Being Dogmatic - [1 Thessalonians 5:21]

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Let's open in prayer our father in heaven. We thank you this morning for this beautiful Snow and sun -drenched morning that you have given us father for this opportunity.
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We have to meet together For the shelter that you provide us from the elements Most of all for your son
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Jesus Christ In whom you have given us reconciliation redemption
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Forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternity with you and Lord would you Bless our time this morning as we turn to your word in Christ's name.
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Amen well, I like to I Consider it kind of my job to keep everybody up to date keep their finger on the theological pulse as it were
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So if there's something going on in the church, I think you should know about it This is straight off the internet.
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And if it wasn't I wouldn't read it to you There was a dispute that arose several days ago in the
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Midwest when the NFL sent a letter to one church based on its website advertisement for a
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Super Bowl party That letter to Fall Creek Baptist Church in Indianapolis said the church couldn't use the word
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Super Bowl It couldn't charge admission. It couldn't use its projection screen for the game and a number of other things
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Those limits coupled with the fact that no church felt willing to take on a financial behemoth like the
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National Football League in court sparked a series of cancellations of those parties tragic
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That is absolutely tragic. I don't know what they'll do on Sunday night. Maybe they'll have to preach the word
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Please open your Bibles. We're gonna start we're gonna go to a number of different places, but I want to start in 2nd
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Timothy 4 the first couple verses are verses that we often hear and I'd finished this whole thing and I wasn't even going to say anything about 2nd
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Timothy But I got to thinking about a letter that I was an email that I was blind copied on this week
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And that's the cool thing about working here is you get the inside scoop of what's going on so I read a
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Blind copy of an email that Pastor Mike Sent to another pastor and for those of you
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Who don't get to hang around with Mike 40 hours a week, which is probably most of you One of the things you wouldn't know about him, or you might not know is he listens to an enormous number of sermons
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If you go by his office on Tuesday or Wednesday the odds are pretty good that he's gonna be listening to some sermon or another
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And not his own, but he sent this
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This email to this man, and he's he said I've listened to this entire sermon that you preached Said you quoted a lot of statistics
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You gave a lot of really nice examples. You told a lot of really good stories. There was only one thing lacking the
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Bible and He says basically in nicer terms What part of 2nd
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Timothy 4 don't you understand and then he quoted it? He said it much nicer than that and he asked the man he goes aren't you a little bit scared?
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2nd Timothy 4 verse 1 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and Of Jesus Christ who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom
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Preach the word be ready in season and out of season reprove rebuke exhort and with great patience and instruction
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And this is the part I wanted to just start out with this morning for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine
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But wanting to have their ears tickled they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truths and Will turn aside to myths
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We live in those times People don't want to be confronted by the
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Bible They want to hear what they want to hear We get calls all the time from people and some of you are here this morning
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Who say listen my church does not preach the Bible, and I'm looking for a Bible teaching church I live in fill in the blank.
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You know can you help me out and the answer is almost? Always no we can't there are a growing number of churches
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You're growing. You know about one a year, and it seems in Massachusetts where they're installing a
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Pastor who'll preach the word and that's exciting like to get it going a little faster Maybe four or five a year something like that, but it just occurred to me that not only do pastors have an
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Affirmative responsibility it is their duty. They are solemnly charged to preach the word but I thought as a
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Congregation and as individuals in the congregation we have a responsibility
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To endure sound doctrine To not want to have our ears tickled and to look out for those that we know who are
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Christians who are under teaching like that and Basically what
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I'm going to talk to this morning, and it's funny because Sean Mullin Sean in here Yeah, Sean Mullin missionary from South Africa is here visiting last night
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We were talking and this word came up, and I want to use it in a positive sense, so please understand that I want us to be a little bit more dogmatic as a church, and I will explain that in just a minute now
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Let me ask you. What would you think pastor Mike's been going through this series on predestination election?
