The Doctrine Of Perspicuity

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We're going to take a few moments this morning to look at a doctrine, which you may not have thought about too much lately, that the doctrine of perspicuity.
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And I'll wait five seconds while you all say, what? Yeah, bless you.
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Thank you. There has been, since Christianity began on the day of Pentecost, there has been the idea that somehow either that the scripture is not complete, it is not sufficient, there's got to be something more which is hidden, which only the in crowd know about.
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All of these ideas have been floating around. Some of the New Testament anyway was written to refute what are called the
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Gnostic heresies. And the idea that there's hidden meaning somewhere. And what you hear now going around all about the
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Da Vinci codes and this, that, and the other thing, that's nothing new. That's just the Gnostic heresies resurfacing again, which they have done periodically over the last couple of thousand years.
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But there is an idea that scripture is somehow unclear, that the message of scripture is variable, there's lots of different interpretations, there's no fixed meaning.
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And of course, this goes right along with postmodernism anyway, which says there's no fixed meaning to anything, that words do not have fixed definitions, words do not have fixed meanings.
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And that so whatever something means, it means whatever the reader wants it to mean.
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There's no attempt to try to comb out what did the writer mean.
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And so this view has also gone along as long as the
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Roman Catholic Church has been in existence. The idea that the scripture was much too difficult for the poor slob in the pew, not that I'm not referring to you as slobs, okay?
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That the poor person in the pew could not possibly understand the scripture, but only the elite could understand what the scripture meant.
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And therefore, only the magisterium of the church were qualified to interpret scripture and that the priest would stand up and tell you what a passage meant.
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And if you have this idea that you're working with, naturally,
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I can find anything I want within the pages of scripture. Because if I have set myself up as the authority of what the scripture says, and I want to come up with some off -the -wall doctrine,
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I can point to a passage and say, see, this says that. And then you can say, well, it doesn't say that to me.
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And I said, well, it says that to me. And I tell you what it says. It says that because I say it says it.
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That sort of thing. And then today, this is nothing new today. We have the so -called emergent church, among other things that is emerging.
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But they've come full circle. And they also, the scripture is unclear. It has many possible meanings.
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And we certainly cannot use it as an absolute standard. But let's look for a moment at what the
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Bible says of itself. The word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and the spirit and the joints and the marrow, and is a critic of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
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The Bible says it gives light. The entrance of thy word giveth light. It giveth understanding unto the simple, at Psalm 119, 105.
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The word of God is profitable, Paul says to Timothy. It's profitable.
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It produces good results. It explains salvation, at 2 Timothy 315.
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It's able to make you wise unto salvation. The scripture is addressed to ordinary people.
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Deuteronomy, hear, O Israel. The Lord our God is one God. It's addressed to the ordinary people of Israel.
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It can be understood by children. Just beyond that verse that is quoted in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 6 says, you are to teach the precepts of the scripture, of the holy scriptures, to your children.
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You're supposed to teach them when they're getting up, when they're going to bed, when they're walking along.
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And everything is supposed to be used as a teaching opportunity to teach the scripture to your children.
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One person that sticks in my mind as being able to do that to anything is my mother. My mother can make a spiritual application out of anything.
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I mean, things like peeling carrots, she can make a spiritual application out of that, which she has done to many young women over time.
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But anyway, it can be understood by children. Paul said to Timothy, from a child, you've known the holy scriptures because your mother and your grandmother taught you the holy scriptures.
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It's a test of religious ideas. New ideas are constantly coming down the pike, or old ideas are constantly getting recycled.
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And our criteria for which of these ideas have validity is to be the
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Bible. It's to be the holy Bible. And so the
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Bible also says of itself that it is truth, with capital T. That's John 17, 17.
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It is that which sets men free, is the scripture. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
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That's one of the more misquoted verses of time. Some people put that up over libraries and things like that without a clue as to what it means.
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It is the truth that God reveals in his word that sets men free from the bondage of sin.
