Sola Scriptura And Mysticism (part 1)

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Sola Scriptura And Mysticism (part 2)

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I was just reflecting the other day about the last 17 years here at Bethlehem Bible Church. There have been some interesting memories.
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I think of the time when Anita and I were trying to get a flying squirrel out of the sanctuary. She'd wheel over there and I'd stand over here.
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I think about the guy that came in one time, super mad. He said he had Tourette's Syndrome and said so many bad words to me and I was just trying to keep him quiet while the lady's study was going on back there.
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I think about the time a deacon tried to give me a fan before we had air conditioning. And it was blowing my notes, pre -iPad days, and I reached down to move it and my finger went in through the fan protection area and cut my finger.
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And then I thought, do I just suck my fingers and my thumb while I'm preaching? How does that work? Time when my car broke down and I borrowed our lesbian neighbor's car with the equality rainbow flag things and parked right there, just waiting for you legalists to talk to me.
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Hi, Pastor. Preaching on a
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Sunday for Easter Resurrection Sunday morning with all the lilies here and just watching the bug that flew out of the lily of the valley right down the gullet of my throat.
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But maybe the most interesting to me was a man came in during a wanted time fuming. I mean, he literally, it was a visceral anger.
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And he was mad and I said, well, please come in. I'd like to talk to you. Let's get away from all the other folks.
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You're causing a scene is what I was thinking. I said, well, what's your problem?
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How can I help you? And he said, this church has the nerve to teach my child that she's a sinner.
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I said, well, in what context was she taught? I think it was in the
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Iwana folks can correct me if I'm wrong. I think the Sparkies were taught the S and the
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P and the A all stand for something. And the S stands for you're a sinner. And I said, well, what's the sign out there in the front of the church property say?
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It says Bethlehem Bible Church. And I said, we teach the Bible. And of course, if you don't want the
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Bible, you can go somewhere else. But we want to teach you that the heart of Christianity is you and your daughter.
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Me, everybody else is a sinner born a sinner. That's why the good news that Christ saving work is so good.
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Because if you're not sick, who needs a savior? If you're not dead, who needs to be made alive? If you're not sinful, who needs to be forgiven?
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If it's just have a nice day, then this isn't the church for you. And then he said something fascinatingly.
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He said, well, I guess the Bible does say we're all sinners. And I'll let my daughter pick her own religion.
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I thought to myself, your foolishness just might end up in the salvation of your daughter. And I've been to a lot of different churches to preach.
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And I'm glad that you, Bethlehem Bible Church, believe the scriptures. I'm glad that you want them preached to you as it was just prayed.
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No messing around, no adding, no subtracting. So this morning, I want to remind you something about the
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Bible that I think you know. But we all need to be reminded of. And that is the scriptures are sufficient, inerrant, authoritative.
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And if you want communion with God, it gets no better than through the scriptures.
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Please turn your Bibles to 2 Timothy 3 this morning as I address an issue. Positively, that is scriptures are sufficient and inerrant.
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And negatively, mysticism has crept into evangelical circles. Mysticism is everywhere now.
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If you just comb your dog backwards with your hand so you can see the scalp, if you're not careful this time of year, you'll just see movement.
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Ticks. If you take your hand and just brush back the coat of evangelicalism, you just see movement.
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The movement of parasites. The parasite of evangelical mysticism. It used to be only through Catholic medieval mystics.
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But now it is injected into the mainstream of Christianity. And I don't want you to be a mystic.
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I want you to do what you've been taught and believe what you've been told. And that is you can trust the scriptures.
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Everything you need is found in the scriptures. While you and I are sinful, the scriptures aren't.
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They're pure and good and right. And so this morning, I want to address mysticism's stranglehold on evangelicalism.
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When I was a kid, I was afraid of lockjaw. I was afraid of quicksand, because I watched a lot of Tarzan.
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I was afraid of straitjackets. I was afraid of King Kong.
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And mysticism is putting a stranglehold like a straitjacket on mainstream evangelicalism.
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It's just so natural now and normal for people to buy into mysticism.
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I don't want you to buy into mysticism. And I think if I can remind you of scripture, how good it is, how sufficient it is, how inerrant it is, you won't ever have to go someplace else.
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You'll never have to go within. You'll never have to go to the medieval contemplative prayer route.
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When you have a high view of God's word, you will have a low view of mysticism. It's almost like a little teeter -totter.