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What would you think if pastor Mike got up, and he said? You know there are two views in the evangelical camp on predestination
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One is God looks down the corridors of time sees those who will believe and he then chooses those
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The other one is that God for his own glory Predestined some to salvation, and then he said
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I don't really know which one's right I'm gonna give you the arguments for both and kind of let you make up your own mind.
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What do you think? You're fired Why why why would we think boy that's kind of lame no offense pastor, but Take a position
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Okay, he's supposed to be the leader There's only one truth.
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I mean one's right and one's not right Dare I say one's wrong So if we're gonna if we're gonna say that the man who stands in the pulpit the man who studied the passage is supposed to come to an opinion an informed opinion a
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Spirit inspired opinion, let's say not inspired I don't want to say you know in the same way scripture is but if God works through him in his study in his effort in his sweat so that he comes to a conclusion on a particular passage
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He needs to preach it like he believes it So what are some comments somebody might give after hearing a sermon about?
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Predestination they might say something like well that was pretty dogmatic He's pretty opinionated.
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You know he seems a little bit full of himself How could he be so sure? Point is if we will not take less than a dogmatic approach from the pulpit if we don't want somebody to stand up there
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And give us multiple choices These these are the possible. You know I've studied this and there are four
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Possibilities, and I don't really know then why would we accept that in our own lives? Why would we settle for less dogmatism in our own thinking in our own study in our own knowledge?
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To put it in a simpler way. Why would we be indifferent about what the
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Bible says? Yeah, it could go either way I Don't really know
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If we don't know do we have a responsibility to find out I do not subscribe to a hermeneutic of humility now
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Who wants to explain what a hermeneutic of humility is? What's it
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I? See that hand that's right
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That's exactly right how dare anyone say thus saith the Lord I think that's why he gives gifts to the church, and we'll talk about that in a bit, but that's exactly right
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There's this movement Where you you don't preach you converse?
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Which would lead me to wonder by the way if you're in an emergent Church? Why do you pay a pastor?
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Because if his job is to study and to shepherd and what he really does is come in and start a conversation on Sunday morning
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And just kind of say yeah, you know let's just bat it around a little bit and see where we come out. What's the point?
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He should be out there working, too You know and you could all get together and have what we used to call the first Bible study
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I went to and if any of you are listening. I'm deeply sorry for saying this it was a pooling of ignorance We would all get around you know somebody would pick a verse
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Maybe you know 20 minutes ahead of the study time and we'd all get together, and this is what this verse means to me
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Well, that's kind of the direction of the emergent Church. Hey, I'm too humble to say anything dogmatic about the text so let's just talk about it and That goes with some very clear teaching to With regard to homosexuality and other things let's not take a position.
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Let's not be too hasty For those of you who read literature let's not be hasty, but By the way, just a word about dogmatism, and and you know some things that I'm especially thankful for I hope you read the article that Pastor Mike sent out the interview from Time magazine with Al Moller I thought that was really good, and I thought boy that That for that to appear in Time magazine was really something and if you watched
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John MacArthur on Nancy Grace. I'm really sorry It wasn't that it. Just wasn't that good.
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I'm watching it. I'd never watched her before and I thought this is really tabloid journalism And I'm sure for the minute and a half that Pastor MacArthur was on TV He he deeply regretted being there, so it was it was pretty
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Well, not that so much as she just didn't listen. You know and it was just kind of Okay, see you later, so I thought it was kind of a waste of time
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Recorded and then erased just like that Wikipedia the infallible encyclopedia online no, it's just a it's a online encyclopedia describes dogma
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This way religious dogma properly conceived Reach back to proofs rather than or other than themselves and ultimately faith
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Perhaps the pinnacle of organized exposition of theological dogma is by Thomas Aquinas who proposed this relationship between faith and objection if our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation
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There is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning But only of answering his objections if he has any against faith
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I thought I never quote Aquinas, so I thought I'd try one out here this morning and at least part of what he says here
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I totally agree with if you're if the person you're talking with Person he calls your opponent
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Believes nothing of divine revelation of the Bible Then you've got a real difficult time reasoning with them.
