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Sunday School and Worship Service at Kootenai Community Church
Okay? All right, good morning, everyone. Come on in and find a spot for adult Sunday school class, and we'll get started. All right, let's begin with prayer. Our Father, we are grateful to you for bringing us here together this morning.
We are thankful for this place to gather, for the freedom to do so. We are thankful for the health and good spirits that we are in, and the ability to gather together as your people, with your people, for our edification and our encouragement and our equipping for life and ministry.
We're thankful for your work, for your Word, and for the work of your Word that you do by the power of your Spirit in our lives. We thank you for giving us your Word and preserving it for us, and we pray now that as we talk about how you have done that work, that you would help us to understand how you have worked and what you have done, and help us to appreciate and understand the treasure of your Word to us that you have given to us in Scripture.
And may we respond with hearts of gratitude and love and obedience, and we pray your blessing upon this time. Help us to think clearly, we ask, and help me to communicate clearly, in Christ's name. Amen.
All right, we are in lesson 12, the closed canon. I don't know if this will take us the entire rest of the Sunday school time to go through this, but this subject might engender a little bit of discussion.
I don't know what it has in the past, but we shall see. And then I've got a couple more, two more lessons after this, no, sorry, three more lessons after this, and then we will be done with this series.
I'm looking forward to getting back to sitting in adult Sunday school class rather than teaching adult Sunday school class. I need that time during adult Sunday school class to finish downloading my sermon and figure out what I'm going to preach on.
So our question today is, is the canon open or closed? That's what we're going to address. So we're in number four, is the canon still open? Roman numeral number four in lesson 12, and that's what we're going to be talking about, is is the canon still open or is it closed?
Now, when I say is the canon open, what I mean is, are we still adding books to Scripture? Are we still adding modern day revelations or continuing revelation to the canon of Scripture or not? Now, to the question, is the canon still open?
There are only two possible answers to that question, what are they? It's either yes or it is no. Those are the two possible answers to that question, is the canon still open? Either yes it is, meaning that revelation is continually going on and we ought to be open to adding other books to those 66 books that we have in our Bible, or the canon is closed.
Now, who would determine whether the canon is still open or whether it is closed? Who would determine that? Would the church determine that? Would we as God's people determine whether or not the canon is open or closed?
Who makes that determination? Who determined whether there was going to be a canon to begin with and what makes it, what makes a book canonical? God is the one who determines if a book is canonical, right?
So when did the idea, when did canon actually come into existence? When does an authoritative writing exist? When God speaks. If God doesn't speak, then there's no authoritative writing or there's no authoritative revelation, correct?
And therefore there's no canon, there's no book to add to the canon. If God doesn't write any books, then we don't just go out and grab books that we think are really good spiritual guides and just start collecting them together and say that this is going to be our Bible.
That's not how it works. We don't determine what is canonical. We don't determine the canon. We discover the canon. So really the question is, is a book authoritative? And if it is authoritative, then it is because God has spoken it.
If God has not spoken it, it's not authoritative and therefore it is not canonical. So ultimately God is the one who determines whether a book belongs in the canon or not by virtue of the fact that he gives the book and speaks through that human author to write that book.
That's what gives it its canonicity. So there are only two possible positions then. Either the Bible has been completed or God is still speaking today and therefore we are still adding authoritative revelation to that canon.
It is either yes or no. Is the canon still open? Yes or no. I'm going to argue today for a closed canon. So in case you're new here and you're not quite sure where I'm at on this position, is Jim really open to it?
I'm not at all open to a continuing canon or an open canon. I believe in a closed canon and I'm going to argue that today and possibly even in a way that will make some of you uncomfortable if you think that God is speaking to you in still small voices, whispers, nudging, promptings, and impressions.
Because that issue is connected to the open or closed canon question. And as you'll see that as we get to the end, okay? Let me give you some arguments in favor of a closed canon. This is letter A. Here's the first argument.
And that nothing today could meet the qualifications for canonicity. And which of the five qualities of a canonical book would a modern day revelation not meet? It's not apostolic, correct? Because there are no apostles today.
That's right. Yeah, an apostle had to have been a witness to the resurrected Christ. Now of course Jesse DePlantis and Creflo Dollar and Kenneth Copeland and some of those guys would say that they've seen the risen Christ.
They get trips to heaven all the time. So they would make that claim and thus they would say that they have the ability or the office of apostle today. But there is no apostolic office today. So therefore it wouldn't be apostolic.
What other criteria or what other quality of canonicity would it be lacking? What was the fifth one? Remember what the fifth one was? You say, you're not even sure. We went through this list like four weeks ago or whatever it was.
Okay, the fifth one was that it had to be, it was widely accepted. Books that were canonical were widely accepted by the church. They were accepted by God's people or recognized by God's people. So if a modern day revelation came, if somebody had a modern day revelation and we would have to ask the question, well is this the same, of the same quality and kind as what was revealed in the New Testament era?
It's not apostolic. It wouldn't meet that criteria of being authoritative because it comes from an apostle. And how do we know if they were messengers of God? Because they did signs and wonders. They performed signs and wonders authenticating the fact that they were God's messengers.
So the fact that God spoke through those apostles in the writing of Scripture, God authenticated them as His voice, His mouthpiece, His messengers by giving them the ability to perform signs and wonders.
And that is, those were the marks of an apostle. So a modern day revelation could not be apostolic and authoritative in that sense. It wouldn't be marked by coming from somebody who had the ability to perform signs and wonders and it wouldn't be accepted by the whole church because more of the church has existed in the last 2 ,000 years than exists today.
There's more dead church behind us than there is living church today. And therefore, even if every Christian on the face of the planet decided to accept another book as canonical, you would still have the bulk of the church that has lived who would have never had access to that revelation.
So it wouldn't match up with those qualities. Let me give you a second argument and that is that the apostles knew that the writing of Scripture was coming to an end. The apostles knew that the writing of Scripture was coming to an end.
And Jude makes reference to the faith that was once for all delivered, past tense, to the saints. Right? Even in Jude's day, he recognized that there was a body of doctrine, a body that regulated the faith that had been delivered to the saints.
He speaks of the delivered once for all faith to the saints. And Jude, writing toward the end of the New Testament time of revelation, Jude didn't write early on. He wrote later toward the end of that, around the same time as 2 Peter, so you're talking about 63, 64 A .D., somewhere in that neighborhood that Jude was writing.
So here, 30 years after the resurrection of Jesus, Jude referred to a faith that had been once for all delivered to the saints. Jude doesn't speak of the faith and of Scripture and of the content of faith as something that was continuing to be revealed generation after generation as if revelation was going to continue to go on ad infinitum ad nauseum into the future beyond Jude's own lifetime.
So Jude described in the past tense the faith that was delivered. Paul speaks, I think, in 1 Corinthians 13, it's my interpretation of the end of that love passage where he talks about tongues being done away with and knowledge…tongues being done away with and…how does he say it?
It's not in front of me right now. He talks about those revelatory sign gifts there at the end of 1 Corinthians 13. It's my conviction, and I know this is not where John MacArthur would be at, it's not where your MacArthur Study Bible would say, but it's my conviction that Paul there is describing the end of New Testament revelation and the coming of the full revelation in Jesus Christ and the writings of Scripture that that in itself would do away with the need for sign gifts, the revelatory sign gifts.
That's my position on that. All right, and Revelation 22, 18, and 19 warns against adding to the book. Now arguably that refers primarily to the book of Revelation, but I also believe that that is a solemn warning of the Holy Spirit concerning all of Scripture because there are other parts of Scripture that warn against adding and subtracting from God's Word.
So the whole notion that you and I can add or that anybody would add to what God has already written and presume to call that Scripture, Scripture warns against that. So the apostles themselves knew that Scripture was…the writing of Scripture was coming to an end.
There is nothing in the New Testament written by any apostle that commanded anyone to look forward to revelation that would be happening after the lifetime of the apostles. Think about that for a second.
There's no instruction from the apostles during their lifetime that would instruct Christians who were to come after them to be expecting further revelation from the next generation of church leaders.
When Paul was nearing the end of his life and he wrote to Timothy, he pointed Timothy to Scripture. He said, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for these things. And he points to Scripture as the inspired and inerrant and infallible authoritative rule and he points Timothy back to that.