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As the weight and impression and glory and honor of your thoughts of scripture are like this, mysticism will just kind of fade away.
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Hundreds of years ago, a preacher said, a dog barks when his master is attacked.
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I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth was attacked and yet would remain silent. I want you to understand that the
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Bible is under attack. So much so that even next year at the Shepherds Conference, MacArthur and the other men there are having a conference on inerrancy and the fidelity of God's word.
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Okay, so before we get into the passage today, what is mysticism? It's slippery, it's fluid when it comes to definitions.
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It comes from a root word, a Greek word that means to conceal. It means something hidden.
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And let me give you a funny definition and then a good definition of mysticism so you know what the enemy looks like before we see what our ally looks like.
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Georgia Harkness said there's 26 definitions of mysticism she's found. Let me give you first a funny one, then a real one.
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Someone has said that mysticism begins with a mist and always ends in a schism. Now here's a good one by MacArthur.
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The mystic disdains rational understanding and seeks truth instead.
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So you go outside the Bible through feelings, imagination, personal visions, inner voices, private illumination or other purely subjective means.
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That is to say you want communion or guidance from God and with God outside of Scripture.
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You're going within to understand who God is. A desire to find truth from the inside.
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Mysticism used to be underground. It used to be in the fringes. It used to be in mainline Christianity, Methodists, Lutherans, but now it's in evangelicalism.
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Why, you ask? Well, maybe because discernment's at an all -time low. Maybe because intellectualism is dead and we want a real vibrant faith.
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Maybe we're afraid of people saying, you know what, you guys just worship the Bible, Bible -olatry. It reminds me when
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I was younger I would take the Bible and when my kids were little I'd try to teach them that I loved the Bible.
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I loved what John Stott said, God clothed his thoughts in words and I would try to convey to my little kids the thought that Daddy loves the
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Bible and I would hold it up to my chest and I would say, Daddy loves the Bible and I would kiss the Bible. I know some of you young dads are going to steal that from me.
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I hope you do. Psalm 119, my hands also I lift up to your commandments which
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I love. This morning let me give you a series of questions designed to help you completely and utterly trust in the
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Word of God so that you run from mysticism. We'll look at it this Sunday and next Sunday. A series of questions so you can identify mysticism and then run from it.
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So you'd be afraid of it. As afraid as I was of straight jackets, you can be afraid of mysticism.
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You say, yeah, but I don't want to have anything negative said about mysticism. You know I'm a lover, not a fighter. Really? Don't you love truth?
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Don't you hate sin? Don't you want to contend for the faith? If your spouse was attacked, let me make it more specific, if your wife was attacked, what honorable man wouldn't stand up?
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Question number one, you believe that the scriptures are sufficient, don't you?
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And of course I know you're Bethlehem Bible Church, you do, but this is a reminder. You believe that the scriptures are sufficient, right?
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Stated negatively, you don't believe that the scriptures are deficient, inadequate, not sufficient.
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Let's take a look at the passage. 2 Timothy 3, we'll pick it up in verse 15 and look at 16 and 17 as well.
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You know Paul is writing to Timothy a pastoral epistle, how to conduct yourself in the church.
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And so Timothy has been parachuted by God behind enemy lines and he ends up at Ephesus.
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It's in modern day Turkey. And crazy things are happening. They're worshipping Diana, great as Artemis of Ephesus.
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People selling all kinds of weird divination things. I mean it is like Halloween every day of the year there.
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Spooky, spooky world. Do they still have spooky world in New England? Spooky world. And what
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Paul is going to say is, Timothy, pastor, in the scriptures you've got everything you need to combat whatever comes your way.
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To equip people, to train them, to have them conformed into Christ like righteousness.
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Your tool bag is complete. God did not drop Timothy at Ephesus to fix cars with one crescent wrench.
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Everything he needed in the tool bag, that is, everything he needed was found in scripture. And so he writes and he says in verse 15 of 2
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Timothy chapter 3, just remember how important scriptures were when you were a kid.
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He says, and how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings.
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Remember how important they were when you were a kid? When you were taught by your mom, by your grandma.
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By the way, on a side note, isn't this a good reminder? That when you pour your life into your kids and you teach them the scriptures when they're young, some of it pays off?
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That it is in fact true? His grandmother and his mother taught him the scriptures and God used that.
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Day in and day out teaching the kids the scriptures. And Paul says, you remember those scriptures?
