TPW 68 The Westminster Confession Part 02 - Scripture is Most Necessary

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Welcome to the Pros and Witnesses, this is Pastor Patrick Hines and that was Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata.
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Gotta love Beethoven. I could listen to him all day long, in fact I do sometimes when I'm working on my sermons and stuff.
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Beethoven, what an amazing genius of a man. Back in a time when people actually produced pretty art.
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Someone asked me recently why art today just isn't very pretty anymore, and I responded back to that individual in the congregation here,
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I said, the reason our culture does not produce very much good art is because it has no convictions, and people who have no convictions have nothing to inspire them.
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Secularism cannot produce anything pretty, in fact all it produces is death and destruction and dead babies and divorce and spousal abuse and drug abuse and music that has absolutely no aesthetic whatsoever to it.
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And once in a while I turn on the radio and will listen and just surf the stations.
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I may do that once a quarter just to see is there anything on the radio that sounds pretty and for the most part it is absolute noise pollution masquerading as music.
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So you have to go back a little ways to when people actually had convictions, when people actually had beliefs that they held to that inspired them.
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And so people who have no convictions are not going to make good art. In fact I have a bunch of books on my shelf over here on communism, and that was something
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I studied a few years ago in some detail, because I wanted to understand the forces at work in our own society and culture, and the socialist push of so many politicians that we've had running for president and actually as president recently, and where those ideas come from and what they led to.
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It really is quite remarkable to me that about a third of the earth's population was subjugated by communist regimes in the 20th century, and it led to the economic destruction of those nations, and to this day
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China has never recovered from Mao Zedong and his so -called Great Leap Forward, and has never recovered from the utter devastation of the lies and the murders and the starvation and the famine and the mismanagement of the workforce in China and everything else.
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When you have a highly centralized government power making decisions, and you take power away from the citizens to do their own work and to spend their own money the way they want to, the only thing that results from that is death and destruction and chaos and a total annihilation of human flourishing altogether.
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Of course with China's brutal enforcement of a one -child policy for years and years and years, and all
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Chinese people wanting to have sons, you have the horrifying hellish nightmare phenomenon of gendercide where little baby girls by the millions have been murdered before they were born by abortion, and my father was telling me recently, he wonders if the fact that there is a huge shortage of women in China is going to cause them at some point to invade
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Mongolia just to actually have women, because there are so few women in China.
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But that's communism for you. It doesn't lead to human flourishing, it leads to the destruction of everything good.
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And when communism took root in Russia, Russia before that had had a long tradition of very beautiful, remarkable, artistic geniuses, musical geniuses, you think of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff and other great
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Russian composers that made beautiful music. When the communists took over, that kind of stopped, and they stopped producing anything that was pretty, because atheism, especially as applied to politics, and applied to all of life, brings ugliness and death everywhere that it goes.
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Which is what it's doing in the United States now too. That's why you have the rise of the LBGT stuff, and it's trying to make its way into whatever's left of conservative
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Christianity in America, which is not much, and what does that stuff bring with it? It brings death, destruction, and the annihilation of human flourishing.
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And another byproduct of that is you don't have pretty music being written anymore, and that's why we have to go back to centuries where people had convictions, where at least societies had the concept that there was a creator god that was good and had made the creation that beauty was an objective thing that was real, and music was either pretty or it was ugly.
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But now in our culture, people call ugly music pretty, and people have very little time for classical music and really great, beautiful music like that.
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So that was the answer to that question, I thought that was a good question, why is no good music written today?
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Because people don't believe anything anymore, people have no convictions, they have nothing to inspire them. So it's sad, but it's a fact.
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So Pathetique Sonata, maybe I'll put a link to that in the show notes under this episode of the
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Protestant Witness, just so you can hear a really, really beautiful piece of piano music. Today I want to continue on in our study of the
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Westminster Confession, continuing on in Chapter 1 of the
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Doctrine of Holy Scripture. The entire history of the people of God can be seen as a struggle to be faithful to the infallible self -authorizing word of God over against the fallible word of man.