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Why? Because your opinion his opinion are all the same and you don't have any real dogma to stand on you don't have any principles to stand on Dogma are core principles that must be upheld by all foul followers of that religion we usually think of dogma in terms of Catholicism but It doesn't really matter what religion someone is they have certain core principles basics that they believe
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Dogma are essential doctrines of the faith and is not theological opinion
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Regarding the minutiae of things it is clear teaching Things that must be accepted in order to adhere to that religion
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Rejection of dogma is considered heresy in certain religions and may lead to expulsion from the religious group
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And it should you know I don't know if the Binnies are here yet this morning, but Bruce emailed a
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Religious station that plays music and he said hey by the way you guys play songs by this group, and they're anti -trinitarian
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The radio station wrote back, and I said well we hadn't heard that before and we found this on the website
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Seems like they're trying to say that they are trinitarian a couple days later the radio station wrote back, and I said you're right
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They're not this group is not Trinitarian and so we will no longer play their music and I thought
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Good good job Good job So why is it important to be dogmatic?
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Well if we're not dogmatic about something what does that suggest if we don't hold tightly to certain core principles
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What does that suggest about? What we say we believe
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Anybody why would we not have a certain list of beliefs that are not?
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For up for negotiation or debate Peggy okay, and and like a soldier if you don't if you don't understand what your instructions are what are the basic orders of a soldier
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You know I will defend Yeah But I will defend everything within my post the best of my ability and all that so you know we'll leave only around when relieved and all that kind of stuff you have to know what the
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What you believe in order to engage in the struggle Daniel, and and I am definitely going to get there excellent
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Excellent if you don't have core principles Then you're pushed by every wind of doctrine as it says in Ephesians 4, and I'm just about to get there
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But it suggests about us if we don't have a List of things in our mind don't have to be written down and carried in our pocket
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But we if we don't have a list of things In mind then it suggests several possibilities one is it's really not important to have some non negotiables
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Secondly it could be that we don't know we don't know what our non negotiables are that would be bad and Thirdly I think the other possibility that I came up with is that You know something else when it's suggested to us seems reasonable because we're not that firm in our convictions in the first place
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Now are there dangers to being dogmatic? Lewis yeah, because dogma is really an
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Interpretation of Scripture, and it can be wrong. I mean for example creeds the
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Confessions of faith those are wonderful documents as long as they agree with what the Bible says When they don't agree with what the
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Bible says and then they need to be rejected You know then there's the the quote One of my professors used to always say you can be sincere you can be dogmatic about something, but be sincerely wrong
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Let's turn to Ephesians 4 and we're going to read verses 7 through 15
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But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift
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Therefore it says when he ascended on high he led captive a host of captives
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And he gave gifts to men now this expression. He ascended What does it mean except that he also had descended to the lower parts of the earth?
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He who descended is himself also he who ascended far above all the heavens so the so that he might fill all things and he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as Evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the
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Saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the
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Son of God to a mature man To the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ as a result we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and Carried about by every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men by craftiness and deceitful scheming
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But speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head even
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Christ Jesus gave the church Spiritual gifts in the form of men
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To equip the Saints for the work of service to build up the body of Christ And what was the ultimate purpose?
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What was the ultimate end the unity of the faith?
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the unity of the faith MacArthur says Faith here refers to the body of revealed truth that constitutes
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Christian teaching Particularly featuring the complete content of the gospel
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Oneness and harmony among believers is possible only When it is built on the foundation of sound doctrine
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We can only have unity when we have what? Sound doctrine when we have certain non negotiables from which we will not deviate certain dogma certain fundamentals
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Now if that is the reason that Christ gave and gives men to the church then shouldn't oneness and harmony
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Be built or built on the foundation of sound doctrine be our goal. Isn't that what we should?
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strive for and if so Don't we have a responsibility not to be children tossed here and there by waves etc.
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Etc. Etc Isn't it important that we are engaged in?