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Which are able, see it in verse 15, to make you wise for salvation through faith in the
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Messiah, Jesus. Scriptures, in other words, Timothy, don't forget they show you, the
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Old Testament scriptures, that's what he's talking about here, sacred writings. They show you the
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Messiah. You see the Messiah in Genesis chapter 3 verse 15, you see him in Psalm 16, you see him in Isaiah 53, you see him in Psalm 22, you see him, he is the ladder,
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Jacob's ladder. You see Jesus in the Old Testament and the Old Testament scriptures are enough to make you born again.
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You were dead and now you're alive. Rabbi Judah said the boy of five years of age ought to apply to the study of sacred scripture.
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Rabbi Solomon said, not David's son, but a rabbi said, when the boy begins to talk, his father ought to converse with him in the sacred language and to teach him the law.
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If the father does not do that, he seems to bury him. As soon as little
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Timothy was able to walk and talk and waddle, sometimes I think my kids now have learned how to waddle, start teaching them the scriptures, praying that it won't be forgotten, that God would use those scriptures to make alive.
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Calvin said, and it ought to be reckoned a remarkable instance of the kindness of God.
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If any person from his earliest years has thus acquired a knowledge of the scriptures, I've often thought people at Bethlehem Bible Church, little kids growing up, they don't know anything else except Bethlehem Bible Church, they don't know anything else except their mom and dad trying to teach them the scriptures, what a blessing that is and scriptures are powerful enough to save.
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But not only that, verse 16, and of course I know you know these verses, again written in pastoral ministry sense but of course applicable for all
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Christians, all scripture, all scriptures breathe out.
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The Bible is the Word of God, it doesn't just contain the Word of God. All scriptures breathe out, it is all the
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Bible, it doesn't become the Bible when you think it's a cool verse. All the holy scriptures, the
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Old Testament is the context here. It is breathed out by God.
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God breathes it out, it's of divine origin. Isn't that a fascinating word, to breathe out.
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Then the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground, Genesis 2 -7, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being.
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And now God doesn't breathe life into dust, He breathes life in and through these words.
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Paul says you've got everything you need in this tool kit. Scriptures, they're sufficient. Look what it says, and they're profitable, and they're profitable for four things.
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Let's call this the 4 -step group instead of the 12 -step group. What do you say? Scriptures, of course old and new we know now, are profitable for teaching.
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This is what we believe. This is the standard of life. This is who God is. This is how He's transcendent.
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This is how He's eminent. This is how He's holy. This is how He's gracious. It's teaching what
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God has done, who He is, what He requires. Secondly, this breathed out by God profitable scripture, it's not just good for teaching but also for reproof.
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This is sin, and I see through scriptures where I have sinned, where I have fallen short, where I have failed to meet up to these requirements of God's holiness.
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I'm convinced. When you read scripture, you say, you know what? What God says is true, and I know
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I've failed, and I'm convinced. It's convincing to me. That's that word here, reproof. Thirdly, the third step is for correction.
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For correction, we get the word ortho in this word. It means straight, setting something straight, and it basically means we've been taught the truth, teaching.
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We've been convicted by our sins, reproof, and now we're picked up, dusted off, and pointed in the right direction.
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You ever correct a kid? You tell them, stop doing that and start doing that. That's this word here, correction, teaching them what's right.
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And then it says with a comprehensive sense, and for training in righteousness, every way that's righteous,
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God trains us through his word, whatever's required. I like how Warren Wearsby summarizes these four steps.
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Scriptures are profitable for doctrine, what is right. For reproof, what is not right.
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For correction, how to get right. For instruction in righteousness, how to stay right.
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Right? Right. Seventeen, now here's the context.
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Scriptures are sufficient, aren't they? That the man of God, that means preacher. This isn't like gender -neutral
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Bible stuff. When you read man of God in the Old Testament, that meant preacher, proclaimer, prophet. Of course, this is good for man or woman, but we're talking about pastoral ministry specifically.
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That the man of God may be complete, adequate, capable, fitted, proficient, able to meet every demand in pastoral ministry, equipped for every good work.
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This is amazing. At Ephesus, Timothy had the Scriptures. He was able to complete the task.
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In West Boylston, 2 ,000 years later, able to equip us so we can do the task.
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Now, this last week, Kim and I went to Branson, Missouri. It's kind of like the Twilight Zone of morality.
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And so it costs money now to check a bag on certain flights. And so I thought, I'm just going to buy a smaller luggage, like a 21 -inch small suitcase, and then just bring it along.