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And so the term word of God, or thus saith the
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Lord, or something of that nature, is used over 2 ,000 times in the Old Testament. God spoke through his prophets in the
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Old Testament of what would come out. Here would come Jeremiah, thus saith the Lord, and then he would start it. Or Daniel, or Isaiah, thus saith the
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Lord. That's over, and over, and over, and over used in the Bible, everywhere from Genesis chapter 1 all the way to Malachi.
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And then it kept going in the New Testament. There's over 40 references to the
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Bible. The scripture refers to itself as the word of God in the New Testament over 40 times.
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First of all, it is equated with the Old Testament. It is given the same weight that it has in the
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Old Testament. That's Mark 7, 13. It's what Jesus preached.
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Jesus preached out of the Bible, and the Bible that he had was the Old Testament. And so that's what
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Jesus preached. That's what the apostles taught. It was preached by Peter to the
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Gentiles in Acts chapter 11. It was preached by Paul on all of his missionary journeys, wherever he went.
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He preached the Bible. And finally, James commands his readers to apply the scripture,
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James 1, 22. The scripture also says of itself that it is not to be twisted or abused.
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That's 2 Peter 3, 16, 2 John 9, and Jude 4. Now, why is this?
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It's because scripture and the person of God are one and the same. They are everywhere interrelated.
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What is true of one is true of the other. And so when you attack one, you are attacking the other.
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When you are attacking the veracity of scripture, when you are attacking the completeness of scripture, when you are attacking the sufficiency of scripture, you are attacking those same characteristics in God himself.
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When you say that the scripture is not, there are portions of the scripture that aren't true. We usually, people usually point to Genesis, the
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Genesis account of creation. Well, that's just a story. Well, if that's just a story, then you are attacking the one who said that this is what happened.
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And if you go to say, well, Genesis is just a story, but there are certainly valid moral principles that we can gain out of the scripture, out of the
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Bible. Well, how do you know which ones they are? Where does the story stop and the valid principles begin?
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It's sort of an all or nothing deal that you have to deal with. And so when you attack or challenge the clarity of scripture, you are challenging
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God's ability to communicate with his creation clearly.
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Now, the issues are, has God spoken? And we say, of course, yes,
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God has spoken. Has God spoken truthfully? And we say, yes, when
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God speaks, it is truth. It is true truth, to use Schaeffer's term.
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Has God spoken clearly? Has God spoken in a manner that is appropriate to his creation?
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And the answer we say to that is also yes. That God is a God that communicates.
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Even before creation, the three persons of the Godhead were communicating among themselves.
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And so God is a God of reason. And God created his universe and placed us in it.
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And it is reasonable for us to assume that God is going to communicate with his creatures in a way that is appropriate to them and that can be understood by them.
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We do not have a God that is playing hide and seek with his truth. It's not a
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God who says, I've hidden my message. I have a hidden message here.
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And let's see if you're smart enough to dig it out. No, we have a
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God who says, this is my message, clearly stated and propositional truths.
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And we have assembled it, and we call it now the Bible. And this is what God wants to say to us.
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And it's remarkable. This book right here, out of all of the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of books that have been written and the millions of words that have been placed on the page, this right here is what
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God has to say to us. And it's everything we need for life and godliness.
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And it's stated clearly. It's stated in a fashion that we can understand.
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Little children can understand it. Old people can understand it. God has communicated to us, and it's not hidden in there.
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Scripture reveals God to man. Scripture reveals man to himself.
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And Scripture produces results. It produces transformative results.
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Scripture changes things. Scripture changes things when it's applied.
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Scripture is direct. Scripture is unambiguous. Scripture is sufficient. Scripture is progressive from Genesis to Revelation.
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It's one complete whole. It's the story of God's dealing with man. It's the story of two events in human history, the first and second advent of Jesus Christ.
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Now, not every passage is equally clear. There are some passages which are hard to understand, to use
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Peter's phrase. And Peter was speaking of the current writings of Paul the
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Apostle. He says, our brother Paul is writing down stuff that you've got to work at to understand this.
