a greater

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Savior for you and he can forgive those kind of sins oh you know you're wonderful and you're better than the last guy who just came into my office you think you're bad

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I'm not trying to enhance their self -esteem I'm trying to tell them you know if Jesus gave you his entire life and death at Calvary Romans chapter 8 says won't he give you the things that are smaller than that like comfort now and a show of himself and his greatness people come in what do

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I do oh you could get on medication but medication is not going to deal with the root issue it's going to take care of the symptoms but not the root what we want to do is we want to say this is who

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God is so the next time someone wants biblical counsel from you you just start sharing with them stuff that you've been reading the

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Bible don't I love about reading the Bible I just reading through the Bible and all of a sudden a day later somebody will call me and say

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I'm just having such and such a hard time well I've just been reading a passage in the Bible and here shows the greatness of God let me tell you about that isn't

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God good people that don't read the Bible they're going well what do I tell them what do I tell them it's kind of like you know ask

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Louis Brown somebody's sick and their kids gonna die and everything else it's time to preach okay just been studying

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I've just been ready here we go I love it to hear we had an elders deacons meeting the other day and we're just having prayer time all of a sudden

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Brian Diamond just starts praying all these verses from Romans just coming out of his mouth just like he's talking why

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Brian and Guido were memorizing the book of Romans that's just in his brain you've got a problem with with something you go to Brian Diamond he just probably gonna start jumping into the just shall live by faith and off he goes so we want to keep our tank full of the

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Bible so when people come we can say here is our God we love you and we can cry with them and come alongside of them

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I don't really like the 12 to 15 meetings you know what I like I like discipleship we're gonna teach you of God we're gonna come alongside of you and then we're gonna kick you out of the nest and you came in saying you have a problem with praying you can't pray well

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I'm gonna teach you a few things I'm gonna give you some jobs and you're gonna pray oh God help me because of the duties that you're going to have okay

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I could go on and on five part series on psychology anybody have any questions about is the

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Bible sufficient for counseling if you have a problem please don't go run to a place where you have to pay money to have an unbeliever tell you psychological principles are worse yet a believer tell you psychological principles but there's a verse over the office door so you feel good and it's

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Christian counseling many good psychologists who are

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Christian but I think most of them have turned their back on behavior modification okay anybody else

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I was gonna say I don't think you would okay here's a good one this is gonna get hotter that one really wasn't too hot it's gonna get hotter the sufficiency of scripture and apologetics the

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Bible sufficient for counseling I believe God's a transcendent God he can keep his word throughout all the ages through all the different problems we would have number two it's sufficient for evangelism

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Michael Kruger wrote some interesting things and so here's my question to you you read the book

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Darwin on Trial by Philip Johnson and you realize you kind of have to put the Bible over here and then talk to the unbelievers and you're meeting with a scientist who knows carbon dating you're meeting with a geologist he knows about fossils you're meeting with some kind of anthropologist that knows all kinds of skeletons and how are you gonna evangelize this person when you don't know hardly anything about those things what do you do well you pray that's what you do you try to figure out kind of a neutral starting point we can both be on the same plane and and we can both kinda talk and and work it out that way in other words do you just jettison the authority of the

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Bible we'll talk about the Bible is it true or is it not I can even look at my own life

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I am so I get just mad at myself I just tell myself I'm just an idiot five times out of ten not much better the other five times out of ten and I'm thinking to myself

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I'm sitting here trying to defend the Bible I can remember back in California Gold's Gym in North Hollywood I'd go to Gold's Gym and I'd study and I was always reading my

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Greek stuff and people say oh what are you reading Greek why oh New Testament is written in Greek New Testament what are you doing oh

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I'm studying to be a pastor and they drop the weights on my chest I'd look around and there's

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Denzel Washington over there lifting hey can you give me a spot there's the American gladiators man they had the hugest biceps and trapezoids and they were huge just domineering people and those were the girls

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I mean the guys were even bigger it's true I just look around thinking whoa

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I'd meet somebody and he'd say yeah I believe in the Jesus and all that stuff maybe but the

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Bible's full of contradictions and I can't understand this verse I go get the answer and come back and they'd say

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I could see that yeah but what about that and it would go on and on and on so what do we do when we have the

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Bible when it comes to evangelism is this sufficient or do we need to go get Philip Johnson books is theology is the

