Cmml Missions Conference 1993-01 Committment to the Bible — William MacDonald

I am inspired, I am thrilled, and tremendously encouraged to see you all here. And my heart is filled with thankfulness to the Lord for what he has done and is doing. And I also want to express thanks to the men and women of CMNL who have worked so hard to make this conference possible.

I wish I could get to know every one of you personally. The best I can say to each one of you is that I was speaking to your father today, if you are a believer. In my three sessions with you, I'd like to speak on the subject of commitment.

Three Commitments: Bible, Assembly, and Christ

First of all, commitment to the Bible. Secondly, commitment to the assembly. And thirdly, commitment to Christ. There you have ABC. However, it's been so long since I was in school, I got them in the wrong order.

Bible, Assembly, Christ. But they're not mutually exclusive. Our golden text for tonight is 2 Timothy chapter 3. I'd like to turn to that, 2 Timothy chapter 3, and 16 and 17. Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete for every good work.

The Authority and Permanence of Scripture

The wonder of this book that we hold in our hands today. Imagine the word, our most possession, the Holy Bible. We should be men and women who have convictions about this. There's a lot of mealy-mouthed talking about the Bible today.

There are people in ecclesiastical circles who can talk out of both corners of their mouth about it. They don't hesitate to speak about the authority of the Bible, but they don't use that word God breathed, inspired word of God.

We want to be men and women who have convictions, who know what we believe about the scriptures and are willing to stand and be counted. One of the few things that we have on earth that we'll have in heaven.

Isn't that wonderful? Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Heaven and earth may pass away, but my word shall never pass away. Here it is, friends, the textbook of eternity. What a challenge that is to us today.

In this book, we have truth. Jesus said, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. Sometimes I think we hear this so much, it fails to have an impression on us. It's enough to make angels gasp.

The Bible, the truth of God. The writer of the 119th psalm could think about almost 175 good things he could say about the word of God. How many can you and I think of? It's a challenge, isn't it? I was looking over that psalm yesterday, thinking, my, he just goes on and on without repeating himself and telling all that this precious word means.

The Inspiration and Verbal Authority of Scripture

Let us be committed men and women. Let us be committed to the inspiration of the scriptures. All scripture is inspired of God. All scripture is God-breathed. When men sat down to write, they wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit of God.

We don't understand all the mechanism of that, not necessary for us to understand it. It's just enough to know that the Bible is not only authoritative, it is really inspired. We want to be committed not only to the inspiration of the scriptures, but to the verbal inspiration of the scriptures.

And I like to turn to 1 Corinthians 2 .13 for that. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 13. And I'd like you to follow this with me because it's very important to me. It's a very, very important scripture.

In this chapter, the Apostle Paul is giving us three things. He's giving us revelation, and then he goes on to the subject of inspiration, and then he goes on to the subject of the understanding of the Bible by those of us who are believers.

Now look at 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 13. And Paul is speaking about himself, not you and me, but he's speaking about himself and the other apostles and prophets of the New Testament era. And he says, these things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit...

Now, you really have to supply a word there between but and which. And what is that word? Look carefully. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but... Nobody? Words, yes.

You have to supply that, because it's already been implied. Words which the Holy Spirit teaches. That tells me that my Bible is verbally inspired. God didn't say to Isaiah, Isaiah, you just sit down, and here's the general outline, and you just word it the way you think it should be.

He didn't say that to Isaiah. Isaiah sat down, and he wrote the very words that God, by the Holy Spirit, gave him. Words which the Holy Spirit teaches. And it says, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

I really think it's an expression that has a lot of different interpretations. I'd like to suggest to you that that expression, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, means conveying spiritual truths with spirit-given words.

And that puts it in a parallelism which has gone before. It's repeating what he's already said. Words which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing or revealing spiritual truths with spirit-given words. Let us be committed to the verbal inspiration.

Let us be committed to the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures. This book is inspired from Genesis through Revelation. Without hesitation, we say that to you tonight. The plenary inspiration of the Scriptures.