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And that way I can save the 25 there. I can save the 25 back. The piece of luggage is only 75.
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I just need to go on another trip, and it'll be paid off. You have to strategically pack.
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Well, what might I need? And I don't know about you, but from when I was a kid, and what my dad taught me, you just start with your toes.
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Okay, I need socks. I need shoes. You just work your way up. Okay, I need a razor. I need all that.
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And so I get there, and I say to Kim, I forgot something. We've got to go to Walmart.
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We've got to go to that custard store, frozen custard on the way. I've got to get some toiletries.
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I forgot this, that, or the other. I forgot to pack something in my suitcase that I needed. The language here in 2
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Timothy is this. When God equips the ship of life in the Scriptures, He doesn't forget the oranges so that you're going to get scurvy.
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He doesn't say, well, you know what? Freud, Adler, Maslow, Skinner, Jung. I don't really know what to do with psychology when it rears its head.
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Scriptures aren't going to work. You're going to have to go see somebody else for your soul work, for your emotional work.
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No, everything that God wanted, every culture, every people, every tribe, every nation, throughout all time, is found in the
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Scriptures, thoroughly equipped. See the word there? Equipped for every good work. That's a sailing term.
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That's a rigging term. God neglected nothing. Installed in every little crevice down at the bottom of the boat is everything you need for life and godliness.
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So you see where I'm going with this? If Scriptures are sufficient, why are you going to go to this mystical feeling, impressions, intuition, insight,
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God talking to me, God whispering to me, God saying this, that, or the other outside the Word of God?
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If Scriptures are sufficient, you don't have to go anywhere else. Is there anything in the
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Word that's lacking? And the doctrine that this is, is called by the
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Reformers what? When I saw R .C. Sproul in Orlando, I was so happy years ago to see the chalkboard.
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Remember chalkboards? And he actually picked up a piece of chalk in my presence. I wanted to see this before I died.
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It's kind of like seeing Niagara Falls. R .C. Sproul walked over to the chalkboard and wrote a
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Latin word. I saw it with my own eyes. He didn't write sola scriptura, but he wrote another
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Latin word that I don't know how to pronounce. But for today, all
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Latin words to me are pronounced like Spanish words. K or ace, right? Sola scriptura.
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Scriptures alone. They're sufficient. That's the doctrine. By Scripture alone.
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It's a Latin ablative. By Scripture alone. No deficiencies in Scripture. Now here's what's happening in Evangelicalism.
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We're smart enough to say what the Pope says, we don't need. Scriptures are sufficient.
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What the Magisterium says, we don't need. Scriptures are sufficient. Ex cathedra statements by the
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Pope, we don't need. Scriptures are sufficient. Any new tradition that comes up, or old tradition, we don't need.
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Scriptures are sufficient. But pretty soon, before you know it, spiraling into Evangelicalism is visions, new revelations.
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We should give them the stiff arm like we give Roman Catholic tradition. But we gobble it up like it's turkey and gravy on Thanksgiving.
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The Scriptures are sufficient. And if you buy into mysticism, you are functionally denying sola scriptura.
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Luther said, a simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest Pope without it. Scripture is to be seen.
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And I know you do, and I'm just reminding you what you already know. It's the final and only authority.
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Luther went on to say, the true rule is this. God's Word shall establish articles of faith, and no one else, not even an angel can do so.
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But see, here's the problem. Especially for men. Adam was given a task in the garden before the fall.
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Then Adam sinned as our federal head. And then there was chaos afterwards. And part of the fall was hard work.
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And men struggled with laziness. Everybody struggles with laziness, but particularly men. And boys.
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And so now, wait a second. You mean I have to study the Word? You mean I have to be diligent to study the Word? Do you have to show myself approved to study the
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Word? A workman who's not going to be ashamed because I want to rightly divide the Word? I'd just rather have
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God just talk to me. How do you know God lives? If you ask me how
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I know He lives, He lives within my heart. Really? He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way.
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Now, if you mean through the Scriptures, amen, preach it, let's close in prayer. But that's not what people mean these days.
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How do I know what God expects of me? Who He is? What He's done?
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How He guides me? The Scriptures are sufficient. Now, here's what we've done in evangelicalism.
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Instead of sola Scriptura, alone, we say prima
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Scriptura, first. Oh, we would never want to say anything in evangelicalism about the
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Scriptures and somehow say anything bad about them. After all, Jesus loved them. Jesus taught them. Jesus affirmed them.