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Bible and evangelism just all theological or should we go more to the philosophical level true or false please answer out loud

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I can't use the Bible to prove the Bible I need a neutral starting place you were all in Cooley's apologetics class weren't you they asked you what happened we don't need a neutral starting place that's a myth we don't need to prove the trustworthiness and reliableness of the

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Bible the Bible's powerful our job is to preach the Bible to K. Russo it to proclaim it it's never to debate about it like Lloyd -Jones used to say you don't sit around with your robe on by the fire with slippers and a pipe kind of debating is the

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Bible true or not it's kind of like Moses scientifically going over to the bush going there's a bush that's burning but it's not burning let me talk about that let me examine it let me get the magnifying glass out and take a little culture you're standing on holy ground oops when you say we're gonna talk about the reliability and the authority of scripture and somehow is it true and is it accurate and you know it's a lot of in your own interpretation then the

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Bible's going to be the conclusion of the argument not the foundation we want you to just start preaching the

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Word of God if you start doing science and evidences and all these other things then you're just basically putting the

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Bible on the shelf and we want to just let that lion go Greg Bonson says wisely the ultimate ground to the

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Christian certainty and the authority backing up his argumentation must be the

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Word of God the Bible says Philip Johnson in his book Darwin on Trial I think you probably even sell it do we sometimes when it's cheap he said this you tell me this is good or not one thing

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I'd am not doing is taking sides in a Bible science conflict

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I'm interested in what unbiased scientific investigation has to tell us about the history of life

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Steve snorting pastor coolies snorting over there we're not gonna talk about the Bible versus science we're just gonna say you know science up which is good it's kinda unbiased we'll just look at that Paul little in the book know why you believe he up says unbelievers don't want to believe it it's not a matter of brain power it is primarily a matter of the will somehow thinking man's rational abilities are not tainted by the fall bill bright even of course these men have done good things for the kingdom

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I don't disagree with that but in evidence the man is a verdict the forward by bill bright says this

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I personally have never heard of a single individual who has honestly considered the evidence deny that Jesus Christ is a son of God and Savior of all men the evidence confirming the deity of the

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Lord Jesus Christ is overwhelmingly conclusive to any honest objective seeker after the truth but I have two questions are any unbelievers honest and are any unbelievers seeking third question are any unbelievers objective they're not seeking

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God they're dishonest and unbelief is a moral problem when you say the

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Bible needs to be out of the discussion then I think you're sunk then you're like Philip Kennison in an article called there's no such thing as objective truth he says the object of objective truth even in church corrupts it

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I realize there are plenty of Christians who make it good sense to say the proposition

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Jesus is Lord the universe is Kennison is objectively true that is our temptation to insist that this is simply true whether we are anyone else believe it or not

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I have a question for you all church can anyone be neutral to the gospel let's get a neutral ground swing kinda go toe to toe but my question is can anybody be neutral is anyone neutral to Jesus no one can serve three masters right sorry no one can serve two masters you either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other how about this to grant the unbeliever neutrality one man says is like handing him a loaded gun why should believers be surprised when he turns around and uses it against them was the

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Bible true the Bible is not true how do you know it's written by men in a lot of different languages and you know there's a lot of corruption with the manuscripts and everything else yeah yeah now let me try to prove it you're handing him the gun to just shoot you down and say bang

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I usually do the same thing over and over I just say see how God created everything out there he created the moon and the sun and the stars and he made you too he made you in God's likeness and image and God also who's the creator he's also the judge and you're gonna stand before God one day and I know you're gonna die and then what and off we go we don't want to grant neutrality to the unbeliever how about this

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Proverbs 1 7 the fear of the Lord is what the beginning of wisdom or knowledge one man said the verse is not saying that the fear of the

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Lord is the result of having knowledge or that after a detailed examination of the data a person concludes that he ought to fear the

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Lord no the claim here is that unless one fears the Lord from the outset and subjects his mind to God's way of thinking and you could fill in the blanks if you have one doctrine to study in all the

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Bible that will help you in evangelism it'll be this doctrine what's that doctrine if you're in the class you can't say here's the doctrine that if you study you'll be a better evangelist you'll trust in God more and you'll be more biblical and you realize

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I can't talk to somebody about archaeology a I don't know it and be it's not gonna work anyway what's the one doctrine in all the

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Bible that if you know in your mind before you talk to an unbeliever you'll be glorifying

