Jeff Durbin: Sola Scriptura & Rome, Pt 1 | 2 Timothy 3:16-17

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Am I on? There you go. If you want to open your Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 3.

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2 Timothy chapter 3. We're actually going to start in verse 14.

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2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 14. Hear now the word of the living and the true

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God. 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 which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

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All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

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Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Let's praise God's people. Lord, this is your word.

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Scripture is breathed out by you. We submit, Lord, to your inspired, infallible revelation.

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These are not the words of mere men. These are your words.

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And so, Lord, we yield ourselves to your truth, to your revelation. We seek to glorify your name,

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God, by putting you and your word, your revelation as supreme, as ultimate.

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God, we pray that you'd bless, Lord, in this series. Bless as we open your word and learn from you.

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Bless and transform us individually. Make us more like Christ. Make us more like Christ in standing on your word through trials and tribulations.

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In our spiritual warfare with the enemy, let us be like Jesus in the wilderness. Let us stand on your word,

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God, as ultimate. Let it be our weapon. Let it be our hope. Let it be our foundation.

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And we pray also, God, that you'd bless in this particular part of the series. Help us understand your word and how it relates to opposing authorities and those who would contradict your truth.

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We pray you'd bless, Lord, get the teacher out of the way. May I decrease and Christ increase.

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In Jesus' name, amen. 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17.

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If you're a child at Apologia Church, you probably know this. In Greek, all scripture is, what is it?

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Theionoustos, theionoustos, breathed out by God. It is breathed out by God, theionoustos.

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All scripture is theionoustos, breathed out by God. This is the Apostle Paul in his letter to Timothy talking about how from a young child, a young child, he was acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

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All scripture is breathed out by God. Here is the Apostle Paul, through inspiration, making a claim about scripture.

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The sacred writings, the revelation of God came in history. The revelation of God came through prophets, came through apostles, but the revelation of God is

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God condescending and God actually speaking, giving special revelation.

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And the Apostle Paul here is making a claim to the sacred writings that these are the very words of God.

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Yes, they're spoken through prophets. God condescends at a point in history. God speaks them.

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God sometimes even writes them in stone. But these are words from God and the

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Apostle Paul is making a claim there as to the nature of the sacred writings of the scripture.

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Now, this is vitally important to get because God does reveal himself in other ways.

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God has another form of speech that we're going to learn about in a moment. But that form of speech is not referred to in this sense that we have in the

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Holy Scriptures. The scriptures, what you hold in your hands, your Bibles, whether it is on pages, or it's in your tablet, or in your phone, these are the very words of God.

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That's the nature of scripture. This is God speaking to the degree that when the Lord of glory walks among us in this world, on this dirt, he walks among us.

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When the God -man, when God incarnates, walks among us and he has conflict with people around him, this is

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God himself. He could speak by his own authority, and he often does. But when he's in conflict at times with religious leaders in his day, he would refer them to the

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Holy Scriptures. You do err not knowing the Holy Scriptures. The scriptures cannot be broken.

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Have you not read what was spoken to you by God? Jesus refers to the

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Holy Scriptures as something as distinct. These are the words of God. And so that brings us to this discussion that is far broader than the discussion of our conflict between Protestant Christianity, or Reformed Protestants, and Roman Catholicism.

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It is a much bigger discussion. It has to do with every aspect of our lives. At the heart of it is the revelation of God.

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But it gets us to the discussion as we dialogue with Roman Catholics, or with Mormons, or with Jehovah's Witnesses, or those who co -opt

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Christian language. They borrow Christian language. They use our language. They sound like us.

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They say they believe in Jesus, but they have doctrines and teachings, traditions of men that contradict the scriptures that gets us to the point of this doctrine, this historic doctrine of sola scriptura.

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Sola scriptura. And again, I want to impress this upon all of us, each and every one of us. This is not just a doctrine that is about the conflict between Reformed Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.

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Actually, this is the essence of it all. At the heart of this issue is not, again, the conflict only between us and Rome.

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It is how you will view the news. It is how you will go out into the marketplace.

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It is how you will engage with your family and friends. It's how you're going to talk to your kids when they sit against you, dishonor you, and you bring to them the words of God and the standard.

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You're saying you're an authority in the home, but the ultimate authority here must be obeyed.

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God says. It's the revelation of God that rules my home. How do I know?

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How am I certain when I tell my children things like you need to honor your father and your mother? Is that just my opinion?

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It's just like how I like to run my house. I think this will go well if you honor your father and your mother.

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What's the standard in this home? See, that's the essence of sola scriptura, the revelation of God.

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God has spoken. When we're talking about marital conflict between a husband and a wife and you're saying, well, to the wife, well, here's how you're failing.

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Upon what basis do I claim you are failing? My own personal feelings?

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My opinion? Or do I say that, well, here's what God says in terms of your role and the obligations you have as a wife?

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Or I say the same thing to a father when I say to the man, well, you're failing in this way because you're not loving your wife as what?

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Christ loves the church. There's sola scriptura in action. See, it's not just about us and Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Roman Catholics.

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The essence of this is this, ready? God said. God has spoken.

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And by the way, if we want to be like Jesus, if we want to be conformed to the image of Christ, we need to be like Christ in conflict.

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When he's in conflict with religious authorities who appeal to divine tradition, pass down Jesus, Jesus refers them to the written inspired revelation of God.

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That's how Jesus navigated controversy with them. Whenever they had a claim to divine tradition, he said, you say, but Moses says.

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Thus, you invalidate the word of God for the sake of your tradition. Or when he's in a moment of where they're questioning and challenging him about the resurrection, have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

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Jesus clearly holds to the same position as the Apostle Paul here to Timothy, and that is that these are the very words of God.

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And so the doctrine of sola scriptura, you've heard it said across this pulpit before. But the doctrine of sola scriptura, a simple definition but not comprehensive.

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Get that, not comprehensive is that sola scriptura says the scriptures, the holy scriptures here in this book are the sole infallible rule for faith and practice for the church.

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Sole infallible rule for faith and practice.

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Sole infallible. Now, this is really important as you get into this discussion because many times when we have conversations with our

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Roman Catholic friends and family, there are misrepresentations of sola scriptura.

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Things that are said about sola scriptura that we aren't saying and we actually don't believe.

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Believing sola scriptura doesn't mean, does not mean that you do not believe that there are other good authorities.

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Get that, very important. We're not saying in believing sola scriptura that we don't love church tradition.

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We do. We're not saying in believing sola scriptura that we don't lean on the giants of the faith before us.

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We're not saying in believing sola scriptura that we don't need the councils, that we could care less about those.