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thinking that we Make up lists for ourselves
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That we decide what is not negotiable and what is negotiable now which is a which is more difficult to do sit on the fence and not make a decision about certain issues or Study what the
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Bible says about them until we figure them out Duh, I mean, that's pretty easy, right?
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But what do we do? Our tendency is to say, you know, that's above me.
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I can't get it. I can't understand it we Frequently I think we practice the hermeneutic of humility.
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I can't possibly understand that Therefore I'll just let the smarter guys figure it out
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We can learn one of the things one of the very core doctrines that the emergent church denies is that The scripture is clear
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This the scripture is understandable that the scripture is
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Yeah perspicuity of scripture is Perspicacious I think is or something like that.
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Don't quote me It's clear. You can understand it that much I can say but our pastor has been teaching a
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Series about predestination and election and there may be some even some here this morning who can't wait till it's over Because they still don't know what to think about the matter
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And my question would be why not if pastor
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Mike has been teaching the word Why wouldn't we have an opinion and If we've been sitting here and we think
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We're not really sure if he's right or not. Then what's our responsibility as people in the congregation?
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It's a study It's a study Let's look for a moment at John 10 24
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To 27. Yes Okay, good amen go ahead
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Guido here's what
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I would say I said I would say he had a wrong I'm not saying let me just clarify this.
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I'm not saying that a right view of predestination is a non -negotiable. I would say that a
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High view of God a low view or right view of man I have a list of the things that I think are non -negotiable and we'll get to that and I'll ask you guys to Kind of give me some more thoughts about that.
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But I would say Wesley preached the gospel I would not say that I agreed with him in every part of his teaching.
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In other words, did he preach the word? Yes Did he always understand the word rightly? I don't think so Well, okay, let me let me back up here because a woman called this week and she said we live in Foxboro and we want to go to a church close to us the church we
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We've been going to just wreck their they took out their pastor's offices and so the pastors really don't need to study
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I guess and they replaced them with a latte bar and she goes that was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back and So I'm talking to her and she says she says well, she says we're looking at going to this
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Calvary Chapel in Boston And I said, okay. Do you have the website and I went to and I looked at it and I said well
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So I know several things about Calvary Chapel. I said, I know they tend to be charismatic and they they tend to be
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Arminian And she's like well, hi, you know, I understand Calvinism.
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What's Arminianism? And so we talked about it a little bit and I said here's the good news I said the good news is
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I know that they're going to teach the gospel and I know that they Insist pretty much that you bring your
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Bible. I said would we agree with everything? No, but if that's where you want to go You know go right ahead it would not be a church
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I didn't say this It's not a church that I would recommend we wouldn't post it on our but you know Do I think they probably teach the
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Bible even though I've never been there? I've been to some Calvary chapels and I believe that they teach the Bible So but that's that's far different than saying this is a like -minded church
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This is a church with which we agree on almost everything and we would love for you to go to that church
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That's where I'm kind of drawing the distinction So in that case, I think there are very few churches that we we would say
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I can just recommend this church with no reservation whatsoever So that's why
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I was getting a good question. I Don't want to be too dogmatic about that That's right, that is absolutely right
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Every single one of us has that responsibility Again, it doesn't just fall. We don't live
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In fact, I'm going to quote JC Ryle later on. We do not live under a Catholic system.
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We're only the the priests and the Cardinals and whomever, you know studied the
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Bible and they Brush the crumbs off the table of their study and that's what we get We have access to the
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Word of God and we are responsible I mean more so in this country I think than just about anywhere in the world where we have so many tools so many gifts that we are able to get
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Freely, why would we not study these things and grasp them and own them for ourselves? It ought to be that every single man here where he just Parachuted into another country ought to quickly be able to be the pastor of a church there because you're gonna know more than the other
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The other guys there because you have everything you need right now More than what you need.