Paul never said, look, Timothy, Scripture is really good, but you need to be listening for more revelations after I'm gone. I mean, Scripture has its place, but be open to what the Spirit of God may reveal in every generation to come.
Paul never said that. Peter, at the end of his apostolic ministry, when he knew that his life was coming to an end, and Peter said, this earthly tent that I'm in, I'm certainly going to cast this off soon, going to be with glory.
He didn't point his readers to the next generation of leaders who would also be giving further revelation. Instead, Peter said that we have the prophetic word made more sure to which you do well to pay attention and to pay heed.
Peter pointed his readers back to Scripture. The apostles, in their writings, never pointed the readers to anything outside of what was God was delivering through them in their time. So the apostles expected themselves that that revelatory act of God would come to an end and was coming to an end.
Number four, or sorry, number three, under arguments in favor of a closed canon, number three is there's no need for additional revelation because Scripture affirms its own sufficiency. And therefore, if you want to argue that the canon is open, that we need something more, you have to be saying something implicitly about Scripture.
And what is it? It's not enough, it's insufficient. You have to then argue that God has not given to me everything that pertains to life and godliness. Robert Morris, whom I quote in my book, God Doesn't Whisper, he makes the argument that if it were not for a continuing private revelations that God has given to him, he would never know how to pastor the church, he would never be able to pastor because he could never make all the decisions that are required for being a pastor if God wasn't speaking him and giving him direction in all of those decisions that he was making.
So what is a pastor of a church arguing when he makes a statement like that? He's saying the Scripture is not sufficient to tell him how to pastor a church. How inept is the Holy Spirit that He would give us this book and not in it give us the instructions necessary to pastor a church?
I've pastored this church for 25 years and I've never once felt like I needed some special revelation in order to make a decision, not once. And if I were to argue that I would, I would be arguing that Scripture itself has not given me sufficient information, therefore it is insufficient, it is lacking, and it is inadequate to equip us for every good work, including works of service.
Very implicitly, Rick said, he's also saying that he himself is the final authority in the church. If God tells me to do something, then does it really matter what Scripture says? I mean, you have no right to question if God gave me the instruction to do X, Y, and Z in the church.
Yes? Yeah. Yeah, let me…. She was speaking in German, so let me translate that for you. She said that Deuteronomy 29 .29 says that the secret things belong to the Lord our God, and so there are certain things that God has not revealed to us.
There are certain things that He keeps to Himself. Yeah, very good point. It is a form of Gnosticism, yes, the idea that I can know something that's not available to other Christians. It is an implicit form of Gnosticism, a modern-day form of Gnosticism, yep.
Yeah, Ken. Yeah, so the question is about the Mormon church and what would have caused them to accept modern-day revelations, a further revelation or a second revelation of Christ. And of course, Joseph Smith's own pet doctrines would have been motivation enough because he can't find those in Scripture.
So as is typical of most cult leaders, whenever they cannot find the doctrines that they want to believe in Scripture, then they just have to argue that Scripture either has been misunderstood or it's not been translated accurately or not been conveyed to us accurately, not been preserved by God, and therefore additional revelation to correct what has been corrupted is necessary.
And that's the argument that the Mormon church makes. Okay? Any questions? All right. So there's no need for additional revelation, number three. Number four, the New Testament instructs us to test all teaching by what has already been delivered.
In other words, Paul always compares teaching and false teaching in his day to what the Scripture has said, and we likewise, 2 Peter and Jude, we are commanded and encouraged to compare whatever new fashionable, vogue teaching comes along by what has been already delivered to us.
There's no instruction in the New Testament that we are to seek whatever the Spirit of God is saying in the day in which we live and whatever revelation is given and then compare false teaching with that because that gets you into a position where you're basically asking Joseph Smith, are your doctrines in keeping with what God is saying?
Well, yeah, I feel I'm speaking it to my heart. So of course what I'm teaching is right in keeping with what God is revealing today, right? Because it's in keeping with what He's revealing to me right now.
So then there becomes no objective standard by which you test false doctrine. And yet the New Testament commands us to test all teaching by what has already been revealed, not what would eventually be revealed in generations to come.
And number five, the early church did not allow for additional revelation. Remember there were men like Montanus, we talked about him several weeks ago, who believed that God was revealing things through him in a modern prophetic office in the second and third centuries after the apostles, and he was roundly condemned by the church fathers because the early church fathers, none of them believed that the canon was open.
The early church fathers all pointed back to the apostles and said, they are our lights, they are our guides, they are the standard. It was the apostolic writings. They pointed back to what had already been delivered.
So until rather recently, it has been almost heretical, certainly aberrant to suggest that God was continuing to give revelation and that the canon was open. It's only in recent times that this whole idea that we can continue to get revelation has become fashionable within the evangelical church.
All right, so those are my five arguments in favor of a closed canon. First of all, it wouldn't have the marks of a canonical book. It couldn't because it would be given late and it wouldn't be apostolic.
The apostles knew that the writing of Scripture was coming to an end. There's no need for additional revelation. The New Testament instructs us to test all things by what has already been delivered, not by what would be delivered, and the early church did not allow for additional revelation.
The early church fathers certainly condemned that revelation. Look to the apostles and the writings of the New Testament as a closed canon. Okay, so any questions on those five? All right, let's talk in letter B here about some false views of revelation then.
Some try and respect the idea of a closed canon while at the same time arguing for continuing modern-day revelations in some form. This is a very…it's an inconsistent position to have, theologically speaking.
It's also very difficult to navigate because it puts you in this position where you're trying to almost invent a category of revelation that Scripture knows nothing about, and I'll demonstrate to you what I mean by that.
So, here are some false views of revelation. First, that there is such a thing as modern-day prophets. People try and allow for a modern-day thus saith the Lord in the church. So, Sam Storms, for instance, in his book Practicing the Power of the Spirit, he is a Reformed continuationist.
So that means that he would be Reformed in his soteriology and even his eschatology. He would hold to the five points of Calvinism. He would be considered a Reformed teacher and would affirm the gospel the same way that we do, but he believes in continuing revelation.
So in his book Practicing the Power of the Spirit, he actually argues for a way of encouraging the prophetic office within your own church and allowing people to have times inside of the worship service to stand up and to give prophetic utterances.
And even if they're wrong, then you need to come alongside of them and teach them how to be right in the uttering of their prophetic proclamations. Okay, so now that's somebody who theologically would agree with us in terms of the gospel and much of our doctrine, right?
He would be in our camp, but Sam Storms would argue that God is continuing this revelatory and prophetic office. Wayne Grudem is another one that would believe that. Wayne Grudem would be theologically where we're at on 95 of theology, but he believes in continuing revelation.
John Piper is another one. Mark Driscoll was another one. Mark Driscoll argued for revelatory dreams where God would reveal things to him in visions while he was in counseling situations, and some of it was nearly pornographic, what he said God was revealing to him.
Here's another one. Okay, those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head that would be where we're at theologically, but would believe in continuing revelation. So they would say that there is an openness or a continuation of this prophetic office within the church today, and that we actually have prophets who are giving revelation today.
Now all these men would say that the canon is closed, okay? They would all say the canon is closed. God is not adding to Scripture at all. Sixty-six books, that's all there is. We're not adding the Apocrypha.
We're not adding on after the book of Revelation. They would say that the canon is absolutely closed. But they would say that God is continuing to reveal things today, and He is continuing to speak through prophets today and in the church today through words of knowledge and revelations, possibly dreams, possibly visions, nudgings, promptings, still small voices, impressions, private revelations, all of that.
So they want both of these worlds. Okay, now I hope that you are seeing how these two things cannot possibly go together. And why is that? If God speaks, it is what? It's going to be Scripture. It is authoritative.
It's inerrant. It is infallible, right? If God speaks, it has to have those qualities. Now if it is authoritative and inerrant and infallible, then it is what? Scripture. So the question is, how can God speak in a non-Scriptural way?
How can God speak in a non-authoritative voice? And see, this is what they have to argue, that they would actually say, Matt Chandler has said, he's another one that would be theologically almost where we're at, identical in terms of other theologies, but he would believe in continuing revelation.