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We're not saying in believing sola scriptura that you don't need the church. That's not what sola scriptura says.

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Sola scriptura is saying that the sole infallible, without error, rule, standard there is for the church is the written revelation of God in the holy scriptures.

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But it doesn't mean that we don't acknowledge other fallible authorities. Can I give an example?

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Are parents an authority in the home? Are they an authority in the home? Yes and amen.

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A few of you said yes. We've got some trouble, OK. Are parents an authority in the home? Yes. Are they an infallible authority?

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No. Are they a fallible authority? But do they have an authority? A fallible one.

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The only way you know that as a parent you are operating in truth, and righteousness, and holiness, and justice, and love is if you compare your doctrine in your home, your praxis in your home to the infallible rule.

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So we do believe that there are good authorities. Very good. Love the

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Council of Nicaea. Amen? Great stuff. Athanasian Creed. Praise God for Athanasius, right?

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That's a fine authority. It's a great authority. But how do you know that they got it right?

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Is it just on the church's say so? It's because the church has said?

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I mean, brothers and sisters, church history is a glorious mess. There are moments of great glory, and there's a lot of messiness.

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Why? Because after the death of the apostles, there is no infallible, infallible revelation of God coming from any

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Christian. Do you get that? And so how do you test whether somebody is saying something that is actually true?

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So for example, let's give you a simple challenge right now. I want a lot of interaction here. If I was to say to you, which should we do, love our neighbor or eat our neighbor, what would you say?

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Why? Because God says.

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It's as simple as that. Your standard as to whether you should love your neighbor or eat your neighbor is because God says, and that's it.

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You don't push beyond that. It's the word of God. Like if somebody said, well, and I've heard this.

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Oh, there's videos. If somebody says, well, I don't think we should love our neighbor.

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I don't think we should eat our neighbor rather than love them because it's gross. There's a lot of people in this world that do that that don't think it's actually gross.

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There are tribes in the world today that do this practice. They actually eat their neighbors.

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And so if you say, well, I think it's gross. Well, you know what? Some people think salmon is gross.

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I'm in that number, OK? It's gross. Some people think sushi is gross. Like, you know, it's just all a matter of taste, right?

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Exactly. So if we ask that question, if we impress that, how do you know the truth of this?

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Love your neighbor rather than eat your neighbor. Christians immediately go, because God said. Or how about we do it differently?

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The Trinity versus Unitarianism. Well, how do you know? Is it because some church council pulled rank and told you?

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Why do you believe the councils about the Trinity? Why do you believe that? Because the church pulled rank and told you?

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Or do you believe in the doctrine of the Trinity because when the councils are explaining the triune nature of God, they are appealing to the infallible rule of faith in the scriptures?

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Do you see the points? We honor the councils that get it exactly right, because they just sound like Jesus.

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They sound like Paul. They sound like the prophets. Why do we believe in the Trinity? Is it because the church pulled rank?

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No, it's because the church leaned on the infallible rule of faith.

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That's why we believe these things. Now, this is an important discussion, because, brothers and sisters, in church history, you see

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God moving through his word and his gospel within the church. But you're seeing that happening through fallible and uninspired men.

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And so the question is, where do I go for authority? Where do I go for the ultimate?

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Do I go to church tradition? See, Rome will make that claim. They'll say things like, well, we have these divine deposits.

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We've got the sacred scriptures. We believe these are the very words of God. This is God speaking.

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But we also have this sacred tradition. We've got this tradition that's been passed down for 2 ,000 years to us.

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We've got sacred tradition to lean on, too. So we've got these divine deposits. We're really standing in two places, one foot in scripture and one foot in this thing called sacred tradition, the teaching of the church.

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And so we're standing on those things. Here's the problem. Here's the problem. If you have integrity about church history and the fathers and Christians in history, you will have to recognize that you have fallible men handling the word of God.

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And at times, you see them sounding exactly like Jesus, exactly like Peter, exactly like Paul.

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And so you know what they're saying lines up with the rule of faith, God's inspired word. But let's be honest.

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If we're honest, we won't try to be totalizing with the fathers.

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And that's what many Roman Catholics will try to do. They'll try to pretend like all of church history is on the side of Rome.

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And if you study the issues, you'll realize that is not the case. Find me the papacy in the early church.

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You won't find it. Find me the belief that the Pope is infallible in the early church. Find me the doctrine of Mary as mediatrix or co -mediator with Jesus within the early church.

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You're not going to find these teachings, these beliefs in the early church. You will not find them.

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You will find giants like Augustine or Augustine.

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See, I always say Augustine because he's staring at me. I prefer to say

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Augustine, but I guess when you say Augustine, you sound not scholarly. So Augustine, OK? When you look at a giant like Augustine, you will see him without question, without question, standing on the same principle that the reformers stood on with reference to the infallible nature of the word of God and it as the ultimate rule of faith over against the words of uninspired men.

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Without question, Augustine affirmed the doctrine of sola scriptura, but Augustine also did some face plants.

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Augustine was a fallible human being. He was not an inspired human being. Augustine said things that Roman Catholics can point to to say, hey, look, he's on our side.

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And we could say, you're right. That does sound a lot like what you think and believe. But over here, he's on my side.

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When it comes to the grace of God and monergism and at these points of sola scriptura, the point is that church history is a glorious what?

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Mess. Why? Because it's fallible human beings. But what's the infallible rule?

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Where's the only place where you have infallible words from God recorded for us? Where's the only place?

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The Bible, the Holy Scriptures. So the claim of Rome is we've got these divine deposits.

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You've got the sacred writings. You've got the Holy Scriptures. And you've also got this thing of tradition over here in the teaching magisterium at the church.

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And you've got some of it is nebulous and like, well, what exactly is that? Where is it found?

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Show me that in history. Well, it's actually not there in history. It develops over time like an acorn becoming a tree.

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In other words, it's not there in history. So you have this concept about these divine deposits.

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But here's the point, brothers and sisters, in this question about our love for Roman Catholics.

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It's dealing with a question of ultimates, the question of ultimates. Now, let me just impress it upon you like this.

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And it's not, again, merely about Roman Catholicism and our dispute with them. But it's a question of how do you know?

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Now, just stop there for a second. Just stop there for a second. How do you know? That's a big one.

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This isn't just some philosophy course where we're dealing with things that are just way up here in the atmosphere that have no real application to life.

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I'm going to ask you that question. How do you know? How are you certain?

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Pick a subject. Pick a thing we're dealing with out there in the world not related to Rome.

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All right, let's take the popular stuff. Let's take what's going across TikTok and all the apps right now and all of this.