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God all the more there's one doctrine it starts with T two words the second word starts with D total depravity thank you

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Luke right on talk to your dad after the service buy him a sundae or something total depravity we're not talking to neutral people we're talking to bias people we're not talking to those who can understand and have objective analysis we're talking to people who love their sins so much that they fall and they've fallen in Adam they've fallen and they can't get up and if you realize people are so dead in their sins you realize that archaeology and carbon -14 dating and up the expanding size of the universe and all the data that you can give them isn't going to work when we buried my mom and we were just looking at her body in the casket we open up that casket and there was her shell

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I could have begged I could have pleaded I could have sang I we could have held her hand we could put her in in a heater we could have done all kinds of things but can you just imagine me trying to rationalize her alive by the use of archaeology black holes and other things it's not going to work why she's not in there she's dead the same thing we're talking to the walking dead

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I almost hate to date myself but I remember back in the seventies I watch that show the night of the living dead you know you kind of weren't supposed to so it made it extra like desirous the night of the living dead with zombies walking around we're walking we are ministering the gospel to zombies but they happen to be grandma happen to be a kid they happen to be our children and they are depraved they have fallen in Adam they are by sinners by their own choice as well and God says they are not just spiritually hungover they're spiritually dead their reasoning matter of fact let's go to just a one this is a

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Bible church so we should probably use our Bibles on Sunday night Genesis chapter 6 let me take you to two verses to remind you that when you use the

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Bible to evangelize you are pleasing God remember you're not trying to win the argument we said that this morning you're not trying to save the people only

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God can do that you're trying to be faithful to the scripture and the scripture says preach the word

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Jesus preached the word to unbelievers Peter preached the word to unbelievers Paul preached the word to unbelievers John the Baptist what did he do he talked about the molecular structure of the

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Jordan River components and how that could only be going from order and design not chaos

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Genesis chapter 6 verse 5 I mean it is just amazing especially for those that think somehow people are good here's the state of man and his resume before salvation then the

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Lord Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually partially depraved everything about the person their mind their will their emotions their everything is tweaked it's bent it's crooked crooked stick and the

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New Testament equivalent if you'll turn to Ephesians chapter 4 to be in our brains so we realize these people are spiritually dead and God says the only way he can say to the dry bones you know arise is to give them the gospel is to give them the

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Bible Ephesians chapter 4 verse 17 I call this the New Testament equivalent of Genesis 6 5 and we can look at all kinds of other verses

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Satan blinding people having no ability to change your own skin and leopards can't change their skin anything like that remove the spots you look at many verses but just two for tonight two sections

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Ephesians 4 17 so this I say and affirm together with the Lord you walk no longer just as the unbelievers are the

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Gentiles the pagans also walk in the futility of their mind being darkened in their understanding excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their heart and they having become callous having given them over them giving themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity and greediness and we're gonna try to talk them into heaven by discussing irreducible minimums

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I like Darwin's black box book by Michael Behe but if you give that to an unbeliever thinking that's gonna be used of God to save him or save her you've got another thing coming because we need the words of life we need the

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Bible our weapon is the Word of God why she that questions about that before we do the last one times times gone we're gonna do this last one anyway yes

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Luke question what psychology great question what psychology

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I don't know number three psychology really means at the at the basic level the study of the soul study of the person and how people think and act some psychology is good because we can find out why people do things and and I'll strike that we can we can we can look at their behavior we could say you know these rats if we ring a bell and feed them they ring a bell and don't feed them they still get saliva we can understand some of the behavior at least watch it but why

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I think psychology doesn't help in Christianity is because psychology can't help people say no to sin and yes to obey only the

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Bible can do that matter fact I can prove it by this point Luke if I give psychology to a

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Christian and a non -christian and both of them change I know it wasn't biblical because the change that the unbelievers heart was only superficial and only selfish

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I want change that is really real and only the Word of God can do that that's why Jesus said sanctify them in truth sanctify them in truth what's true thy word is true it all comes to finding out who

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God is and who man is and psychologists don't like to do that psychologists like to say that people are good so they've got bad anthropology they think about man the wrong way man is good therefore we have a whole system around that around that just like education today right humans are good then we need to affirm we need to confirm we need to come alongside and the

