Sola Scriptura 3 — Anton Bosch

The Final Words of Scripture in Revelation 22

Please turn with me to the book of Revelation chapter 22. And I'm concluding the short series, I think it took us four weeks to get here, on the completeness of the word of God, that we don't need anything outside of the word of God.

And I summarized basically four weeks of messages in the bulletin this morning, for those who want to go over it again. So let's read from Revelation chapter 22, the last chapter in the Bible. And we're going to read the last 14, 15 verses from Revelation chapter 22 and reading from verse six.

And it's interesting that these are the words that are used to conclude the scriptures with. These are the final words in the Bible. Revelation 22 verse six. Then he said to me, these words are faithful and true.

And the Lord God of the Holy Prophet sent his angel to show his servants the things which must shortly take place. Behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.

Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angels who showed me these things. Then he said to me, see that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant and your brethren the prophets.

And those who keep the words of this book, worship God. And he said to me, do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. He who is unjust, let him be unjust still. He who is filthy, let him be filthy still.

He who is righteous, let him be righteous still. And he who is holy, let him be holy still. And behold, I am coming quickly and my reward is with me to give to everyone according to his works. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and whoever loves and practices a lie.

I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and morning star. And the spirit and the bride say, come. And let him who hears say, come.

And let him who thirsts, come. Therefore, whoever desires, let him take of the water of life freely. For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book.

And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life, from the holy city and from the things which are written in this book. He who testifies to these things says, surely I am coming quickly.

Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. And you'll see those very important words of verse 18. For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of the book.

If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book. If anyone takes away from the words of this book, the Lord will take away his name from the book of life.

The Warning Against Adding to or Removing from Scripture

And those words don't only apply to the book of revelation, they apply to the whole of the scriptures because we find the same words in the book of Deuteronomy and we find them also in the book of Proverbs and finally here in the book of Revelation.

And so there is a curse on anyone who adds to the words of the scriptures. And remember that we started off by saying that there are many ways in which people add to the scriptures. They add by their traditions, they add by their own sayings and their own writings.

And in the last 30 years, it has become customary for people by prophecy and by the words of preachers to add to the words of the scripture. And these words and these messages often are at the same level as the scriptures.

They have the same authority as the scripture or they are more important in the thinking of men than the scriptures themselves. And then we looked at the fact that there is, that God is a God of order, that God doesn't move around haphazardly and make things up as he goes along, that he is not caught by surprise, that he knew from the beginning how things would work out.

And so he made provision in his scriptures and in his word for all the things that we need to know in order to be able to live the life that we need to live and in order that we might have eternal life.

God does not change. God doesn't change his feelings about things. God does not change his laws. He does not change his rules. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so when people now say they have this new revelation, which God didn't give to Abraham or to Paul or to Peter or to anybody else in the scriptures, if they have this new revelation which contradicts the scriptures, either they are saying God has lied when he gave us his word in the first place or God has changed his mind or the other option is what they are saying is not the truth.

Now, God cannot change and his word is yea and amen. His word cannot change. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will endure forever. And so God cannot change. He does not change. And also his word does not change.

And we spoke about the fact that God proves his commitment to his word by Jesus dying on the cross of Calvary. If God could change his word and say, well, I didn't really mean that the day you eat of that tree, you will die.

If God could change that, then Jesus would not have to die, but God could not change his word. And the only way he could save us is by sending his son to die in our place on the cross of Calvary. That's the degree to which God is committed to his word, the degree to which he is bound by his word and cannot change his word, even if he wants to change it.

The Completeness of Scripture for Every Generation

Now, what I want to do this morning is to look at the fact that the scriptures are complete, because the question is, or the problem that people have is saying, well, you know, the Bible was written 2000 years ago, and we live in the 21st century.

They didn't know the things that we know today. They didn't know about computers and space travel and flying from this end of the world to the other end of the world. They didn't know what we know about psychology and about social sciences and all of the stuff that we know about today.

So the scriptures are incomplete. We have a totally different set of circumstances today, not only personally and sociologically, but in the church. And so the scripture cannot be complete. One of the other arguments is that God is continually revealing himself and continually revealing more.