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Amazingly, somehow, the world in the 21st century turned gay. Like, all of a sudden, numbers are skyrocketing.

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It's interesting, as social media advances and everyone can talk and share their worldview, everybody's gay, right?

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So gayness is somehow connected to social media. I don't know how that works. But think about it.

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The claim is made. I can do what I want with my body to whoever

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I want. I may look like a boy on the outside.

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I may look male. If you dug into my system and looked at my chromosomes and DNA, you might see maleness, but I feel like a woman, right?

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I feel like a woman. You see maleness, but I feel like a woman. Now, look, you can challenge that today on a number of levels.

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And I've talked to you guys about this before. Matt Walsh, great documentary, super entertaining.

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I absolutely loved watching it, but I think it fell short in some ways. Matt Walsh is a

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Roman Catholic. He leans a lot on what we would call natural theology and general revelation.

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He leans a lot there philosophically. So in his approach to the culture today in terms of saying, no, you can't say you are a female when you actually are a male, was his approach was to really appeal to what we just know instinctively or what tradition has brought to us.

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All cultures throughout history have said maleness, femaleness, male, male, and that's it.

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We have a binary. And so he even goes at one point in the film and he goes to like a distant tribe and asks, what if a guy, he's a male, right?

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And he wants to live like a woman. And he shows people just like laughing, right? Like this is hilarious. People really do this.

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And so his approach was to really say, well, to address this issue of transgenderism and genital mutilation and all that's going on at rapid pace, we just need to appeal to like the tradition of the world and how we've just sort of done this together and how everyone just sort of accepts this.

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What's the problem? What's the problem? When you're talking to a person who, according to the scriptures, suppresses the truth of God and unrighteousness and they reject that general revelation, they say,

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I will not listen to God. I don't want to know him. I don't want him in my knowledge. I'm going to worship and serve the creature rather than the creator.

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When you're talking to somebody who's at war with God, biology doesn't matter.

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Don't you see? You can talk to the dude in a dress and say, sir.

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And he'll say, ma 'am. No, sorry. You've seen that video, right? That video was delicious,

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OK? That guy just couldn't help it. Like, he wants to show respect, and he's just, sir, sir.

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And he's like, it's ma 'am. Sorry. When you talk to the guy in GameStop who's demanding that you refer to him as ma 'am, right?

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Or when you talk to the big dude putting his hand on Ben Shapiro, when he's calling him sir, he's calling him ma 'am.

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yelling at Ben Shapiro and saying, you keep that up, and you're going to go home in an ambulance, right? Don't we understand that they know their biology is screaming?

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They know. They know that all creation is shouting about exactly what they are. And you're going to say to them, yes, but tradition has held, and we've always believed, and science says, in your biology, you are male.

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What do they say with a suppression of the truth? What do they say? I don't care, because I feel like a woman on the inside.

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This is my truth. Who are you to stand on and against my truth?

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And so guess what? If it's just a matter of historic tradition and things that we've always done, if it's just a matter of, like, my little group right now that we've decided we can live like this, if it's just a matter of my own interpretation inside or my emotions or my commitments, that's not authoritative.

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That is fallible belief from a human being. What is the infallible, authoritative word to bring to our culture today?

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What is the infallible word? From the beginning, he created them what?

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Male and female. From the beginning. By the way, that sort of does away with, what is it, believing, like,

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God used evolution over time and we can have this ages in Genesis where, like, you know,

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God sort of, like, through seed form creates humans. No, Jesus didn't believe that. Jesus said, from the beginning, he created them male and female.

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So it is the word of God that's supposed to be the authoritative rule there that we bring to the world.

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It's not to say you can't point to evidences of the destructive nature and consequences of this worldview.

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It's to say there must be an ultimate word. How do you know? It's the word of God.

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It's the revelation of God. It's a question of ultimates. Again, it's not denying that there are other healthy, good authorities.

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You can believe in sola scriptura and love the creeds. You can believe in sola scriptura and have an amazing confession of faith that is a rule, a fallible rule, for your church.

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The Westminster Confession of Faith, the 1689 London Baptist Confession, the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, our confession of faith, we believe in another rule, but it is not an infallible rule.

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Councils can be authoritative, but they're fallible. Parents in a home are authoritative, but they're fallible.

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Pastors in churches have authority, but they're fallible. They must be tested. Amen? Your pastor must be tested by the rule of faith.

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I'll give you another one in terms of we all recognize you can be fallible, but also have authority.

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The Supreme Court's, right? We like the Supreme Court. Supreme Court's a good idea.

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Christians in history helped to develop these different spheres of government for checks and balances. We think about the law of God and justice and a court system that honors

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God. We recognize the Supreme Court as an authority, but it is a fallible authority, and it is not the supreme being.

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Amen? And so in history, with a Christian view of the courts, you can say praise

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God for the courts when the court is standing on God's standards of justice.

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Amen? But you can also praise God for the states that resist the fallible authority of the

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Supreme Court, say, for example, in the Dred Scott case, where the Supreme Court gives a wicked, abominable ruling and calls our black brothers and sisters property and says that they must be delivered back to their owners and praise

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God for the states that told the Supreme Court to go pound sand, that they reject that abominable decree.

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They reject it. You are not infallible, Supreme Court, so we resist you because you are not standing on the truth and God's standards of justice.

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Do you see the point? It's a good authority. Amen for it. We'll uphold it when they are on the side of God.

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And you all, of course, know what's going on in the Lone Star state right now, Texas, right?

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State of Texas says we need to protect ourselves from their understanding from an invasion, they say.

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We've got to protect our people. We need to protect our state. And so they put up razor wire. And so you've heard this week the news.

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It's happening as we speak. The Biden administration does what they do. And so a decree comes from the court.

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You must let them in. You must remove the razor wire. And what did Governor Abbott say? Go pound sand.

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I don't care what you say as the president. I don't care what you say as the Supreme Court.

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We are standing on righteousness and justice. We are standing on the law. And so we will flex the sovereignty of the state of Texas.

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We will flex as a lesser magistrate to say that it is, in fact, you that is defying the truth.

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And so we reject your authority here. So we recognize you have an infallible authority.

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And then you have other fallible authorities. You can believe in Sola Scriptura and love the creeds and confessions.

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But here's the point. Are you ready? This should be so easy for all of us. When you support the creeds and confessions, why are you doing that?

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Why are you believing that the creeds and confessions are good? It's the Word of God. Because that reference point is the very

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Word of God. That's why we love this confession. That's why we love this creed. Because it is with the infallible

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Word of God. Now, quick thing. Today's laying down the foundations.

