Sola Scriptura

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The Bible is our only infallible rule for faith and practice.

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the 7th chapter of the Gospel of Mark.
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Mark chapter 7.
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And you can hold your place at verse 1.
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We'll be reading verses 1 to 13 in just a moment.
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Well, last week we began a new series of lessons entitled The Battle Cries of the Reformation.
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And we are examining the distinction between sound and strange doctrine.
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That was what we looked at last week.
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If you'll remember we said sound doctrine is that which is good and well and healthy.
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That which is true, that which is right, that which is in accordance with the Word of God.
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And strange doctrine is that which is foreign or outside or not found within God's Word.
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And Paul declares false doctrine to be anathema, meaning that it is to be cut off.
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And we believe that sound doctrine is found in the battle cries known as the five solas.
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We believe that to deny the five solas is to deny what the Bible clearly teaches.
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We believe that together they describe the salvation that God has provided.
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You'll remember we looked at this last week that salvation is grounded in sola scriptura.
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Salvation is explained in sola gratia, sola fidei, and solus Christus.
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And salvation is applied in soli Deo gloria.
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And so today we are going to look at the grounding of our faith.
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What the Reformers referred to as the formal principle of the Reformation.
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The formal principle of the Reformation which was sola scriptura.
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And we're going to ask the question, why is it that we stand upon the idea that the Bible is our only infallible rule for faith and practice? So let us stand together and hear God's Word from the Gospel of Mark.
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Now when the Pharisees gathered to Him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of His disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.
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For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the traditions of the elders.
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And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.
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And there are many other traditions that they observe such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.
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And the Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands? And He said to them, well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is written, the people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me.
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In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
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You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.
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And He said to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition.
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For Moses said, honor your father and mother and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.
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But you say, if a man tells his father or his mother, whatever you would have gained from me is korban, that is given to God.
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Then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.
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And many such things you do.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I pray now that as I seek to preach it, that you would keep me from error.
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As Lord, you know, I am a fallible man and I am capable of preaching error for the sake of your name, for the sake of your people, for the sake of those who will hear this message.
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Lord, keep me from error.
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I pray, God, that we would understand the doctrine of sola scriptura, what it affirms and what it denies.
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And Lord, that we would stand upon this solid rock of your word.
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And not be as those who shift with every strange doctrine that comes along.
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I pray, God, for this church, I pray that you would guide us into a greater love for your word and a greater love for one another.
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That you would forgive our sins and make us.
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More conformed to the image of Christ through the preaching of your word.
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And God, if there are those who are here.
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Who do not know you from the least to the greatest, Lord, I pray from the youngest to the oldest.
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I pray that you would stir hearts to trust in Christ today.
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In Jesus name.
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Amen.
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One of the most important dates in church history is October 31st, 1517.
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We celebrate it annually.
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On that day, Luther published the 95 Theses.
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Often we are reminded that he published them with a hammer and a nail.
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And sometimes people consider that an act of rebellion.
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That he would take and nail something to the door of the church.
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Not really realizing that that was, in that day, not necessarily an act of rebellion.
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But simply it was where notices were posted.
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And therefore, we make a big deal about the nailing of the 95 Theses.
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But what he was doing was he was publishing his arguments for all to see.
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And within just a few weeks of having put them on the door of the church.
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They had been copied and sent out abroad.
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And made their way into the German world.
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And later into the whole world.
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But what was the impetus behind this watershed moment? Well, many of you have heard me tell this story before.
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But I hasten to tell it again because we mustn't forget.
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That the reason for the Reformation is that corruption had arisen within the church.
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One of the greatest corruptions of the time was the sale of indulgences.
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Indulgences were essentially certificates of forgiveness.
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That were being sold by the church to the people.
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And they could not only purchase these certificates of forgiveness for themselves.
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But they could also purchase certificates of forgiveness for their lost loved ones.
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Who were already gone and died.
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Johann Tetzel was one of the purveyors of these indulgences.
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And he would go about the countryside.
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And from town to town he would hawk these certificates.
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And he had a phrase.
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Many of you have heard this phrase before.
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He would say, when a coin in the coffer clings, a soul from purgatory springs.
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And it rhymes as well in German as it does in English.