And so what was revealed to the apostles and what is being revealed to us today is different things. God is revealing more and more of himself. Now, we need to go to the scriptures to see what the word has to say about that.

Let's go to the book of Hebrews chapter one. And I'm not going to go to too many scriptures, about five or six and basically four books. The book of Hebrews chapter one and verse one. God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his son, whom he has appointed heir of all things and through whom also he made the worlds.

So he's saying that in the Old Testament, in times past, God spoke in different ways. He spoke through visions. He spoke through dreams. He spoke through oracles. He spoke through thunder and lightning.

He spoke through writing his word upon tables of stone. So God spoke in different ways in the Old Testament and he spoke from time to time. There were long periods of silence in the Old Testament. There were long periods when God was not really giving any new message to the people.

But now it says God has spoken by his son. So he's now chosen a new means of communication. And that means of communication is through Jesus Christ, through the life of Jesus and the things that Jesus taught.

Those are the things which God is speaking. In fact, you remember Jesus told a parable that said this kind of thing. He said a man built a vineyard and he leased it out to farmers and every year he would send his servants to say the harvest, you've now taken the harvest, the time of, you've had the crop, and so give me my share, give me the rent.

And so when the servants came to these farmers and said the master wants his rent, they would mistreat the servants and chase them away. But then finally he said, what I will do is I will send my son.

Maybe they will hear him. And when the son came and said, the owner is asking for his due, he's asking for the rent, they took his son and they killed him. And of course, what he was saying by means of parable is that God spoke in different ways in the Old Testament, mainly through the prophets, but he finally sent his son and said, well, they didn't hear the prophets, but maybe they'll hear my son.

But when the son came and said, what was the message of the son? Give God his due, give God his glory. And so what they did was they took him and they crucified him. And so, but the fact is that God has spoken and God has spoken by Jesus.

But the important thing about that verse I want you to notice is in verse two, the beginning of the verse, he has in these last days spoken, he has spoken. He's not continuing to speak because that's the basis of the idea that God is continuing to speak to us.

Now, obviously what, you know, the fact that God speaks to us personally, and I trust that God will be speaking to us today through the worship and through the songs and through our fellowship together and through his word, but he is not speaking any new message.

He's simply taking his word and applying it to us. I'm sure we've all had the experience where you read the scriptures over and over, and then suddenly you read the same verse that you've read many, many times before, and suddenly it comes alive.

And you say, but that's in fact the message. Now that's not, that's, it's always been there. It's been there for 2000 years. But God graciously takes that word and makes it come alive to us through his spirit.

Now, we speak about that as God speaking to me. And in a sense, that is true. God is speaking to us. And I trust that God speaks to us every time we read the scriptures, every time we hear the word preached.

But he is not giving us a new message. He's not changing the message. It's simply the old message, which he's reminding us of again and again, because God has said everything he has to say. God doesn't have anything new to say.

Why People Seek a New Message

And that's the problem is that we want a new message. We want, we, why do we want the new message? Well, because we didn't like the old one. That's the problem. We know how children are. They say, daddy, can I have candy?

And he says, no. Then they go to mommy and say, mommy, can I have candy? Mommy says, no. Then they go back to daddy and say, can I, please, please. What's the problem? They didn't like the old message.

And they're hoping for a new message, for a new word that will say yes. That's just the way it is. And that's the way we are with God. God gives us his word. He tells us everything we need to know about how to conduct our lives, how to conduct our business, and how to order our relationships with one another and our relationship with him.

But we didn't like that message. And so we want a new message. And that's exactly the problem. That's exactly what is happening in the world today. Why are churches moving away from the word of God? Because they didn't like what God, the word that he gave in the first instance.

And so they're concocting new messages. Oh, it didn't really mean that. Oh, but in fact, you know, this is what God has to say to us today. Let me give you an example. The scriptures tell us what the condition of the church will be like in the last days before Jesus comes.