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The foundations. We're going to move from the foundations into actual examples of Sola Scriptura in the

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Holy Scriptures and then to Sola Scriptura in history and in tradition. But today's laying the foundation.

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We need to define this. This is vitally important to get. Scripture tells us that God speaks.

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God reveals himself. God is not silent. God is not far away. God is not an absentee landlord.

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We don't have a deist perspective of God. God has spoken in history.

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God's spoken through his prophets. God's spoken through apostles. God has spoken to us supremely in Jesus Christ when

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God walked among us. Here's the point. We believe in revelation from God, that God speaks.

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And that's how I can know. But Scripture does say that God has some different forms of speech.

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So we generally call this in theology, in theological reflection, we call it general revelation or natural revelation.

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And we call it special revelation. So we've got general or natural over on this side.

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And we've got special revelation over on this side. Now, here's the deal. We all, as Christians, sort of understand this in a way instinctively.

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But Scripture is clear. It's actually explicit. I want you to see it with your own eyes.

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Most of you have this memorized. You have it by heart. But let's go to it. Psalm 19, 1.

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Psalm 19, 1. The word of God says, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

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Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.

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There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out throughout, through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

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There you go. We know that one, right? And it's obvious, completely obvious, that God has a form of speech.

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He has a form of word, a form of revelation that looks like the heavens declaring the glory of God.

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It's called speech. Well, who gave it? Well, God did it. So it's speech.

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God gives us that revelation. And one of my favorites, and many of you guys have heard me talking about this before, but I think it's great.

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I really encourage you to go see it. I think that it's free now on YouTube. But there is a film, kind of a documentary film, with our friend

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Pastor Douglas Wilson, and my favorite atheist in history, it's Christopher Hitchens. I love that film.

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It is so much fun to watch. When I was a chaplain at the hospital for four and a half years full time at the hospital,

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I had like a 30 day time period with every addict that came through for detox, and was there for the 30 days impatient.

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And so I had sort of like a Christian discipleship 30 day program, where it was like gospel, gospel, gospel, discipleship, discipleship, discipleship.

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And one of the things that I would do to start a fight with people in the hospital,

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I used to love to try to get the atheists all riled up so they would show up to get in a fight. Sometimes that's good to do, because then they would turn to Christ.

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So win. But I used to play the film Collision. Hey, we're showing a film tonight of like Christianity versus atheism,

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Collision. And so in that film, it's Pastor Doug and Christopher Hitchens going toe to toe.

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And Christopher Hitchens actually ended up falling in love with Doug, because Doug is so sharp, so brilliant, and so kind, and loving, and gracious, they really developed a friendship.

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Well, at the end of the film, there's this moment where my friend Darren Doan is filming in the limousine as they're going back to the hotel.

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And let's be honest, that night Christopher Hitchens had a couple drinks. And in the limousine, after obviously a couple drinks, he's really honest.

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And I don't know that he actually was thinking about the fact that the camera is on. And Christopher Hitchens, the guy who wrote the book,

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God is Not Great, and calls God a tyrant, and all of this rails against the

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God of the Bible. He says there sitting next to Doug, he says one of the hardest things as an atheist, you have to learn to overcome, is this issue of that all of life is on a razor's edge.

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One degree this way or that way, and life isn't possible. One degree this or that way, and none of this works.

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He says you've got to find in some way, and I'm paraphrasing here, you've got to find some way to contend with the obvious design of it all.

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And he admits there in the limousine, it is the hardest thing as an atheist, you've got to overcome the fact that all of creation is screaming at you about God and his design, his handiwork, his glory.

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Christopher Hitchens, the man who rails against God, admits you've got to find some ways as an atheist to overcome this, because everything is hanging on a razor's edge of design.

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And that is what we talk about when we talk about general revelation. The heavens declare the glory of God.

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This is God actually speaking. Now, just to point it out, go to it later.

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If you read Romans chapter 1, you get another example there in scripture of general revelation, natural revelation,

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God making himself known, God giving revelation to every single human being alive.

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It says in Romans chapter 1 that they know God, although they knew God. They did not honor him as God or give him glory.

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And it says, what did they do? They switched God for idols. They suppressed the truth of God and unrighteousness.

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It says that they know him, that he's made himself known to every single human being.

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Get this, here it is, you'll get general revelation. The problem with fallen humanity is not a lack of light or knowledge or evidence or witness from God.

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God says, it comes so clearly through what God has made and how he's made himself known to everybody so that they are left unapologetus, without an apologetic, without a reasoned defense.

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Nobody in the history of humanity and redemption, apart from Jesus Christ, is able to come to God and say,

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I didn't know. Well, here was my excuse. Here was my reason. God says, it's so clearly given to you in the natural order and God's revelation, everybody knows the true

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God. The problem is what? Suppression of truth. It's sinful resistance of God.

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But the point is that this is actually speaking. It's unavoidable.

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You can go today, this is the most amazing thing about the world that we live in today. When these words were written thousands of years ago, or when

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Paul speaks to the knowledge of God that every human being has, we didn't have access to what we have today in terms of going down into the cell, going down into DNA and seeing that, oh, there's actually speech there in DNA.

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There's word there in DNA. It's almost like God spoke the universe into existence and he speaks word into the world.

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And you and I have this amazing book, this letter about you, this textbook of you, down in your cells that tells the story of you, almost like it was speech, like someone spoke you into existence.

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You see all that order there, all that beauty, all that design. You can see today, we can watch it happening in the cell, the cell operating with this amazing function and machinery.

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It's like a power plant. You see that certain things just sort of walking things across the cell and placing it there and walking back again.

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And you say, like, this is just screaming design. It's screaming to us about God. But here's the thing, it's unavoidable.

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Scripture says it's unavoidable. There's no excuse. Natural revelation so clear about the true God, nobody will be able to defend themselves for their rejection of God or their false worship elsewhere.

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But this is general revelation. It's unavoidable. But what's the issue? Well, first thing, ready, this is important in terms of down the line.

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For those of you guys that really want to engage this deeply and talk about Thomas Aquinas, natural theology, and those sorts of things, it's very important for us to understand something.

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Ready? We only know with certainty about general revelation and natural revelation because special revelation,

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Scripture, tells us about it. Now stop. You may not think that's important now, but if you get into this discussion later and you're debating natural law and general revelation and those sorts of things, this is a key issue.

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The only way you and I have certainty about general revelation, what it does, and its extent, is the word of God that tells us about this general revelation.

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Do you get that? How do you and I know that all of creation is shouting to us about God?