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I mean, it's embarrassing to me if I if I had a laptop, which I don't but if I had a laptop and I got dropped into a
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Country I have more on my computer in terms of I'm not talking about the Internet but just in terms of resources sitting on my computer than Probably most people even at this church have sitting on their shelves in their studies
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It's just amazing what technology can do for us and the freedoms that we still enjoy
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In this country with regard to religious stuff, but yes, every single person has a responsibility to study these things out for themselves and that Essentially, that's what
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I'm saying out of Ephesians 4 of God If Jesus Christ has gifted the church with men to teach and we listen to them
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Don't we have a responsibility to grow to be these? Christians who are not children tossed around by every wind of doctrine
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We have our own list of things that we know and we're constantly adding to those lists and deciding
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You know what? I can be gracious on this matter, but I absolutely Cannot equivocate on this.
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I cannot negotiate on this. I cannot give up anything any part of this truth It is essential.
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That's right. That's right. And you and you basically saying, you know, you guys you guys should be eating
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Feasting on steak and I'm still having to give you you know, baby food That just needs to stop
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John 10 24 to 27 the Jews then gathered around him
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Jesus and We're saying to him. How long will you keep us in suspense?
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If you are the Christ tell us plainly Jesus answered them and said or Jesus answered them
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I told you and you do not believe The works that I do in my father's name these testify of me
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But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me
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It's not much of a an extrapolation or a stretch in verse 27 Say that if we are the sheep of Christ When we hear the word taught
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I mean wait, yeah, there's a I mentioned this the other day You know, there's a country and Western song.
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I Stumble sometimes and listen to that Because it's the only place where you can really hear them, you know, they talk about Jesus and it's not a bad thing
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There's one where this guy says that he's Basically been studying the Bible and he's finding more and more truth in the letters written in red and I'm just going
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What about the rest of them? you know, is there any difference in the The level of inspiration between the red letters and the black letters is there any difference in the if I say the words of Christ while I could just as easily be talking about 2nd
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Timothy or Zechariah or Matthew They're all inspired equally my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me as his sheep
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We hear the Word of God and what do we do? We follow it we hear it we obey it we go
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Why not because it fits? Necessarily our opinions or our lifestyles, but because we are his followers.
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We are his disciples We are his sheep. He leads we follow first 1st
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Corinthians 2 14 and the first part of 15 Says but a natural man does not accept the things of the
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Spirit of God For their foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised but listen this part we hear the 14 a lot, but he who is spiritual appraises all things a
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Natural man an unsaved man does not accept the Word of God. It's foolishness
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But how can a Christian not believe the Bible or how can a Christian hear the
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Bible and then not act on it? It's okay not to agree with me.
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It's okay not to agree with Mike. It's really okay not to agree with no
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It's not really okay However, the key here is don't act like an unbeliever if you hear the truth
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You can't reject it why because you hear God's voice you hear the words of Christ and you follow
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Now that word there appraise In verse 15 means it means to conduct a judicial hearing to hear a case or a question
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So We hear these things taught and we are to evaluate them.
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We are to judge them We are to not based on our own opinion But based on whether it's the
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Word of God or not Listen to what is said listen to what is taught and say that's true.
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That's right I believe that and I will act on it to dismiss election or any other doctrine without a biblical reason without a verse from the
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Bible is to act like a natural man You are acting as an unbeliever.
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Why would you want to do that? Now is election a dogma?
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Is it an essential part of Christianity, I think you can be a
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Christian not believe in election In the sense that in the same sense that our pastors been teaching it.
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However, you have to have a view on election why because the Bible talks about it if What God has revealed in the
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Bible is his revelation to us about himself and about how he works Why would we want not want to know that why would we not want to put our arms around it?
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Why would we not embrace it fully? So is a is election a dogma? No but you have to have a view on it and May I also suggest that if you have a view you ought to be able to defend that view
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Biblically you ought to be able to say well, this is what I believe and why I believe it and have some verses
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Ready to go Was interesting Watching the debate between John Dominic Crossan of the
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Jesus Seminar and James White because John Dominic Crossan very likable man for Someone who says the the
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Bible is not true Very likable man, but it was interesting because he would turn a lot of different things in the
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Bible He would just say well, that's a parable. I don't believe that actually happened. That's a parable Jesus appears before Pilate.