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And so he was known for being one of the best fundraisers for Rome.
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And by the way, if you've ever gone to Rome.
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And if you've ever stood in St.
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Peter's Basilica.
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Understand that that place which many regale as a place of beauty.
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Is actually a terrible place.
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As it was built upon the empty promises of false forgiveness.
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Which was sold to poor people who were extorted by the church.
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I say that without any fear of being told any different.
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This is absolutely what happened.
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Martin Luther took his pen.
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And he wrote 95 arguments.
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Now here's the thing that must be understood.
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These 95 arguments were not arguments for reformation.
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He didn't write about sola fide.
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He didn't write about sola scriptura.
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It was 95 arguments against the sale of indulgences.
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That was the concern.
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That this corruption had made its way into the church.
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In fact, I'll read just a few to you.
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Of the 95 theses, number 27 says this.
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They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest.
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The soul flies out of purgatory.
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He was directly addressing the quote of the day.
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He was saying they teach only the doctrines of men when they say that.
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Because that's not the doctrine of God.
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Number 36 says any truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt.
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Even without an indulgence letter.
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He says you can have forgiveness.
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You can have complete and full remission of penalty and guilt.
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And you don't need an indulgence letter.
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But my favorite is number 86.
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I have a tendency to engage in snark.
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In case you're not familiar.
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Don't believe it.
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No.
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I have a tendency to have somewhat of a snarkiness in my speech at times.
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Not attempting to be ugly.
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I believe you can be winsomely snarky.
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And so I seek to do so.
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But I consider number 86 Luther's snarkiness when he says this.
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Why does not the Pope whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest croccus build the Basilica of St.
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Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers? That was the throat punch.
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Why doesn't the Pope use his, he's already richer than the richest king.
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Why does he not take his own money and build that edifice? Well that was in 1517.
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In 1520, a papal bull, which was essentially a decree, an encyclical, a writing, was published.
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And it demanded that Luther recant what he had said.
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In the writing, the Pope compared Luther to a wild boar.
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He said, oh Lord, a wild boar has invaded your vineyard.
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Luther was given 120 days to recant and Luther in his, one might call German stubbornness, burned it in the middle of his city.
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So he was called to an imperial council.
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The imperial council you've probably heard of sometimes called the, you'll see it looks like it says diet of worms.
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Every year we do a little something with worms at our house.
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We'll get gummy worms or something just to remind the kids of the diet of worms.
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But actually it would be more better pronounced the diet of worms.
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If you want to be a little more specific how they would have said it, they would not, they would have not called it the diet of worms as we do.
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Well Luther began his trip on my birthday, April 2nd, 1521.
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He began his trip to Worms.
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Luther was commanded by the leadership to recant his writings and his teachings.
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And in his first appearance, he stood boldly and said, can I have a day to think it over? But you have to consider why Luther would make such a statement.
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Can I have a day to think it over? Not a century before at the council of Constance, Jan Hus was brought before a similar council and promised safe conduct, which means you can come, state your case, and leave freely no matter what happens.
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And yet he was not given that safe conduct.
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He was burned for his teaching.
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Luther himself had been called a Hussite, meaning that the church believed him to be teaching the same teachings as Jan Hus.
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So Luther knew what the consequences could be if he stood for the truth.
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So he said, give me a day to deliberate.
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And so he goes and he prays.
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And in his second appearance, he was commanded to recant.
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Like a good lawyer, he said, well, you're telling me to recant, but some of the things I have said have been completely agreed upon by all Christians.
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So if I recant everything, I would be recanting Christ himself.
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Good lawyer talk.
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But they would not accept any form of that.
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He was told quite clearly, do you or do you not recant? You must tell us now.
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And so Luther stiffened his lip and fastened his countenance.
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And he said, unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture or by clear reason, for I trust neither Pope nor counsel alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves.
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I am bound by the Scriptures I have cited, for my conscience is captive to the word of God.
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I cannot and I will not recant anything, since to act against one's conscience is neither safe nor right.
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I can do no otherwise.
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Here I stand.
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May God help me.
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Amen.
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With those words, Luther took a stand which would be heard around the world.
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But he also declared in that quote, the foundation on which the Protestant Reformation would eventually be built.