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How do you and I know with certainty? Heavens declare the glory of God, right?

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You know it because special revelation, God tells us. But what's the problem with general revelation or natural revelation?

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What's the problem? What does it meet when it comes into the world? What's the problem with that revelation?

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What does it meet? A sinful, suppressing heart.

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That revelation is coming into the world. It's speech from God, but it's being resisted by a hard, fallen human heart.

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General revelation gets resisted. It can't be ignored. It's obvious. It gets suppressed.

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We hide from it. How do you know today that people will resist general revelation and what it is shouting?

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Dudes in dresses. Is that simple enough? We can give many other examples, but there's an example of a fallen heart carrying

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Romans 1, right? They should have t -shirts with the dress, Romans 1, right?

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It's shouting about creation. It's shouting about God. Everything about this is God, God, God. He made all this.

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This is God teaching this. And I don't care. I will resist it to the degree that I will mutilate myself.

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I will cut things off. I will destroy this image. But it can't be erased, can it?

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You can't hide from it. You can distort it. You can cover it. You can wear a costume.

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But you will not hide God's revelation. But what's the problem? It's a sinful heart that rebels against that revelation.

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Next, general revelation and special revelation, given to us now and recorded in the scriptures, are both speech from God.

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They're revelation from God. They are, in a sense, get this, two books written by God.

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They're not opposed to each other. So in other words, general revelation and special revelation, recorded for us in the holy scriptures, are both given to us by God.

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They're both spoken by God. And they're not opposed to one another. They're not opposed to one another.

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They're books written by the same God. Now, special revelation represents

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God's speech when he has condescended in history and spoken through his prophets and apostles and specifically in the incarnation of the

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God -man, Jesus Christ, when he walked among us. Go to your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 1.

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Hebrews chapter 1 is a powerful section of scripture. Hebrews, and by the way, if you wanted to do a deep dive and study of this book,

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Pastor James did an entire working through the book of Hebrews years ago. You can get it on Sermon Audio.

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Hebrews chapter 1, here's what the word of God says.

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Verse 1, long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

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But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he has appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

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He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

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So there's just testimony from scripture about the speech of God, special revelation, the prophets speaking from God, God speaking specifically through his

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Son when he walked among us. Now here's the thing, ready? This is where we get down to the nuts and bolts.

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We're laying down foundations so we understand what scripture says about general revelation, special revelation, the prophets of God speaking from God through the

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Spirit of God. The only, here it is, this is the key, this is the issue, here's the foundation, here's the dispute, here's where it starts to grow.

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The only access to inspired, special revelation today is within the holy written scriptures.

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In other words, there's no new, special revelation coming from God.

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Did you get that? Now, Rome affirms that. They say no new, inspired revelation coming from God.

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Yes, in history, these are uninspired men. This is the inspired revelation of God.

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These are the words of God. So Protestants and Roman Catholics will agree that these are the very words of God.

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These are the inspired words of God. These are the infallible words of God. And no new, inspired revelation is coming today.

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In other words, we must agree on this fundamental point. This is the infallible revelation of God.

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This is the only access we have today to the infallible revelation of God.

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Unless somebody thinks today we've got inspired apostles walking among us and speaking.

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By the way, this is also quick side note, really important. When someone tries to today give you a word from the

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Lord, I always find it interesting when someone does that.

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And they say, oh, I've got a word from the Lord for you. Sometimes they even write this down, right?

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I was praying and the Lord gave me a word for you. And you'll have people today saying, like, thus saith the

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Lord. They are claiming when they say that, that they are giving to you inspired revelation from God.

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They're saying what? God is speaking through me to you.

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And therefore, we should take that sheet that they wrote on, these are the words of God, and tuck it neatly right there behind the book of Revelation, right?

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Now, if they say, well, no, it's not like that, then it isn't revelation from God, is it?

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It isn't revelation from God. If you're brave enough to say, thus saith the

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Lord, then put it in the Bible. Because that is the claim that God is making in the scriptures.

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Thus saith the Lord. These are the words of God. Now, about two more hours, we're good.

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Just joking, OK. We're going to try to lay the foundations down, and then show its expression, or how it comes out, in scripture, and then in our lives.

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So a couple of things. This is not exhaustive, but just a couple of points in terms of talking about, well, we've talked about what scripture says about itself, but let's get a little bit more.

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Because we need to hang on to these things as Christians in our conflict with Rome and others, in terms of asking the question of by what standard?

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The first thing is that scripture gives us something about the nature of scripture.

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What do I mean by that? This is really important. By the way, I don't want to talk over anybody's heads at all.

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It's my duty as a shepherd to care for your souls, and to make sure that you understand these truths for your good, for the glory of Christ.

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So I don't want to do that. So when I say this, the nature of scripture, I'm talking about what it is in its essence.

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What is it? So I'll give an example here. These are my notes. These are my notes.

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It's messy. Don't laugh. It's just how I do things. I'm just never going to change. I work for a long time on the sermon.

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I write down notes all week long. I write down the references. I pray. I wake up in the middle of the night. I pray,

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I think. I write down more. I think, and then at the end of the week, I pray some more. I meditate. I say, OK, no, this isn't necessary.

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I need to do this instead. And then I compile it all together in a nice, messy form. And I can tell you that I've had people, you know who you are in our church, say,

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Pastor Jeff, can I have your notes? And I'm like, you won't be able to read them. And I have given, to my own embarrassment and shame, some of you guys my notes, because you really wanted them.

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You wanted them and you probably were like, yep, I give up. It's very sloppy. Now, here's where I talk about the nature of scripture.

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Here's my notes. These are my notes. I wrote this. These are the words of God.

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The claim of this is that this is theanousos. Thus saith the

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Lord. What does the scripture say? These are the claims made in this revelation.

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So when we talk about the nature of something, what do we mean? The nature of this is very different than the nature of this, amen?

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Even though my notes are about what's in this book, these are not the words of God.

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These are the words of Jeff, Pastor Jeff. This is fallible without error.

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Sorry, with error. Sorry, OK. Pause. Don't you dare clip that,

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Roman Catholics. Don't do it. This is fallible, potential for error.

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And this is infallible, no error. The nature of this is these are the words of a fallible man.

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The nature of this is these are the words of the infallible God. Do you see?

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So when we talk about the nature of scripture, that's what we're getting at. So 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17, we've already done together.

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All scripture is fallible. Theanoustos, all scripture is breathed out by God.

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What is this? These are the written down words and revelation of God.

