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Sola Scriptura, scripture alone, certainly the topic that I've debated most often with Roman Catholic apologists because, for them, they believe Sola Scriptura is, in essence, the same as the Trinity is for Jehovah's Witnesses.
It is the Achilles' heel. It is the means of getting to a Protestant. And it is a historically important, and it remains an important issue for us today. Pope John Paul II, on June 16th, the year 2000, promulgated through his representative a document that, interestingly enough, we know was pretty much written by the current pope, Benedict XVI, known as Dominus Iesus.
Among the errors identified by this most recent papal statement, at least when I wrote this it was, we find this error, this is an error, finally the tendency to read and to interpret sacred scripture outside the tradition and magisterium of the church.
And I certainly know from reading some of Benedict's material, Cardinal Ratzinger, of course, is his name, known as the Panzer Cardinal within the magisterium, as the man who has been in charge of the congregation for the sacred deposit of the faith, that's the modern way of talking about the Inquisition, seriously.
He is fairly well known in his viewpoints. John Wycliffe, called the Morning Star of the Reformation, was convinced of such truths as justification by faith in Christ. He likewise believed all men should have access to the Bible, and greatly offended the church of his day by translating the Bible into English, which was considered a vulgar language, vulgar at that time not meaning so much the way we use the term vulgar, but common, not ecclesiastical, not high enough.
It was considered an extremely schismatic and heretical act that he translated the Bible, even though he was translating the Latin, not the Greek, into the English language. He wrote, the New Testament is of full authority and open to the understanding of simple men as to the points that be most needful to salvation.
And he said, if there were a hundred popes and all the friars were turned into cardinals, their opinions and matters of faith should be believed only should be insofar as they are founded on scripture.
As a result, Wycliffe was brought to trial for heresy due to the political situation of the day. He survived to die of old age. Though summoned to Rome numerous times, he never took the plane. His teaching impacted many, including a Bohemian priest by the name of Jan Hus, who was put to death in 1415 at the Council of Constance, also for his views on that particular subject.
After Wycliffe's death, his followers, called Lawlards, were horrifically persecuted by the Roman Church in England. All of Wycliffe's works, including his translation of the Bible, were ordered to be burned all across England and on the European continent as well.
I had the opportunity while in London a few months ago to go to the British Library. I was absolutely in heaven. It was very odd. I've got to admit, I had never been to the British Library before, it was my first time in London.
I walked into this room, it's a fairly large room, there are many displays there, but somehow I made a beeline. Without even knowing where I was going, it was calling my name. I made a beeline directly to Codex Sinaiticus, which is there in the British Library, one of the earliest manuscripts of the complete Bible.
Next to it was Codex Alexandrinus, and behind me was a 1611 King James Version of the Bible, and a Tyndale New Testament, and a Wycliffe Bible. I can't imagine what those five things together are actually worth, but they were right there.
I mean, you're just that far away from it. It was just absolutely, positively an amazing thing when I had that opportunity, and I would recommend it highly to you, though I wouldn't do what I did. I think I drooled a little bit on the case, and that was very untasteful of me, but everybody else sort of walked by.
I look at it like scribbles on a paper, and they walk off, and I'm just going, yeah. It was really, really neat. So incensed was the Roman church at Wycliffe's teachings, they ordered his body exhumed and burned, and his ashes scattered in the River Swift.
And so, you do know, I mean, there's a number of times they dug up a pope's body once and put him on trial for heresy. They actually sat his dead body up and tried him for heresy right then and there, and sort of like, well, okay, that's, all righty then.
Well, you know, they kept Charlemagne's body on his throne for like 80 years after he croaked, and you know, until stuff started falling off, and then they decided it was a good time to bury the poor boy.
But you sort of feel sorry for whoever came after somebody like that. When they don't even want to give you a throne, they keep the dead guy on, and they don't give you one. You're probably not going to be long for that particular position.
Rome continues to deny that the Bible is sufficient to function as the soul, and I mentioned this last night, I think I mentioned this already this morning, infallible rule of faith to this very day. Roman Catholic writer John O 'Brien once wrote, great as is our reverence for the Bible, reason and experience compel us to say that it alone is not a competent nor a safe guide as to what we are to believe.