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From the moment God's authority was challenged in Eden by Satan in that infamous question, has God really said, man has had to fight to be faithful to God's special revelation, every generation of Christians that is born and then dies will face the same questions as every generation before it and after it, and will ultimately be judged by only one question, were we faithful to Scripture?
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With all the various ways in which Satan continues to ask, has God really said? Whether it is about creation in six days, justification by faith alone, faith being the gift of God to his elect people, the necessity of repentance, the triune nature of the living
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God, biblical marriage, seeing children as a blessing, male and female gender roles, that there actually are only two genders, and we have specific roles that our genders are designed to be really good at, education, what the
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Bible teaches about education, and etc. The real question is, will we lay aside our likes in this world and bow to the ultimate authority of God speaking in Scripture?
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Will we be willing to set aside our cherished beliefs and opinions and bow to the voice of the
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Holy Spirit speaking in Scripture? Or will we hold to errors on various things? Will we work hard to ignore simple statements in Scripture which contradict the practices of our current lifestyle?
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Will we allow ourselves to be inconvenienced and made uncomfortable by God's voice in Scripture or not?
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Church history is a very important topic. The story of the church is the story of Jesus Christ building that church in history.
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And as you read and study each century since the coming of Christ, there are titles which could be used to summarize how well
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God's people did being faithful to Scripture in those centuries. In his excellent book,
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Church History in Plain Language, author Bruce Shelley has really great chapter titles. In one of the first chapters about the church in its earliest days, that chapter is called
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Only Worthless People. And in this chapter he emphasizes what Paul himself emphasized to the
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Corinthian church. He said, For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise, according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.
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This was common in the earliest period. Christianity was seen as a religion for losers. Think about it.
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Most of the Jewish religious establishment had rejected it. It was being spread by a bunch of backwoods, uneducated
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Galilean fishermen, along with an apostate Pharisee named Paul, and ex -prostitutes, ex -homosexuals, tax collectors, and other scum of society made up most of his membership.
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Another chapter title for the early church is, quote, Arguing About the Event, end quote.
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When the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of God, and especially the doctrine of the full deity of Christ, were bitterly argued about and defended by Christians against heretics.
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Another chapter is called A Wild Boar in the Vineyard, talking, of course, about Martin Luther and the Reformation.
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The Age of the Enlightenment, from 1648, after the Thirty Years War is over, all the way up to the
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Storming of the Bastille in 1789, that's called Aiming at the Foundations. That chapter is worth its weight in gold and is absolutely foundational.
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In fact, this year in homeschooling, I had both of my eldest sons read that chapter and write me a paper about it.
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One question I've often thought would be good to consider is, what would the chapter title be called for us?
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What would the chapter title be called for us, for our generation? Especially as we consider how we've done with our final orders from Christ to engage the
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Great Commission. How have we done in preaching, teaching, and defending sound doctrine?
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How have we done at loving people? Two hundred years from now, when all of us and our children and grandchildren are buried, what would our chapter be titled in the church history books?
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Much of that will depend on how well we understand and embrace a scriptural doctrine of scripture itself.
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Has God really said? Is the question every generation in church history has been asked?
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Some did well, others did not. How well we love people, how well we please the
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Lord, how well we preach Christ and him crucified, and how well we exercise the dominion and life -changing power of Jesus Christ will be wrapped up well in us as individuals, families, churches, presbyteries, if you hold to what
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God says about church government, and denominations as we all answer the question, has
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God really said? Some generations, in response to that question, have said, I think so. Some have said to the question, has
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God really said, yeah, we're pretty sure he said. Some have said in response to the question, has God really said, no, not really.
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My goal is that I and the people who are entrusted to my pastoral care would answer with an unqualified and firm, yes.
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Not only has God really spoken, he has done so with clarity. And with that, let's look at what
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God has told us about the doctrine of scripture. It is a marvelous starting point to emphatically affirm, yes, God has really said.
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But we also need to know what God has really said about what he has really said. In other words, we need to know what scripture teaches about the nature and function of scripture itself.