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But that's not what the doctrine of perspicuity or the doctrine of clarity. It does not demand that each and every passage to be equally clear, for the overall message of the
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Scripture to be clear. The doctrine of perspicuity does not negate the need for the exposition by pastor -teachers.
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You say, now what about the verse that says you don't need for any man to teach you? Well, we'll get to that.
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But the pastor -teacher is one of God's gifts to his church.
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We do need men to exposit the truth to us.
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In fact, one of the characteristics, one of the principal requirements to be an elder in his church is the ability to teach.
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That's the primary thing that sets deacons and elders apart, is that the elder must be able to teach.
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The deacon serves. And neither job is more important than the other. Both are required in his church.
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The doctrine of perspicuity or clarity of the Scripture also does not negate the ministry of the
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Holy Spirit. Because to be able to receive and apply scriptural truth to your life requires the ministry of the
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Holy Spirit. One of the points I'll touch on a little bit later is that one of the things about the
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Scripture is that the message can be understood even by the unsaved. By a person who is just intellectually honest, that's all that's required, can read the
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Scripture and understand what the message is. They may not believe the message.
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They may not apply the message. But they can understand it. That here is someone who claims to be
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God, who is saying that the only way to come to me is through the person of my son. They can grasp that message.
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There are plenty of professors in schools of theology around the countryside who perfectly well understand what the
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Scripture says. They're not saved. But they certainly have an intellectual grasp of the message.
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But what's the difference between someone like that and one of you?
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It's that the Holy Spirit has ministered in your life. You have been regenerated and the
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Holy Spirit applies the Scripture to your life. So what does the doctrine of clarity or the doctrine of perspicuity mean?
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First of all, it means, and this is critical, it means that the Scripture is clear enough for the simplest person to live by its precepts.
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That's Psalm 19, 7. The Word of God makes wise the simple.
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The Word of God makes wise the simple. So that the simplest person that exists can grasp the truth of the
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Scripture and can apply that message to their lives. That's the central point of the doctrine. The Bible is also deep enough to keep the greatest intellect fully engaged with its entire life.
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You know, you can go through all of your life, spending all of your time studying the
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Word of God and you will not scratch the surface of what that book has to teach you. And you will never master the
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Bible. Because as the verse that I first opened with, the Word of God is alive.
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Well, things that are alive grow. And you will have the experience as you go through your
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Christian life that you will read a passage that you have read a hundred times before, a thousand times before, and all of a sudden there's something new there.
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Well, the Bible hasn't changed, but you've changed. And so the
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Bible is a constantly revealing itself to you as the Holy Spirit works in your life.
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But the things that are necessary for salvation are few, simple, and obvious.
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And providing that the reader approaches Scripture with a humble and a teachable disposition, they will be revealed to him.
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They can be grasped. And as I said, there's enough there to keep the most learned scholar busy for his entire lifetime without coming close to an exhaustive knowledge of the
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Bible's single volume. Now, the next thing, the third thing is
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Scripture is clear in essential matters. There are great debates that go on over which translation should we use because we have come from the time where individuals were being burned at the stake, literally, because they were printing the
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Bible in common languages. The Bible was no longer written only in Latin.
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You know, they were actually writing it in English and things of that sort. We've come from that point to the point to where we have an embarrassment of riches.
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I would be willing to guess that everyone here has probably got, on average, five or six, a half dozen
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Bibles in your house, probably more than that. And we've got the King James, and we have the
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Revised Standard, and we have the English Standard, and we have the American Standard, and the
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New American Standard, and the New King James, and it goes on and on and on, and the NIV, and whatever.
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But as James White points out, any good translation, the plan of salvation will come through clearly to any of those.
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God is not trying to hide his message. God is proclaiming his message. God's message is not something that has to be dug out by people, and I'll say, well, we've applied modern computer techniques to the
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Bible, and here's these messages that were hidden. Well, what did the poor guys do before we invented the computer?