The Lord Jesus even mentioned more than words, the jod and the tittle. The jod was the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and the tittle wasn't even a word. It was a stroke. It wasn't even a letter.

It was a stroke of a letter. It would be equivalent to the stroke, the bottom stroke on a capital E, which the capital F doesn't have. That would be a tittle. Picture in your mind a capital F, and then a capital E.

It's different because it has that stroke on the bottom of the E, and that's what you have here. And the Lord said that not a jod or tittle would pass away till all of these things would be fulfilled.

The Apostle Paul makes a point of the difference between the singular and the plural in Galatians 3 .16. You might look at that. Galatians chapter 3 and verse 16. I thought it was 3 .16, but where he makes the distinction between seed and seeds.

Now, to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to your seed who is Christ. You talk about the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures.

It goes beyond even that, doesn't it? Thank God for Jude chapter 3, which says, The faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints. Friends, we have it right here in this book. The faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints.

The Sufficiency of the Bible

We want to be committed not only to those things, but to the sufficiency of the Bible. 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 13. The sufficiency of the word of God. As his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue.

Notice that expression, all things that pertain to life and godliness. And the Lord Jesus in John 8, verse 32 said, You will know the truth, not part of it, you will know the truth. We believe that. We believe in the sufficiency of the word of God.

Not the word of God plus the Book of Mormon. Not the word of God plus science and health and key to the scriptures. Not the word plus tradition or even contemporary culture. Not the Bible plus experience, the believer's Bible commentary.

Not the Bible plus psychology or philosophy or any of those things. The Bible itself is sufficient. And I love that what I read tonight in 2 Peter 3, verse 17. That the man of God may be perfect. That word perfect really means adequate.

Isn't that wonderful? The person steeped in the word of God, reading the word of God, studying the word of God, obeying the word of God, becomes the adequate person. That thrills my soul. And then we want to be committed to the infallibility of the scriptures as well.

Infallibility and the Truthfulness of Scripture

The Lord Jesus said in John chapter 8, If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth. No true finding of science will ever conflict with a true interpretation of the scriptures.

It would be impossible for them to do it because God is the author of both books, isn't he? He's the author of the Bible and he's the author of science as well. But today we hear people quibbling about this.

You even hear the suggestion that the Bible contains error. A teacher in one of the seminaries, one of the so-called evangelical seminaries in the United States said, we know the Bible contains error.

Jesus said that the mustard seed was the smallest of all seeds. We know that the mustard seed is not the smallest of all seeds. Therefore, the Bible contains error. It's really pathetic to me to think of a professor in a seminary coming across with something like that.

As if the Lord Jesus were giving a scientific sermon on mustard seed. It wasn't the point at all. I can just see those people going through the marketplace and seeing all the spices there arrayed on the stands for sale.

Or maybe the woman looking in the cabinet at home at the spices she had and the mustard seed was the smallest. You see, when he says that, it isn't that the Bible contains error, it's that Jesus Christ contains error.

And where does that leave you? Let's have conviction concerning the infallibility of the Word of God. Years ago, I came across this quote by B .H. Carroll, and it made me chuckle when I read it. I've been thinking about it ever since.

He said, when I was a boy, I found 1 ,000 contradictions in the Bible. I marked them. I had nearly 1 ,000 more contradictions then than I do now. Now I have a half a dozen things in the Bible that I can't explain satisfactorily to myself.

But I've seen 994 out of 1 ,000 coalesce and harmonize like two streams mingling. And he said, I'm inclined to think if I had a little more sense, I could reconcile the other six. That's it. That's exactly.

Let's be committed to the infallibility of the Word of God. Let's be committed to read the Word of God. This is very important. A special blessing, of course, is pronounced, I think, on those who read the Word of God, especially the book of Revelation.

But I think it applies to the whole Bible. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it, for the time is near. But it's not enough just to read the Bible.

Let us be committed to study the Word. I like to remember that as a young fellow, I don't know what age, it dawned on me that I wasn't going to know everything when I got to heaven. I thought I was going to know everything when I got to heaven.