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Get this one wrong, and what you think you know about God and everything else will also likely be wrong.
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When I read the pro -homosexual, professing Christian, Matthew Vines, in his book, God and the
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Gay Christian, Vines' basic position was, Jesus and the biblical writers were ignorant of scientific advancements we have made today with regard to understanding the notion of sexual orientation.
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And while scripture condemns excessive lust, etc., it is simply ignorant of the idea of loving, committed, monogamous same -sex relationships.
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You see the flaw here? Vines is attacking scripture itself. To assert that Jesus was unaware of what
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Vines is aware of today, and that this ignorance is reflected in scripture itself, is to destroy completely the biblical doctrine of scripture.
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There is one quick side note that must be emphasized at this point. There has been a tendency in the church to set doctrinal precision against social concern, feeding the poor, helping children, and other kinds of hands -on mercy ministry.
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This is an entirely misguided tendency, and one that must be guarded against at all times. What often happens is this.
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Churches rightly get involved in the building of orphanages, housing the homeless, helping drug addicts get clean, and feeding the hungry, but neglect instruction and sound doctrine.
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The social concerns then become, in effect, the gospel. That's why in liberal churches it was called the social gospel in the early 20th century.
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I once heard a minister in Cincinnati say something to this effect, If we have all our doctrine right and there are still hungry people in this town, then our doctrine is wrong.
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Now he's right to be concerned about hungry people, but what he said is entirely wrong about doctrine.
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Please hear me. Theology is what undergirds moral and social concern.
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Theology is what undergirds moral and social concern. Indeed, theology is what undergirds true biblical love.
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Children who grow up in churches where they do missions trips to help orphans, local missions to feed, clothe, and house hungry, naked, and homeless people, but those same children are not catechized and are not sustained on a steady diet of biblical and doctrinal preaching and teaching will soon reason as follows in their minds.
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I don't need to understand the doctrine of the trinity, the union of the two natures of Christ and the one person, the imputation of Christ's active and passive obedience and justification, the doctrine of repentance, or the inspiration of scripture in order to give food to the hungry and love people with the love of Christ.
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Why do I need all that theology to do all that stuff? Please listen. The children who grow up thinking this way will be tomorrow's liberals.
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The children that grow up thinking that way will be tomorrow's liberals. And their children will be preaching abortion rights, gay marriage, and have no gospel whatsoever to preach to the lost who are on their way to hell.
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Think about it, folks. It is only those who know true biblical doctrine who will be able to put the following things into practice.
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And notice how true love is absolutely and inextricably bound to sound doctrine,
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Ephesians 4 .32, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God and Christ forgave you,
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John 13 .34, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
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What must a person know in order to love as God wants them to love? They must understand the forgiveness of God in Jesus Christ.
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They must know the right God. They must know who Jesus is. They must understand what Jesus did and how that love was demonstrated.
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What scripture means by words such as sacrifice, propitiation, reconciliation, and redemption, they must know the doctrine of justification, how a person receives
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Christ's forgiveness and how a person is accepted in God's sight. They must know what repentance and faith are.
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They must know how Jesus has loved us, in that he laid down his life for us on the cross, Without a right knowledge of these things from scripture, we will not be able to be kind to one another, or tenderhearted, or forgive one another, just as God and Christ has forgiven us, and we will not be able to love either.
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As an illustration of this, I was interviewed on a TV show in Cincinnati called
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Facing Life Head On. It was a pro -life TV show. They interviewed me, they interviewed a Roman Catholic priest, and they interviewed two liberal women clergy in Cincinnati, and the women in that video were pro -choice and obviously pro -women pastors.
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It was Reverend Tyson and Reverend Ryder were their names, and listening to their pro -choice rhetoric was very disturbing.
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They are the grandchildren of the people who started thinking we could have real social concern without sound doctrine and without a commitment to the absolute authority of scripture.
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The grandchildren of the people that thought that way were those two ladies. They are the grandchildren.
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They are now pro -choice, pro -gay, and pro -women as elders and pastors. You can't lose the theology without losing the foundation for all moral and social concern.