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For the 2 ,000 years before we had computers, were they all in the dark?
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Well, the interesting thing is that these computer programs, you may have heard about them, if you have the knowledge of a language, and this applies to any language, languages have patterns in the way they use words, in the way they use letters, and all of those things.
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And if you have a knowledge of those patterns, and that's a whole field of study to itself, you can indeed write a computer program that will take one piece of text and will generate new text from that.
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And here are these hidden messages, and people have done that, in fact, to the Bible. The thing of it is, you can take any book in English and apply the same program, the algorithm, to it, and you'll get messages out of that, too.
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So it has only to do with the knowledge of the way that language works to make this work.
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God has not buried his message deep within the scripture where only the select few can dig it out.
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He has made it clear for the simplest person to understand. And so the good news is clear.
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The good news is set down in clear and ambiguous propositional statements.
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What is required for salvation? And so the fourth point is any obscurity that a reader might find in the scripture is the fault of the reader.
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It's the fault of the reader. After all, we are fallen. We are fallen.
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At best, we are sinners saved by grace. And so we still labor and have to deal with the truth of our fallenness.
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And so if we're having trouble grasping a certain passage of scripture, the fault, dearly beloved, is ours, not the writer of the scripture.
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And so the next thing that we will turn to is that the interpreter of the scriptures must use what we call ordinary means to understand what is being written.
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The Holy Spirit used human writers. I mean, he could have handed it down from heaven, completely engraved on tablets of gold.
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But that would have been very heavy, for one thing. But he didn't. He used human writers.
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And they were not automatons. They were not merely taking down dictation because the personalities of the writers comes through when you read the
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Bible. The writers vary. You have kings. You have shepherds.
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You have warriors. You have theologians, all of whom wrote in what we now call the
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Holy Bible. And these men all did the same thing.
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They all used words. They all used grammar. They all used syntax to put their meaning down on paper.
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And it is our job today, as we study the Word of God, to determine what did the writer intend?
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What does it mean to me? That's irrelevant. It's what did the writer intend?
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And why is that important? Because the writer is putting down what the Holy Spirit intends for him to say.
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And so if this is what God is saying, we want to know what God says. And frankly, what it means to me is irrelevant.
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It has no application. And so that's the other thing that we keep stressing in this church, is that this is the
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Word of God. It's not just a textbook. It's not just a great work of literature, although it is.
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It's one of the greatest works of pure literature that's ever been put down. But that's not what makes it important. What makes it important is the fact that this is
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God speaking. God has spoken. God has revealed himself to us.
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What he wants us to know about himself, he has set down in the pages of Scripture.
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And we live in a marvelous time because we have the complete canon of Scripture. We are not some nomad wandering around in the desert that has to rely upon the occasional visions of a prophet, or we have to rely on dreams, or any of those other methods that God has used in the past to communicate with his people.
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We have it all written down in the finished canon of Scripture. We really live, we really have the advantage.
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And so the, back to my, where was
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I? Oh, yes, my point. They used words and grammar and syntax to convey meaning. And so a modern interpreter of the
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Scripture has to use the same tools to determine what did the writer mean.
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We're not going to go seek after hidden meanings buried in the text because, as I said before,
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I said earlier, God isn't playing hide and seek. God isn't playing hide and seek. He didn't bury the message and then say, you go see if you can find it.
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And as I pointed out earlier, even the unsaved can understand the message.
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If they approach the text with just intellectual honesty, without some agenda of what they intend to find there, they can understand what it says.
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That is, they can comprehend the message, even if they do not submit to it. But the difference being that an unbeliever cannot apply biblical teaching to his own life because apart from the ministry of the
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Holy Spirit in our lives, we cannot do that. We cannot launch
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Operation Bootstraps and reach down and pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps just because we want to.
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It requires the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And this is why God is sovereign over this whole process.