Matt Chandler would say it's possible for us to, instead of saying, thus saith the Lord like Scripture says, instead we would say, I feel the Lord is telling me, or I feel the Lord is impressing upon me, or I kind of sense that the Lord is directing me and giving me this to say to you.
And so he would believe that God is still speaking through us, but because we are unable to appreciate it, because we are unable to receive it, or we're unable to hear it correctly, that it might be, in fact, we would get it wrong, and we could actually receive a fallible or errant, and it's non-inspired and in a non-authoritative sense.
So they have to argue that God is speaking, but He's speaking in a non-authoritative way or a non-inspired way. And some of those that I critique in God Doesn't Whisper, like Priscilla Schreier and Bill Heibles and others and Charles Stanley, they would say, God is still speaking, but it's not on par with Scripture.
That's the phrase that we use continually. It's not on par with Scripture. Well, let me, why is Scripture, why is Scripture that par? What makes Scripture, Scripture? What makes Scripture authoritative, inerrant, infallible?
What gives it those qualities? Is it the fact that it's just written down? Does it have those qualities because it's in writing? No. Does it have those qualities because it's old? Hold on, let me walk through this real quick.
Does it have those qualities because it's old? It's older revelation, therefore it has those qualities. Or does it have those qualities because God spoke it? It has those qualities because God spoke it.
And when God speaks, it must be authoritative, inerrant, and infallible. It cannot be otherwise. God cannot speak a non-authoritative word. God cannot speak a fallible word, and God cannot speak an errant word.
And therefore, Scripture is infallible, inspired, inerrant, and authoritative if it has those qualities because God spoke it. And God cannot speak a non-authoritative, errant, and fallible word. Then tell me how it is that God can continue to speak, and yet it not be on par with Scripture.
See, in order to hold to both of these, they have to create an entire category of revelation that Scripture knows nothing about. Scripture knows nothing about errant revelation, errant God speaking, God speaking fallibly, where He gets it wrong once in a while.
He tries His best, but He gets it wrong. Scripture knows nothing of that category. Scripture knows nothing of a category of prophets that are from God and speak for God, but are inaccurate and get it wrong sometimes.
They hear it wrong sometimes. See, I believe that God, because He is sovereign, has the ability to speak, and He also has the ability to make sure that the person to whom He is speaking hears and understands perfectly and conveys perfectly exactly what it is He is saying.
He has the ability to do both of those. And the failings and frailty of the human person to whom He is speaking is irrelevant to God's ability to clearly communicate and to make sure that what He says is conveyed and understood perfectly.
Okay? So, Angelica, do you have a question real quick? Go ahead. Try it. Yes. Well, hopefully the Lord will ensure that you're able to clearly communicate to me. Go ahead. Okay. It's a very good question.
So when I say that God has spoken in Scripture or God speaks in Scripture, we do believe that God speaks through His Word. But the way that God speaks through His Word is when somebody takes His Word and studies His Word and comes to the meaning of that Scripture and then communicates it to you.
When you hear the meaning of Scripture as the author and the Spirit of God intended it, not a special meaning that He gives to Scripture outside of what the author intended or what it meant 2 ,000 years ago.
When you are reading through Scripture and you hear the meaning of that passage in your mind and your heart and you understand it, you are hearing God speak to you, but it is Scripture itself that is the voice of God.
It's not a voice of God that is attached to Scripture. So I'm reading through Scripture and I come across a passage that says, children are a gift from the Lord, and the person who has, the person is blessed who has a full quiver.
And I read that in Psalms 103, I think, or something like that. And I read that passage and I think, there is the word children that really spoke to my heart. I think the Lord is leading me to start a children's ministry.
Is that what that meant back then? No? Okay, so if it didn't mean that back then, it doesn't mean that now. What does it mean now? It means that children are a gift from the Lord, and the one who has those, that is one way that God blesses those people.
So when I read that passage and I understand what God is saying, I'm hearing the voice of God, but through Scripture because I'm understanding the text. The text itself is the voice of God. So when I say there's no modern day prophets, I'm not saying there's no modern day teachers, nor am I saying that God no longer takes His word and ministers to our heart, sanctifies us and uses His word in our hearts because I think that He does.
If I believed that God didn't do that, I would never preach another sermon. Because my only hope is that in all the effort that I put forward on a Sunday morning to prepare for a Sunday morning, that I'm expecting and hoping and trusting that God is going to take His word and what He said and wrote back then, and that He is going to take that word and apply it and use it in the hearts of everybody who is here.
That's my prayer and my hope. So God is speaking through the mouth of the preacher or teacher because He's speaking through the word. And so long as the preacher is accurately communicating what God said, God is speaking through that to the person who hears that.
But the message is the same. The application might be different, but the message is the same. So I'm not saying God doesn't use modern day teachers or modern day preachers. I'm saying God is not continuing to give revelation that is outside of, apart from, and different than Scripture today.
That make sense? That help clarify that? Okay. Any other questions on that? Yeah. Hold on right here. Yeah. Yeah. So the two witnesses in Revelation, so I think, let me rephrase the question and see if I'm asking it correctly.
Does that mean that God is never going to speak authoritatively in the future? That's the bottom, that's underneath your question, right? I don't necessarily, the idea that there is a closed canon today does not mean that God cannot give further revelation at a future time that is authoritative, inerrant, and inspired.
I think that during the millennial kingdom, during the earthly kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ that there will be some sort of revelatory office at that point. Whether the two prophets in Revelation are new prophets in the sense of an Old Testament prophet or whether they are just men who stand up and preach, I don't know.
I don't know that I would have to say that, I don't know that we'd have to say that that is additional revelation. But Joel's prophecy that young men will dream dreams and old men will have visions and that the Lord will speak in the coming millennial kingdom, I mean, I don't know how the Lord Jesus Christ ruling on planet earth can speak in a non-authoritative, errant way.
So it might be that God would give further revelation in the millennial age, in the kingdom age, but all we're talking about now is in this age, until that coming kingdom, should we believe that there is currently revelation being given or that there has been additional revelation since the time of the apostles?
And I would say no. Yeah, their coming is specifically promised in Scripture. Yeah. Right. Yep. Good point. It wouldn't be justified to say because God has promised another, if those two revelation prophets are actually authoritative, inerrant prophets in that sense, the fact that God has promised that those two men would come does not give me justification to say that I'm speaking or that God's speaking to me.
Yeah, Aaron. Yep. Yeah, that's right. Back, it was a year ago now, we did discuss the difference between illumination and revelation. Revelation is the act of God giving content, revealing truth. Illumination is the act of God opening our eyes and our hearts.
It's not Scripture that needs to be illuminated, but our hearts and minds need to be opened and illuminated to understand and see what is there. And so that's the two different functions of the Spirit of God.
One is revelatory, one helps us to understand what has been already revealed. Yeah. Jess, did you have a question? Yeah, the question is, if a continuationist says that they have sign gifts and they're giving continuing revelation, wouldn't that be a form of Gnosticism, and it would be a form of Gnosticism.
Yep. Okay. Any other questions? Let me pause for a moment and say I know that there are a lot of people that are new here that have come either since last September. If you are new and you want a copy of God Doesn't Whisper because you don't have it yet, you're free to take a copy, see me afterwards, I'll make sure you get a free copy of that book because of a generous donor who made that possible.
So I realize that there are people who have come since September when we gave those away. And I deal with this issue in this continuing revelation in greater detail in that book. All right. Any other questions about that before we move on?
Okay. So one false view of revelation is the notion that there are modern day prophets, people within the church that God has raised up who are giving continuing revelation. And of course, they have to invent, again, a category of prophecy and prophet, an office within the church that is errant and fallible and can get wrong.
And this is an idea of prophecy that is imposed on Scripture from outside, not something that Scripture itself teaches. Under the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, if a prophet got it wrong, he was stoned.
And now today, they want to say, well, yeah, but in the Old Testament, you had to have 100 accuracy, but not in the New Testament. In the New Testament, you can get hit or miss, you tend 20 accuracy, and that's pretty good for a New Testament prophet.
You see anything like that in Scripture, that you can have that kind of inaccuracy in a prophet? Why would I think that the office of prophet has deteriorated since the Old Covenant? Is there anything about the New Covenant and what we are given in the New Covenant that is inferior to the Old Covenant?