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To conclude this introductory section, for the true Christian, every good work we do, all of the loving of neighbor we engage in, is done in the name of Jesus.
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It is done by us acting as his ambassadors, and it is only because of this that our works are pleasing to God and are considered biblically to be good works.
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Matthew 18, 5, whoever receives one little child like this in my name receives me.
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Mark 9, 41, for whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name because you belong to Christ, assuredly
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I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. Lose the teachings and the doctrines of the faith as revealed in scripture, and you will lose everything, and I mean everything.
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Downplay doctrine and love will entirely disappear. Lose sound doctrine and there will be no social concern of any kind whatsoever.
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Lose sound doctrine and those who profess to be ministers of Christ will be pro -choice, etc.
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The gateway to the animation of the human heart into action is the mind, a right knowledge of God and his truth.
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Biblical love for God and neighbor will not stand unless it is built upon that foundation. Now to the text of our
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Great Westminster Confession of Faith. Why does it start with the doctrine of scripture instead of the doctrine of God? The answer is fairly simple.
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In order to confess the faith, that's why it's called the Westminster Confession, in order to confess the faith, we have to understand the source of that faith, the source of Christian doctrine.
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The opening chapter of the Confession is one of the longest, it has ten sub -points. Point number one says, Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave men unexcusable, yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of his will which is necessary unto salvation?
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I hope the truth confessed here is still fresh in your minds, from Romans 1, 19 -20.
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Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
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Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were they thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
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The general revelation of the goodness, wisdom, and power of God made through all that God created is sufficient only to leave men unexcusable for failing to worship, thank, and glorify
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God as God. This general revelation is entirely insufficient to give man the knowledge of God and of his will which is needed to be saved.
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And this general revelation reaches to every man on earth at all times. Psalm 19, 1 -3
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The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge.
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There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. This is the revelation of God in nature to men who are natural men, in that they are in their sins, and are unregenerate.
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1 Corinthians 2, 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
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Because the natural man, the fallen, sinful rebel, who has stolen his sins, is not able to appropriate the revelation of God in creation to the saving of his own soul, the confession goes on to say, 2
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Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times and in diverse manners, to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his church, and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing.
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Hebrews 1, 1 Says God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, consider all the ways in which
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God revealed himself unto his church. Not the way that he reveals himself to all men through creation, but the ways in which he has revealed himself to his church.
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When God broke the silence after the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 and suddenly spoke from heaven directly to Abraham, this was
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God revealing himself in a saving way to his church. Genesis 12, 1 -3 3
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Now the Lord said to Abraham, Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation,
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I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
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In the book of Genesis, God did this many more times, unfolding his covenant of grace more and more to the special objects of his mercy, his church, his called out ones.
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While God could have left the entire human race to perish in its sins and receive justice,
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God chose in eternity past to entrust the salvation of a vast multitude of them to the Son and commissioned him to save them all perfectly and infallibly.
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And throughout history, God has revealed this saving will through what theologians call special revelation.
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Special revelation is what is being spoken of here when it speaks of the revelation God makes of himself and of his will unto his church.
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That's distinguished from general revelation. The saving will of God was revealed in numerous ways by God in times past.
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God not only spoke directly to people like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but he also gave them prophets who spoke his words directly to them.
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God spoke to John the Baptist's father, Zacharias, through an angel, through the angel Gabriel. He spoke to Joseph in dreams about Jesus.
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God sent apostles into the world after the ascension of Christ who spoke with God's authority and preached the gospel and taught the people the will of God directly.
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Notice that the confession says that God reveals two things, himself and his will. This is very deliberate.
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What we see in God's special revelation is him revealing more and more of his own character and nature over time.
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For example, the doctrine of the Trinity in its fullness is not revealed in the Old Testament.
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There are hints at it, but its fullest revelation comes in the incarnation of the Son of God in the person of Jesus Christ and then in the sending of the
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Paraclete, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, at Pentecost. And thus
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God's special revelation is him communicating to his church who he is.