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And that is the foundation of sola Scriptura.
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I am bound by the Scriptures.
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My conscience is captive to the word of God.
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Thus was laid what became known as the formal principle of the Protestant Reformation.
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There are different ways, the language is different ways.
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This comes from Aristotelian forms of causation.
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There's what's known as the formal cause, the material cause, the efficient cause.
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And these are Aristotelian forms of description.
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And the material cause of the Reformation we will see in two weeks was the doctrine of sola fide.
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But the formal cause, the formal principle was the doctrine of sola Scriptura.
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That we cannot base our faith upon the traditions of men, but rather it must be founded upon the word of God.
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And here's the beauty of it.
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Luther did not come up with this concept out of thin air.
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Luther did not build this idea on his own.
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But this is directly linked to the teaching of the Lord Jesus himself.
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For if we go back to Jesus's day, we find that Jesus faced similar opposition, and we might even argue even greater opposition, when he faced the Pharisees and the scribes who came to him with their traditions.
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And Jesus rebuked them for following their traditions rather than the word of God.
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And so this is our text today where Jesus is having this conversation with the Pharisees.
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I want to walk through and make comments as we go.
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It says now in chapter 7 verse 1 again, it says now when the Pharisees gathered to him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they said that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.
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Now I have to very quickly make the point that they are not concerned with the hygiene of the apostles.
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Where if any one of us sat down at the dinner table with our moms and dads when we were younger, we were probably asked the question, have you washed your hands? Meaning you've had your hands in all kinds of stuff that you don't want to now be touching your food and touching the plate and touching my clean table.
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We want to have clean hands when we come to the dinner table.
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Jesus is not concerned.
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Neither are they concerned with hands that are defiled by dirt or some other form of refuse on the hands.
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That is not the concern here.
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What is the concern is that the Pharisees had established rituals, washing laws, washing traditions that had become commonplace among the Jewish people and they were demanded by the Jewish people though those things were not demanded in Scripture.
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These were what were called extra biblical traditions.
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Now we all have extra biblical traditions.
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We all have things that are in our lives that are not necessarily traditions that are derived from Scripture, but all of our traditions are subject to Scripture.
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And this is Jesus' point.
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He's saying you are laying upon someone else a command that's not in the Word of God.
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You are establishing a tradition and making it dogma, but that is not something that God commands.
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That is something that you have commanded.
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That is not a tradition founded upon the Word.
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That is a tradition founded upon your desires and will.
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So Jesus continues, or rather I'm sorry Mark gives us in verses 3 and 4, Mark gives us a commentary.
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You'll notice in the ESV it is in parentheses.
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This is a small commentary on what the Pharisees were doing.
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Notice it says, it says, For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders.
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And when they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash.
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And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.
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So they had all of these rituals that they did.
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All of these rituals that they applied to the time of eating.
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But Jesus' disciples did not follow these traditions.
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Jesus' disciples sat down and went to town.
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They didn't do that.
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They ate.
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And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the traditions of the elders, but eat with defiled hands? Now Jesus could give an answer.
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Jesus could say, Well, that is unnecessary.
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Or Jesus could say that this is not something that the Word of God commands.
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Or he could say, We have our own traditions.
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Or I'm establishing a new tradition.
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But rather than those things, Jesus chooses, as he often does, to not directly answer the question, but rather to propose a challenge back to his challengers.
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They come to him with a challenge.
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He turns the challenge back to them.
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And what he does is he quotes from Isaiah.
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This is from Isaiah chapter 29 and verse 13.
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He says, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
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In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
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That last phrase should strike us to the heart because that is the phrase, that is the issue that we're dealing with today.
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Can the traditions of men bind our souls? The answer is no.
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That's what Luther was saying.
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My conscience is captive to the Word of God.
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Not to your tradition.
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Not to creeds and councils and popes.
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But to what saith the Lord.
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And in verse 8, Jesus makes a tremendous attack when he says, You leave the commandments of God and hold to the traditions of men.
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See, not only have they added to the Word of God, not only have they added traditions which are not in the Word of God, but they have departed from God's commandments and replaced God's commandments with their own.
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Beloved, that is so common.
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We see this all throughout the cults.
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One of the earmarks of cultish behavior is to add unbiblical commandments to the Word of God and make those the focus.