Rome insisted due to her nature as the infallible church, scripture must be read within the context of her own tradition, and under the auspices of the magisterium, the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, and of course, that is a viewpoint held by many different groups today, who believe that the reading of the Bible alone leads to schism and to error.
And of course, when you're teaching falsehood, that's quite true, it does. Modern Roman Catholic apologists focus more energy upon attacking sola scriptura than really anything else. Robertson Genesee, former Protestant and graduate of Westminster Seminary, who I should at least say since this time has actually become, has sort of gone off on his own now, even most Roman Catholic apologists now repudiate his work, has edited a 620-plus page work titled Not by Scripture Alone, there's a title there, Not by Scripture Alone, he is the editor of that work, and in a series, one of the top sellers in Catholic bookstores is a series of books called Surprised by Truth.
And here you have the stories in the first one of 11 converts to Catholicism, eight of the 11 list their inability to define, let alone to defend, the doctrine of sola scriptura as one of the primary reasons for their conversion to Catholicism.
And in the books that have come in that series since then, that has remained a constant element of the testimonies of these people who have converted to Catholicism was their inability to define or defend sola scriptura.
Now, I should add that along those lines, one of the consistent elements of those testimonies has been an ignorance of what sola scriptura is. There is a constant strawman argumentation that is utilized in those arguments.
And I guess I'm going to go ahead and mention this, though we're a little bit pressed on time. Just as an illustration of why these things are important and why you can never take anything for granted, in the third volume of Surprised by Truth is the conversion story of a woman by the name of Patricia Bonds, my only sister to Roman Catholicism.
Of course, in that process, she never talked to me. Everyone that I've known who's ever converted to Roman Catholicism who knew me, always only told me about it after they had already made the decision to convert.
And in fact, my sister did write to me anonymously. And in the providence of God, I happened to be teaching at Golden Gate the week that she wrote to me under an anonymous name. I was having horrible time trying to get internet access.
For some reason, they turned the phones off for a while in the dorm I was in. And yet, in the midst of all that, I got this email. And I remember it was very, very unusual. In the providence, certainly the providence of God was involved in this.
My sister had sort of separated herself from our family years before that. I had not seen her very much. And I got this email, had no idea that it was my sister. But I wrote a very lengthy response to it.
And in fact, I BCC'd, if you're familiar with the email, I BCC'd it to my wife. And I don't do that very often. I BCC'd it to my wife and said, hon, I just thought you might want to read this. Because if you really want to see the mindset of a person who's on their way to Rome, they've already made their decision to go to Rome.
And now they're trying to justify that decision. This illustrates it perfectly, without having any idea that the person I was writing to was, in fact, my only sister. I found out about four or five months later about what she had done.
Of course, she's become a star for the Roman Catholic apologists, despite the fact she hadn't read any of my books, couldn't listen to any of my debates, and had only heard me preach once. But despite all that, of course, they thought that was just a wonderful thing.
She's been on Catholic Answers Live and all the rest of this stuff. And her story is in Surprised by Truth 3. So if you think that, you know, raised within a Baptist family, minister for a father, if you don't love the truth, what does Paul say in 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 10 through 11?
Those who refuse to love the truth, what does God do? Causes them to love a lie. Don't play fast and loose with the truth. Do not lightly esteem it. If you have been given the opportunity of being raised in a Christian family, that's a wonderful thing.
I was. I thank God for that. I've known about the Word of God from the time I was a youth. But there is also an inverse reality there. And that is, if you don't love the truth, God will cause you to love a lie.
And I've seen that happen in my own experience. And so, you know, people might say, ah, you're raised in the church, you know, you don't know what it's like to have family members. Yes, I do. I know what it's like to have family members on national radio programs.
Just last week, if you follow my blog, one of the people that know her talked about me and said he's an anti-Catholic bigot raised by anti-Catholic bigots to be an anti-Catholic bigot. So I do know what it's like.
So just thought I'd throw that in there just to say, I don't live in the hallowed walls of academia. This isn't something that's just out there. We get out on the street corners and it's a part of life.
Well, don't they have a point? I mean, if you've ever encountered these folks, they can present a pretty strong case. Where does the Bible teach Sola Scriptura? If you were asked that question, how would you answer it?