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Lots of folks may understand the message. That is, they understand what the words mean. But to apply that message,
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I would say the converse is also true. There are lots of people in the world who probably don't understand all of the nuances.
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But they do understand the key, which is that we are sinners.
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Jesus Christ died in our place. And by putting our faith in him, we can have eternal life.
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They got that part. And even if they missed some of the subtleties, you know. And so any reader must have his mind illuminated by the
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Holy Spirit. That is essential. If you are going to grasp the significance of the scripture, that's 1
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Corinthians 2 .14. But we also have the knowledge and the confidence that the
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Holy Spirit is available to us. This is what Jesus said to his disciples as he was about to leave.
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He said, I'm going away. But in my place, there will come another comforter. And one of the jobs of the
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Holy Spirit is what? He will lead you into all truth.
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He is going to impress upon your lives. He is going to apply to your lives what
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I have been teaching you. Because even at this point, where Jesus is about to go to heaven, the disciples, they still haven't really gotten the message.
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They still are pretty much clueless as to what's going on. It's starting to dawn slowly that maybe what we thought was going on isn't, that we had it wrong, that Jesus isn't going to overthrow the
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Romans and set up a new kingdom here on Earth. But they still are not really clued in to what's going to happen.
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But as time goes by, we pass the day of Pentecost, and these men continue to develop the
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Holy Spirit ministering to their lives. Not only do they begin to get the message, they begin to write the message down so that we can have the message.
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And so every Christian has the responsibility and the privilege of reading and interpreting the
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Bible for themselves. And like we say, that does not preclude the need for you to assemble yourselves together with like -minded believers.
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It does not preclude the necessity to have a pastor teacher. It does not preclude the necessity to have teaching elders in the church.
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But nonetheless, each one of you, under the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer, each one of you is your own priest.
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And it is your responsibility to also read and study.
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And I don't mean read just to get the pages turned. It's to read, it's to think about, it's to meditate on, it is to interpret the scripture for yourself.
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And you see, this is where we have a total change or a total rejection of some of the other models that have been used, where it is no longer the idea that those of us who are the professionals or those of us who are the experts, those of us who have been theologically trained and all of those things, it's not our job exclusively to dig out the truth of the word, which we then deliver to you and you just accept.
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That's not the way it works. It is our job to minister to you, yes, but it is your responsibility under the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer to read the word for yourself.
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And as I pointed out earlier, men have died for this principle, so that you can do that. For the idea that you could have a
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Bible in your hands that you could read because it's written in the language that you speak.
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It's not written in some obscure ecclesiastical language that only the scholars can read.
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It's written in the common language. And so, every one of you can get out there and read this and the
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Holy Spirit will help you apply that to your lives. Now, it is absolutely essential that we have confidence in our
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Bible. We must have confidence in our Bible. This is critical to the life and the mission of the church.
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Now, why? Because, first of all, you need to have assurance that you can rightly understand what the
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Bible is going to say to you. Deeper way, the message that you have for us in your word.
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We would pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Midan, Midian, Ishbek, and Shua, and they were all sons of Abraham.
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Why is Isaac the one? Because God chose. I, by application of what we're going to call the ordinary means,
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I can get this message and I can be sure of it in that. Or is it possibly something else?
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But that I can be sure of what it is. Because otherwise, how can I apply divine instruction to my life if I'm not sure what that divine instruction is?
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When I was in active service, orders would come from our commanding officer.
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And those orders were always, you know, concisely written, very concise, very clear, no mistakes, and no chance for error.
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Why? Because he knew what he wanted us to do. But if he was not clear, who knows what we would have done as we go and try to carry out, we thought we were carrying out his orders, but he was not clear.
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Well, God is the same way. God is very clear and he communicates to us so that we can have confidence that, yes, this is what
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God intends for us to do. You know, the plan of salvation. What's the first thing
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God commands us to do? It's, come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. And then what other things does he tell us to do?
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Go ye and all the world, preach the gospel. Assemble yourselves together. Don't forsake the assembling together of yourselves.