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Make those the standard.
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Unless you do this our way, you are not pleasing God.
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And the Pharisees had these traditions.
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And Jesus says, You have left the commandment of God and you hold to the tradition of men.
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And then in verse 9, he gives an example of this grievous thing that they have done.
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And he talks about something called Korban.
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Korban is a word that is found in the Old Testament.
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And it is a word which means dedicated to the Lord.
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It is something that is given to the Lord.
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That's what the word Korban means.
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But notice what has happened here.
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And he said to them, verse 9, You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition.
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So Jesus is saying, Here's what you do.
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You're challenging my men for not washing their hands your way.
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You're challenging my men for not doing your traditions.
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But I tell you this.
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This is what you do.
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For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother.
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Where did Moses say that? In the Decalogue, right? In Exodus chapter 20.
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If we're going through the Ten Commandments by number, we would say that is commandment number five.
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Thank you.
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That was my test for the class.
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Moses said, Honor your father and mother.
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And whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.
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Do you remember that one, kids? I'm pausing.
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Do you remember that? Now, so the command to honor your father and mother is also given a punishment for not honoring your father and mother.
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And the command and punishment of the Old Covenant was he who dishonors mother or father can be dispatched.
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He can be executed.
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You know what's interesting? We don't find that anywhere.
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I mean, we know it could happen and maybe did happen.
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But maybe somebody can tell me where that's actually found.
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I don't find it anywhere.
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But it was certainly, I mean, an example of it, of it actually happening.
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And I wonder sometimes, did it ever happen? Did someone dishonor their parent to the point that they were taken out and executed for it? I don't know.
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But it was certainly within the law that it could be done.
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And by the way, what is Jesus quoting here again? Scripture.
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He's saying, you have a tradition, you have a command.
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But here's what the Bible says.
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Now, they wouldn't have said it that way.
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But that's the way we say it.
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Here's what the Bible says.
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Honor your father and mother and the one who reviles father and mother shall surely die.
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But you say, if a man tells his father or mother, whatever you would have gained from me is korban, that is given to God.
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Then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father and mother, thus making void the Word of God by your tradition.
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So what is happening here? This was a scheme, an absolute, horrific scheme that had made its way among the Jewish people of Jesus' day, where in an attempt to not care for aging parents, they had the ability to take whatever they had in their wealth and call it korban, or dedicated to God.
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Therefore, if their parents came in need, they could say, I can give nothing to you, for it is dedicated to God.
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Oh, but I get to use it.
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It's dedicated to God, though, so you cannot have it.
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Now, first of all, that's dirty.
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That's dirty pool.
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Second of all, I always like to point out, even though this is not the point of the text, Jesus is telling us something about our responsibility to our aging parents.
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As our parents age, it becomes incumbent upon us who are younger than them to care for them in their older age, and by not doing so, we are not following the command of God to honor our father and mother.
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So there is an importance of caring for our aging parents.
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But what a dastardly thing to say to the people, yes, if you want to avoid that, just say that everything that you have is korban, and then you don't have to.
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And Jesus says, what you have done is you have violated the word of God, and you have twisted the word of God, and you have created a commandment whereby you can allow people to actually break the word of God to keep your traditions.
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You see the danger.
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The danger that Jesus says is you've made void the word of God by your traditions.
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So I ask you, when Jesus is confronted with the idea of tradition, what standard does he hold up to the tradition and say this is the standard by which all tradition must be measured? The word of God.
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The word of God.
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Sola Scriptura does not say that we don't have traditions.
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Sola Scriptura does not say that we don't have confessions, that we don't have statements of faith, that we don't have unifying beliefs that gather us together as a church.
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Sola Scriptura is not denying those things.
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But what Sola Scriptura is saying is that every tradition and everything that we do must be measured by the word of God.
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And therefore, what we do in this church, what we do in our homes, what we do in our individual lives, in our collective lives, in our family lives, in our church lives, has a standard to measure against.
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And it is the standard of the word of God.
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That is the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.
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And understand this, it is opposed to the doctrine that we have.
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That is taught by Rome.
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Because if you look at the Roman Catholic system, which is the system that the Protestants were opposing, the Roman Catholic system denies Sola Scriptura.