If the Bible doesn't teach it and we derive the idea from other considerations, from other arguments, from other doctrines, doesn't that alone refute the doctrine? If it comes from outside the Bible, then the Bible alone isn't sufficient, is it?
If Sola Scriptura is true, why are there tens of thousands of denominations? Why is it that the people on that broadcasting network I mentioned earlier can come up with every kind of teaching? I never mentioned the station that it's on in Phoenix.
It's between 20 and 22. But let that one sink in there for a second. It takes a few minutes for most folks. But why do all of them say that they're teaching in accordance with the Bible? If the Bible is enough, then why is there so much false teaching from people who are standing up there holding a Bible?
Why does the Bible recommend to us the use of tradition, including an oral tradition, the words of Paul, 2 Thessalonians 2 .15, so them brothers stand firm and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.
Word of mouth is differentiated by letter from us. So where are these oral traditions? Why aren't you holding them is what my Roman Catholic opponents are constantly saying when we debate this particular subject.
There are two positions being presented when we talk about the authority of Scripture and very rarely is Rome honest enough, to be perfectly honest with you, and I think I'm in one of the best positions to address this and to address the issue of the apologists for Rome because no one else has debated them more often than I have, at least not to my knowledge anyways.
They don't want you to recognize that while they're making you defend Sola Scriptura, they are presenting Sola Ecclesia, the church as the final authority. Now they'll deny that. They'll, oh no, no, no, we're not talking about Sola Ecclesia, don't try to make us defend something we don't believe.
But every time they deny it, they end up proving that I'm exactly right. Rome claims, the Rome position is a claim of absolute and infallible authority just as the Protestant claims the Bible. I mean, if you know Roman Catholic theology, who defines the canon of Scripture according to Rome?
Rome. Who defines the meaning of Scripture infallibly? The church. Rome. Who defines what is and what is not tradition? Rome. Who defines what tradition does and does not teach? Rome. How can Rome be subject to the authority of Scripture and tradition when you're dependent upon Rome for your knowledge of what Scripture is and what it says and what tradition is and what it says?
I'm sorry, but logically she cannot be subject to two things that are dependent upon her for their definition and meaning. Sola Ecclesia, the church as the final authority, is the position being presented and the majority of the arguments that Roman Catholic apologists use against scriptural sufficiency are far more compelling against the alleged capacity of Rome to function in that way.
I mean, if they're right, there should be perfect unity amongst all Roman Catholics as to what they believe, right? Does that exist? No, I don't think so. So it is important to avoid being put in the position, and we tend to do this in all of our apologetic encounters.
We tend to allow ourselves to be put in the position of constantly defending without forcing the other person to operate upon the same basis. Jehovah's Witnesses get us to do this. They get us to defend only the deity of Christ, but we won't then force them to present their view of Christ and show how it's consistent with the same passages.
I mean, when you believe Jesus is Michael the Archangel, so you think the Great Commission is, go and baptize them in the name of Jehovah God, Michael the Archangel, in an impersonal act of force, right?
Rarely are they put in the position of actually having to take their position and read it in the light of scripture. They're much more comfortable forcing you to do that. Same thing with Roman Catholic apologists.
He wants you to defend Sola Scriptura. He's not going to defend Sola Ecclesia. I can't get them to debate that. They all want to debate Sola Scriptura. They all want to be on the attack against Sola Scriptura.
They won't then take the opposite position and defend their own tradition in that way. The doctrine of Sola Scriptura is really rather straightforward, but in my experience, it is rarely, if almost ever, represented accurately within the literature, the MP3s, CDs, video presentations, books, so on and so forth, of Roman Catholic apologists that are active today.
And there is a whole group of them. You have Catholic Answers with Carl Keating and Jimmy Akin and Tim Staples out in San Diego. You've got Envoy Magazine with Patrick Madrid. You've got Jerry Matitix and Robert St. Genes running around out there, Mitch Pacwa on EWTM.
There's a whole range of folks that are very, very quite active out there. Sola Scriptura briefly stated simply this, because the scriptures are the only example of God-breathed revelation in the possession of the church, they form the only infallible rule of faith for the church.
The scriptures are God-breathed. They are God-speaking. When God speaks, what he says has his authority. It has his authority par excellence. And therefore, since that is the only example of God-breathed revelation in the possession of the church, and Rome will, it depends on which Catholic apologist you're talking to as to how they will respond to this.