No. But they have to argue that the office of prophet is not nearly as good. God was able to speak perfectly under the Old Covenant, but now you get to the New Covenant, the fullness of revelation in Jesus Christ, and now our prophets, they're hit or miss.
Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong. Now they're hit or miss. So you have to invent, in order to hold on to closed canon and modern-day revelations, you have to invent an office of prophet that Scripture does not describe, and you have to invent a view of God's revelation that Scripture does not describe, namely that God can get it wrong.
Alright, second, the voice of God in private revelations, that's number two, and we've already talked about that. Alright, letter C, the implications of an open canon. Before we move on to that, are there any questions or comments on that issue?
We're all good on private revelations? Yes? That's alright. You're the only one asking questions today, so that's good. Cessationism. So cessationism is the belief that…it's not the belief that all the gifts of the Spirit have ceased.
It is the belief that certain gifts of the Spirit have ceased, namely the miraculous or the sign gifts and the revelatory gifts that were part of the New Testament church, that those gifts have ceased.
Okay, so I'm…this is the difference between a continuationist and a cessationist. So I am a Reformed cessationist, meaning I would affirm the Reformed doctrines of the Christian faith while at the same time believing that the sign gifts, namely word of knowledge, prophecy, the apostolic gift, that those gifts are no longer given.
Now listen, unless you believe that there are modern-day apostles, you are a cessationist. Even if you believe…see, Matt Chandler, who are the other ones I named, Wayne Grudem, they would not argue that there are modern-day apostles today, and they would say, but we're not cessationists.
Well, hold on a second. Apostles were a gift to the church, right? If God is no longer giving us apostles, then that gift has ceased, has it not? If that gift has ceased, then you believe at least one gift of the Spirit has ceased, and if you believe that at least one gift of the Spirit has ceased, then you are a cessationist.
So the difference is not whether or not you're a cessationist, the difference is how many of the gifts do you think have ceased? And I think that all of those gifts related to the authority and the establishing of the church, namely the gift of apostle, the gift of prophet, word of knowledge, the revelatory gifts, the ability to do miracles, to heal, the gift of healing, those gifts are no longer given.
And so therefore, I am a cessationist. But it doesn't…some people say, well, you're a cessationist, you don't believe in the gifts of the Spirit. Well, hold on a second. What gifts of the Spirit are you talking about?
All the gifts of the Spirit? If I didn't think that God gave the gift of teaching, I'd never preach another sermon. I wouldn't be up here this morning for sure. I don't get up here because I think that I'm great guns to listen to.
That's not why I'm up here. But if I didn't believe…I see the gifts of the Spirit in everybody that is here, in the various spiritual gifts. So I don't believe that all the gifts have ceased, but I do believe that the revelatory gifts have ceased.
Why? Because there's no longer any need for revelatory gifts. We have what has been provided for us in Scripture and it is sufficient. Okay? Very good question. All right. Implications of an open canon.
So this is arguing for a closed canon in a bit of a different way. This opens the door for cults and heresies and, of course, private interpretation as every cult will try to add to Scripture and add to the book of Revelation, or add to Revelation I should say.
This would also, number two, minimize the authority of Scripture. I'm going to rattle these off because I'm not sure what I put down in your notes that you're supposed to be following along. But this is under number C, under Rumen numeral four.
I see some of you looking through your notes like, where is he at? Is this a different lesson now? Okay. So the implications of an open canon. It opens the door for cults and heresies and false doctrine.
Second, it minimizes the authority of Scripture because it ends up inevitably placing something on par with Scripture. I had a pastor friend who used to pastor a different church here in town and we'd get into conversations about private revelations once in a while and he would say to me, Scripture is great, but I just need the Lord to speak to me something fresh.
That was a word he used one time. And I stopped him right in the middle of the sentence and I said, hold on a second. Fresh word from God? Fresh? What does that say about your view of Scripture? Well, you know, it's something new for me.
Something personal to me. What? God didn't have you in mind when He gave you 66 books for the Bible? You need that? You need something else? Rather than, you need something fresh to you? Something personal for you?
Scripture is not enough? See, and it ends up, listen, inevitably, and I think I have yet to see that this, I can't think of a single time that I have seen this principle fail. But inevitably, if somebody believes that God has spoken something to their heart that contradicts Scripture, they will, every single time, go with the fresh, personal, new revelation and not Scripture.
They will find a way of making Scripture conform to what they think God is speaking to them fresh in the moment. I have yet to see that prediction fail. Every single time, the private, personal revelation goes right up on par with Scripture.
And inevitably, it cannot because how can God speak a non-authoritative word? So, if He's speaking to you and you're convinced you heard from God, and yet it contradicts Scripture, guess which one gets folded up and packed away first?
It's not the personal, fresh, private revelation that you got in your prayer closet. It always ends up being Scripture. All right, number three, it nullifies the criteria established for Scripture. Now, if God were to add to the canon today, we would end up having a collection of books that have been accepted by the church forever, well, not forever, but, you know, for 2 ,000 years, and we'd end up having a collection of writings that have been accepted by Christians as of late, recently, today, and maybe for a future generation.
You'd end up having a collection of apostolic writings. You'd have a collection of non-apostolic writings. You'd end up having two separate canons with two different marks of canonicity, wouldn't you?
What we can say of the New Testament is that all the marks of canonicity that God spoke it, it's authoritative, it's inerrant, it's apostolic, it's accepted by the church, all of that applies to the New Testament.
But then if God gives us additional revelation that is also authoritative, we'd have to say, well, it's not apostolic, and it's not necessarily really, really authoritative, and it really hasn't been accepted by the church for 2 ,000 years.
So that's that collection of books, and then we have this collection of books. So then you have really two standards, or two different groups of markings of canonicity. You have two different collections of books in that way, does that make sense?
We wouldn't have consistency between those things that we say God has spoken. So the canon is closed, and if you say then, but, yeah, it's closed, but God is still speaking, then you do not believe in a closed canon.
You cannot. And if you think that you can, you do not understand the nature of divine revelation. The nature of divine revelation is either continuing or it is ceased. If it is continuing, the canon is open.
If it is ceased, the canon is closed. So there's only two options. The canon is open, the canon is closed, and it comes back to how you think that God speaks and how able you think He is to speak and clearly communicate.
All right? Any questions? I think we're done. We already answered the what if under number five, what if a document from the Apostolic Age were discovered and we could certify its authorship, and believed it came from Paul, we could certify that, would we accept it as canonical?
We already discussed that in a previous lesson. So are there any questions on that issue? I think we need to discuss. Go ahead, Angelica. I know you're wanting to ask a question. That's okay. Yes. Yeah.
I think Angelica, her point is that a lot of teaching within the church is sentimental, the sentimentality. There is an appeal to the sentimentality, to the emotions and the feelings, and we do live in a very feelings and emotionally oriented age, and the church has bought into a lot of that.
So a lot of people want to believe what God is speaking to them fresh because, look, when I say that God is no longer speaking today, not through nudges, promptings, whispers, still small voices, one of the very first and most vehement objections that I get is from people who are angry with me because I have robbed them of their personal connection to God.
I'm not really robbing you of any kind of personal connection, if you never had that connection to begin with. But if you simply, people feel like they have this connection with God, that God is speaking to them in this way, and this is their personal, their bat phone, their connection right to headquarters, and they're getting it direct, and they're getting it divine, and it's coming right to them.
And you take that away and begin to crush that illusion that, no, God has spoken through Scripture, and He said the same thing to you that He said to all Christians, then they feel like you've robbed them of their personal relationship with the Lord.
They have nothing else to lean on. And I think that's a really deficient view of God and how we relate to God, to do that. But people think you've just ripped all of the meaning out of their relationship with the Lord.
And I might have, yeah, but that's not my, my goal is never to do that. My goal is to always promote what is true. So, look, if God is not, I said this in the book again, so I'm just repeating myself, but if God is not speaking, you cannot hear Him.
And no discipline that you try and cultivate is going to give you the ability to hear something that God is not speaking. So if He's not giving you revelation, there's no amount of quietness, no amount of discipline, no skill that you can manufacture, no skill that you can develop that will give you the ability to hear something that God is not saying.
So if He's not speaking, you can't hear Him no matter what you do, because He's not speaking. But if He is speaking, you cannot miss it no matter what's going on in your life, because there's no example anywhere in Scripture of God trying to speak to them and them not hearing what He was saying.