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In fact, the Roman Catholic system says that there are actually three sources of authority.
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And the three sources of authority are all to be considered when we are determining what we are to do and not to do.
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That is not something that I am making up.
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I'm not establishing principle or precept on my own.
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I will quote to you directly.
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This is from the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation from Pope Paul VI, which was decreed in 1965.
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So this is not too long ago.
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So it isn't as if it's changed.
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This is less than a generation ago.
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And this is what was written in this Dogmatic Constitution.
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Quote, it is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, sacred Scripture, and the teaching authority of the church in accordance with God's most wise design are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the other, and that all together and each in his own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.
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Hear that again.
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It's not one source of authority.
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It's not one infallible authority, but it is three sources of authority.
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Notice what it said the three sources are.
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First, what they call sacred tradition.
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Second, sacred Scripture.
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And third is, in this quote, the teaching authority of the church, what might be referred to as the magisterium of the church, or the teaching arm of the church.
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So what you have, and I'll read another quote.
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This is from Dr.
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Marciali.
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Let me try that again.
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Marcelino de Ambrosia, writing on behalf of this belief, says, God has provided for us three gifts that together guarantee that we can always know with confidence the truth about God and his plan.
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It is not a question of which gift is more important than the others.
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Rather, Scripture, tradition, and magisterium together form a three-legged stool that is stable and reliable.
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Upon this stool, the church can rest.
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If any of the legs is taken away, however the stool collapses, the church falls and is fragmented.
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So they don't stand upon sacred Scripture.
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They stand upon a three-legged stool in which they say, if one leg is taken away, then the stool itself will collapse.
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And notice what he said they are.
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The three legs of the stool, Scripture, tradition, and the magisterium.
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Consider for a moment, though, where Scripture ends up in that paradigm.
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Because the magisterium is the teaching authority of the church.
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Therefore, if the magisterium says, Scripture says this, even if the Scripture doesn't say it, the magisterium is the authority.
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They get to determine what it says.
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So if they say the Scripture teaches that Mary was a perpetual virgin, then we have to believe Mary was a perpetual virgin, even if the Bible doesn't teach that.
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If they teach that we are to understand the doctrine of the table as transubstantiation, even if the Bible doesn't teach transubstantiation, they say you have to believe that.
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Why? Because they have another source of authority.
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And their source of authority is the magisterium and tradition, which causes the Scripture itself to become subservient to those things.
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And rather than standing as a source of authority on its own, it stands subject to the other two sources, which are able to and have by certain recognition added to what the Scripture says.
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You understand, even in just the subject of Mary.
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You know what Roman Catholics believe about Mary? They believe that she was sinless.
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That's the doctrine of the immaculate conception.
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The immaculate conception is not about Jesus.
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They believe Mary was born without sin.
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That's called the doctrine of the immaculate conception, that Mary was born without sin, therefore she could be the sinless bearer of the Son of God.
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That's not in the Bible, but is dogmatically affirmed and required to believe in the Roman Catholic system.
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They believe that Mary did not die, but rather she was assumed into heaven.
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As Jesus ascended into heaven, so did Mary.
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They believe that she was a perpetual virgin.
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Not that she was a virgin prior to the birth of Christ, but that she remained a virgin, which creates two problems.
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One, Jesus had brothers and sisters, so either Joseph had another wife, or he came into the marriage with children, if Mary was a perpetual virgin.
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But also she would be breaking the very law of God, because the Bible says, if a woman or a man hold back conjugal relationship from their spouse, they are in sin.
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Try that one with the Roman Catholic.
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They won't like that one too much.
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But I'm just saying, does it not say that? That the wife's body is not her own, and the husband's body is not his own, and that they can hold back intercourse for a time, but if they do so perpetually, that that is a problem? Again, probably not going to convince anyone of that, but you understand the issue.
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All of these traditions are not founded in Scripture, but they are laid upon the Scripture, and they're commanded to be believed.
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The Reformers repudiated these ideas, and said there cannot be equal authority between Scripture, tradition, and the magisterium.
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But one authority must be the one authority against which everything else must be measured.
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And one of the things that the Reformers wanted to do was they wanted to put the Scripture into the hands of the common man, not so that the common man could distort it, even though they knew that was going to happen.