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But it is also a revelation of his will. God reveals himself, his own character, his attributes, his triune nature, and his will.
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He reveals himself and his will. God's will is his covenant actions in real space -time history along with their divinely given explained significance in scripture.
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So there's the redemptive acts of God in history and then there's the redemptive word given to us in scripture explaining what those events accomplished.
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For example, the Bible reveals to us that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, died on the cross, was buried, and rose again.
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These historical events took place. This is part of God's will which he reveals to his church. In other words, this action in history was planned and executed by God, but the scriptures also and in addition to this reveal the divine explanation of what was accomplished by Christ's death.
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Consider these passages, Colossians 1 .20, And by him, to reconcile all things to himself, by him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross.
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1 Peter 2 .24, Who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree.
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See, that's a revelation of God's will, what he accomplished in the death of Christ. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we having died to sins might live for righteousness by whose stripes you were healed.
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Romans 5 .9, Much more than having now been justified by his blood. That's a revelation of the will of God there, justified by his blood.
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So when he shed that blood on the cross in that historical act, what was happening there? God's people were being justified by his blood.
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We shall be saved from wrath through him. So through that shed blood, the wrath of God is turned away and we're justified before God.
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God's will for his church entails the great redemptive acts of God in history, such as the Exodus, the conquest of the promised land, the kingdom era, the coming of Christ, the miracles and ministry of Christ, the cross, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, the age of the apostles, and the outpouring of the spirit at Pentecost.
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God's will for his church also entails the divinely inspired teaching regarding the significance of these events.
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There are redemptive acts, and then there is the redemptive word, scripture, explaining those acts, explaining what
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God has done. It's not enough for us to know a man came and died on a cross, was buried and rose again. We need to know what that does, what it accomplishes, why that happened.
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So God acts in history and then gives us the scripture to explain those acts and what they do.
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If you had been an observer of the death of Jesus Christ, even though there was an earthquake, darkness, and other cosmic events that accompanied it, it would have looked like the crucifixion of a normal man.
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But God's special redemptive revelation is given to the church to tell us what was spiritually accomplished by the death of Jesus Christ.
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That's why I read Colossians 1 .20, 1 Peter 2 .24, Romans 5 .9, and could have read dozens of other passages.
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Without that revelation, that revealing, that making known of those things, of the explanation of those things from God, we would not be able to understand why
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Jesus died. B .B. Warfield speaks at length of redemptive acts and then the redemptive word, which explains the acts.
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We can't have redemption without both facets of God's will being revealed to us. I need to know that historically,
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Jesus was born, lived, died, and rose again, and that's communicated to us in scripture, just like everything else is.
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But I also need to know why this happened and what these events accomplished for me as part of God's church.
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This is why the Confession said, therefore, because creation is insufficient to save us, the revelation
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God makes in creation only leaves us inexcusable, it doesn't save us, therefore it pleased the
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Lord at sundry times and in diverse manners to reveal himself and to declare his will unto his church.
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So God reveals himself, his own character, who he is, his tri -personality, his attributes, and his will, what he's doing in history, what he did, what he accomplished.
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Notice again the words of the Confession. And afterwards, after the events happened and the revelations were made, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing.
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So God's revealing of himself, his own character, his attributes, his tri -personality,
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God revealing that to us and his will, in order for us to have a more sure establishment of that, he committed all of it to writing.
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He committed it wholly. That's not holy as in holy, holy, holy is God, but wholly, W -H -O -L -L -Y, entirely to writing.
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God could have chosen another means to reveal himself and his will to his church, but for the better preserving and propagating of the truth,
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God's special revelation was committed wholly to writing.
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Wholly to writing. How many sources of divinely breathed forth infallible revelation from God exist on earth today?
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How many of those exist on earth today? The answer is one. The word wholly is very important here.
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There is nothing I need to know in order to be saved that is not found on the pages of scripture. Nothing. God's entire will for his church is in scripture.
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Consider the passage that we read again. Think carefully about what it's saying. 2 Timothy 3, 15 -17.