Because God has the ability not only to speak, but to make sure that He is understood and understood clearly by the people to whom He has spoken, that He is speaking, right? So if He's not speaking, you can't hear Him no matter what you do.
If He is speaking, you can't miss it no matter what's going on. Because God is speaking, and if God is going to speak, you're going to get it, you're going to hear it. Whether you're Saul of Tarsus, and you hate Him, and you're trying to murder Christians, or whether you are Moses wandering around out in the wilderness with your staff and your sheep, thinking that your life and ministry are over.
All right? Okay, well, enough of me quoting from my own book, that was stupid. So again, if you have questions or you want more information, you didn't get a copy of God Doesn't Whisper, you're welcome to take one today.
Just make sure that somebody knows that I gave you permission Sunday school to take a free copy. And for the rest of you, if you want another free copy, you can have one too. Somebody bought enough of those to make it available to you, so take one.
If you want to read it a second time, if you're already ready, you want to read it again, go get another copy, read it again. All right. Yeah. It's better the second time, yeah. Right. I might rewrite it.
All right. Let's pray. Lord, we are grateful to You for what You have revealed in Scripture. We have utter and complete confidence that You are a God who has spoken and that You continue to use Your Word, that it is living and powerful, and we're grateful for that.
We're grateful that You use Your Word in our lives to sanctify us, to draw us near to You, to continue to purge us from sin, to convict us, to convince us, to equip us, to encourage us. Your Word is a treasure in so many ways, and we thank You for the privilege that it is to know it and to be called by Your name and then to be given the gift of the Holy Spirit so that we might know and understand truth.
We love You and we thank You for this time that we have had here in Christ's name. Amen.
It's funny, when the lights turn on, everybody gets quiet. Good morning, and would you stand as we sing, forever, God is faithful. Give thanks to the Lord, our God and King, His love endures forever, He is above all things, His love endures forever.
Sing praise to Him with a mighty hand and outstretched arm, His love endures forever. For a light endures forever, sing praise to Him rising to the setting sun, His love endures forever, and by His grace we will carry on, His love endures forever, sing praise to Him faithful and strong.
Good morning and welcome to Kootenai Church. Take this time and greet each other.
Well, good morning everyone. Welcome this morning. Just a few announcements of some events that you need to be made aware of. First there is the Men's Fellowship, which we'll be meeting here tomorrow night.
I think the details for that are in your bulletin. So if you are a man and you like fellowship, then come here tomorrow night. And then second, there is a grad meeting, is it Tuesday? Where's John? Yep.
Never trust a woman to ask questions about men. It's a Men's Fellowship. It's a Men's Fellowship. John knows what's going on. Okay. Second, this is something that Deidre would know something about. There's a grad meeting after the service, say at 12 .15 in the Teen Sunday School classroom right back here off of the back of the sanctuary.
What's that? That's this week. That's right after the service, 12 .15 today. So if you have a graduate who is graduating and is part of that service, then you need to be there, the graduate with at least one parent.
And then conference registration for the Spring Equipping Conference with Phil Johnson on the Life and Ministry of Charles Spurgeon, that is open. So if you would like to register for that, you can do so out in the foyer today, or you can go online.
And if you want to go online and register for that, then you will want to get the discount code that Shelly will be able to give you out at that table, or you can just register there with her. There is a discount if you buy a registration for the Women's Retreat as well as the Spring Conference.
They're one week apart. And then there is an additional discount if you are part of Kootenai Community Church. We haven't made this available to everybody just yet, but if you're here and you're part of our fellowship, then you can get an additional discount off of the cost of that registration.
But you'll want to see Shelly out in the foyer after the service today for that. Turn if you will now to Psalm 139, please, Psalm 139. And we are going to read together the entire psalm, Psalm 139. This is one of the more familiar of the Old Testament psalms, describing God's omnipresence and His omniscience.
Psalm 139, the prescript reads, for the choir director, a psalm of David. O Lord, you have searched me and know me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before and laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is too high. I cannot attain to it.
Where can I go from your spirit or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will lay hold of me.
If I say, surely the darkness will overwhelm me and the light around me will be night. Even the darkness is not dark to you and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to you. For you formed my inward parts.
You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works and my soul knows it very well. My frame is not hidden from you. When I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth, your eyes have seen my unformed substance and in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me when as yet there was not one of them.
How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God. How vast is the sum of them. If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I'm still with you. Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God.
Depart from me therefore men of bloodshed, for they speak against you wickedly and your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with the utmost hatred. They have become my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting way.
Will you stand with me as we pray? Let's bow our heads. Father, you are a merciful and gracious God and your graciousness to us is evident to the fact that you know us so well. You search us and know all of our days, all of our words, all of our thoughts.
This type of knowledge is, as the psalmist says, too high for us to understand. It is too great for us to comprehend and yet even though you know us so intimately and so perfectly, you love us so infinitely and so everlastingly and we thank you that by your love and because of that great love, you have sent your son to die for us.
We thank you that you have cleansed us of our sin, that you have redeemed us through the precious blood of Jesus Christ and that we as your people, your called out ones and gathered ones, that we can be here to worship you.
We pray that you would give us grace to sing and to pray and to fellowship. Give us grace to praise you as you are worthy to be praised in a manner that is in keeping with your great glory, that we may give you honor and that we may display your majesty to a watching world.
Give us grace to walk in obedience to your word, to walk in unity with one another and in love toward those who are outside of your church, that we may by all of our conduct and all of the grace that you give to us demonstrate to a dying and watching world what salvation in Jesus Christ looks like for our world needs that so desperately.
So keep us faithful to our calling and faithful to you and to your word and bless this time as we worship and praise you we ask in Christ's name, amen.
Staying in Psalms, the psalmist says in Psalm 104, bless the Lord oh my soul, oh Lord my God, you are very great, you are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a cloak, stretching out heaven like a tent curtain.
Oh Lord how many are your works, in wisdom you have made them all, the earth is full of your possessions. The splendor of the king, clothed in majesty, let all the earth rejoice, all the earth rejoice, he wraps himself in light and darkness tries to hide and trembles at his voice, and trembles at his voice.
How great is our God, sing with me how great is our God, and all will see how great, how great, and age to age he stands, and time is in his hands, beginning and the end, beginning and the end, the God and the spirit son, the light and the lamb, how great is our God, sing with me how great is our God, and all will see how great, how great, my heart is our God, is our God, and all will see how great, the mystery of the cross I cannot, the agony of Calvary, holy one, your son, drank the bitter cup reserved for me, has washed away my sin, Jesus thank you, the fathers wrath completely satisfied, Jesus thank you,.
What's your enemy, now seated at your table, Jesus thank you, big sacrifice I've been, brought near, enemy you've made, your riches of your glory, mercy and your kindness, no no, has washed away my sin, Jesus thank you,.
The fathers wrath completely satisfied, Jesus thank you,. What's your enemy, now seated at your table, Jesus thank you,. The fathers wrath completely satisfied, Jesus thank you,. Your blood has washed away my sin, Jesus thank you,.
The fathers wrath completely satisfied, Jesus thank you,. What's your enemy, now seated at your table, Jesus thank you,. The fathers wrath completely satisfied, Jesus thank you,. The Hebrews chapter four it says therefore since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens Jesus the son of God let us hold fast our confession for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. For the throne of God above I have a strong and perfect plea A great high priest whose name is love Whoever lives and pleads for me My name is graven on his hands My name is written on his heart I know that while in heaven he stands No tongue can bid me thence depart No tongue can bid me thence depart.
When Satan tempts me to despair And tells me of the guilt within Upward I look and see him there Who made an end to all my sin Because the sinless Savior died My sinful soul is counted free For God the just is satisfied To look on him and pardon me To look on him and pardon me Hallelu.
Praise the one risen son Hold him there the risen lamb My perfect spotless righteousness The great unchangeable I am The king of glory and of grace One with himself I cannot die My soul is purchased with his blood My life is hid with Christ on high With Christ my savior and my God With Christ my savior and my God Hallelu.
Praise the one risen son Bow before the cross of Christ And marvel at this love divine God's perfect son was sacrificed To make me righteous in God's eyes This river's depths I cannot know But I can glory in its flood The Lord most high has bowed down low And poured on me his glorious love And poured on me his glorious love.