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He affirmed the account of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah and Jonah and Adam and Eve.
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But you know what? It's first Scripture, prima, but there are secondary things too, like new revelation and mysticism and charismatic gifts and angelic visitations and zipping up to heaven for a quick buck.
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Scripture alone. Luther said, I have coveted with my
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Lord that He should not send me visions or dreams or angels. I am content with this gift of the
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Scriptures, which teaches and supplies all that is necessary, both in this life and the one which is to come.
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No wonder Thy Word is a lamp unto my face. Scriptures are adequate.
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Scriptures are plenty. And once you say this is less than sufficient, chaos in the church.
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Let me give you an illustration of somebody who denies sufficiency of Scripture, and it's actually a bunch of people, and are people that say that you can hear from God when you pray.
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So, when you pray, you talk to God. You say things like this, don't you? This is the template of what you would say.
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Our Father who art in heaven. You're a good God. You're a Father God. You're a source. You're kind.
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You protect. You provide. You're a great Father. You're not just my Father, but you're our
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Father. You're just the church and the community of the saints. You live in heaven.
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You're transcendent. You're over us. You're great. You're holy. Your name is to be praised.
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Your name is to be thought of as holy. And you have a kingdom, and it's going to come, and your will is going to be done, and you talk like that.
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That's called prayer. And when God talks to you, it's called Scripture. And never the twain shall meet.
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But in evangelicalism, people are praying, and then they're told, just stop and listen. Grab a pen, and whatever you hear from God, you write down.
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God's talking to you. I had a lady say to me this week, yes, but if God doesn't talk to me outside of Scripture, it's not a relationship.
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Henry Blackaby, in experiencing God, has not helped us at all. Prayer, he says, is two -way fellowship and communication with God.
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You speak to God, and he speaks to you. And he doesn't mean through Scriptures. And then he gives you the guilt trip.
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If you have trouble hearing God speak, you're in trouble at the very heart of your Christian experience.
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And he's not talking about you're praying, and you're worried about something, and into your mind pops, be anxious for nothing.
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I'll never leave you nor forsake you. If those things pop into your mind, what's popping into your mind?
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Scripture. You've already learned it and cultivated those things, and the Spirit of God is bringing those up. Blackaby said,
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God, I pray that I will come to such a relationship with you that when you speak, I will hear and respond. He said, don't let anyone intimidate you about hearing from God.
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This is mysticism. This is going to the inside. This is denying sola scriptura.
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If Lily Tomlin can get it right, so could we. When we talk to God, we're praying.
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When God talks to us, we're schizophrenic. Jack Hayford, while alone and quiet, listen with your heart.
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Don't strain your ears for an audible sound. The Bible describes this order of the Lord's communication with us as a still, small voice.
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Are the one who's now infiltrated churches like ours more than anyone else, who started off teaching good things and now is in the cauldron and cesspool of mysticism?
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Beth Moore says, the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.
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This is part of contemplative prayer. When we sit back and realize it's just not that we have something to say to God, it's that God has something to say to us.
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I want to be in that tent of meeting. And she doesn't mean through Scripture. I don't think
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I want to be in that tent of meeting, especially with Miriam getting leprosy, but that's another part of the story.
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True or false? The Bible commands you to tune into an inner voice. Study Scripture.
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Meditate on Scripture. Chew on Scripture. Jesus said, on the contrary, blessed are those who hear the
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Word of God and observe it. Friends, when you say, God's talking to me on the inside,
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I'm just reminding you that the Scriptures are sufficient, and you're denying Sola Scriptura. In Christ, Hebrews 1, the revelation of God has completed.
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And when Jesus' death was finished, when He said it is finished, and Christ's substitutionary atonement had happened, and He was raised from the dead, around that same time, since redemption was finished, revelation was soon going to be finished, completed.
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Kevin DeYoung says in his new book that you should read, Taking God at His Word, Scripture is enough because the work of Christ is enough.
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They stand or fall together. The Son's redemption and the Son's revelation must both be sufficient.
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God does not speak outside of His Word today. You don't need Him to. Question number two.
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Question number two. The Scriptures are sufficient, number one. Number two, I'll ask you with a question again.
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And again, I know I'm preaching to the choir. I've been here for many years now. I know you believe these things, but it's just good to remember.