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Well, that's a parable Where do you get that? You know, he just everything he didn't like was a parable it teaches a truth, but it didn't actually happen and It was just interesting because I thought listen, we have the
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Bible. We're responsible to learn it We are his sheep. We need to listen to it and This man who spent his entire life studying it still doesn't get it.
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Why because he's not Saved he's not a Christian. He calls himself a
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Christian but by any standard As we'll discuss I I don't think you can call him on First Thessalonians 5 20 through 22
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Says Do not despise prophetic utterances teaching But examine everything carefully hold fast to that which is good abstain from every
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Form of evil again. We are to examine all things MacArthur says this call for careful examination and discernment is in Response to the command of verse 20 one is never to downgrade the proclamation of God's Word But to examine the preached word carefully
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What is found to be good is to be wholeheartedly embraced. What is evil or unbiblical is to be shunned
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This is dogmatic thinking. This is black and white thinking Teaching is either true or false
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Teachers are either right or they're wrong And if you haven't decided yet whether they're right or wrong, you could say they're interesting
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But eventually the burden is on you to decide whether interesting Meant they were wrong or right.
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This is an example Well, let me ask you this
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What is the result of biblically informed Dogmatic black -and -white thinking what happens if you come up with a list of non -negotiables and you continue to push yourself to learn and to grow and your list expands and you just come to think of things as biblical
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Not biblical what what happens in your life Sanctification.
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What's that? You find yourself swimming against the current all the time.
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Now, is that a bad thing? I mean if you are to be
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Salt and light if you are to make a difference in the world if people are to look at you and say, you know There's something different about that guy because we were having a conversation about X and he kept trying to turn it around to Y Or he wasn't laughing at our jokes or this that or the other thing
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These are the the very things that we can use to preach the gospel listen The other thing that will happen is you will become more decisive as you hear things and you'll just right away think well
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That is not right Decisiveness is a good quality not divisiveness decisiveness
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When I study and I know that God will send the unrepentant to hell
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What happens if I really understand that what happens? If I believe in hell
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I am motivated to Evangelize I don't want to see anybody go to hell when
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I understand how terrible it is I don't just sit there and think you know Boy, I hope that guy is okay
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Sounds like he's all messed up, but I hope he's okay I think that guy needs help and God put me here.
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I need to help how wicked would it be? To not share the gospel because I don't want to offend someone because I don't want to seem
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Out of step with the way they're thinking When I understand dogma core principles of Christianity that must be upheld by all followers of Christ I am moved to action on behalf of those who don't believe those core principles
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It's interesting again that debate between white and crossing Crossing or a white during his rebuttal time when he he got to respond at Length to John Dominic crossing you know what he did
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He preached the gospel He preached the gospel, and I thought at first.
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I'm going What is he doing, and then I thought he's got an unsaved man here, and he's preaching the gospel to him
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He didn't say he didn't turn to him and say you know what you're not even a Christian did it What he did was he said you know
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I find John Dominic crossings arguments interesting that and then he just kind of went he said
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But I believe in a literal hell, and he just started giving the gospel, and I'm going that's good. I mean we don't know
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You know that that mr.. Crossin might Repent and that's what we should want
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White was not to Win the debate on style points, and you know go into his corner and lift up the championship belt
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He wants to see that guy get saved So what are the non -negotiables the essentials the fundamentals the dogma one must be built was one must believe to be saved
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What do you have to believe to be a Christian well, let's put it this way if you don't believe some things
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Can you still be a Christian for example if you believe the Bible is? full of errors
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Can you be a Christian? Yeah, I don't think that's a negotiable You might be ignorant to that when you first get saved and not have an opinion, but I think once you start learning
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I think you you have no choice, but to bow the knee to the the Bible I Had a friend who who went from being a nominal
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Christian to becoming a Mormon And then by the grace of God becoming a born -again
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Christian again again well for the first time And when he was when he was in his
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Mormon phase of course he knew that I was the Former Mormon, and I remember being out in the gym with him one day and him saying
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Steve Isn't it great that we have a prophet in Salt Lake City? He was able to commune with God and tell us what
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God's thinking You know just like Moses and just like all the prophets of old And I looked at him and I said no
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I said I think what's great is That we have a God who's revealed himself in the pages of Scripture and is able to keep that Bible free of error even today
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We have a God who's so powerful. He says listen. This is who I am and then he doesn't allow men to corrupt it
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That's what I think is great We must believe in God as he is presented in the
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Bible Man as he is presented in the Bible Woman as she is presented in the
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Bible Why why are those non -negotiables? Charlie yeah, if you don't know that you're in need of a
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Savior You'll never come to one and if you don't understand how holy if you don't understand the attributes of God And you don't understand the sinfulness of man.