Hallelu. Praise the one risen son. Praise the one risen son. You may be seated.
The passage that we're gonna be looking at today is found in the 10th chapter of Hebrews. So if you have your copy of God's word with you, please open to Hebrews chapter 10. We're gonna be looking at verse 22.
We're gonna read the context a little bit and start at verse 19 and we'll read together through the end of verse 25. Hebrews 10, beginning of verse 19. Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
Let's pray together before we open God's word. Father, your word is a light to us. It is in the light of your word that we see all truth. It is in your word that we are given a knowledge of who you are and what you have done for us in Christ.
It is by your word that we see ourselves as we are in truth before you. It is because of your word that we see who you are and your glory, and it is because of your word that we are able to gather here and be sanctified and to know the truth and to know Christ and to have our sins forgiven.
These things are all things revealed in scripture and they all pertain to our walk and our sanctification. And we pray that as we look at your word and study it, that you would open our eyes and our hearts to see what is here, to behold in your word wonderful things.
And we pray that you would encourage us and equip us through your word, that you would accomplish all your purposes for us and in us during this time. May you be glorified to grant faith and bring the lost to faith in Jesus Christ.
May you be glorified to equip and to edify your people and to encourage us together in your word as we study it together and as we contemplate these great things. We ask this in Christ's name, amen. For many months now, we have been comparing the features of the old covenant and the new covenant, seeing how over and over again what is given to us in Christ is so much better than what we have under the old covenant.
And so much has changed from the Old Testament to the New Testament time. We don't approach God with animal sacrifices anymore. We don't approach God through an earthly priest. We don't have to go to a temple or to an earthly tabernacle to approach God.
We don't have the ceremonies and the high and holy days that they once had under the old covenant. So much of worship has changed. And yet there are some things that have not changed and that never will change.
For instance, God's nature has not changed. God himself has not changed. He is still the same God of the Old Testament in the New Testament. His character is no different. His nature is no different. He is still the just one, the eternal one, the righteous one.
The same God who slew Nadab and Abihu for their wicked worship in the tabernacle in Leviticus chapter 10 is the same God who killed Ananias and Sapphira for lying in the church in Acts chapter five. His standards of righteousness have not changed.
God's moral law has not changed. Lying, theft, fornicating, lust, hatred, gossip, slander, idolatry, adultery, greed, covetousness, these things are all still sinful. They all still deserve his eternal wrath.
His nature, his righteous indignation toward those sins has not changed. Those things are no less sinful under the new covenant than they were under the old covenant. And God's promise to punish evildoers and to slay the wicked, that has not changed.
In fact, Revelation 21 .8 says, but as for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.
It is Jesus himself who said that he would raise all men and those who committed the evil deeds would be raised to a resurrection of judgment. It was Jesus who said and warned sinners of eternal hell saying that the worm does not die there and the fire is not quenched.
It was Jesus who promised that one day to those who do not know him, he would say, depart from you evildoers into the lake of fire, which has been prepared for the devil and for his angels. It is Jesus who said that these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
So God's nature has not changed. His moral law has not changed. His promise to destroy wickedness and evildoers has not changed. And man has not changed. We're no less sinful today than they were 2 ,000 years ago.
In fact, if anything, our technological advancements over the last few decades has only made us able to sin more frequently, more privately, more prolifically and more profoundly than we ever have had the ability to do in the history of humanity.
We are not with every generation growing closer and closer to the divine, becoming more and more like God and improving and evolving and improving ourselves morally. That is not happening. Man is just as wicked, just as depraved as lost, helpless, hopeless and under the wrath of God as he has ever been since the fall in the garden.
None of that has changed. So if God has not changed and his moral law has not changed and his promise to punish wickedness has not changed and we have not changed, then all of that would bring us to conclude that something else has not changed.
And that is that God, because he is holy and righteous and because we are sinful and because his moral law has not changed, God is still concerned with who it is that approaches him and how it is that we approach him.
That has not changed either. Under the old covenant, one of the things that demonstrated the transcendence of God, his separation from sinners, was all of the regulations and all of the details with how man was to approach God.
The old covenant taught us that God is very concerned with how he's approached and who approaches him and when. And even though we, under the new covenant, have been given through the person of Jesus Christ, open and full and free and complete access to the throne room of God, even though it says in Hebrews chapter 10, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus Christ through that new and living way and even though we have a high priest over the household of God, that does not mean that you and I are free to approach God with any kind of a cavalier attitude or flippantly or without any concern to what goes on in the inner man.
There are still, in the mind of God and in our approach to God, a concern with how it is that we come unto God. That is still just as important today as it ever was. And so Hebrews 10, 22 says that we are to draw near and then the rest of that verse tells us how it is that we are to draw near.
We looked last week at the command to draw near. What does that mean to draw near? How is it that we draw near? How is that a command to unbelievers and to believers, to fence sitters as well as committed Christians?
And today we're looking at how it is that we are commanded to draw near. Look at the rest of verse 22 and we will get to all of this. Even though we only got to the first four words last week, let us draw near, we're getting to the rest of this that describes how it is that we are to draw near.
With a sincere heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Now this describes our approach to God. Not only who it is that can approach God but also how we are to approach him.
And there are three elements of it there. A sincere heart, full assurance of faith and being cleansed from sin. A sincere heart, full assurance of faith and cleansing from sin. Those things are required of those who would draw near to God in obedience to the command in verse 22.
So let's look at these three things. First, we draw near with a sincere heart. You'll notice in verse 22 that the word heart or the idea of heart is mentioned twice. We are to draw near with a sincere heart and with a heart that has been sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.
So heart is mentioned twice because in the mind of God and in the perspective of God, he is not as concerned in the new covenant with the outward externalities of our worship as he is with the inward resolutions and position of the heart.
One of the things we noted about the Old Testament priesthood was that a priest was never disqualified because of the impiousness of his heart. As long as a priest wore outwardly all the right garments and he did all of the right actions, he could be the most wicked person in the world in his heart and still he could perform the commands of divine worship in the tabernacle.
That was not a concern. But under the new covenant, God is concerned with the heart. He was concerned with the heart under the old covenant but in terms of the priesthood, the functioning of the priesthood had nothing to do with the attitude or the posture of the heart.
Under the new covenant, it is entirely different. Under the new covenant, God is concerned that we approach him with a sincere heart and a heart that is sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. The word sincere here is a word that is a translation of the Greek word the author uses which comes from a group of words that describes it as related to the word for truth or for true.
This word literally means a true or genuine or a sincere heart since it describes that which is not false or shallow, that which is not pretentious or hypocritical or superficial. It is genuine. It is what meets the eye is that which it is in truth.
It is without pretensions, without kind of a superficial veneer that is over something that makes it look like it is not really what it is in truth. That's the idea. It's sincere or it's genuine. It is, it appears as it actually is.
That's the idea behind sincerity here. It describes that which is not characterized by ulterior motives or hidden pretensions or a fakeness. It is not duplicitous. It's true, genuine, and sincere. And a great example of an insincere heart to give you a negative example is Simon the Sorcerer in Acts chapter eight.
Do you remember that story when Philip went about preaching in Samaria and the Samaritans started to get saved and one guy who had believed, he wasn't actually saved, but one guy who had actually believed was Simon the Sorcerer.
Now he was well known in the area because he was a magician. He was into the magic arts and he was known for these demonstrations. He knew his share of tricks and illusions and magic tricks and all of that.
And so then the disciples, Peter and John, went down to Samaria to certify the salvation of those Samaritan believers and to lay hands upon them. And then when they laid the hands on the Samaritan Christians, they received the Holy Spirit.
And Simon saw this and he thought, wow, if I could have that power, to give the Holy Spirit to the person on whom I lay my hands, I could make some bank with that. I could make some coin in the spare time by just laying hands upon people and giving them this ability.
So Acts chapter eight says, now when Simon saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, give this authority to me as well so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.
But Peter said to him, may your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. You have no part or portion in this matter for your heart is not right before God.
Therefore, repent of this wickedness of yours and pray the Lord that if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the bondage of iniquity.
Simon had supposedly believed, he had made a profession of faith and began to follow the ministry of Peter, but once he offered Peter money for that ability to lay hands on people and give them the Holy Spirit, it demonstrated that his heart was not what he made it out to be.