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Bible basically says men are evil therefore they need the gospel of course in love but the gospel but good question psychology can either be good or bad it's the study of the soul study the soul sounds good but it has to study of the sinful soul in the need of the grace of God okay last one this may be controversial but entire

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Bible's controversial so here we go sufficient for evangelism sufficient for counseling and number three sufficient for decision -making is the

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Bible sufficient for you making decisions I was reading about Mark Dever this week he said quote

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I was dumbfounded a pretty rare occurrence this fellow had just told me that his supervisor had assigned him the task to make a master plan for a new church plant and that when he prayed about it

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God told him to just use the words of Jesus red letters let me be clear he said that God told him that in his planning for this new church he was only to consult reflect upon and quote the words of Jesus he was in a full -time

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Christian organization and he had a masters of divinity what do you think of that God told me to use only the red letters of the

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Bible should you do that? turn your

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Bibles to Mark chapter 12 just for a second and this is almost I don't want to say it's a throwaway

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Mark chapter 12 verse 24 I believe that the Word of God is powerful and even though the

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Word of God is not going to tell me marry Cindy Lou who instead of marry Cindy, I almost thought

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Cindy Sheehan but I think she's already married Cindy Brown but the

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Bible gives us answers and it's very powerful do you see what

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Jesus said here Jesus said to them and I won't even get into all the context here you can study that on your own

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Jesus said to them is this not the reason you are mistaken that you do not understand the scriptures are what?

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are the power of God isn't that amazing? that is amazing to me you don't understand the scriptures are the power of God listen to what my old pastor said in Mark chapter 12 verse 24

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Jesus affirmed a very important thing in a sort of backhanded way Jesus said that to know the scripture is to experience the power of God Jesus was saying to know the scripture is to experience the power of God now listen people say they want power say they just want to give out the

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Bible it just doesn't have enough power we've got to have signs and wonders they say we just can't expect to live the

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Bible we've got to have a super natural power over demons and power over the devil power over disease power over this and we've got to be binding that and binding this calling on this and calling on that and demanding this and demanding that and sort of with this kind of mind controlling our environment but the scripture says that to know the scripture is to experience the power of God that is amazing to me that is revolutionary and I'm wondering why do we have decision -making books out and everything else does the scripture able to inform us do we take this job don't we take this job what do we do can we even come to the scriptures can we even come to God saying is your word sufficient for that what would you do someone says

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I don't know whether to take this job or that job what kind of advice would you give them knowing that I'm going to somehow relate it back to the sufficiency of scripture what would you tell them six

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W's okay do you happen to remember any of those that's pretty good well what

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Brian is referring to is a sermon we did here back in Ephesians about how to make decisions and work through that I'm impressed good for you okay what specifically would you tell them okay

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Luke I'll give it a chance I'll give it a try I said chance is there anything chance sorry

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Jesus used the word chance in Luke chapter 10 but he never said luck by chance this guy happened to walk by there's the

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Good Samaritan by chance from the human perspective Luke said just pick one just pick one and that's the one

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God wants you to do okay

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Luke is he's sliding more towards the sovereign will of God that if you pick one and say

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I do then you know that's God's will for your life it's kind of like do I marry this one or not you know people say is this

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God's will for my life to marry this girl say well is she a Christian yes is she have a high view of God yes and is she single yes she's good questions to ask by the way well is it

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God's sovereign will I don't know when you say I do then I'll know it's God's sovereign will seems to be his revealed will but his sovereign will we could talk about that a little bit let me just read you a few quotes of people that I respect and I think this will be insightful on how to make decisions in the book that we studied a little bit

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Wayne Grudem when facing a problem of genuine importance to our Christian life we can approach scripture with the confidence that from it

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God will provide us with guidance for that problem you believe that well let's build on this a little bit

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John Murray there is no situation in which we are placed no demand that arises from which scripture as the deposit of the manifold wisdom of God is not adequate and sufficient clowny the degree of certainty we have with regard to God's will in a situation this is worth the price admission tonight is directly proportion no to the degree of clarity we have as to how the

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Word of God applies to the situation repeat that the degree of certainty we have with regard to God's will in a situation is directly proportional to the degree of clarity we have as to how the

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Word of God applies to the situation if you've got a big decision to make and you come to me and say

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I don't know which one I should do I'll do it Brian says and say well what will give

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God more glory what is the word say what is wisdom say have you prayed for wisdom from God have you searched out wisdom from other people what are your desires but I'll also say this this week

