Sola Scriptura-Scripture Alone!

Jeremiah’s Call and Commission

The Old Testament reading is Jeremiah, chapter 1, verses 4 -10. Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations.

Then I said, Ah, Lord God, behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth. But the Lord said to me, Do not say, I am only a youth. For to whom I send you, you shall go. And whatever I command you, you shall speak.

Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord. Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and to bear down, to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.

Paul’s Charge to Preach the Word

The New Testament scripture reading this morning is 2 Timothy, chapter 4, verses 1 -8. I charge you in the presence of God and of Jesus Christ, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word.

Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.

I have fought the good fight, and I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that day.

And not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing.

Luther on Preachers and the Word of God

This is what Martin Luther said about preachers. The three marks of a good preacher are these. He stands up, he speaks up, and he knows when to shut up. Luther was never one to mince words. You can tell that in his own sermons.

He was quite a preacher. He also said faithful preachers should teach only the word of God and seek only his honor and praise. Likewise, the hearer should also say, I do not believe in my pastor, but he tells me of another Lord whose name is Christ.

Him he shows me. So God willing, that's what will happen today. Let's pray together. Father, now as we come to your word, we pray that you would guide our thinking. In fact, I pray more that you would transform our thinking, that you would change us as a result of your word.

Help us, we pray, for your glory and the good of your people. Be at work now in the speech and in the words that I give these people. I pray that through them you would work, for without you they are useless.

Be at work now, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. On October 31, 1517, a young monk, a pastor in Wittenberg, Germany, and a professor of Bible at the local university posted 95 theses, or 95 propositions, on the door of the castle church in that town.

The intention of those was to call theologians together to debate those 95 propositions. He put them up on the door because he was incensed by a monk who was preaching across the river in a different principality, a monk by the name of Johann Tetzel.

He was selling indulgences. Indulgences were these certificates that you could buy that would remit your sins, remit some of your sins, or remit the sins of someone that you loved. He would play on these people and say that their loved ones that were in purgatory could be freed if they would only buy these certificates of indulgence.

In fact, he had a catchy little phrase.

He said this,.

As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul out of purgatory springs. And so Luther, as a pastor to many of these people who were going over there and buying these indulgences, was incensed by that, and so came up with these 95 theses that he put on the door of the castle church.

And by that simple act of posting those propositions on the church doors, he launched what we call the Protestant Reformation. This was a revolution that recovered the gospel truths that had been lost for centuries in the church.

Some of those truths you find on our, not some of those, all of those truths that he talked about are found on your bulletins every Sunday. Right? Sola Scriptura. Scripture alone. Sola Grazia. Grace alone.

Sola Fidei. Faith alone. Solus Christus. In Christ alone. Soli Deo Gloria. For the glory of God alone. These were the five things that the Reformation recaptured for us. This morning, we're gonna examine one of those.

It's the gospel truth called Sola Scriptura. Now, Sola Scriptura, we mean that we appeal to the sole authority of the Holy Scriptures as the infallible word of God over against human opinion and ecclesiastical tradition.

Scripture Alone as the Church’s Supreme Authority

But that was not the thinking of Luther's day. In fact, soon after he posted those 95 theses, one of his opponents, Sylvester Priarius, wrote in response to them, he who does not accept the doctrine of the Church of Rome and Pontiff of Rome as an infallible rule of faith from which the Holy Scriptures to draw their strength and authority is a heretic.

And you hear what Priarius said there. He said that the Church of Rome and the Pontiff of Rome, the Pope, are the supreme authorities in the church and that even the scriptures draw their authority from the church, which means church above the scriptures.

The scriptures were authoritative only because the church said they were. Martin Luther, to the contrary, said, scripture alone had the authority to command his faith, to command anyone's faith. He wrote, what is asserted without the scriptures or proven revelation may be held as an opinion but need not be believed.

Why was he willing to appeal to the sole authority of scripture over against human opinion and ecclesiastical tradition? Was he right? That's the question. Was he right in saying that? Should we believe that statement?

Well, I wanna give you three arguments for why you ought to believe this truth that has been phrased in the term sola scriptura or scripture alone. First of all, believe sola scriptura because the scripture claims divine authority.

It claims divine authority. We're gonna look at a few passages this morning, so turn to 2 Timothy 3. 2 Timothy 3. In 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17, we read this. All scriptures breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Now, the apostle Paul, writing here, says all scripture is breathed out. He actually invented his own word for that, breathed out, as if God went, and there was the Bible. Now, he didn't mean by that.

Paul did not mean by that that God just dictated the scriptures. What he means by that is that by God's action, we have his very heart. We have his mind. We have the mind of God. The scripture then is what you call the word of God.