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Even Luther admitted, if you give the common man the Scripture, he's going to distort it.
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But so be it, because if you give the common man the Scripture, he can compare what he's being taught to the Scripture.
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And the Scripture become the final authority.
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You remember last week I gave you a definition of all of the solas.
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It's on the back of your bulletin still.
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We're going to leave it there throughout the series.
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On the back of the bulletin we have the definition of sola scriptura.
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I want to read it to you again and remind you.
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It has an affirmation and a denial.
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This comes from the Cambridge Declaration, which is published by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.
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The first is the affirmation.
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And remember it comes in the form of a reaffirmation.
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We reaffirm these things to be true.
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We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture.
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What does inerrant mean? It means it is without error.
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The Bible is true.
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We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation.
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Notice that it says written divine revelation.
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Written is the method.
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Divine is the source.
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Revelation is the product.
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We do not have prophets in the church today who are speaking God's Word as God speaks directly through them.
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Even though I would say, and this may sound kind of weird to you, but in the gifts of the Spirit, I would say the gift of the Spirit that I have is the gift of prophecy, which means to proclaim God's Word.
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That's not the same as the prophets of old who spoke God's Word directly.
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So we would make a distinction there in regard to how spiritual gifts are broken down and the gift of prophecy means to proclaim God's Word.
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But in the prophetic time, Old Testament and New Testament, those prophets spoke God speaking through them.
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Now we have God speaking through His Word.
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God speaks through the written divine revelation.
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And so what's my job? My job is to read the Word and help you understand it by the power of the Spirit.
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That's it.
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Notice the next phrase, which alone can bind the conscience.
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Almost directly taken from Luther's statement when he says, my conscience is what? Bound to the Word of God.
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This means it establishes a standard.
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I will not be judged by your traditions.
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And you ought not be judged by mine.
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We ought to be judged by the Word of God.
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I will not be judged by anything other than what God has said.
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As Luther said, my conscience is captive to the Word of God.
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The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured.
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How do you know that you are saved, beloved? Because of the testimony of the Word of God.
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And when it comes to salvation, don't you need a sure word? Don't you need a word from the living God that tells you that if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, thou shalt be saved? Isn't it good that that didn't just come to you by word of someone's mouth, but rather from the hand of God in His Word written to you, kept for you down through the generations and handed to you that you can look at and you can read where it says if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved.
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We don't trust our eternity to tradition.
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We trust our eternity to the Word of God.
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The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured.
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I just got finished teaching our ethics class.
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Boy howdy, what a class.
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I did it two years ago, I did it this time.
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When I'm done, I'm tired.
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Because there's a lot of questions that come up in ethics classes.
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We talk about life ethics.
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We talk about death ethics.
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We talk about war ethics.
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We talk about money and economic ethics.
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But always our standard is not the Constitution, as good a document as it is.
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That's not our standard.
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It's the Word of God.
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That's our standard.
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That's what we have to go back and measure our behavior against.
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The Bible is our sole infallible rule for faith and practice.
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And practice is important.
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What we do, it matters.
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And while the Bible may not teach you how to change a flat tire, it can certainly tell you how to change a flat tire to the glory of God.
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Amen.
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A danger is when men add their preferences to God's Word, and that becomes Christian ethics.
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That's not Christian ethics.
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That's the ethics of men applied over and against the Word of God.
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So those are the affirmations.
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Let me quickly go through the denials.
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Sola Scriptura affirms those things and denies these things.
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We deny that any creed, council, or individual may bind a Christian's conscience.
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Listen, I want to say this clearly.
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This does not mean that we don't recognize the importance of church history.
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And it does not mean that we don't recognize the importance of our spiritual ancestors who came together to consider things like the deity of Christ, and justification, and the nature of man, and all of these things that came before.
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And we are blessed to be the recipients of their writings.
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And we do stand on the shoulders of giants when we stand because we have men and women who came before us, who stood on the Word of God and taught.
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And we have their teachings.
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But understand this.
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No creed, no council, no confession trumps the Word of God.
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And when somebody asks you what you believe, it is my opinion, and you may not share it, and you can tell me how I'm wrong.