So why bother studying the Bible now? You have to know it all there. Great infusion of knowledge. But then I read Ephesians 2, 7, and it says that in the ages to come, he might show, God might show. I thought, if God's going to show, I'm going to be learning.

And the thing went on from there. It began to snowball. I thought, well, if God's going to be learning, heaven's going to be a school. If I'm going to be learning, heaven's going to be a school, God's going to be the teacher, the Bible's going to be the textbook, the term will be eternity.

Is that right? That's right. See, up until then, I thought, well, business is the main thing in life. And I went into business, and I studied business. But then I thought, and at the age of 30, that really came to me.

I thought, this is the book of eternity. Someday I'm going to sit down with the prophets, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the king of the father. Many shall come from the east and west, sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the king of the father.

And we're going to converse. And how intelligently will I be able to converse? I sit next to Zephaniah. Now, would you believe that that started me on a diligent study of the Word of God? I'm saying this not boastfully.

I don't like to use personal illustrations, but made to inspire some of you. I thought, well, it's an awful big job, McDonnell. It's an awful big job. And I thought, I know, but a big job is made up of many little jobs.

And I can't do a big job, but I can do a little job. At the age of 30, I started studying the Word of God. Some days I didn't do more than five verses. It took me three years to get through. Thirty years to get through studying just each verse.

What is God saying in this? And then coming to difficult passages, and maybe where there are great and godly men have different interpretations. Think about those interpretations. Which one suits you best?

Which one do you think is the best interpretation of that? And that's the way it is, friends. This is a textbook of eternity. You say, well, everybody's going to be happy in eternity. I know it, but some people will be happier than others.

Cup will be full, but some people will have bigger cups than others. And we're determining that down here by what we do with the Word of God. We really are. You come to know the Lord Jesus in this book.

You read, you sang that to me. Did you notice it? Oh, that's great, isn't it? Beyond the black type on the white page, you seek the Lord Jesus. This is it. And we're determining our capacity for enjoying the Lord Jesus right now by what we do with the sacred scriptures.

And we're determining our capacity for enjoying the glories of heaven by what we do right now with this Word. I tell you, that took me out of the world of ticker tape and started me on the way to higher dividends.

Choosing Scripture Over Worldly Distractions

And I hope it'll be a challenge to you. I hope it'll be a challenge to you. And I know that some of you are thinking a baseball game is much more exciting. Or a TV documentary. I mean, you sit there gripping the football game.

Only if you look through the eyes of flesh. If you look through the eyes of flesh. What you do with this book is what's really important. Because what you do with this book counts for eternity. It weakens our hearts.

Because TV has such a grip on people today, you know. Toast potatoes. So hard to get that time to study the Word of God. Dear friends, put on your face glasses. See through the eyes. You'll realize that only that which is eternal really matters.

And the score of that football game is going to be quickly forgotten, isn't it? It's going to be quickly forgotten. What does it all amount to, anyway? A worthy goal to take away from this conference.

A worthy goal to take away from this conference would be to be a diligent student of the Word of God and become proficient in the English translation of the Bible. And even if you only do a few verses a day, just let them accumulate.

You'll be surprised the progress you'll make. And there are all kinds of Bibles that he helps, a lot of them in the bookstore here tonight, that will help you along that line. God take it literally wherever you can take it, literally.

Literal Interpretation and Resistance to Cultural Accommodation

We believe in the literal interpretation of the Scriptures. That's why we believe in a pre-tribulation rapture. That's why we believe in the premillennial return of Christ. Because if the first sense makes sense, you don't look for any other sense.

The first rule of Bible interpretation. And don't try to explain away difficult passages that you don't like. That's a temptation. Hard words of Jesus in the New Testament. And it's a terrible temptation when you come to them to just try to explain them away.

Well, that was just for the culture of that day. You hear this all the time. A member of Moody Church wrote, We've been so caught up with the spirit of the age, that like a chameleon, we change colors to blend in with the latest.

When the gay rights activists argue that homosexuality is but an alternate sexual preference, we find certain evangelicals writing books agreeing. The Bible doesn't really condemn homosexuality after all.