It was not genuine belief. Peter said, I see that you're in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage, still in slavery to your iniquity. He had never been set free from his sin. And yet Simon followed Philip around and then eventually Peter and John professing to be a Christian, appearing to be a Christian, but in reality, he was not.
He was not a genuine believer. God is interested in the heart and he sees the heart and God knows the hearts of all men. It was back in Hebrews chapter four where we read in verse 13, there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and laid bare before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
He sees every last thing, every motive, every intention, every wicked thought, every vain imagination, every word we want to say but didn't have an opportunity to say, he knows that. He knows every pretension of my heart, every self-deception, everything that I try and make look as if it's true that is in fact not actually true, God sees it all and he knows us perfectly.
In fact, God knows your heart better than you do. See, how is that possible? Ask yourself this question. Do you think there is any man or woman alive or who is ever alive, except for the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, any man or woman alive who knows perfectly the condition of their heart and every motive they have ever had?
Is that even possible? Is it even possible for you to know the secret motive and the depth of the secret motive that you have at any given moment? In order for it to be possible for you to know your heart the way God knows it, you would have to be perfectly wise, infinitely knowledgeable, infinitely judicious, perfectly righteous, and you would have to know everything about you that there is to know and to know it truthfully and perfectly without error or flaw.
So it is even possible for you to know the condition of your own heart. It's not. In fact, our heart has the ability to deceive us. Jeremiah 17, verse nine, says the heart is more deceitful than anything else.
More deceitful than the devil. More deceitful than a politician. I know, it's hard to believe. But your heart is more deceitful than anybody who works or lives in Washington, D .C. That's tough to swallow, but it is true.
Your heart is more deceitful than anything else and desperately wicked, the prophet says. And then the prophet asks, who can know it? Who can know your own heart? Who can know the heart of man? Can anybody know the heart of man?
Can you know perfectly your every motive, your every thought, your every measure of sincerity? Can you know perfectly your own, the depths and the ability of your own heart to deceive you and to trick you and to make you think that something is true when in fact it is not?
Can any man know that? The prophet asks. Then the prophet, the Lord, answers that in the very next verse. Verse 10, right after that. I, the Lord, search the heart. I test the mind even to give to every man according to his deeds.
The Lord does know it. Who knows the heart of man in the depths of its wickedness? And God says, I know it and I know it perfectly and I know it infinitely and I know it as it is in truth. Now that should do to you two things.
Number one, it should terrify you. It should terrify you. To know the Lord himself, before his eyes we are an open book and there is nothing hidden from his sight, nothing. Not a motive, not a deed, not a thought, not a judgment, not even our own self-deception is hidden from him.
He knows it all. He is righteous and he is just and there is a day of reckoning. And if you are not hidden in Jesus Christ on that day, all of the secret motives of men's hearts will be revealed and it will all be exposed and there will be a day of reckoning even for every idle word we have spoken and every thoughtless deed we have done and for every motive that we have hatched in the deep, dark recesses of our own infinitely deceptive heart.
If you're not in Jesus Christ, all of that will be exposed and that should terrify you. But second, it should comfort you and you know why? Because the Lord knows everything about you and yet he loves you.
And he knows everything about you and yet he chose you and he knows everything about your heart and yet he sent his son to die for you and for that sin. And so that means that there is never a point in your life ever where the Lord will discover something about you in the recesses of your heart that will change the way he feels about you, never.
That can never happen because the Lord can never discover anything. He will never learn anything about you, anything about a motive, anything about a thought, anything about anything you have ever done.
The Lord will never learn anything that will change what he has decreed and determined concerning you and that is that in Jesus Christ because of what Christ has done and because by virtue of the faith which he has granted to you, you are justified and declared righteous and that can never change.
Because at no point will the Lord ever say of you, man, I didn't know that was down in there. And now it just came out of him like that and now we need to have a reevaluation of whether or not you belong in my family.
The Lord will never say that and he can never say that because he can never discover anything new about you. So that is at the same time a terrifying thing that the Lord knows everything about me and a very comforting thing that the Lord knows everything about me.
I rest in that. God's omniscience is both terrifying and comforting. So there is nothing that he will ever learn that will change what he has determined concerning you. Now here's the big question. I am commanded, you are commanded to draw near to God and we are commanded to draw near to God with a sincere, true heart and yet my heart has the ability to deceive me and if my heart has the ability to deceive me, doesn't my heart have the ability to deceive me into thinking I have a sincere heart when I don't have a sincere heart, right?
You didn't think we were getting down into 3D chess today, did you? Does my heart, if it has the ability to deceive me, doesn't it have the ability to deceive me about whether or not I am deceived and doesn't it have the ability to deceive me about whether or not I am coming to the Lord in sincerity?
Maybe I'm approaching God thinking I'm sincere but my heart is tricking me into thinking that I am sincere when in fact I'm not sincere and I'm insincere but I don't know that I'm insincere because my heart is tricking me into thinking that I'm sincere and yet I would approach God, this is really horrible, isn't it?
And yet I would approach God anyway without a sincerity of heart. How do we wrestle through that? Though perfect knowledge of ourselves is not possible, that doesn't mean that no knowledge of ourselves is possible.
Just because I cannot know perfectly the condition of my own heart does not mean that I cannot know anything about the condition of my own heart. And part of having a sincere heart is at least having a heart that approaches the Lord and says before the Lord, as far as I know, there's nothing insincere or disingenuous in this Lord and I am coming to you not knowingly or willingly putting up pretensions or a veneer but I am coming to you, Lord, honestly even recognizing that my heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Because if I come to the Lord confessing my heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, that is a sincere heart because I'm not coming to the Lord saying, no, my heart's not deceitful and desperately wicked because if I come to the Lord and I confess to him that my heart is deceitful and desperately wicked and I'm seeking from the Lord a remedy for that heart's condition, that in itself is sincerity because that is coming to the Lord with a truer sincere heart.
Lord, you know it all. This is all that I know about me. As far as I know, I'm not being insincere or pretentious or duplicitous. I'm not trying to deceive you, but Lord, I recognize that my heart is deceitful, and I need your grace to remedy that situation.
Just because I cannot know everything about my heart does not mean that I cannot know anything about my heart. If I can come to the Lord with a heart that is genuinely open before Him and truthful and honest, even if my heart is deceitful, that is still in itself a sincere heart.
That is a sincere heart. Now, notice that we're not told to come to God or to draw near to God with a perfect heart. If you waited until your heart was perfect, how long would you wait? Would you wait a while?
Next week? Next month? How long would you take to draw near to God if the text said, draw near to God with a perfect heart? We're not commanded to draw near to the God with a perfect heart, but we are commanded to draw near to God with a sincere heart or a true heart.
That is a heart that is not putting up any pretensions around the inner man. To know my own faults and my own sins and my own propensities and even my own heart's desire and ability to deceive me, to recognize that and to come to God anyway, is to come to Him in sincerity and truthfulness, because it doesn't have to be perfect.
It needs to be sincere, and knowing the condition of your own heart and its ability to deceive you is, in fact, a mark of a sincere heart. So don't let that keep you away, because we're not commanded to come to the Lord in perfection.
It is to be without hypocrisy or superficiality, without self-deception and pretension, and to do this requires some self-examination of ourselves. You can see why it is that David prayed in Psalm 51, Lord, you desire truth in the inner being, create in me a clean heart and renew within me a steadfast spirit.
Psalm 51, verse 16, for you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it. You're not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
That's what the Lord is after, that sincerity of heart. One of the marks of a sincere heart is also the full assurance of faith. Notice verse 22, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.
That's the second mark. Faith is a necessary requirement to draw near to God. Without faith, that is to be a double-minded man or to be uncertain or to doubt or to have reservations or to come to God with anything other than a full confidence in who He is and that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
To come to God on any other terms or in any other way but with full assurance of faith is to come to God with insincerity, is to come to God and say, well, I kind of hope you might exist, and so here I am, and I don't know if you're going to be good to me.
I don't know that your word is true. I don't know if you have the ability to hear me or even want to hear from me. All of those are marks of an insincere heart. But when we come to God with full assurance of faith, it means that we come to God, in the words of Hebrews 11, 6, knowing that He is, believing that He is, and believing that He is a rewarder of those who will diligently seek Him.