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It's good to be reminded of what we believe and why.
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Question two. You believe that the Scriptures are inerrant, right? You believe the
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Scriptures are pure and holy and true and without error and clear, don't you?
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In other words, you don't believe the Bible has errors, do you? So here's where we're going. Scriptures are sufficient.
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The boat of Scripture has been rigged out. We've got everything we need in the toolbox. So why go anywhere else?
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Secondly, the Scriptures are without error. And if I go within myself, I'm tainted by Scripture.
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I'm curved in on myself, as Luther said. I'm fallen. And what comes out of a fallen person?
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Pure things? Holy things? Undefiled things? Donald Gray Barnhouse was operated on years ago in Philadelphia.
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He was a pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church. He was followed by James Boyce and other men,
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Reichen. And C. Everett Koop was the
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Surgeon General of the United States. And he was a doctor, and he was on the staff who did the heart procedure for Donald Gray Barnhouse.
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Barnhouse makes it through. He's in recovery. Dr. Koop comes over, and he said, Dr. Barnhouse, how are you feeling?
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Pretty good. He's still kind of underneath the weather of anesthesia. Did you know, Dr. Barnhouse, I held your heart in my hand?
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And Barnhouse said, Could you see that it was desperately wicked to seep full above all else?
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Jeremiah 17. If you go in, you can't trust yourself.
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That's why Christianity is a religion of external source, because it has to be pure. Have we talked about ventriloquism here?
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You guys know much about ventriloquism? Who knows much about ventriloquism? Some do, the people who were at the first service.
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Well, you know, when I grew up, it was Edgar Bergen, right? Edgar Bergen was a ventriloquist.
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And in our day, ventriloquist meant you could throw your voice. You could keep your mouth closed.
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It didn't look like you were talking. And even when you said difficult sounds like F's and V's and B's and P's and M's, you could have your mouth open, and you didn't move your lips, and other people could hear it.
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And you could be like Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snurd. And for you old -timers, Effie Klinker was another doll of Edgar Bergen.
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For your newer folks, Sherry Lewis. Remember Sherry Lewis? High -tech, THX, Dolby Sound, you know,
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Sherry Lewis. And who were her little puppets? Lamb Chop, Charlie Horse, and Hush Puppy.
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But here's the weird thing. It's really weird. Ventriloquist. Ventriloquist.
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Belly talker. Gastromancy. You go back to Delphi in Greece.
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Sorry, Harry. It all started back there. All leads back. When I was in Delphi, you'd go to the
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Delphic Oracle. And you'd say, well, I want to know what
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Delphi Oracle is saying to me. So you'd have to go, and you'd have to pay the prophetess.
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You'd have to pay Pythia. And for money, she would tell you what Delphi Oracle would say. And so Ventriloquist didn't start off in 1753 with traveling entertainment and Lamb Chop and Sherry Lewis.
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It started off saying, my stomach is growling. Dead people are talking.
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I better pay someone to translate the zombies in my stomach so they'll tell me what they want to say.
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Who would pay to listen to their stomach translated? In about 10 to 12.
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That's Ventriloquist, how it started. The unliving take up residence in your stomach, and you pay for that, for a translation.
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Hi, how are you? I have a skull on my desk to remind me of my mortality and yours.
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Little Asher Smith came up the other day, and he kind of talks with the side of his mouth. After Sunday school,
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I mean, after Tuesday Bible study, I had my door open, so unsuspecting little boys like that can just wander in not knowing what's going to happen.
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He just walks over. What's that zombie doing on your desk?
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I've got the zombie on the desk. He also said, this one's for free.
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On my personal iTunes account, I like to listen to We Are the Champions, We Will Rock You by Queen.
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I said, okay, I know what Dad's teaching you. So I quick got on YouTube and pulled up Queen and cranked it up in my office, breaking the pastoral mold.
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Evangelicals are doing the exact same thing as Ventriloquists. They're feeling something. They're intuiting something.
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They have an insight or an impression, and they say it's God. God told me.
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And Edwards would say, the people that talk like that, I have a name for them. They're called incorrigible. Because I'm trying to tell you, this is what
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God says in His Word. And remember, what comes out of you is tainted by sin, even as a Christian.
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Can't you say with Paul, oh wretched man that I am? Can't you say with Paul, in me dwelleth no good thing?
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But you say God speaks through you? Friends, I have a verse for you,
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Proverbs 28, 26. He who trusts in his own heart is a, we're not
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Quakers. Quakers said, we're not depraved, therefore God speaks through us.