When the feminists press their demands for equality, some preachers have re-studied the New Testament, only to find that Paul didn't mean what he said. Or even more frightening is the conclusion of one evangelical that Paul was just plain wrong on the subject of feminism.

And so, we accommodate the scriptures to whatever winds happen to be blowing. We become so absorbed by our culture that we will have nothing to say. In our zeal to be relevant, we've lost our profession.

Every time we make a doctrinal compromise, the enemies of Christianity are strengthened. And this is how far it can go. Episcopal Bishop John Spong of Newark, New Jersey said in an article that traditional concepts of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, as well as famous Old Testament passages cited to condemn homosexuality, cannot be taken literally, and must be placed in the context of the times in which they were written.

The Bible speaks to all ages and to all cultures as well. Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Don't be swayed by the cultural argument. Don't be swayed by the tradition argument. We've never done it that way.

Christ Against Human Tradition

You know, when the Lord Jesus was on earth, he had occasion to condemn that type of thinking. Here's an old Jewish father, and he's destitute. And he goes to his son, who's been very wealthy, very successful in business, and has a lot of money, and he says, son, we raised you, and here we are at the end of life, and we have nothing.

And they had a tradition among the Jews that all that son had to do was say Korban, and that released him from any obligation to his father. It meant, in a sense, that it was dedicated to the temple, that anything that you might be profited by me has been dedicated to the temple.

It didn't mean that the temple ever got it. It was just a tradition then. And sometimes we have that, too. And we're so used to our traditional ways of thinking that we don't realize that some of them are not supported by the scriptures.

Obeying Difficult Commands Literally

Then there's the non-literal argument. People say, well, Jesus didn't mean that literally. Likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple, because he couldn't have meant that literally.

He knows I have to live, doesn't he? When he said that, a young man said that to Spurgeon once, when Spurgeon was pressing the claims of Christ on him. He said, well, I have to live, don't I? Spurgeon said, I don't grant that.

We have to obey God. We have to obey God, even if it seems to run against the grain of our natures. Don't be swayed by the exception argument. And I hear this frequently. The argument goes like this. I know what the Bible says, but in my case, the Lord wants to make an exception.

You ever heard that? These are ways in which we nullify the commandments of God. And I tell you, God is looking tonight for men and women, young men and young women, who will tremble at his word. That's what he's looking for.

They'll bow their brains to the word of God. Metaphor. But never mind. You know what I mean. Men that love the word of God and women that love the word of God. And they have that attitude. If God says it, that's what I want.

A Willingness to Obey the Word of God

Talk about a young fellow. I was a student at Emmaus years ago. He called himself the Emmaus dropout. I wish we had more dropouts like him. He was a very simple fellow in some ways. Before he was saved, he was so self-conscious, he couldn't talk to people.

Then he got saved down in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and he became a power of God. And he had that attitude. When he'd go to the word of God, he'd say, I don't care what anybody else is doing. If that's what the Lord said, that's what I want.

And I've been with that young fellow in France, going door to door. He speaks fluent French. He preaches in the open air in Germany today. Fluent German. He's been in India and learned a lot of the Indian dialects and speaks Polish and a little Russian.

Emmaus drop. And what was it? It wasn't his great IQ. It was just that attitude. I want to do what the word of God tells me. And then there's a prudence or common sense argument. Jesus said, lay not for yourselves treasures upon earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves don't break through and steal.

Well, that's a lot. You have to use common sense, don't you? You have to provide for a rainy day, don't you? You see, there's something better than common sense, and that's divine revelation. It's superior to any way that we ever have of thinking.

If we went by common sense, we'd never have the gospel of the grace of God. I tell you, that so far transcends common sense or prudence. The Lord said that. He meant exactly what he said. I remember when George was first saved, and Dale wrote on with disciples like him, and Dale would come to some of those readings.

What does that mean, George? George said, either the Bible means what it says, or we ought to throw it away. You know, God honored that attitude. Either the Bible means what it says, or we ought to throw it away.

They started to live those principles, and the reverberations have been felt throughout the world. I can remember praying with Ray Lynch in a little town in Belgium. I remember him saying, Lord, common sense is rat poison.