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But if somebody asks you what you believe, it is better that you say chapter and verse of the Bible than you say chapter and verse of the confession.
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And that doesn't mean you shouldn't know the confession.
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That doesn't mean you can't study the confession.
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But when the confession becomes your answer rather than the scripture, we have found ourselves in a difficult place now because we found ourselves very similar to where Rome is, saying here's our tradition and this is our standard.
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The tradition is not the standard.
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The tradition is measured against the standard.
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It is the norm of norms against which all other things are to be normed.
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That's a Latin phrase.
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It's a little weird, norma numans, which means it is the standard against which all other standards must be measured.
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It's the rod.
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That's why we call it the canon.
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The canon, it's the measuring rod.
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Everything is to be measured against it, even our confession.
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And if our confession says something that isn't true, guess what? The Bible's right.
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That's right.
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And if we can't affirm that there can be errors, even in our confession, then we have placed the wrong thing at the preeminent point.
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So we deny that any creed, council, or individual may...
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Oh, by the way, real quick.
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Y'all can blame Judah.
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Because last Sunday he came to me.
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I love you, Judah.
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He said, you know, you could just keep preaching.
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We love it.
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So first of all, thank you, and I love you.
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But if I go long, you can say, I'll tell you, Judah told me I could.
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Like, we hold to the Nicene Creed, right? We believe the Nicene Creed properly reflects the Word of God.
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But the Council of Nicaea dealt with other things other than the Nicene Creed.
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The Council of Nicaea dealt with things like the dating of Easter.
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Like, do we really hold to that as, like, dogmatic from God and demanded upon us that we hold to a certain day? No.
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See, I'm saying we evaluate these things by what? By the Word of God.
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Everything.
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Even if it starts with Westminster or 1689.
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So we deny that any creed, council, or individual may bind a Christian's conscience.
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That the Holy Spirit speaks independently or contrary to what is set forth in the Bible.
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Or that personal spiritual experience can ever be a vehicle of revelation.
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We've had this happen.
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People come in here.
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I've had, Mike remembers, Andy remembers, some of you remember, a person walked in here one morning.
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It was during Sunday school.
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I have a word from God for your congregation.
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Chapter and verse, please.
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No, God has spoken to me.
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We don't want to hear it.
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Because if what you are saying agrees with God's Word, then we don't need it.
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And if what you're saying disagrees with God's Word, we don't want it.
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The danger of today is men and women who stand up and say, God spoke to me.
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And they say things that are not in His Word.
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The standard of standards is the Word of God.
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This is the bar against all things, against which all things must be measured.
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That's what we're saying.
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And that's where we stand.
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The principle of Sola Scriptura is simply this.
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We have a standard and it's not Rome.
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It's not the Pope.
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It's not tradition.
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It's not a body of verbal doctrines that have been passed down secretly throughout the history of the church.
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And it's not even creeds and confessions, as helpful as they may be.
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Our standard is the written Word of God, because it is the Word of God and nothing else that qualifies to trump all other things.
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And nothing sits in a place of equality with it.
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So I ask you this, as I close, are you currently trusting your life and your eternity to something other than the Word of God? Are you currently placing your hope and the foundation of your faith in something other than what God's Word teaches? Are you currently finding your sure salvation in a promise that comes to you outside of God's Word? I would tell you, repent and turn from that and trust what the Word of God says.
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Most specifically, in John 14, 6, where Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.
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Let's pray.
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Father, we thank you.
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We thank you for your Word.
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We pray even now, Lord, that as we consider the importance of the Word and the fact that your Word is the only infallible rule of faith and practice that we have.
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Lord God, that you would minister to our hearts now that we would trust in your Word and not in some other extra biblical source.
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That we would not try to find our salvation or our hope outside of what you have revealed, but that we would trust in the revelation of the Word of God.
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And Lord, you have revealed in your Word that you sent forth your Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he would redeem those who are under the law and give us salvation as sons.
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So now, O God, I pray that as we again remember his sacrifice, that we remember, Lord, that it was on that cross where Jesus died that the wrath of God was satisfied.
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That we, O God, would be moved in our heart to closer conformity to our Lord Jesus Christ.
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That our consciences would not be bound by the traditions of men, but that they would be captive to the Word of God.
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In Jesus' name, amen.