We're so used to that phrase. We don't, a lot of times, we forget what we're saying. We're saying this is the very word of God. This is God speaking to us. The scriptures are the very words of God. Well, then how can it possibly derive its authority from anything like the church or from anyone like the pope?

How can it derive its authority from anything else if it is indeed, as it claims, the very word of God, the very mind of God? If you would look at Galatians 3 .8, you see that the apostle Paul himself equates the words of scripture with God, with God's speech.

Here's what he says in Galatians 3 .8,. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed.

Now, he's quoting there the very words of God in Genesis 12 .3, Genesis 18 .18, and Genesis 12 .18. There it says, God said to Abraham, Paul says, the scripture speaks. He's equating the scripture with God himself.

It is God who spoke, and it is God who speaks in the Bible. Four years after he posted those theses, four years later, Luther was summoned to appear before the emperor and the assorted princes of Germany in the city of Worms.

We would say worms, okay? It's called a diet, an assembly, the diet of worms. He was ushered into the presence of the emperor. He's awed by the assembly that he saw, the assembly of all these princes and the emperor himself.

And as he walked in, he saw a table, and on that table was a pile of books, not just any books, his books. And a representative stood before him and asked if he had written these books and if there was any part of them that he wished to recant.

Now, Luther was confused. He was surprised by this because he thought he was coming to this great assembly in order to present his views. He thought this was an invitation to present his views. But instead, he was confronted with an accusation, not an accusation, but a query that said, are you willing to recant what you've written?

Well, confused, he asked for another day. This touches God in his word, he declared. This affects the salvation of souls. I beg you, give me time. So they gave him 24 hours. They gave him one day. And so the next day, he appeared.

The next evening, he appeared in that great assembly, the candles flickering on all these assembled princes and people that had come and jammed the hall. And once more, he was asked, will you defend these books altogether or do you wish to recant some of what you have said?

He said he could not. Surely, the reply came. One individual could not call into doubt the tradition of the entire church. You must give a simple, clear, and proper answer. Will you recant or not? And of course, Luther replied, unless I am convinced by the testimony of the scriptures or by clear reason.

For I do not trust either in the Pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves. I am bound by the scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the word of God.

I cannot and will not recant anything since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me.

Amen.

Luther stood on the scriptures. They alone could make him recant. He challenged them and said, show me from the scriptures where I am wrong. In other words, he was saying to them, you may say these things by tradition, but I will not recant unless you show me from the scriptures alone where I am wrong.

Now, we have to insist on this just as much as Luther did, because today you have competing authorities in your life, all around you, demanding your allegiance. We have tons of different psychologies out there telling you what you should be and what you ought to do, demanding your allegiance.

You have experience, right? You have a friend who says to you, yeah, I was walking in the mountains and I had this great experience of God and I can't explain it, but you can't deny it, right? We're competing against the siren call.

Of our experience.

In order to say what is right and what is wrong. Such church bodies today as the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ and the Reformed Church in America and the Presbyterian Church USA and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have declared that ordaining homosexual and transgender people is both right and good.

Why?

Because the opinion of enlightened men now has more authority than the scriptures. These churches all once stood on sola scriptura, but no more.

Which will you believe?

Of all those competing authorities out there vying for your allegiance,.

What will you believe.

And how will you judge whether you ought to believe or not? It's because of the scripture and the scripture alone that gives you the ability and the authority to judge all of that. But the truth of sola scriptura does not just address ecclesiastical bodies and fellowships and councils and anything else we can think of.

It demands your obedience. The Bible is the word of God and the ultimate authority not only for church associations like fire or denominations or popes and councils that they have to live under its authority, you have to live under its authority.

You are the one that has to believe that scripture alone is that which has ultimate authority to judge. Once Luther was preaching on one phrase in Psalm 118 verse 5, I called upon the Lord. Now again, this is the way he preached.

Okay, I'm not saying this. This is the way Luther preached. He's trying to make the point if God says in his word call upon the Lord, then do it. So here's what he said. Call is what you have to learn.

You heard it. Don't just sit there by yourself or off to one side and hang your head and shake it and gnaw your knuckles and worry and look for a way out. Nothing on your mind except how bad you feel,.

How you hurt,.

What a poor guy you are. Get up, you lazy scamp. Down on your knees, up with your hands and eyes toward heaven. Use a psalm or the Lord's prayer to cry out your distress to the Lord.

You see what he was saying? Stop, stop. Just so involved with yourself,.

The Bible says call out to the Lord.

So do it.

If you have to use a psalm or the Lord's prayer,.

Do it.

Call out to the Lord. Luther believed the authority of Scripture was so great, he once remarked, Any teaching which does not square with Scripture is to be rejected even if it snows miracles every day.