Tells us the church is going to be in a terrible state. It says there's going to be a great falling away. Many people are going to depart from the faith. It says people will have a form of godliness and deny his power.

It speaks about all sorts of terrible sins and stuff that will creep into the church. That's what the Bible says. Now, you can see that we don't really like them and nobody wants to hear their message.

And so what's the message that the prophets, the so-called prophets are coming up with? Oh no, God has this new generation. This new generation of super Christians who are going to take over the world.

Who are going to get into government and get into power and who are going to change the world and who are going to perform miracles greater than Jesus performed and who will literally be Jesus incarnate in the earth.

The super race. Sounds very much like what Hitler was looking for. But that's the message. Now, it's diametrically opposed to the scriptures. It's directly opposite to what the Bible says. But we didn't like the Bible's version.

So we create our own version. And that's the problem. Now, it's not only the problem with prophets and preachers and teachers and televangelists. It's a problem for each one of us. Each one of us take the scriptures and change them to suit us.

And sometimes we add to the scriptures those bits that please us. We modify. But God has spoken in these last days. He is not continuing to speak. He's not giving us a new message and a new word. He has spoken and that's it.

Contending for the Faith Once Delivered

What I need to do is I need to find grace to obey and to do what he has told me to do. Now, the problem is that we always want these new things. But we, in fact, haven't grasped hold of the old things.

I don't understand, quite frankly, this tendency to say, well, we want some new revelation, some new message from God. When, in fact, there are treasures in here that we haven't even begun to discover.

You can spend your whole life studying and reading and researching the scriptures and every day you will discover things and treasures that God has placed here within his word that we have not seen before.

So what do we want something new for when we, in fact, haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the old? And so God has spoken. He is not continuing to speak. And then in Jude chapter three, now, let me just say, by the way, while you look up Jude, sorry, Jude verse three, that I don't have a problem with prophecy.

I believe that there is a New Testament form of prophecy, that there is tongues and interpretation, that God uses preachers and people to speak to us, but he will never contradict his word. Remember, Paul says in the book of Corinthians concerning these gifts is that when the prophets speak, the people must judge what the prophets say.

Let the prophets speak two or three and let the others judge, and the others means the other people in the congregation. Now, when the prophets speak, when a preacher speaks and he says, thus says the Lord, or I, the Lord, tell you, then how can I judge that?

Can I judge the words of God? No. And if that is God literally speaking to me, I may not judge that. But you can see from what Paul says in Corinthians that when the prophets speak and the others judge that it cannot be God speaking, these are men speaking what they think God wants to say.

And so how do we judge it? How do we listen to the word that is being preached by a preacher or a message or a prophecy or an interpretation? How do we judge that? Well, many people judge it in a subjective way.

You know, I felt that was a good message. Now, that really didn't sit comfortably with me. I didn't feel that that was what God was saying. Is that the basis of judging the word? Well, that is the basis for many people.

Many people will come into the meeting and they will listen to the word, especially if the word is a little bit direct, and they'll go away and they'll say, well, you know, that preacher's really got a hard spirit.

It really wasn't comfortable with me. That's not the issue. That's not the basis of judgment or judging the message or judging the word. The basis of judging the word is by the word of God. And if any preacher preaches a message which is not in the word of God, you have to reject it.

And if anyone comes to you and says, God told me to tell you that you need to give your motorcar to me, then judge it by the word. Is that in the Bible? Did Paul ever do that? Did Jesus ever do that? Is it here?

That's simply the question. And the article I wrote for this morning, that's the bottom line. And you can know the difference between truth and error because the reality is that preachers are very clever.

And they're clever with words and they will present a very fancy and clever argument. Remember, the devil did that from the very beginning. And what is my safeguard? If I'm just a young Christian, how can I be protected against error and against false preaching and false messages?

Very, very easily. Simply say, show me. Isn't that what they say in Missouri? Yeah. Where is it? Is it written? Now, I know that sometimes preachers can take the message and they twist the message. That's another problem.

But most of the problems that we come across today, most of the errors will become apparent when you just say, just where is it written? Show it to me. In the scripture, it's as simple as that. And if the man or the person cannot show you where it is in the scriptures, then you have to reject it.