The old Roman Catholic viewpoint would say, actually, we do have God-breathed revelation outside of scripture in the traditions. The much more modern viewpoint is, well, no, not really. I'll get into that in just a moment.
But there's a simple statement of the doctrine. In other words, since the Bible is Theanustos, God-breathed, breathed out by God, God breathed the NIV translation, breathed out by God is the ESV translation, yes?
Is there a debate going on between the NIV and ESV around here or something like that? Because I just, you laughed, and somebody back there hit fists. So obviously, something's going on here that I haven't quite figured out.
And I have very good eyesight, by the way. I just wanted you to know I had LASIK a few years ago. I can see like anything now. So is there an ESV, NIV, NASV thing going on? Okay. I just want to, just, you know, just want to know.
Okay. Anyway, since it's God-breathed, as Paul says in 2 Timothy 3 .16, it provides to us the very voice of God. Matthew 22 .31, very, very quickly, remember that passage? Jesus has just refued the Pharisees.
The Sadducees come along. They tell the story about the man with the, the woman with the seven husbands. And they throw their best argument out at them, at Jesus, and they basically say, whose wife is she going to be in the resurrection, remember?
And Jesus' response to them is so politically incorrect, I love it. He says, you're wrong. He doesn't say, you're, you're, you're truth challenged, or you have the wrong viewpoint. He says, you're wrong.
You do not understand the scriptures nor the power of God. Have you not read what was written to you? Have you not read what was spoken to you by God? When he said, and then he quotes from Exodus, and he proves that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive because they're in the presence of God, so on and so forth.
In that passage, Jesus says, have you not read what was spoken to you by God? I had read that passage over and over again and had never seen what was being said there. Have you not read what was spoken to you by God?
Now, if you normally, when you say, have you not read, what would, what would follow that? What was written? Or you would say, did you not hear what was spoken? That's not what Jesus says. Have you not read in scriptures that are 1400 years old, what was spoken to you by God?
For Jesus, the scriptures are God speaking, and they are God speaking in each generation. You are held accountable for what's in the scriptures as if God had spoken them to you. And notice he says, have you not read?
It's there, it's available to you. I sort of take that as a good admonition. I would probably want, if I was a Christian, I'd sort of want to read the whole Bible. You know what I mean? You know what first got me to read the whole Bible?
I don't know if I told this story to you the last time, and then again, since it was two years ago, who would remember if I did? But you know why I first read the Bible through all the way the first time?
It was a Jack Chick tract. It was a Jack Chick tract. And Jack Chick had a tract, and he had a guy going to heaven. You know how Jack Chick does his drawings, you know, little comic book things? You know what I'm talking about, the Jack Chick tracts?
Like, you don't know? This Was Your Life, or Holy Joe, and stuff like that? They're comic book tracts. And in this comic book tract, this guy dies, this Christian dies, and he goes to heaven. And he runs into Habakkuk.
Hopefully we all know who Habakkuk is. And Habakkuk walks up, and he says, So, Steve, what did you think of my book? And the guy's standing there looking at him like, You wrote a book? And I thought, man, I don't want to die and go to heaven.
So that night I read Habakkuk. I have no idea what Habakkuk was about at that time, but I read Habakkuk in case I died that night, so I did run into Habakkuk. But there are other guys, like Nahum, you know?
And so I said, you know what? As a teenager, I need to make sure I read it all. I don't have any worries about running into John. Paul's cool. But some of these guys, yeah, I've got to admit, if they asked me, I'd go, no, no, no.
So that's why I read through the Bible. But this is, I think, an even better reason. And that is, God's going to hold you accountable to it if he gave it to you. Oops. But, it's God speaking. So it's Theanoustas.
It is God's very voice. God's voice can admit of no higher or equal authority that is not God speaking. Anyone else's speaking is a created person speaking, yes? And hence is derivative in authority. It can only reflect what God himself has revealed.
It is the ultimate authority in all things, for God cannot refer to any higher authority than himself to establish the truthfulness of what he says. In other words, how does God, you know, when we go into court of law, we swear, well, we used to, put our hands on a Bible, I swear by something that what I'm saying is true.