You get it? Even if this teaching could produce miracles every day, but it doesn't square with Scripture, don't believe it. Scripture alone, not miracles, not experiences, not traditions, not new enlightened thinking, Scripture alone is our authority.

And to that we must bow. So we need to believe Sola Scriptura because it claims for itself divine authority. Here's the second reason. Believe Sola Scriptura because of the power of the Word of God. Turn back to our Scripture reading from this morning in Jeremiah chapter one.

I hope that you're in the habit of listening carefully to the Scriptures as they're read to you. All right, I hope you listened to what God said to Jeremiah. Just in case you didn't, let's look at it again.

Chapter one of Jeremiah verses four through 10. Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations.

Then I said, Ah, Lord God,.

Behold,.

I do not know how to speak for I am only a youth. The Lord said to me, Do not say, I am only a youth. For to all to whom I send you,.

You shall go.

And whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord. Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me,.

Behold,.

I put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. Believe in Sola Scriptura because of the power of the word of God.

God calls Jeremiah to minister for him. God commissions Jeremiah for the purpose of preaching his word to his people. Now God has done nothing haphazardly. He had set apart Jeremiah for this very task.

Before he was born.

But Jeremiah objects because Jeremiah believes that it all depends on his ability, that his preaching ministry depends on his speaking abilities. That's what he says in verse 6, right? I don't know how to speak.

I'm just a youth. You're asking the wrong guy. I don't have the ability. The Lord responds by saying, You must preach because I command you. And you can preach because I support you. But then he gives Jeremiah a reason to have confidence in the ministry of this word.

At the end of verse 9 and 10, God says to Jeremiah, Look, I'll put my words in your mouth. And that word has the power to tear down, to uproot and destroy whole kingdoms. But it also has the ability to build and to plant what I want.

Now let me say something to you. Pick up any history book, any history book, every history book, if you will, every history book about Luther, when they talk about Luther and the Reformation, and they will always, always say that the Reformation changed the course of Western civilization.

The stranglehold of the Catholic Church was broken. The whole face of Europe changed as countless numbers of people found Christ in the gospel. One could even make the case that much of what we enjoy in America are descended from the ideas that came with the Reformation.

The Reformation changed the course of history. The word of God can tear up, uproot,.

Bring down.

Anything that God wants it to do, to bring down, and can plant anything that He would plant. You know, that was never Luther's ambition. That was never his goal. His goal was not to start another church.

That wasn't his goal at all. His goal was to reform the church, to bring it back to gospel truth and gospel purity. What happened was not his doing. In fact, he believed he had nothing to do with it. That, like Jeremiah, it was because he ministered the word of God.

Here's how he explained it. I simply taught, preached, wrote God's word. Otherwise, I did nothing. And then, while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my Phillip and my Arnsdorf, the word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it.

I did nothing. The word did it all. See, he had confidence because the word was powerful. See, the word of God and the gospel has the power to tear down nations and raise up Christ's kingdom. Here's the last thing I, the last reason I think you should believe in sola scriptura.

Christ and the Gospel in Scripture Alone

Believe sola scriptura.

Because you find Christ and the gospel in the scripture alone. The scriptures assert that they alone can bring you to the saving grace of Jesus. Turn back again to 2 Timothy chapter 3. 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 14 and 15.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, the scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ.

Apostle Paul says that in the scriptures you will find Jesus and there you will find the grace that you need. Jesus himself said, you diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life.

These are the scriptures that testify about me. Luther found Christ by studying the Bible for there was no accurate portrayal of Jesus outside of it. You have to understand in those days people didn't read Bibles.

They didn't have Bibles. They didn't have Bibles. They needed someone to bring it to them. And often the speakers would go by church tradition, what the church said about Christ. Or in that day, and this is going to sound familiar because a lot of churches love doing this.

In that day, they would have these magnificent plays for people to watch in order to understand this Jesus. But there was no accurate portrayal of Jesus. There never will be a complete accurate portrayal of Jesus apart from the scripture.

You can't go anywhere else to find an accurate picture of the Lord Jesus than in the scriptures.

Now,.

Long before.

He posted his 95 Theses, when he was a very young man, he was a law student at the University of Erfurt.

And one day,.

As Luther was on his way back to school, a thunderstorm suddenly overtook him. A bolt of lightning hit a tree near him and threw him to the ground. Absolutely terrified, he cried out to St. Anne. Now, St. Anne is the patron saint of minors.

His father was a minor. So he went to what he thought. He cried out to St. Anne and said, St. Anne, I will become a monk. He feared for his soul. And he did not know how to find safety.

In the gospel.

And so he cried out for that which he knew, which was, I'll be a monk and I'll enter the monastery. And so young Martin presented himself to become a monk in the Augustinian order. And there he was received in a ceremony that set him on a course in which he thought he could achieve salvation.