Doesn't matter how much he says God told him or how much of a vision he had of Jesus or whatever visions and revelation and whatever else he had. And even if he performs miracles, because remember, the Antichrist will come and he'll perform miracles to prove that he is who he claims to be.

But at the end of the day, if it's not here, it's not the word of God. It's as simple as that. It's not hard, folk. It's easy. Just check it in the word. If it's there, do it. If it's not there, reject it.

Passing On the Once-for-All Faith

All right, now in Jude, verse three. The epistle of Jude, verse three. Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

To contend earnestly. In other words, to defend, to fight for. This doesn't mean we must be contentious, you know, argumentative. That's not what he is saying. But we need to defend the faith. Now, that little word, or those two words together, the faith, doesn't mean that I believe in God or that I believe that Jesus is coming again.

It's not that kind of faith. When it speaks about the faith, it simply means the things that we believe, the doctrines, the teachings, the body of truth that we hold to be the truth. That's the faith.

And so we speak about those who are the defenders of the faith. Being in the faith doesn't mean that we believe, but means that we are in the set of teachings that we hold precious and that we hold common.

So he says now, contend for the faith, contend for those teachings, those doctrines, those things that were once for all. Now, the old King James just says that were once delivered. But in fact, the Greek really says once and forever.

It's not continuing to be delivered. God is not still giving us the faith. He is not still giving us doctrines. He's not giving us new revelation. It was once and for all delivered to the saints. The saints being, well, we're all saints, but he's obviously referring here to the men who were chosen to write the New Testament, the apostles primarily, men like Paul and Peter and James and Jude.

And so it was once for all delivered. It's not still being delivered. It's not still being revealed. It's not still being manifest. All right, go with me to 2 Timothy chapter three, and we're going to stay in the book of Timothy for a short while.

2 Timothy chapter three and verse 12. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution, but evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.

He's speaking about the last days. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them 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.

Verse 12, continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of. Paul is not saying, remember Timothy was a astute scholar of the word. Timothy was someone who had a good relationship with God.

And Paul is not saying to Timothy, continue to search or seek God and he will continue to reveal things to you. That's not what he's saying. He's telling him to continue in the things that you have learned, knowing from whom you've learned them.

In other words, he says, the things I have taught you, those are the things you must continue in. Now, this is a very different mindset to the mindset we have many people have today of looking for some new things, some new revelation, some new direction, some new whatever it is that God is doing.

No, he says, just continue in the things you've learned. That is what will save us. Just continue in the things that Paul has given to us. In 2 Timothy 1, in verse 13. 2 Timothy 1, verse 13. Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.

Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me. You see the emphasis again. Just hold on to that which you've received from me, what I've taught you. Don't look for new things. Don't look for new revelations.

Don't look for a new message or a new word or a new direction. Just hold on to that which I've given you. 2 Timothy chapter one, sorry, 2 Timothy chapter two in verse two. 2 Timothy two, verse two. And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

And again, you see the same emphasis. It's not saying seek God's face that he may reveal some new message to you. No, just continue in the things that you've learned. And what must you teach others? The things that I taught you.

That's it. And so the things that I am teaching you this morning, where did I get that from? I was taught them by my fathers in the faith. Who taught them? Their fathers in the faith. And it goes back to Paul.

And so we have this responsibility to pass on from one generation to the next, simply the things that we received originally from who? Jesus Christ. So Jesus taught Paul. Paul taught Timothy. Timothy taught his disciples.

His disciples teach their disciples. And so we continue right on to today and we're keeping that same pattern. That is our safety and our security. There is no teaching in the scripture to say that each generation needs to discover the truth for themselves.

The Whole Counsel of God and the Way to Heaven

The Bible doesn't, we don't have that burden. We don't have that responsibility. It's easy. Simply continue in the things that we have received. Now in Acts chapter 20, Paul speaks to the Ephesians. You see, because one of the questions that comes up is that surely not everything was written.