I'm going to appeal to a higher authority than myself that what I'm saying is true. How does God do that? What can God swear by? That's all he can do. He can't swear by the earth or the stars because he made all that stuff.
It's lesser than him. And so, by definition, if it's Theanoustas, if it's God-breathed, it has to be ultimate in its authority. Sola Scriptura denies that there is another infallible rule of faith in the church.
We do not deny that there are fallible rules of faith. At my church, we have a confession of faith. If you want to know what we believe, we tell you what we believe. But it is not an infallible rule of faith.
It is subject to correction on the basis of the infallible rule of faith of the scripture. There may be other rules. They're not infallible. They're subject to correction. As Augustine put it, What more shall I teach you than what we read in the Apostle?
For holy scripture fixes the rule for our doctrine lest we dare to be wiser than we ought. Therefore, I should not teach you anything else except to expound to you the words of the teacher. That's exactly what we are saying.
Now, what Sola Scriptura is? The scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith of the church. They are, by definition, ultimate authority. There can be no higher authority than God himself. All other rules of faith, creeds, councils, or anything else produced by the church herself, is subject to the ultimate correction of God's word.
We're not saying those things are bad. We're not saying you can't learn from those things. You know, over and over again, Catholic apologists will say, See, those Protestants think you have to reinvent the wheel with every generation.
Every generation is starting from scratch. No, I'm not saying we're starting from scratch. I'm saying we have an ultimate authority that corrects anything else. And it doesn't happen to be Rome. 2 Timothy chapter 3 tells us this.
We've already mentioned it. Since time is short, I just skip down to the fact that Paul is telling Timothy, From infancy you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
These would be the Old Testament scriptures at this point. The New Testament is still being written. Sola Scriptura only addresses the normative state of the church. What do I mean by that? You can't talk about Sola Scriptura when the scriptura is still being written.
One of the silliest arguments that Roman Catholics present, and others present against Sola Scriptura is, Well, Jesus didn't use it. Well, duh. Well, Paul didn't use it, yet he was writing the scriptures.
That's not the point. The point is, do we have apostles today? Unless you're talking to a Mormon, they say no. And even Rome says revelation has ceased, with the closing of the canon of scripture. Now, they'll argue they closed the canon, but the point is, there's no more revelation coming.
So if there's no more revelation coming, this is the only thing that's theanustos, are your traditions theanustos, and then you can engage the debate. But they say, well, if Paul didn't engage in it, then that can't be true.
He was one through whom revelation was coming. Do we have more revelation coming? No. So how do we know what is our infallible rule of faith now? And they like to play the game as if that's not relevant.
But anyways, this would have been the Old Testament, primarily, at this point in time, for Timothy. The only scriptures he knew when he was a child were not Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, because they hadn't been written yet.
All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. The man of God, the minister in the church, if you want to teach doctrine, teaching, rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness, teaching there, the very same root term from which we get doctrine.
That's what doctrine is. Man of God, where do you go? Well, I go to papal encyclicals. No wrong buzz. That's not where you go. There weren't any at this time to go to anyways. But the point is, where do you go?
It has to be theanustos. It has to be God-breathed. What's the soul of scripture is not. You do not want to be defending this stuff, even though, sadly, people get forced into it all the time to do so.
It is not a denial that God's word has, at times, been in oral form during those times of scripturation. I remember the first time I debated this in August of 1990. I was skinny and had hair. And my opponent spent a lot of his time just saying, well, look, the word of God came to Isaiah.
And he spoke, saying, see, the word of God was spoken. Well, congratulations. Unless you're saying that what Isaiah spoke was different than what he recorded for us, are you saying that Isaiah said a lot of inspired things that are not in scripture?
And if you say yes, then pray tell me, where is that? Does Rome tell us what Isaiah said that's not found in scripture? Well, no, Rome doesn't. And at that time, back in the late 1980s, people like Jerry Mattox were running around, just running over Protestant pastors right and left with these kinds of arguments.
And I came along and started debating these guys. And I remember Mitch Packway himself and others have said, wait a minute, may I ask you a question? Has Rome defined a single word that Jesus ever spoke dogmatically?
As Rome says, by our authority, Jesus said these words, and they're not in scripture. And Mitch Packway was honest enough to say, no. How about the Apostle Paul? How about any of the writers of scripture?