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I just want you to study the Bible what parts of the Bible I don't know but I want you to read the Bible for about 15 20 hours and you just begin to read read sequentially read consecutively

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I'm reading through with the Old Testament now I'm in Samuel so just keep reading in Samuel and one thing will happen to you when you read the

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Word of God and what will that what will that be a lot of things will happen but in decision -making you will start thinking of things from God's perspective versus this whole world is revolving around me and if I make the bad decision what will

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I do what is going to happen oh there's so much stress and when you read the Bible all of a sudden you go whoa wait a second

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God is high and lifted up God's in control God's on the throne he does whatever he wants I mean how about this talking about getting a wife let's go to the book of Judges and let me try to rock your world with the book of Judges it is one of those world -rocking books the book of Judges where every man did what was right in his own eyes how could

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God control somebody in the book of Judges when they're doing the wrong thing all the time

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I mean how do you get a wife people try to use the Bible to say you know I'm gonna find the wife biblically okay here's a biblical example of how to get a wife

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Judges 14 it may not be righteous but it's in the

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Bible then Samson went down to Timna and saw a woman in Timna one of the daughters of the

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Philistines so he came back and told his mother and father with honor and respect and dignity

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I saw a woman in Timna one of the daughters of the Philistines now therefore get her for me as a wife then his father and his mother said to him you get on your bed for a spanking little mister no is there no woman among the daughters of your relatives or among all our people that you have to take a wife from the uncircumcised

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Philistines but Samson said to his father you could get stoned for this get her for me for she looks good to me she looks good you have a high view of God you say

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God I want to have a choice that pleases you I look at in scripture I see that you are high and lifted up it's not about my life it's not about my car it's not about my career it's about your glory and I wanna just honor you and glorify you you have to give me wisdom and I'm gonna have to make a decision no decision is the decision and I'm just gonna make that decision knowing from scripture that you are sufficient to make something good out of my bad decision you're so great that you can take even my ignorance stupidity sin are wrong decision -making and still it's not going to change your eternal decree so make an answer and go for it verse for however his father and mother did not know that it was of the

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Lord for he was seeking an occasion against the Philistines not that time the

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Philistines were ruling over Israel isn't that amazing the sin of Samson dishonoring his father and his mother what a shame especially of a

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Nazarite who's been beholden to God from the day he was in the mother's womb and all of a sudden we realize that the whole thing is just what men do unrighteously

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God righteously does and says you know this is all of God because God's gonna use Samson's bratty little attitude to say you know it's time to crush the

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Philistines I love that so we make a decision are the scriptures sufficient about do

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I take this job or not do I have the surgery or not yes because here's what you do you fled your mind with scripture you study over and over and over new job moving everything else in you prayerfully read your

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Bible and you say God you tell me what you want me to do and you want me here's what you want me to do you told me to make some decisions delight yourself in the

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Lord you give you the desires of your heart and you told me you're sovereign and I need to choose and I need to make a decision I've gotten wisdom from other people there's nothing we directly related to this in scripture and I don't have to sit there and wait and say

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God told me and then do all that you just say God has said live for me glorify me and it's time to step out like a man and act like men and make a decision okay

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I've gone too long questions on that feel like I'm all revved up nowhere to go

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Brian okay good worship as you go well what we do we have a decision that we can't make panic anxiety what am

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I gonna do how about you know what God you put me in the situation and you know I was gonna have to do this my friends don't know what to do my wife doesn't know what to do

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I don't know what to do God I love you you've loved me from the foundation of time and God I'm gonna worship you anyway you give you take away

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God there's nothing that's gonna happen that's gonna make me turn away from you and God just thank you that I can trust you you're merciful you're full of loving kindness you're patient you're forbearing you're just you're merciful and the list goes on and on and so therefore

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I praise you I'm gonna make the decision so it's good to worship while we're in the decision -making process because what we did before we were

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Christians was this you know biting our fingernails

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I mean when did we stop biting our fingernails probably the time we realize

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God's sovereign I believe the Bible is sufficient for everything you need whether you're preaching the gospel counseling somebody else or even having a decision should we have this experimental surgery or not you flood your mind with scriptures and say

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God we're just gonna do what's best you give me a mind you give me a reason you give me informed judgment and I'm just gonna have to do it for the glory of God and if everything goes haywire