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And on and on it goes. Clear, concise statements. But we have to have confidence in those. Otherwise, how can we apply this to our lives, much less encourage other people to apply it to their lives if we can't have confidence in that?
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The second thing is an ambiguous Bible can only produce indefensible doctrine.
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There are some strange doctrines out there floating around.
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Weird ideas. You wonder, where did these people come up with this? But how do we know?
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How do we know that this latest thing that came floating down the pike isn't valid? Well, we do what the
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Bereans did. We go pick up the book and look it up. Is that in here? You know, even
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Paul, you know, if you're going to believe anybody, you believe Paul, right? Even Paul says, he commends the
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Bereans. When I showed up preaching the gospel, the first thing they did was get out the scrolls, get out the book, and say, is what this man is saying in the book?
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Yes, it is. Therefore, it's the truth. And we'll follow it. But that's what you have.
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You have to have confidence. The Bereans had confidence in the book. You know, when
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Paul first showed up, they'd never seen Paul before. They didn't know Paul, but they knew the book.
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Well, we apply the same thing in our modern day. You know, there's always somebody new coming down the pike that we've never heard of before.
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But even if we've never heard of this person, we've got the book. And so we can use that as the standard.
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The book is the standard. The Bible is the standard. And so all believers, one of the things that we are commanded to do is to know and defend and apply sound doctrine.
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We are to know what sound doctrine is. I know that you've heard many times that when
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Secret Service agents are trained in currency, you may not know that the principal job of the
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Secret Service, believe it or not, is not protecting the President. It's protecting the money supply of the United States. And what they do is they teach these agents, they don't teach them and show them what phony money looks like.
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They show them what the real thing looks like. They study the truth, the real currency, the real bills, so that they know how to recognize the false.
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And we do the same thing. We study the Bible. We study what the scripture says, so that we can recognize false doctrine.
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Some of it is pretty easy to recognize. Some of it is hard to recognize. Because, in fact, the doctrines that do us the most damage,
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I think, are the ones that are only subtly off the track. You know, it's not that difficult to recognize somebody that's really out in left field.
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But it's this person that's only about 15 degrees off the proper course line that's hard to deal with.
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Because the error takes time. You know, if you're sailing a boat, if you're sailing a ship out on the ocean, and you're only, say, two degrees off course, it's going to be a while before that error becomes apparent.
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You know, if you're 90 degrees off course, you're going to pick up on that pretty quick. But if you're just slightly off course, it's going to be a good while before that error begins to build up and you begin to see it.
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Well, Christian life is the same thing. We have to constantly be referring to the scripture and examining the doctrines that we are taught.
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And so scripture provides the solid foundation. Psalm 119, 130, the entrance of thy word giveth light.
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It giveth understanding unto the simple. It gives understanding unto the simple.
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Now, who is the simple person? Not necessarily, the simple person is not necessarily one that is intellectually deficient.
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The simple person is one who lacks sound judgment. They lack sound judgment. Another word for that is being a child.
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Or they are easily led astray. That's the mark of the simple. And so, but what does the psalmist say?
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He says the scripture gives understanding unto the simple. Elsewhere, the
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Bible says it makes you wise. It makes, it's the opposite of being simple.
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It makes you wise. It makes you wise. It gives you a solid foundation on which to judge things.
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Because when you start to make, when you start to make your measurements in life, you have to have a good solid ruler that you can deal with.
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You know, you're not going to build a house very well if you have a rubber ruler that can stretch, right? You know, we need a steel tape so that it's fixed marks.
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Well, the Bible provides you the steel tape by which to measure your life. It provides you the absolute benchmark that you know, the person and work of God, that you know where to judge from.
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And so, as we said, the Bible communicates doctrine in straightforward, unambiguous, propositional statements.
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It's like this. What does God say to Israel? No other gods before me.