Has anything they said orally that's not found in scripture been dogmatically defined by the Roman Catholic Church? And the answer to that question for anybody is none, no, nada, nothing. So to argue that it was once orally preached and therefore scripture is not sufficient is a canard.
It's a straw man. It has no relevance. It may sound real good, and it's convinced a lot of folks, but it doesn't really have any relevance. It is not a denial of the role of the Holy Spirit in leading and guiding the church.
They seem to think the sola scriptura means the Holy Spirit might as well just leave. The idea of applying what is found in scripture and growing us and convicting us of sin and sanctification doesn't seem to follow in.
Somehow you need to have a jello-ish view of revelation for the Holy Spirit to have anything to do with it, which doesn't make any sense to me either. It is not an assertion. The Bible contains all knowledge.
Boy, that is so common, so common. Carl Keating, for years and years and years, has used as an argument against sola scriptura, well, doesn't it say in the Gospel of John that if everything Jesus said and did was written down, the world itself could not contain the books, it would be written.
So obviously sola scriptura can't be true. Why? What does that have to do with sola scriptura? The only reason that that would be an argument in sola scriptura is if we're saying sola scriptura tells us every single thing Jesus ever said.
It describes for us all of the apostles' clothing. We know what Jesus wore every day. We know what his favorite food was. We know what the apostolic meal menu was of every day. We have exhaustive knowledge in the Bible of everything Jesus ever said and did, every game he played as a child, every word he ever said to his mother.
It's all in the Bible. If we said that, then that would be a meaningful refutation. But that's not what sola scriptura is, so why is it considered an argument? And yet it's considered to be a valid argument by many, many, many people.
It is not an assertion that we can learn nothing from the generations that have gone before. It is not a claim that we have to go back and reinvent the wheel with each new generation. Those are not what sola scriptura is actually saying to begin with.
There are also a lot of common misunderstandings about the doctrine that we should dismiss immediately. For example, the single worst argument against sola scriptura goes something like this. Sola scriptura is the blueprint for anarchy.
Look at what has happened. There are 28 ,000 Protestant denominations. Sola scriptura is an utter failure. And this is the most common argument you will hear if you turn on EWTN and listen to the Eternal Word Television Network and if you'll read the books I mentioned earlier, the Surprised by Truth books.
There are 28 ,000. When I first started, it was like 22 ,000. And then it grew to 28 ,000. I've had people say 33 ,000. And if you actually look into it, the source they're using there, if you take the 22 ,000 number or so, that same source is basically counting individual churches.
And so if your church is an independent church, you're an entire denomination unto yourself. And that same source, in using those parameters, came up with about 7 ,000 Roman Catholic churches. And the Roman Catholics don't like that part.
But 99 .9 of the Roman Catholics using that number have never bothered to look up the source in the first place. And so at least a couple of them, when I have faced them with this information, Eric Svensson wrote a book called Upon This Slippery Rock.
And he provides the documentation from the source on this that demonstrates the silliness of this huge number. Because if you start naming denominations, do you think you could get 28 ,000? I certainly couldn't.
I mean, as far as having a meaningful size of any size at all, could we even get to 50 before we start struggling? We really couldn't. So the number's ridiculous. The argument's ridiculous on that level.
But that's not the only reason it's ridiculous. Let's say, just for the sake of argument, there are 200 Protestant denominations that have at least 2 ,000 members. They would say, that's 199 more than Jesus won, according to John 17.
We are the one true church. We are unified. Ha, ha, ha. Yeah, get 10 Catholic theologians in the room. You'll have 24 different opinions as to what Rome teaches. So this unity makes me sort of chuckle.
But anyways, we are the one true church. We are united all as well. Is that an argument against Sola Scriptura? Is it the fault of the Bible that there are differences of understanding concerning what it teaches?
You've got to think about that. As I say here, the misuse of a sufficient source is not a valid argument against that source. Guys, let me ask you a question. I mentioned my palm, and all of a sudden, all the geeks came up to me during the break.
Everybody's pulling out their palms. There's a trio 650 out there, and we've got a couple down here. Right down front, I could have been beaming stuff right to you right here. It's really great. And so all the geeks came out.
Let's look at our pom-poms again. And we were having fun, and a few people wanted to play Star Trek and things like that. Anyhow, and thankfully no one is dressed like Chewbacca or Luke today, so that's a good thing.