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And since, at least they had enough sense to say, since we're not depraved, then the beacon of truth is going to be pure.
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But since we know we're depraved, how can we trust ourselves? We've got to go outside of ourselves to Scripture.
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So turn your Bibles to Psalm 19, please. And I want you to see that Scriptures are inerrant, so why go inside?
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Henry Mann's right. There's enough evil in every one of our hearts to make another devil. Why go into our hearts to make another
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Bible? And so when you say God says, and you mean revelation, that's not true.
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You say, well, I had a hunch once and it paid off. Okay, a hunch is a hunch, and an impression is an impression, but revelation is revelation.
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I know it's humbling. Who wants to be called a sinner? It's like Winston Churchill, who didn't really say much in a positive sense about his rivals politically, but he did say something once and one time nice about Clement Attlee.
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Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill said, is a very humble man. Well, you have a little
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Churchillian twinkle after that, and then you say, of course, he's got a lot to be humble about. God's Word is not tainted.
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It is pure. It is holy. So why go within when you've got without sufficiency of Scripture and now inerrancy of Scripture?
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Psalm 19, verses 1 to 6 talk about general revelation, the stars, the moon, but now we focus into verses 7 through 14, special revelation, six descriptions of the
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Word of God. They're all synonymous. It's a poem, remember. It's parallelism. All designed, these six descriptions of the
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Bible, designed to make one cumulative effect. The Scriptures can be trusted.
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I'll even make it as simple as I can. Do you read your Bible every day? When you get up in the morning, whatever your routine is, get a cup of coffee, let the dog out, whatever it might be, and do you sit down and read the
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Bible? You say, well, I don't have enough time. Well, then you need to just get up 15 minutes earlier and sit down and read the
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Bible. This week you should read every day 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus, and you'll say to yourself,
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Jesus Christ is such a great Savior. Look at how He equips pastors for ministry.
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Look at how great the Word is. And we come to verses 7 and following. We'll just get a couple of these and we're going to have to end.
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I want you to see powerful poetry and powerful theology both here. Here's my goal, that you won't run to the inside.
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You won't run to a liver that quivers or a bosom that burns. The law of the
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Lord, Psalm 19, verse 7, the law of Yahweh, James calls it the perfect law, is perfect.
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Isn't that amazing? It's perfect. It's complete. It's true. It has integrity.
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You know what that word perfect is from? Sacrifice. When you take a sacrifice in the Old Testament system, what do you do?
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Well, where's that old three -legged lamb? No, you take the best and you take a spotless, blemishless lamb because it's supposed to be a sacrifice.
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Actually, you know what kind of lamb you take? You take a perfect lamb. That's the word right here.
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Flawless. Spotless. And it restores the soul. It revives. What the fall did, the
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Word through the sovereign Spirit, accomplishing, or applying rather, the death of Christ, it makes alive, it makes people born again.
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Is tuition perfect? Intuition. Are impressions perfect? Bill Gothard says you need checks in your spirit.
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Are they perfect? Spurgeon said, to live by impressions is often to live the life of a fool and even fall into downright rebellion against the revealed
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Word of God. Not your impressions, but the Bible must always guide you to the law and to the testimony.
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Spurgeon said a guy kept coming to him all the time, pestering him. He wanted to preach. So how do you get to preach for Spurgeon?
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Here's how you get him to preach. Let you preach. God told me.
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God told me I should preach for you. God gave me an impression that I should preach for you. Spurgeon said, there was a young man who was impressed with the idea that he ought to preach for me one
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Lord's day. But I was not impressed to let him do so. It stood over and probably will continue to stand over for some little time.
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He had no gifts of speech, but he thought his impression was quite sufficient. Spurgeon says,
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I feel impressed upon my mind to do it. Spurgeon says, does
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God command you to do it? That's the proper question. If He does, you should make haste. Whether it is impressed upon your mind or not, but if there be no command to that effect, or rather if it diverges from the line of God's statutes and needs apology or explanation, hold your hand.
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For though you have ten thousand impressions, yet must you never dare to go by them, it is a dangerous thing for us to make the whims of our brain instead of the clear precepts of God the guide of our moral actions.
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Impressions are impressions. Intuition is simply intuition. They're not authoritative.