You know, he was more right than wrong. When it comes to the interpretation of the scriptures, get beyond common sense. The divine revelation of God is given in the word of God. Then, of course, there's the never-offend argument.

The Gospel, Offense, and Faithful Proclamation

You wouldn't want to do it if you'd offend somebody. Friends, he said, everything we do as Christians offends somebody. The gospel is offensive, isn't it? The gospel doesn't leave man for a leg to stand on.

It just cuts the ground right up from under him. It tells him he's a wretch. It tells him the only good thing about him is filthy rags, and the worst you can say about him is he couldn't murder his God.

Think about that for a minute, and don't talk to me about the never-offend argument. Of course, if the Bible says it, we do it, and we can't help whether it offends people or not. I can remember being asked to take a funeral in Chicago, and the lady said, now one of my sisters is married to a Jew, and another brother is married to a Roman Catholic, and we're Lutherans, and I wouldn't want you to say anything that would offend.

I said, well, you better get somebody else to preach the message. No, no, no, no, we want you to preach the message. Well, you better get somebody else if you're worried about offending somebody. Well, we did preach it, and preach the gospel.

You can always preach the gospel. Never-offend argument. The hyper-dispensational argument. Let me just pause here. I'm a dispensationalist. I don't think I could understand the Bible if I didn't see dispensations.

I'd be offering animal sacrifices if I weren't a dispensationalist. I think a lot of people that fight against dispensationalism are dispensationalists, because they have a Bible that's divided into two dispensations, Old and New Testament.

But then there's this hyper-dispensational that robs you of the Sermon on the Mount, and then it goes on and robs you of the gospel, and then it goes on and robs you of all the epistles but the prison epistles, right?

Ephesians, Colossians, Hynemans, prison epistles. I don't want it. I tell you, I want to extract honey from all the Word of God, don't you? And you know, even when things happen at our own family, you know, blood is thicker than water, and we can take verses of Scripture and we can twist them if they're really hitting somebody in our family.

They say blood is thicker than water. You mustn't do that. The Word of God's written for everyone, and not just for those outside our family circle. Even a thing like the friendship argument, this really is amazing to me.

Friendship, Scholarship, and Biblical Inerrancy

E .J. Carnell wrote a book called The Case for Orthodoxy, and actually it was a direct, formal attack against fundamental Christianity. You'd never know that from the title, The Case for Orthodoxy. For instance, he wrote, Adam could well have received his body from a previously evolved ape, so that Genesis could be non-historical and non-scientific.

The book argued against fundamentalism and the inerrancy of Scriptures. John Whitcomb, who was then the president of Grace Seminary in Indiana, he was criticizing the book to George Elton Ladd, and Ladd said, well you don't know him personally as I do.

He's a gracious gentleman, a godly man. And I say, what has that got to do with it? He's arguing against the inspiration of the Scriptures. Many of the most militant modernists and liberals are gracious people.

Many of them are. They have a reputation for being, it doesn't affect matters at all, the friendship argument. Study the Word of God. Take it literally. Whenever you can, take it literally, and avoid all of these twistings and turnings.

You know, it makes me think of a carpenter shop that once had a sign out front that said, all kinds of twistings and turnings done here. You know, suppose they did it on a lathe. All kinds of twistings and turnings done here.

Well, that's what's happening with the Word of God today. All kinds of twistings and turnings. Stick to the Word of God. And then, of course, the science or scholarship argument. Young man said to me not so long ago, I find it difficult fitting the Bible into science.

Sometimes there's a desire for intellectual or scholarly respectability. That can be deadly when it comes to handling the Word of God. The desire for intellectual or scholarly respectability. And then, of course, there's the new argument that God is too good.

Hell, Judgment, and the Goodness of God

God is too good to sustain an everlasting hell. And so, we have sweeping evangelical circles today, the denial of the eternal punishment of the wicked. The Bible teaches it. The Bible says, with the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever.

Since then, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. And they say God is too good to sustain. Definitely. God never built hell for men. Never did. Just think of Calvary when you think of that.