But if you understand anything I'm saying, you're culturally deficient. But anyway, when you buy a new piece of computer equipment, and you're a guy, what do you do? When you open up the box, there's this thing called the user's manual.
Who needs a user's manual anyways? I mean, BibleWorks by Herman Utica, this is a great Bible program, has a manual that thick. It's huge. It's massive. I mean, even if I had the time to read it, I'm just not going to do that.
So when you get new software, you get that new printer. You get that new laser printer, or some other doodad for the computer. I know how to handle this. And so you install it, and it doesn't work. It prints out black pages, it's printing out in Japanese, it's doing something, and you wait until the wife leaves the room, and then you go over and...
She comes back in, you bury it again, and I'm getting close, honey, don't worry, dear. And then it's like, oh, oh, OK. And then you do the right thing, and those of you who are laughing are going, yes, I've seen my husband do that many times over and over again.
You have to, shh, they're all going, stop, stop, stop. Go on. Go on with the presentation. It's noon. We're late. Go. Yeah. Hitting the button way too close to home there. Is it the printer manual's fault when you don't read it, and you mess up, and the printer doesn't work right?
Is it the printer's... It's Microsoft's fault. Everything's Microsoft's fault. That's an easy one. It's Bill Gates did it to me. You know. What if you get a new printer from the same company as your old printer, and you knew how to use the old printer, and so you just assume the new printer's going to work like the old printer, right?
And so you do everything the way the old printer worked, and it doesn't work. And so you've brought your tradition into the new printer, and it doesn't work. Or what if you only read the quick start part, and two months later the thing burns up because there was something you should have read later on about how you're supposed to, you know, maintain it or something like that, and you've destroyed it.
You only read a part of it. You didn't read all of it. Is it the printer manual's fault? Of course not. And yet that's what this argument against Sola Scriptura is saying. I mean, let's face it. Amongst Protestant denominations, how many really practice Sola Scriptura in the first place?
How many really say the heart and soul of what we're about is rightly handling and dividing the Word of God and presenting it and presenting all of it, including the tough parts, including the tough doctrines?
Not many. How many today don't mind somebody standing upright in the middle of the service saying, Thus saith the Lord! Really? Thus saith the Lord? Thus saith the Lord, we should paint our sanctuary deep purple.
Oh, don't question that, because now you're stifling the Holy Spirit. How do you believe in Sola Scriptura and you're still getting Revelation? Are you putting that in the 28th book of the New Testament?
How does it differ from what's in the New Testament? That's the whole issue. Not only that, I'll never forget this, and I just don't know how far we're going to get here, but I've already thrown enough out at you to numb your minds anyways, but I'll never forget, I was standing in Mesa, Mesa, Arizona, during the Easter pageant of the Mormon Church.
Every year, the week before Easter, they have an Easter pageant. Starting in 1982, I started going out there, 23 years, passing out tracts and witnessing to people as they're passing by them. And we've written a number of tracts to pass out to Mormons and stuff, and I remember I was passing out tracts one day, and this young guy walked by, and he took the tract, and he did the thing that all Mormons do, as soon as he took the tract, he whipped it around to the backside as he who had published it.
And I saw him stop, and his shoulder sort of went down, and I could see he was debating with himself. And he was going, do I go back and talk to this guy, or is this going to be a waste of my time? So I took a deep breath, and he came back.
And he says, I want to ask you a question. Sure. Why are there so many different churches? I said, well, two reasons. One's a valid reason, one's an invalid reason. The valid reason is that God hasn't made us cookie cutters.
He has not made us clones of one another, and therefore, there are going to be churches that worship a little bit differently, that have a different style of worship than others, and you have a staff of elders, and the dynamics of those elders are going to be different from church to church, and so there are differences along those lines.
I said the invalid reason is that people pick and choose from the Bible what they will and will not believe. Because of their traditions, because of whatever it is, they will pick and choose in the Bible what they will and will not believe.
Well, my answer didn't necessarily satisfy him, and so we went on talking. He was a very bright, returned LDS missionary. He already served his two-year mission, and he was a very bright young man, and he very quickly started getting the idea, as we started talking about salvation, that I had some odd views.