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This is scripture. It is by nature breathed out by God. And I love how Pastor James, from when

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I was very young, I used to hear him talking about that word, theanoustos, and that bringing it together of those

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Greek terms is like putting your hand in front of your face, and you're talking, and you're talking, and you feel the breath hitting your hand.

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It is the very words of God. God speaking this onto the pages, in a sense.

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These are the very words of the living God. All scripture is theanoustos. Another example in scripture about how scripture talks about itself is in 2

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Peter. Go there. 2 Peter. 2

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Peter chapter 1, verse 21.

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This is the nature of scripture. 2 Peter chapter 1, verse...

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Let's start in 20. Let's start in 20. Knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.

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For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. So the nature of scripture, it is breathed out by God. And then Peter is telling us something about the nature of scripture and how

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God has given this revelation. He says, holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. So yes, yes, yes, yes. These are the words of men.

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Paul wrote Romans, right? Peter wrote Peter. John wrote

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Revelation. They are men. They wrote. These are their words. But the claim being made in scripture, in terms of what it says about itself, is holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. So this is by nature the words of God. And God is the author of them.

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God is the one who is carrying people along to say what they said, which is what makes his words so different from our words.

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These are the words of God. And that is, by the way, we can say when we test, when we test, and we must test the words of men, the traditions of men, when we test them, we have a right to test them when those words, their words, contradict these words.

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We say you could not be from the same Spirit of God because the Spirit of God does not lie.

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And the Spirit of God could not be talking out of both sides of his mouth. If God has said this here, and now you are saying something that contradicts it here,

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I know that you are not from the same Spirit because the Spirit of God gave us this revelation.

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And this is the revelation by which we test all other revelations. Jesus said something like this.

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You know it. When he says, Father, sanctify them by your truth.

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And what's he say? Thy word is what? Truth. Thy word is truth.

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Your word is the plumb line. Your word is the standard. It's the thing by which you measure to see if it's straight.

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That's the standard. Whatever else is being said, it needs to come into conformity with this. Father, sanctify them by your truth.

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Your word is truth. That's what the Scriptures say about the

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Scriptures. And by the way, again, more could be said. But that is the nature of Scripture. The second point, laying a foundation as we move into Sola Scriptura more fully, is the authority of Scripture.

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The authority of the words of God. Now real fast, ready? What is Scripture? It is the written revelation, inspired revelation of God.

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Were there times, this is important, were there times in history where something was being said that was inspired, but it wasn't written down?

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Were there times? By the way, not a trick question, were there times? Yes. When Jesus was walking among us, he was saying inspired words of God.

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And they were not yet written down, right? There were prophets walking among the people like Moses, like Elijah, like Jeremiah, like Daniel.

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And they are giving words of God, and they were only later written down.

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But here's the point. How do you and I have access to those inspired words?

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They're not in our atmosphere right now being said, are they? How do you have access to their inspired words?

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The Scriptures, this is the place where you have access to those inspired words.

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But then we must ask, because this is the revelation of God, about the authority of Scripture.

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And again, we can go a million places with this, but I'm going to get to some of our favorites. So let's go to Matthew. Matthew chapter 7, one of my very favorites.

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Matthew chapter 7, there's so many ways to apply this in philosophy, in theology.

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In Matthew chapter 7, you know it, verse 24. Everyone then who hears these words of mine, these words of mine, and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

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And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.

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And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

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And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

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Jesus is saying something to the world about his words.

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Now, can we just take a moment, breath, step back for a second, and I want you to think about this, because we love the words of our

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Lord, man. And that is potent. I love that section of scripture. I love it.

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But I want you to stop for a moment and think about something in light of what like C .S. Lewis said when he says that Jesus is either

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Lord, liar, or lunatic. You can't put him anywhere else.

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Either he was absolutely nuts because he thought he was God, told people he was God, and made claims like this, and it wasn't true.

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Or he knew he wasn't God, told people he was, and said things like this to abuse people.

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He'd be a deceiver. He's a liar. Or he's actually Lord. Think about this claim in light of something like me, someone like me.

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What if I said to you as a church, it better be the end of Apology of Church, if I came to you and I said,

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I have a word for you today. If you build your life upon the rock of Jeff Durbin's word, you build your house, it'll be on a firm rock, and nothing will knock it down.

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But if you do not build your life on the words of Jeff Durbin, the rains and wind will come and knock it all down.

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I hope you would smile and say, heretic, and then leave. Think about the arrogance.

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Think about the arrogance. Think about the deception. If somebody that was fallible and not

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God, not inspired, said something like that, why is it so potent?

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Why is it so powerful? Why is it so meaningful? Because the authority that it's coming from is the very words of God.

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This is inspired revelation of God. So Jesus says to the world, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

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Brothers and sisters, that is an authority claim about the words of God. If you do not build your house upon that rock, it will fall.

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Is he Lord? Is he Lord? Are these the words of God?

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Jesus is saying, my words build your house, the authority of scripture.

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Next, and you know this because we've been here for a while now, Proverbs chapter 1, verse 7 says, the fear of the

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Lord is the beginning of what? The fools despise wisdom and correction.

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So reverence, submission, and awe before God is the very foundation.

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There is no knowledge, there is no true wisdom apart from first fear of God.

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And these are the words of God. So if you want to know something, if you want to be in the truth, if you want to have true justified knowledge, you have to start, according to the scriptures, with God.

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There is no true knowledge apart from God. According to the scriptures, there is no true justice apart from God and his revelation.

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There is no true wisdom apart from God. The scriptures are making a bold claim about knowledge, that it is found in God.

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And where do you have access to the words of God? Where? In the holy scriptures.

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So the authority of scripture, again, you can flush this out many ways. But in Colossians 2, verse 3, the apostle

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Paul makes a claim about Jesus. He makes a claim about Jesus and how all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ.

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Question, how do you have access to the words of Christ, the inspired words of Christ today? How do you have access?

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The holy scriptures. So if you want to know something, it's found in Christ. If you want the words of Christ, you go to the holy scriptures, the inspired word of God.

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There's some more examples. We could talk about the authority of scripture. In Matthew 22, 31, you could just record that.

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You know the scene. Jesus is being challenged there about the resurrection. And Jesus responds to them.

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And it's interesting how Jesus responds to them. I want you to think about this for a moment now. Come with me.

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Come with me on this. Is Jesus God? God incarnate. Can Jesus speak the words of God into the world?

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Can Jesus speak on his own authority as God? Of course he can. Now, he makes claims in his ministry about him as the

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God -man, as the Messiah. Under the Father as a man in his earthly ministry.

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Jesus submits himself to the will of the Father. We know about the condescension of God in the incarnation.