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You'll never come to that conclusion You must believe the Bible is inerrant and infallible.
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What is inerrancy means means doesn't have any mistakes infallible means It's not wrong.
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It can't make a mistake What do you have to believe about Jesus Lewis absolutely you have to believe that I was just When you start reading, you know the more famous Christian ministries when you start reading about them and getting behind the scenes and reading what they actually believe it's pretty interesting
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Some don't believe in a substitutionary atonement There are all kinds of different views out there.
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Do you have to believe in the virgin birth? Why? Why do you have to believe in the virgin birth?
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Okay, because Christ is not Deity is not God. Why else would that matter? Sin would have been passed down to Jesus absolutely, but you know
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I think the number one reason for me anyway, the number one reason why that matters is because the
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Bible says it and so if he wasn't born of a virgin and the Bible says he was
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Then you can't trust the Bible and you're back to square one But all those those other reasons are important to I mean the deity of Christ.
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You can't get around that Charlie Did you want to say something? Mm -hmm?
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That's right. That's right. Yeah, I don't think you know, we wouldn't want to go into the baptismal font and Say, you know, do you believe in the inerrancy of Scripture?
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with the what You know, I so yeah, I I wouldn't
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I I would agree with that You know, is this a
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Negotiable Jesus never sinned and deserved no punishment Can you negotiate on that one?
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Where was I was somewhere and somebody was telling me that some Catholics actually believe that Jesus sinned and I thought that would be bad
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Quite bad Substitutionary atonement and I had a phrase a different way, but absolutely
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Can you be a Christian and not believe in the resurrection? Can you believe that the resurrection is a parable?
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Let me just kind of skip that. I mean there are many more that we could do but MacArthur from his book and reckless faith
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He says a woman once wrote me to say she thought Christianity was fine, but personally she was into Zen She liked to listen to Christian radio while she was driving because the music smoothed out of her karma
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Occasionally, however, she would tune in one of the Bible teaching ministries in her opinion all the preachers she heard were too narrow -minded or Dogmatic So she was writing several radio ministers to encourage them to be more broad -minded
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Quote God doesn't care what you believe as long as you're sincere. She wrote All religions lead ultimately to the same reality
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It doesn't matter which road you take to get there as long as you follow your chosen road faithfully Don't be critical of the alternative roads other people choose
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Now to those who accept the Bible as God's Word the folly of that thinking should be immediately evident and He goes on And he says it is
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Satan who doesn't care about what we believe Of course Satan doesn't care how sincere we are about it as long as what we believe is wrong
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Skip that Now we do need to balance that with Not the hermeneutics of humility, but with humility we need to understand that it's interesting listening to MacArthur a couple years ago
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He said that as he got older He didn't say I find myself becoming more and more humble.
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But what he did say was that he was more charitable towards Those who held other positions that were not essentials things like eschatology
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Things of that nature secondary issues I Wanted to just kind of a couple quick things here 2nd
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Corinthians 10 and 1 to 5 Now I Paul myself urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ by the meekness and gentleness of Christ I Who am meek when face to face with you, but bold toward you when absent?