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That's fairly cut and dry. There's not a lot of room for wiggle room there. You know, Bible says,
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God says no other gods except me. I am the one you should worship. Then here along comes
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Jesus. And what does he say to the Jews? I am the only way to the only
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God that you should worship. That's John 14, 6. I am the way, the truth, and the life.
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No man cometh under the Father but by me. That's pretty cut and dry.
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And it's amazing that people try to find wiggle space in that statement. You know, you can't find a lot of wiggle space there.
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Jesus is basically saying, my way or the highway, you come to God through me or you don't come at all.
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You know, then Peter takes up the same theme. There's salvation in no one else.
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That's Acts 4, 12. Or John. John says, if you obey the
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Son, you have life eternal. If you don't obey the Son, the wrath of God abides upon you.
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Again, not a lot of wiggle room there. Simple statements, easy to understand.
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This is not rocket science, so I have to grasp these. Then Paul comes along.
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Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and man. He's the only mediator between God or between man and the one
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God that we were commanded way back when at Mount Sinai to worship.
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See how he closes the loop back? It's the same message over and over and over again.
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Over again, it goes. And this has been the message of the true church throughout history.
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And it is totally antithetical to postmodern thinking. The very idea that truth exists, that true truth exists, that is antithetical to modern society's thinking.
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To them, everything is variable. Everything is relative. But the
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Bible comes along and says, no, true truth exists. But more than that, true truth exists and true truth has been revealed.
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Not exhaustively because we cannot exhaust an infinite
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God, but what he has revealed about himself is true. And he has revealed what he wants us to know about himself.
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And therefore, that's the third thing that we can draw, truth can be known. And what
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God has revealed about himself, the truth that he has revealed about himself can be apprehended.
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It can be comprehended by us. And therefore, we are responsible for that truth.
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We are responsible for that truth. And so we have this message, the
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Christian message, the biblical message. And the biblical message is exclusive. And this is what really gets us into trouble, right?
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It's an exclusive message. It's not another solution. It's not another way.
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It's not one way among many. It's not the best way. It's the only way.
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And that's the part that a great many of the people that we will deal with in our lives, that's the part they really don't like, is the exclusivity of it.
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You know, how can you say that your way is the only way? How can you possibly know that, that your way is the only way?
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And to which the answer is, I would not under any circumstances have the nerve to say that in and of myself.
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But I have this absolute standard by which to judge so that I don't say
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Jesus is the only way. The Bible says that. I don't say
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Jesus is the only way. Jesus said that of himself, you know.
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And so, where do I have the nerve? What gives me the nerve to say that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation?
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The Bible. The Bible. Because I have an absolute standard to go back to, something that I can trust, something that I can depend upon.
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And so, I can say that unlike what modern society teaches, not all points of view are equally valid.
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In fact, in this case, only one point of view is valid. And so, the
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Bible is clear. The Bible is clear. That's what the doctrine of perspicuity says.
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See, you learned a $20 word today. But that's what it means. It means the Bible is clear.
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And therefore, we must apply and accept and apply what it says rather than what we would like it to say or whether we wish it said or what we think it ought to say, you know, we have to deal with what it says.
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That is our job, is to accept it as it is and not trying to twist it, not trying to find hidden meanings in there.
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It's the plain text. It's what the text says, you know, ordinary words.
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And so, the best way to express this is as was written at the Second London Confession of Faith and our own
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Confession of Faith comes off the same document. But it says, all things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all, yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded and open in some place of Scripture or other that not only the learned but the unlearned in due use of ordinary means may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.
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The Bible is clear. The Bible message is clear. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning.
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We are grateful, Father, that we acknowledge that you have communicated to us and you have communicated to us clearly in a way that is easily understood that can be apprehended, it can be believed, it can be acted upon.
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We praise you, Father, that you have done this. We praise you also that you have sent to us the Holy Spirit because we acknowledge readily,
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Lord, that left to ourselves, we would not be able to apply this message to ourselves, that it is only the regenerative work of the
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Holy Spirit and the enlightening work of the Holy Spirit that permits that.