Because we started talking about grace, and I started saying, look, God saves on the basis of grace. Grace is free. We cannot merit it. You can't earn it by going to the temple. I pointed out some of Joseph Smith's errors about that.
He says, no, no, wait a minute. He says, if what you believe is true about grace, he says, you don't believe in predestination, do you? And it's almost like, you don't believe in predestination, do you?
You know? Get that, oh, yeah, yeah. Saltine cracker, oh, yeah, you know. And I opened up my Bible. Could I borrow your Bible there? I had a King James zippered little Bible, and we're out under a street light in the dark, and so I opened up to Ephesians 1, verse 11.
Wouldn't it be terrible if I get to Ephesians 1, 11, and I have to separate the pages here? That would be a bad thing. How long have you had that Bible? About 21 years. Okay, all right. Never let me borrow your Bible again, will you?
And I said, also we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose, to his purpose, who works all things after the counsel of his will. Now he's standing right in front of me, and so he looks at me and he says, so you believe that, and I stopped him, I put my hand up, and I said, also we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his will.
And he says, so you actually believe that, and I put my hand up, and I said, also we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to his purpose who works all things after the counsel of his will.
And he looks down at my Bible, and he reaches over my Bible, and he finds verse 11, and he taps the page, and he says, I don't believe that. That's wrong, and I feel good saying that. And so I closed my Bible, and I zipped it up, and I said to him, sir, when you first walked up to me, you asked me why there are so many different churches.
You may recall that my answer to you was, it's because men pick and choose what they will and will not believe out of the Bible, and sir, no one has ever given me a clearer example of that than you just did.
That's what people do. People pick and choose. It's not the printer manual's fault. When you pick and choose which chapters you're going to read, and it blows up. It was there. And it's not Scripture's fault when people will not practice sola scriptura, and will bring their own traditions, their own understandings, their own blinders to the Word of God, so that they don't see what the Word of God is saying.
Sola scriptura does not promise us that we are going to have perfect unanimity of opinion in this world. The apostles didn't have it. Did they? Think about what they went through. They were in a constant struggle.
They had to deal with heresy all the time. What did Paul say in Acts chapter 20? He said, I know. Not, I'm worried about this. He says, I know that after my departure ravenous wolves will enter into the flock not sparing the sheep.
Man will arise from your own number. He was talking to the elders of the church at Ephesus. He says, man will arise from your own number speaking perverse things, drawing away disciples after themselves.
Wow. Paul, thank you for the uplifting prediction. He said to Timothy, deceivers will continue deceiving and growing worse and worse, Timothy. The time will come when they will not hold the sound doctrine.
They won't want to hear it. And what happens in both 2 Timothy and Acts chapter 20 after Paul says to two different groups of elders, Timothy being an elder, difficult times are coming. There's going to be false teachers.
There's going to be heresy. And that's where he said, so make sure to follow Peter's successors in Rome. Right? You remember that in Timothy? Remember that in Acts? It's not there. What does he say in both places?
We already saw it here in 2 Timothy. As soon as it says that, but you, man, you know what's theanoustos. You know what's God breathed. You know what to follow, Timothy. You already know the scriptures are wise enough.
They give you the wisdom to follow in Jesus Christ. What does he say to the Ephesian elders? After all this warning, he says, so I commend you to God and to the word of His grace. That's what God has given to His church.
It has not been God's purpose for the church to not have to struggle in each and every generation. That's why Jude says that you are to contend, agonizemai, contend earnestly for the ones for all delivered to the saints faith.
Every generation has to do that. Every generation has to do that. And what that means is there's going to be false teachers. To turn that into an argument against scripture is nonsense. And yet, that is the sum and substance of the most popular argument presented against Sola Scriptura by Roman Catholic apologists.
Well, you can probably imagine this presentation goes on from here for a long ways. But we have moved through our time already this morning. And obviously, there's a little book out there called Scripture Alone that would develop these things much further.
There is in that book references to other much larger works. I hope that hopefully in your institute you might look at some of those larger works. There is a three-volume set put out by William Webster and David King called Holy Scripture.
1 ,100 pages on Sola Scriptura. If you want to obtain that, we have it through aomin .org and it's available from some other sources as well. And so, the information is out there. I would just encourage you to be passionate about it and to pursue that.