In fact, as he laid prostrate.

On the ground,.

Face down with his arms out, the prior of the monastery prayed over him, Hear, O Lord, our heartfelt pleas and begin to confer thy blessing on this thy servant, whom in thy holy name we have clad in the habit of a monk, that he may continue with thy help, faithful in thy church, and merit eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen.

And so he began in earnest to live up to the prayer of that prior and to earn, to merit God's favor, to merit God's salvation. And he was serious about it.

As a monk,.

He would go to his superior and spend as long as six hours in confession so that Father Staupitz.

Said to him,.

Luther,.

Martin, don't come back until you have something to confess like adultery or like murdering your parents.

Right?

He just got so fed up.

Because Luther kept looking and looking and finding more.

And more.

And more. That was wrong. And he knew he was unholy and he had to do something and he would confess. And driven to despair, Luther relates,.

Though I lived as a monk.

Without reproach, and I was, another place he said, if I could be saved by monkery, it was me. Right? Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience.

I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love.

Yes,.

I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God and said, as if indeed it is not enough that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every calamity of the law of the Decalogue without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with righteous wrath, thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience.

You see what he says there?

The gospel was the instrument of God's condemnation.

The gospel spoke.

Of the righteousness of God and he was unholy and the gospel said he would suffer because of his unholiness. At least that's what he thought then. Well, his superior, Father Stalpitz, a very gentle, a very kind man, one who I think was also beginning to understand the scriptures.

In an effort to help Luther, sent him to Wittenberg to become professor of Bible there at the University of Wittenberg. Now understand something. In the Middle Ages, in the time in which Luther wrote, all universities were connected to the church.

I mean, to hear about someone being a professor of Bible in a university today sounds like foolishness, right? But back then, all universities were founded by the church or churches and so they always, they always had religious classes like being professor of Bible was central to the university's mission.

And so Stalpitz, in order to try to help Luther, sent him to the University of Wittenberg in order to be the professor of Bible and there he began an intense study of the scriptures in order for him to lecture to his students.

And it was there in the Bible that he began to find a savior, not a judge. He was preparing lectures on the Psalms and he came to the 22nd Psalm in which the first verse says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

The very words that Jesus took upon his lips when he was on the cross. And Luther said, why should Jesus know such desperation? The same that I feel. Why should he know it? Luther knew why he had such desperate feelings because he was impure.

He was unholy in the very presence of God. But Christ was not impure. Christ was not impious. Why should he be overwhelmed with such desolation?

Why should he say,.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The answer must be that Christ took upon himself our iniquities that he so identified with us that he too felt our alienation from God. And Luther wasn't quite sure yet but it seemed somehow that in the utter desolation of the forsaken Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.

You see, he was beginning to see Christ in the scriptures just like Jesus said, these are the scriptures that testify about me. Well, then he began to study the book of Romans and saw for the first time that God's justice did not condemn sinners but actually saved helpless sinners like himself.

And he talks in reference to Romans 1, 16 and 17 which were our gospel words this morning. Romans 1, 16 and 17 which particularly struck him in which we read for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek for in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

These are the verses.

That captured his attention as he was studying through the book of Romans. And here's what he says about that. Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that the just shall live by his faith.

Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.

The whole of scripture took on a new meaning. And whereas before the justice of God had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven.

If you have a true faith that Christ is your savior, then at once you have a gracious God for faith leads you in and opens up God's heart and will that you should see pure grace and overflowing. Why should the scripture be my sole authority?

Because in it I find Jesus and in it I find help for my soul. In it I find the answer for that which alienates me from God. In it is peace. How can you find the Christ that gives you these things? How do you find the gracious mercy of God?

You find it in scripture and scripture alone. Was Luther correct in proclaiming we must live by scripture alone? All those who claim authority must submit to the higher authority.

Of scripture.

Was he correct in claiming that everyone must judge their actions, their thoughts, and even their emotions by the word of God? By scripture alone? Was he correct when he asserted any teaching which does not square.

With scripture.

Is to be rejected even if it snows miracles every day? Yeah, he was right.

Because scripture.

Has divine authority.

It is the power of God. It is the place.

Where we find Jesus. The question really is.

Will you submit.

To the scripture alone as the infallible word of God?

Will you submit? Will you order your life.

By that authority? Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that scripture alone is our authority for without it we would be captive to the opinions of men, the traditions of institutions. We would find ourselves lost.

But we thank you for the scriptures which alone have the authority of God. Lord, help us not to see this merely as something that's fascinating in the history of the church or in the history of Western civilization, but help us to see this truth of sola scriptura as that which we must live.

That we must submit. And not just submit, but find help and grace through Jesus there. We pray this in his name.

Amen.