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We understand that. But Jesus is God incarnate. He could speak and give the very words of God because he is, by nature,

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God and man. But it is interesting, isn't it, that in the Gospels you see

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Jesus in conflict as the perfect image of God. He is the perfect image of God with the world. And Jesus says things like,

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Matthew 22, 31, in response to their question. He says, have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

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Now, what's weird about that? Stop and think for a minute. What's weird about that statement? If you really unpack it and just meditate on it.

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Here is Jesus in the first century talking to religious people who believe in the scriptures.

01:00:04

But they have other traditions and conflicts. And they're challenging Jesus. And his response is to say to them, have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

01:00:13

That's weird. Reading scripture is equated to God speaking to them.

01:00:25

He quotes from the Old Testament. When God said that, he was speaking to other people.

01:00:30

But Jesus equates the reading of scripture from them as God speaking to them.

01:00:36

This is the speech of God. The authority of God is in the written text of God's word. And Jesus holds them to it in their day.

01:00:45

Have you not read what was spoken to you by God? Or another example of how Jesus does this is in Matthew chapter 19.

01:00:53

You know the controversy. We've talked about it before. The controversy of the Hillelite marriage clause, where the thing of the day was like, hey, look, scripture has boundaries for divorce.

01:01:03

And it does. It has rules for divorce. And so I guess if we just try to follow a rule for divorce and just give a cause, we can divorce so long as there is a certificate with a cause.

01:01:18

And so you had Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai. And so you had the Hillelite versus the

01:01:24

Shammaites. The Shammaites were like, no, it's only got to be biblical. You got to go according to God's law. Only those standards. And Rabbi Hillel was saying, any cause, as long as you give a certificate, like any reason.

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Like she's no longer beautiful. She doesn't cook as well. I don't like how she manages the house.

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She's a bit naggy. Whatever the stupid reason was, just give a certificate.

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Hillel says, good job, any cause. So they come to Jesus and they say, Jesus, is it permissible to divorce for any cause?

01:02:03

That's the question. And so what does Jesus do in response to the question about the

01:02:08

Hillelite marriage clause? What's he do? He says, have you not read?

01:02:19

So Jesus refers them back to the written revelation of God. It's inspired revelation.

01:02:24

It's written down. Jesus refers back to that. And he says, have you not read that from the beginning he made them male and female?

01:02:31

He talks about how a man shall leave his father and his mother, cleave to his wife, become one flesh. And so Jesus goes back to the law of God and to God's standards for all of this.

01:02:41

But Jesus is God incarnate. And he's still going back to the written revelation of God, showing us how we should engage these issues when we have a question about how do

01:02:51

I know and how am I certain? Jesus doesn't appeal there to church tradition or to Jewish tradition.

01:02:59

He refers to the written revelation of God. And then, of course, go look at this later. We'll do more next week.

01:03:05

Matthew 15 and the Korban rule. Jesus deals there with their divine tradition, their alleged divine tradition.

01:03:12

And he just simply deals with it like this. He says, you say, and then he quotes their tradition. And he says, but Moses says.

01:03:19

And then he puts them side by side. He says, thus you invalidate the word of God for the sake of your tradition. Brothers and sisters, ready?

01:03:26

I want to be like Jesus. Do you? Yes. That's it. You want to see Sola Scriptura in operation, how it's coming out?

01:03:35

That's precisely it. Matthew 15, the Lord Jesus dealing with their alleged divine tradition, says,

01:03:43

Moses says this, you say that. You invalidate the word of God for the sake of your tradition. That's my challenge as a minister of the gospel, to my

01:03:53

Roman Catholic friends and family. The claim is made in Rome to divine tradition.

01:04:01

This is sacred tradition, divine tradition. God gave us this. Really? Then how come it contradicts

01:04:07

God's word at so many points? It's not arrogance to say the Spirit of God gave this.

01:04:13

It's not arrogance to say this is breathed out by God. It's not arrogance to say this is authoritative and infallible, and you are fallible.

01:04:22

It is not arrogance to say I will test you by this revelation. Your words must comport with His words.

01:04:30

Next, the clarity of Scripture. Matthew 22, 26 through 29.

01:04:37

Jesus challenges them by saying what? Go there quickly. Matthew 22, 26 through 29.

01:04:57

The text says, so too the second and third down to the seventh. This is in reference to marrying and the resurrection.

01:05:06

And verse 27, it says, after them all, the woman died in the resurrection. Therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be?

01:05:12

For they all had her. Let's trip Jesus up. Let's try to get him in sort of an internal conflict.

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Let's try to make him look silly, challenge him, whatever their motivations.

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But here's Jesus' response. But Jesus answered them, you are wrong because you know neither the

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Scriptures nor the power of God. I'm challenging you because you clearly don't know the

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Scriptures. Because there's the source that should have corrected your problem. You're wrong because you err not knowing the

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Scriptures. Now what's he doing there? He's holding them to the

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Word of God and saying, your problem is you don't know the

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Scriptures. You should. That's your problem. The Scriptures told you what you should have known about this.

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So you err because you don't know the Scriptures, which means the

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Scriptures must be clear enough to be understood for Jesus to indict them for not knowing them.

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See it? The perspicuity of Scripture. Perspicuity of Scripture. You do err not knowing the

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Scriptures. The clarity of Scripture. Next, Luke 24 -25, another example of people being indicted for not knowing the

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Scriptures that God expects us to understand, that God apparently, here's the point, ready?

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Here's the point, you're going to see this later. God apparently believes that He's able to communicate with His creatures. Now you might think that, well, obviously, but I need to say it again.

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Apparently in Scripture, God believes that He is able to effectively communicate to His creatures.

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Again, you might be thinking, well, that seems obvious, Pastor Jeff, but it's not so obvious in Rome. Because Rome will make claims about Scripture not being able to be understood, not being clear enough.

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And you need Rome to be able to make the claim and the papacy and sacred tradition to tell you what the

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Scriptures say. That's the problem. We're not saying with the clarity of Scripture that Peter was wrong in saying that Paul says some stuff that is hard to understand.

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There are difficult parts of Scripture. But what's the problem? Is it the

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Scriptures or the, as Peter says, the unstable and untaught people who twist the

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Scriptures to their own destruction? That passage of Scripture about some parts that Paul says, some things

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Paul says are hard to understand is not an indictment on the Bible. Peter is indicting the untaught and unstable people who twist the

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Scriptures to their own destruction. Do you see the point? Scripture is clear. Now, this point in Luke 24, 25, you know this is one of my favorite parts of Scripture.