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And that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
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All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
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Here we have Paul's final words to Timothy before Paul's death. It seems Paul knew his life was near an end.
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In 2 Timothy 4, 6 he says, For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.
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He knows it's coming. He knows he's about to die. If ever there was a time when Paul could have pointed
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Timothy to another source of the word and will of God, this would be the place.
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What about tradition? What about infallible bishops? What about apostolic successors?
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What about the Pope of Rome? Here we have Paul's last words for a dear friend and protege, a young pastor, no less.
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And he tells him to turn to that which is God -breathed, theionoustos. God -breathed scripture.
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Timothy, that's where you need to turn. That's what you look to for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness.
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He turns to that which is God -breathed, and nothing else is sufficient to make the man of God complete and thoroughly equipped for how many good works?
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Every good work. Is teaching the Christian faith a good work? Scripture perfectly equips the man of God for it.
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Is preaching a good work? Is being a godly wife a good work?
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Scripture completely and perfectly equips the people of God to do these tasks.
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Is being a project manager at your job a good work? The Bible equips you perfectly for that good work.
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This is why the Confession said that God's special and saving revelation of Himself and of His will was committed wholly, entirely, unto writing.
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This was for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the
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Church against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and of the world. And then it finishes, point one, which maketh the
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Holy Scripture to be most necessary, those former ways of God's revealing His will unto
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His people being now ceased. If you want to know the mind of God, there is quite literally nowhere else to turn today than Scripture.
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God does not have apostles any longer. That office has ceased. God does not speak through sign gifts like tongues or prophecy today.
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And you might ask, why doesn't God speak to people through tongues or prophets today? The answer is, there's no need.
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Everything God wants us to know is right here, in Scripture. And I would also point out, those who get caught up in charismatic sign gifts, words of knowledge from God, tongues, etc.
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Today, people do that today, they will very often have very little regard for Scripture. Think about it.
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Hey, that poor Presbyterian or Reformed Baptist minister, that guy's got to struggle with Greek and Hebrew to try to figure out what the
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Bible means every week, but hey, we've got Prophet Fred who gets it straight from God every Sunday. Luther dealt with the same thing in his own day.
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He said of those claiming direct revelations from God, I wouldn't believe their false gospel if they swallowed the
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Holy Spirit, feathers and all. Listen to the incredible certainty of what you hold in your hand when you hold an entire
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Bible. Peter the Apostle was an eyewitness of the crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
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Peter saw and touched Jesus before and after his death and resurrection. 2 Peter 1, 16.
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Listen to the words of Scripture. For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the
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Father, such an utterance as this was made unto him by the majestic glory, This is my beloved Son with whom
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I am well pleased. And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.
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So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.
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While Peter emphasizes that he was an eyewitness to the resurrection of Jesus, the prophetic word of the
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Old Testament is made more sure. What the prophetic word of Scripture says is even more sure and certain than our eyeball eyewitness facts.
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What Scripture says is more sure than what Peter's own eyes saw. What do you say when people object, but don't you think
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God speaks to us today? Our answer is yes, he most certainly does, right here in Scripture. God talks to me every day.
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What do you say when people accuse us, oh, you're putting God in a box? The fact is, God has put himself in the box.
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Everything he wants us to know in order to be saved is right here in the Holy Scriptures. When the Great Reformation shouted
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Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone, to the world, this was against much more than the Roman Catholic Church's elevation of tradition and the excathedra pronouncements of the papacy to the level of Scripture.
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It was also against radical Anabaptist sects which claimed direct revelations from God. It was also against a group called the
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Enthusiasts who claimed the same thing. Today we hold fast to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura against Pentecostals and other charismatic groups which claim direct revelations and direct words from God.
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This is why the Confession ends with those former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people being now ceased.
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Dr. Robert Raymond, in his New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, wrote this, quote, Moreover, it must be noted that to the degree that one believes that God still speaks directly to men and women today through prophets and through those who claim to speak in tongues, just to that same degree he is saying that he does not absolutely need the
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Bible for a word from God, and accordingly he has abandoned the great
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Reformation principle of Sola Scriptura, end quote. Right on.