Surely not everything that we need to know is in the word of God. Now in Acts chapter 20 verse 27, he says, I have not shunned or failed to declare to you the whole counsel of God. That's quite a bold statement.

Paul says, I have told you everything you need to know. That's quite a statement. But remember that Paul says that I, Paul refers to himself as a wise master builder. Building according to the plan, according to the pattern.

And so one of the things that he had this responsibility for and everyone who preaches the word is to deliver the whole counsel of God. Now obviously, we don't know everything about God. We don't know everything that's in the mind of God.

We can't even begin to scratch the surface of God's knowledge and God's wisdom. But Paul says, everything you need to know, I've given you. Now, if you ask me how to get to the Burbank airport, I will give you the directions, how to get to the airport.

I'm not gonna tell you how to get to Switzerland because that's irrelevant. You don't need to know how to get to Switzerland when you wanna get to Burbank airport. And so God does not tell us all of the stuff that is irrelevant to our lives, but he tells us what we need to know.

Now, if I tell you to get to the Burbank airport, you need to go west on Magnolia. And I don't tell you the next step that you need to make a right on Hollywood Way. Well, then I haven't told you everything and you're not gonna end up at the airport.

You're gonna end up in the West Valley somewhere. But if I've told you every one of the steps that you need to follow in order to get to the airport, I have delivered to you the whole counsel on that matter.

And Paul is saying, I gave you the whole message. I gave you the whole counsel. Everything you need to do in order to get where? To get to heaven, because that's what it's about, isn't it? Isn't it? And he's given us all the steps.

Following Scripture Rather Than Human Advice

All we need to do is to follow those steps one by one. So when somebody comes, and of course, this is the problem, is that we get the directions, we get the MapQuest to get from point A to point B. And then somewhere along the line, we say, well, you know, I don't like MapQuest.

What I'll do is I'll stop here by the side of the road and I'll ask somebody here, how do I get to Burbank Airport? And they'll give us a whole new set of directions and they may not even know what they're talking about.

And that's exactly what we do. God gives us the MapQuest in his word. But you know, when it comes to a certain step, we say, I don't like going this way. So what do I do? I begin to ask some other bystanders and I say, well, you know, what should I do concerning this aspect of my life?

Or what about this or what about that? And I get all sorts of conflicting advice and I wonder why I'm confused and I wonder why I never end up where I'm supposed to end up. If only I would stick to the MapQuest because it's there for us step by step.

Now, I've learned to have great faith in MapQuest. I've been using it in the last two years that I've been here in America and it's got me every time. It's got me where I want it to be that I have even greater faith in God's plan of salvation and his plan for life.

And all I need to do is just to follow that. So why do we end up in Switzerland when we just wanted to get to Burbank Airport? Why do people end up lost and confused? Because they didn't like the message and they thought they would modify it.

They would get some other advice and other counsel on it and then they get lost. So how can I be safe and how can I be secure in my salvation? How can I be sure that I will never go astray, that I will never believe false doctrine?

By remaining within the parameters of the word of God. It's as simple as that. God is not asking us to be clever because he knows that we're not too good at that. God's not asking us to use our own initiative because we're not great at that either.

He's saying, I've given you the plan. Just follow it, that's all. Don't add to it, but also don't subtract from it. And that's my message for next week. But for now, let me just not add anything. If it's not here, then we reject it because remember that the book is closed with these words.

If you add to these words, I will add to you all of the curses that are written in this book. That's serious work. God does not want us to add to his word because he knows that the moment we add to his word, we're gonna end up in serious, serious trouble.

Can you imagine a housewife who's making a cake and she has the recipe and she follows and she puts in all of the ingredients that it says. And then she says, well, you know, I think it'll be good to put a stick of dynamite in here also.

Can you imagine the chaos when she puts that into the oven? But that's what we do with the word of God. We have the recipe and we say, ah, well, you know, I think I'll just add a little bit of this and a little bit of that and a bit of that here.

And we wonder why the thing explodes in our faces. Don't add, just do it. Don't ask for a new word or a new message. Just follow the one he's already given you. It's as simple as that, amen.