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They're not Scripture. Verse 7b, Psalm 19. The testimony of the
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Lord when God bears witness about Himself, to Himself, through Himself, vouching for Himself, that's the word, when
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God vouches for something, verse 7b, it's sure.
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It's trustworthy. It's unreliable. It's unwavering. It doesn't sound like me.
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It doesn't sound like my feelings. My feelings come. My feelings go, Luther says. Feelings come and feelings go and feelings are what?
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Deceiving. Hunches are too. Here it says, the testimony of the
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Lord is sure, making wise the simple. You say, well,
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I had a real peace about that, Pastor, therefore I made the decision. Really? How about this for a peace?
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How about go evangelize your dad on his deathbed? How about go evangelize your mom at home?
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How about evangelize your workmate after hours? How about, I remember the first time we had to do church discipline here, step 3, the guy wouldn't take our letters, our phone calls, and so I had to go to this man and he left his wife for someone else and he wouldn't take my calls and so I had to go to the police department and so when he got out of the car, he was a policeman,
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I would say to him, please, for the love of Christ Jesus, your wife and kids, go back to your wife.
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Repent. And I thought, he's got the gun and all he has to do is go like that, bang. Now this last week,
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Kim and I were in Branson, Missouri, as I said, and I was speaking at the Oak Ridge Boys Theater.
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I was not singing. Although we got free tickets, so we went. A different night.
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Now the Oak Ridge Boys, I don't know hardly anything about them. One guy used to sing with Elvis, he's got a deep voice. Another guy looks like he's got a
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ZZ Top beard. And when they sang Elvira, I wish they would have sang the
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Eagle Song, I've Got a Peaceful Easy Feeling. Because then I could have just used an illustration of how feelings can't determine my decision making process, rather they're an overflow or a fruit or a consequence of what
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I have to do through Scriptures. Do I want you to have feelings? Do I want you to have love and joy and peace and all kinds of feelings?
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Yes. But you must not mistake those feelings for Scripture, because Scripture is inerrant and my feelings trick me.
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Sometimes I believe a lie and it feels like the truth. Sometimes I could believe a lie and it feels just like hormones.
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So you don't know. Lloyd -Jones says, avoid making the terrible error of making feelings central.
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Kim and I also went sight and sound and we saw Jonah in Branson. And Jonah was sleeping in the ship's bowels and he had a peace about it, didn't he?
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He had a peaceful easy feeling. So if anybody ever comes to you and you're talking about something and they say, oh
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I have a real peace about that, I want you to say, with a smile of course, I don't have a peace about it, you haven't a peace about it.
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Now what do we have to do? We have to go back to the Scripture. Verse 8, the precepts of the
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Lord are right. Straightforward, just, not perverse, not crooked, equal, proper.
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Those are all synonyms for that. Just unlike me and my heart, even after salvation. And what do they do?
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They rejoice the heart. That's the result. Friends, I know you believe in the
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Bible. I know you believe it's sufficient and inerrant. But I'm telling you, there's an attack from within and it's called mysticism.
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So don't buy it. And if you say, well yeah, but I have hunches, I have impressions, and I had a hunch to do this and I did it.
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Fine. But I'm saying, those cannot be trustworthy guides. Remember what Edward said, why exchange the guidance of a polar star for the guidance of a little jack -o -lantern?
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No wonder John MacArthur next year at the Shepherd's Conference is going to have a whole conference on the
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Bible and it's inerrancy. Why? Because the Scriptures are being attacked. Who wants to study the
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Bible when God can just talk with you any old which way He wants? And the second we start listening to our heart, works righteousness creeps in, pride's already there, and we get our eyes off of the
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Scriptures and when the Scriptures are proclaimed, what do you see front and center? The mediatorial advocate work of Christ Jesus the
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Lord. Replacing Jesus of the
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Bible with Jesus in my heart? Reject that. So your homework again for this week is 1
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Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus. Read it every day. That's your homework. Let's pray.
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Father in Heaven, I thank You for Your Word. Thank You that we have something to say from the pulpit and we can declare it, thus saith the
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Lord. We're thankful that it not only saved Timothy, but through the
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Word as the Spirit was so pleased to sovereignly regenerate us, it saved many of us.
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We're thankful for that. I pray that You would protect Bethlehem Bible Church, help us not to go within, help us to go to an external source.
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And while the Reformation wasn't perfect in everything, they certainly were right when they said, sola
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Scriptura. And in these Scriptures, we will see the face of our beautiful Savior, figuratively,