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The Confession develops this notion of the cessation of special revelation in subsequent points, but suffice it to say now that there is a finality to the revelation man needs of God's saving will when
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Jesus steps out of eternity into human history. Now that he has accomplished redemption and his explanation has been fully inscripturated in the
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New Testament, there is no longer anything needed for saving or special revelation.
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And I would argue too, anyone who thinks God is still talking directly to us today and making revelations concerning himself and his will unto his church, those people must also believe that the canon of Scripture, of necessity, needs to still be expanded to accommodate these new revelations.
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Folks, you can't have the Word of God, sorta. And if people believe that they are getting direct words from God, it either is the
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Word of God or it is not the Word of God. What's Mr. Confession 1 .6
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The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down in Scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture, unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the
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Spirit or traditions of men. Now I want to ask in closing, why is writing the best medium?
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Because words and propositions are the clearest method of communication. I want to ask that question and answer it again.
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Why is writing the best medium for the communication of God's will to his church? Why is writing the best way?
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Because words and propositions are the clearest method of communication. Cartoon books are too open to speculation and interpretation.
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Movies are too open to speculation and interpretation. Nothing is more precise than words.
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This is why, when God wanted to communicate to his church, he talked. He spoke.
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God uses words, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, etc.
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God spoke directly. God talked in dreams. God spoke through prophets, and for the rest of his church's history on this earth,
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God committed everything he wanted his church of all ages to know wholly unto writing. Just as God expected the people to whom he spoke to understand and obey him, he expects us to understand and obey his written word now.
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B .B. Warfield said, Thus the scriptures are the permanent embodiment and soul divinely safeguarded and indeed only trustworthy extant form in which the revelation of God and of his will, which is necessary to salvation, exists.
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That's why I like B .B. Warfield. B .B. Warfield did not know how to write an unclear sentence.
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So listen to the confession again. 1 .1. Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave men unexcusable, yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of his will which is necessary unto salvation.
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Therefore it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in diverse manners to reveal himself and to declare that his will unto his church, and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same entirely wholly unto writing, which maketh the
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Holy Scripture to be most necessary those former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people being now ceased.
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If you own a Bible in your own language, you ought to be the happiest, most blessed, joyful person on this planet.
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You have in your hands everything that the creator of the vastness of this whole universe wanted human beings to know in order to have communion with him and to know they have eternal life and are going to heaven when they die.
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How can we who have the Bible in our hands ever be sad? We have the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the gospel and salvation.
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Don't let anything discourage you. God has demonstrated his love in that while we were yet sinners,
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Christ died for us, and he's given you the book where he said that so you could understand it. Don't be sad.
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Don't get down. Don't let the destruction of the church and this country, the church is thriving in many other places.
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Don't let the downgrade that we're seeing around us take your joy from you. Keep your eyes on Christ. Look at the things that he's revealed.
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Look at the treasures that we have in Holy Scripture. God knew that only a fixed and unchanging written body of special revelation would be sufficient to be the rule of faith and practice for his church.
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Nothing else in the universe is God -breathed. Nothing else is infallible. Nothing else is needed for the Christian in order to have a saving knowledge of God and of his son
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Jesus Christ. And those who deny this are elevating the word of man once again to the level of God.
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Has God really said? Yes he has. And where has God really spoken?
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What is the only place where we can find where he has spoken today? The Holy Scriptures alone.
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Sola Scriptura. It's not just a slogan. It is a way of life.
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Thank you for listening to or for watching the Protestant Witness. This is Pastor Patrick Hines signing off from Kingsport, Tennessee.
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This is Pastor Patrick Hines of Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church located at 108 Bridwell Heights Road in Kingsport, Tennessee.
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And you've been listening to the Protestant Witness podcast. Please feel free to join us for worship any Sunday morning at 11am sharp where we open the word of God together, sing his praises, and rejoice in the gospel of our risen
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Lord. You can find us on the web at www .bridwellheightspca .org
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and may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.