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I asked that when I am present I need not be bold with the confidence with which I propose to be courageous against some
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Who regard us as if we've walked according to the flesh for though we walk in the flesh? We do not walk.
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We do not war according to the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not the flesh But divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses
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We're destroying speculations in every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ To kind of summarize this real quickly listen.
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We need to be meek and gentle but when Speculations when false teachings come along that are contrary to the
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Word of God. We just can't let those things pass We have to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ in other words false teaching comes in We're with somebody who says something that we know is not right now.
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There are some things we can let go but If if we have somebody with us who thinks that they're a
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Christian who believes that they're a Christian and they hold some Erroneous doctrine we need to confront that we need to talk to them about that Let me give you a list of five things
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MacArthur lists about fundamental or fundamental articles of faith basics of Christianity and these are things you can figure out for yourself whether or not something is
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Non -negotiable dogma all fundamental articles of faith must be drawn from the scriptures
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Something's not in the Bible Then it's negotiable The fundamentals are clear in Scripture.
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That's number two. The fundamentals are clear in Scripture number three Everything essential to saving faith is fundamental.
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We can't hedge we can't negotiate We can't do away with those things if someone must believe something in order to be saved we can't
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Be muddled on that fourthly Every doctrine we are forbidden to deny is fundamental.
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That's some of the things we were just talking about in other words inerrancy of Scripture You don't have to believe that to be saved initially, but once you come to understand that the
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Word of God is inspired Infallible Can't can't be an error and then you say well,
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I don't believe that well, then we would have to wonder about your salvation Fifthly the fundamental doctrines are summed up in the person and work of Christ Everything about Jesus and his work is a non -negotiable.
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We can't negotiate over it And JC Ryle He wrote well, he lived more than a hundred years ago, and I thought this was interesting.
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He says You live in days when the text before your eyes is one of the and he was talking about first Thessalonians 521
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You live in days when the text before your eyes is one of the first importance That was hold fast to that which is good
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Give me your attention for a few minutes and I will try to show you what I mean There were three great doctrines or principles which won the
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Battle of the Protestant Reformation These were first the sufficiency and supremacy of Holy Scripture Secondly the right of private judgment
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Meaning we didn't just have to listen to what the the Roman Catholic Church said about the
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Bible. We could read it for ourselves understand it for ourselves and thirdly Justification by faith only without the deeds of the law
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These three principles were the keys of the whole controversy between the Reformers and the Church of Rome Keep firm hold of them when you argue with a
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Roman Catholic and your position is unassailable No weapon that the Church of Rome can forge against you shall prosper
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Give up any one of them and your cause is lost like Samson with his hair shorn.
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Your strength is gone And I thought you know what he was talking more than a hundred years ago and he said here are three non -negotiables
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And he was talking about the Roman Catholic Church alone, and I would say that if Ryle was here today
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He would give us a larger list of fundamental doctrines. Why because there are more doctrines under assault whether it's the hermeneutics of human
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Humility where we can't even understand that homosexuality is a sin The Bible might be full of errors.
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All these things are the the Word of God is under constant assault So our list probably has to be a little bit more expansive than three although you could take those three and you could develop the other ones out, but it is important to have a
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Dogmatic attitude of black and white attitude about things but do that graciously Recognizing we don't have to beat everybody about the head and shoulders that we run into but there are times where it is needful to come alongside and admonish the unruly to help people who don't rightly understand what they are reading and it's our responsibility as Believers.
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All right, let's close in prayer our father.
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We are thankful for your word thankful to live in a land where we are free to Study to hear it to gather together to worship you father.
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I pray that you would make each of us better students of your word better able to Implement the things that we learn more willing to Take a stand
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When such a stand is needed especially to help someone else not to be divisive
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But to love someone enough to gently graciously Give them the truth
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To lead them into the truth father.
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Would you? Shape and mold us into winsome proclaimers of your truth those who would long to see a unity of the faith, but not a unity based on a lack of doctrine
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But on a sound understanding of your word Father would you grant us that unity here and Outside these walls