Just think of the extent that God went to provide eternal life for His creatures. Just think of a God who's looking for the slightest excuse in the matter of faith. He loves his son so much that he's looking for the slightest excuse to save that person and bring him home to heaven.

He'll just repent and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior. Let us be students of the Word of God. I just want to mention and passing, just fits into the program. We have a discipleship intern training program out in California.

There may be some young men that would like to study the Word of God intensively and become involved in practical Christian work. And if you'd like, we have a supply of these syllabi. Did I get it right?

Syllabi. Commitment to memorize the Word of God. Psalm 19, of course, verses 9 and 11. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his word by taking heed thereto according to thy word. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might sin against thee.

Memorizing and Meditating on Scripture

Oh, the value of memorizing the Word of God, of putting it in there so the Holy Spirit has something to draw from in the great moments of life. The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The Word of God means just the appropriate verse for that particular occasion.

But he can't do it if you don't have the Word stored there in your heart. Commitment not only to memorize the Word of God, commitment to meditate on the Word of God. Ah, a lost heart. Meditation. We're so busy, and we are busy.

We are busy. But never asks of us such busy labor as leaves no time for sitting at his feet. The patient's attitude of meditation, he often counts the service most complete. You say, what's that all about?

How do you meditate anyway? When you take a verse of scripture, and just as a cow chews the cud, you think about it. I have a text on the wall in front of my bed. I face it. Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.

When I am looking there at that text, I go, that's funny. Worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power. Well, he's got all power. How can he receive any more? That's that neat thinking. And then it says to receive riches.

He owns the cattle in a thousand hills. I don't see how he can get any more riches than he's got now. He began to meditate on it. I'm just using this as an example. And then to receive wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.

I began to think about those things. I thought, well, he doesn't need any more, but he can receive mine. He can receive the finest of my intellectual powers, wisdom. He can receive the finest of my physical powers, strength.

What I have, I can come and lay as his. Bless the tree. And the verse has taken on new meaning. I'm not saying that's the right interpretation, but it said that to me. As I sat there, as I lay there and meditate on the best of my worship, honor and glory and blessing, let's be committed to meditate on the word of God.

And I think it says we meditate on that. The new life floods our souls on verses of scripture that have always been an enigma to us. Never really understood what they meant. And now we think about it and we realize what it's saying.

Obedience as the Path to Spiritual Knowledge

Commitment to obey the word of God. I talked about Larry Smith, my friend in Germany, had that great desire to obey the word of God. Obedience is the organ of spiritual knowledge. Think about that. Obedience is the organ of spiritual.

You want to know more about the Bible? Obey what you know. God will give you more. That's the way it works. It's interesting to think that you can reach a certain stage and then you come to a block, to something there that you don't want to obey, and you plateau or even go downward.

To him that has it shall be given, from him that has not it shall be taken away, even that which he has. It's a principle in life. Then shall we know if we go on to know the Lord. Commitment to obey the word of God.

On this man will I look, Isaiah 66 to, on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, here it is, and who trembles at my word. And the Lord Jesus said, if you continue in my word, that's it, you shall know the truth.

Teaching, Preaching, and Testing Everything by Scripture

And the truth shall make you free. Commitment to obey the word of God. Commitment to teach and preach it. I have a friend, Don Robertson, he's a little boy, four, and Don will do like this, and the boy will say, preach the word, four years old.

I hope he does someday. Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and teaching. It doesn't say preach psychology. It doesn't say preach philosophy.

It doesn't say preach self-esteem. It doesn't say preach health and prosperity. It says preach the word. Dear friends, it's the word of God that is powerful. No verse of scripture is worth a thousand arguments.

Let that message ring through your heart as you go away from the conference. Preach the word. There never will come a time in the history of the earth when God's method will not be preaching the word of God.

Commitment to test everything by the word of God. There's a young fellow here in the audience. I got a letter from him this last week. He said, what is your scripture authority to say this? I said, praise the Lord for that young fellow.

He was a Berean. That's what he is. He's a Berean and he wanted to know the scriptural authority for it. We need more like that. To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to this word because there's no light in them.