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This is the section where on the road to Emmaus, you have the sad saps who think the whole story is over with.

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They're moaning and groaning on the road like, oh, we thought he was the Messiah and he's dead now. And I don't even know what's going on.

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And we just all, everything's lost. That's my acting debut, by the way.

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That's how I read that section of Scripture. And Jesus is walking alive from the dead right next to him.

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Now, watch. They saw with their eyes the murder of Jesus. They saw the blood.

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They saw the last breath. They saw the exposed organs, maybe. They saw him gasping for breath.

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They saw the blood at the foot of the cross. They saw people carry him off the cross.

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They knew where he went into the tomb. People don't recover from that.

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They understood that. Give him some grace. I get it. All of us. I get it.

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It's a dead body. There's no coming back. I know he said he's coming back, but I don't think that you can recover from that.

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So they're on the road, sad saps, thinking the whole thing's over, that I can't understand how he's not the Messiah. He raised the dead.

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He walks on water. He feeds the 5 ,000. He knows people's thoughts from afar. He's stilling the storm.

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Like, he's giving hearing to deaf people, eyes to blind people. He's causing the lame to leap.

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I see him healing the leper. This seems like he's God. He's perfect and sinless. And I don't get how he's not the

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Messiah, but he's dead now, and I guess this is all over with. And then Jesus says, verse 25,

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O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

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His indictment on them was that you should have known and believed.

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You're foolish and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken. God already said this.

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The indictment was on them for not believing the scriptures. Apparently Jesus believed you should know this.

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I gave you a Bible. You've got the scriptures. Why are you foolish?

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Why are you slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken? Was it not necessary that the

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Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? In other words, God already said this. Why are you crying? Why are you crying?

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Why are you so upset? You should have known. You should have believed this. God spoke it. Apparently scripture believes something about its nature, its authority, and its clarity to the degree that Jesus could say you're a fool for not believing it.

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Another verse in the clarity of scripture. Go write it down and read it later in Psalm 19 .7. And finally we'll end on this today.

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The effect or the power of scripture. We need to lay these down in understanding the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

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The effect or power of scripture. Go to Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews chapter 4.

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Hebrews chapter 4. Sorry, my pages are stuck together here. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12.

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For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.

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Something being said there about the word of God. We can unpack all of this in terms of the power of God, the effect of God.

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But we'll get more to that later. But Romans 10 verse 17.

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Another verse you need in your toolbox. Most of you probably already have this memorized as well. Romans 10 verse 17.

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So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

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These are the words of God. This is how it happens. We talk about this, don't we, a lot?

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We talk about doing evangelism and maybe with one another reaching each other in the body of Christ, growing as believers.

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We talk about the word of God having to be that winning shot, right? The word of God being the very thing, the authoritative thing, the effective thing that you bring to the world, whether it's to the unbeliever out there and you want to see them come to life and come to Jesus and believe in Jesus.

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You're not leading people to Christ and into conviction of sin by sharing your own personal story, right?

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Apart from the gospel itself, apart from the words of God. You need to give the words of God for those people to come to life, amen?

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Yes? And at the same time, for all of us here, we're growing together in this body together.

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And we're growing in our intimacy with God and our obedience to God. How are we going to grow?

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By giving each other motivational speeches? How do you? I say, yes. OK. Family integrated church.

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OK, so how do you grow? You grow by giving each other the words of God. How many of you guys have grown in your relationship with Jesus over the last 5, 10 years, where you used to think something before or you behaved a certain way before, you were a certain way before, even as a professing

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Christian. And it was that moment where somebody loved you enough to come to you with grace and love and challenge you with the word of God.

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It was the word of God that convicted you as the word of God, that renewed you as the word of God, that healed you as the word of God, that broke you at times.

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But it's the very words of God that do the changing. And the text here about faith and the word and how it comes is vital in terms of the power of scripture.

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And finally, Jeremiah 23, 29. Jeremiah 23, 29.

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Now, as you get there, I want you, this is the verse to memorize in terms of, we could do this all day, but we do have to have, at some point, a move back to our sermon series in the

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Proverbs. So I'm trying to condense here. On the effect or power of scripture or the revelation of God recorded for us in Holy Scripture, here's an amazing part of the prophet

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Jeremiah. He's speaking about these false prophets, these dreamers of dreams, these people who are...

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Listen to this, this is important. They are claiming, they are claiming to have words from God.

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These are words from God. God is speaking. I'm a prophet. I represent God. Here's what

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God says about his word as opposed to their words. He says, verse 28. Fire, declares the

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Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the

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Lord, who steal my words from one another. Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the

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Lord, who use their tongues, and declare, declares the Lord. Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the

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Lord, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them.

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So they do not profit, these people, at all, declares the Lord. Here is a dividing line.

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Here's a line. Here you have prophets saying they're speaking for me. I'm against them. They say, they declare, declares the

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Lord. They're saying that I'm speaking. He says about his words, is not my word like a fire?

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Like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. He's like, so go ahead.

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Compare my words to their words. Here's how you know the distinction between my word and their words.

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I'm against the lying prophets. They don't have my words in their mouth. God has true prophets and true inspired revelation.

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And he makes a distinction between those who claim to be from God, to speak for God, a distinction between their words and his words.

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His words are authoritative. His words are by nature the words of God. His words are infallible without error.

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His words are clear. His words have power, the very power of God, because they are the very words of God.

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So brothers and sisters, when we think about this doctrine of Sola Scriptura, there is more to it, more to it than just within the walls of the church.

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There is more to it than in terms of our conflict with Rome. This gets to the authority of scripture.

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It gets to the essence of scripture, the authority of scripture, essence of scripture, the power of scripture, the clarity of scripture, and the final standard of scripture.

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These are the words of God, not the words of mere men. And that's what holds this different and distinct from all other words of fallible human beings in history.

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That is the confession of the Reformed Church, is that these are the inspired words of God.

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All other words from fallible men must be tested by this rule.

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Everybody is under this rule, no matter how much of a giant, no matter how much of a blessing the person is to the church.

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They are to be tested by this rule because these are the words of God. Next week, part two.

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Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for the power of your word, the clarity of word, the authority of your word.

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Lord, bless this church with a love for your word, that we would not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from your mouth.

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Give us a passion for your word. Give us a submission to your word. And Lord, give us a boldness with your word in the world.

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I do pray for the Roman Catholics who are listening to this, who will come into contact with this, that you would give them a heart understanding and a love for them, and a humility to be able to listen and to hear the words of God.

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I pray that you bless us as a church, that we'd be an effective tool in your hands to reach the world with the gospel. In Jesus' holy name, amen.