That is full assurance of faith. Now, let me contrast the biblical idea of faith with the world's idea of faith. The world, when it describes faith or speaks of faith, a lot of times, those who are in the world, secularists, they think that what we mean by faith is a vague feeling, kind of like, you know what, things are not going all that well, but I just, I kind of get this sense, I kind of get this feeling that things are going to turn out right.
I guess that's what faith is, right? It's just kind of a vague sense that something might be true or might be happening or might be right. That's not faith. We don't mean a vague feeling. We don't mean believing something that is contrary to truth, something that's irrational or illogical.
That's not what we're describing. We're not describing a blind faith. We're not describing believing something that we have no reason to believe is true or believing something that we hope to be true, contrary to facts.
None of those things are true and genuine biblical faith. That might be what the world means when they speak of faith, a vague feeling, wish-casting, hoping something is true, or even believing in something irrational, apart from the facts that is unscientific and unbelievable, but we believe it anyway and we talk ourselves into believing it.
That's what the world means by faith. But that is not what the Bible means by faith and that is not what we as Christians mean by faith. When we speak of having a full assurance of faith, we're not talking about wish-casting or hoping that something is true.
We're talking about a resolute trust that we place in something that we have every reason to believe is true. Biblical faith is trusting what we know to be true. That's biblical faith. So when the Bible talks about having faith in something or believing or trusting in God or having faith in God, it's not saying just hope that He exists or wish that He exists and it's not saying that Jesus is the odds-on favorite.
Instead, it is a confident trust in what we have every reason to believe is true. And Scripture holds God out to be the object of that faith and trust because God is faithful and God is true and God exists and He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
God, as presented in Scripture, is the ultimate object of that believing faith because He is the ultimate truth and He is the ultimate true one. So faith is not just hoping or wish-casting, it is a trust, a belief in something we have every reason to believe is actually true.
This is why He uses the word full assurance. I want you to consider the argument of the book of Hebrews, for instance. We get here, we're almost, we're right on the cusp of the faith chapter, Hebrews chapter 11.
We're right about ready to talk about all these examples of faith in Hebrews chapter 11. But I want you to consider the argument of the author of Hebrews all the way up into this point. What has he said?
Beginning back in chapter 2, he argued that Jesus Christ, who is revealed in the Old Testament, that's chapter 1 in all of the Psalms that he quotes in chapter 1, that Jesus actually appeared in history and in that coming of Christ, He gave to us His apostles.
Those apostles gave to us the revelation of Jesus Christ and performed miracles. So he has argued from the eyewitness testimony of the apostles that Jesus Christ is true and that He is a worthy object of our faith.
Then he argued from the Old Testament revelation, quoting Psalm after Psalm to show that the Old Testament promised not only the coming of the Messiah, but the dying of the Messiah, the rising of the Messiah, the ascending of the Messiah, and the Messiah taking His seat at the Father's right hand.
And he quotes from Psalm 110, where the Lord said to our Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for His feet. And he has argued from all of the Old Testament revelation that this Jesus in whom we are to place our faith is none other than the one who has fulfilled all of those Old Testament scriptures.
And then he has made the argument from the symbols of the Old Testament, citing all of the pictures and the symbols and the types and the shadows of Christ all the way through the Old Testament, pointing out that the sacrifices and the incense, the tabernacle, the ark, the priest, the priesthood, the animals, the celebratory days like the Sabbath, Hebrews chapter 4, the day of atonement, all of that was fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.
And then he has argued from all of the characters of the Old Testament, Melchizedek and Abraham and Moses and Joshua, citing all of those men showing that those men expected this Messiah to come. So by the time we get to Hebrews chapter 10, the author has argued from the historical record of the apostles and what is in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
He has argued from the Old Testament scriptures which have been given and then fulfilled. He has argued from all of the Old Testament characters who anticipated and looked forward to this Messiah. And then he has argued from the types and the shadows of the Old Testament itself to show that Jesus Christ is greater than all of these and that this one who has come has fulfilled all of those types and shadows.
So by the time we get to Hebrews chapter 10 and he says to us that we ought to draw near to God with full assurance of faith, what has he argued? That by the time we get to Hebrews chapter 10, he is essentially saying to us, you have no reason for your unbelief, you have no reason to turn away from this.
This Jesus that I proclaim to you is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament scriptures, all the Old Testament types and shadows, all the Old Testament characters, everything from the Old Covenant is fulfilled in him.
The author is not asking us to place our faith in some rando Jewish carpenter who lived up in Nazareth and spent his days in a carpenter's shop. He is asking us, he is commanding us, he is demanding us to place our faith in this one who came and fulfilled everything revealed before him, fulfills all the types and shadows so that when we get to Hebrews chapter 10, we can say, you and I can have full assurance of faith, absolute confidence in the certainty of this message and in the certainty of this salvation, in the certainty of this work of this divine son.
Does that sound like wish casting to you? Hey, there is some Jewish man, just believe on him, abandon the sacrifices, go believe on that Jewish guy, you know, the one that died on the cross. This is not wishful thinking.
We don't place our faith in a Jesus who is just the odds on favorite. We are not asked to place our faith in a Jesus and just hope that these things are true, like I am just going to, this seems like a really good idea, I am going to believe this stuff.
No, the author is saying, with all of this evidence, with all of this argument, draw near to God with a sincere heart in absolute certainty of faith. The world thinks that you can't be certain about anything that you have faith in, right?
That's how the world thinks. You either are certain and know that something is true or you just have faith that something is true. They think these things are mutually exclusive. Our argument is not even close to that.
We are saying, we place our trust and our faith in what we know for certain is true. So we approach God with a full assurance of faith. That word, full assurance, means to be absolutely sure, completely certain about something.
So my faith and hope in Christ, your faith and hope in Christ, we are not just hoping that these things are true. We are not rolling the dice, we are believing something that we have every reason to believe is true.
We draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith. Now look at this third quality, having our heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Now, that sounds a little odd to us, doesn't it?
We are to draw near to God with a sincere faith and full assurance of faith, having our heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies, that sounds very physical. I mean, we can understand how it might be that our hearts would be sprinkled clean, but our bodies washed with pure water?
What is the author referring to there? It almost sounds like a ceremonial cleansing. It almost sounds like taking a bath, washing your body, as if this makes you able to approach God. Some people have suggested that this is a reference to baptism, maybe that's in some of your heads.
I do not think that this is a reference to baptism, but I will give you what I think is the most convincing argument offered by those who say that this is a reference to baptism. So even though I would reject this, this I think is the most convincing argument that they would offer in saying that this washing your body with pure water refers to baptism.
They would say that the phrase at the end of verse 22, look at it in your Bible, that that phrase, our bodies washed with pure water, belongs with verse 23 and not with the command to draw near in verse 22.
So therefore they would say that it ought to be read this way, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. And having our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful.
So they would take that last phrase, our bodies washed with pure water, and they would connect it to holding fast with the profession of faith in verse 23. Why would they do that? Well, what is baptism?
Baptism is something we do in obedience to the command of Christ. We are baptized because He said, go into the world and baptize believers. And the example in the New Testament is that those who have made a profession of faith in Christ, they follow the Lord in believer's baptism.
Well what are we doing in baptism? We are professing, declaring in front of the whole world that I belong to Christ and that my hope is in heaven and that because of what Christ did on my behalf, I am given eternal life, my sins are forgiven, and I will spend eternity with Him because He belongs to me and I belong to Him.
That is what you are openly professing. That is what baptism is. Baptism is an outward declaration of an inward commitment that we have made. Well with that in view, read verse 23, the end of verse 22, and our bodies washed with pure water, that is having been baptized, let us hold fast the confession of our hope, that hope which we profess in baptism, let us hold fast to that confession, the baptism confession we have made, without wavering for He who promised is faithful.
So they would say that the end of verse 22 belongs with verse 23, the second command, the second let us. Let us hold fast. Now that I think is the most convincing argument. I'm not convinced by it, even though I do say it is a convincing argument.
I think it's the best textual argument you could offer for saying that that's baptism. I don't think it's baptism. I think that there's a better way of understanding it, and that is this. Before I say that, understand that that's not a heretical understanding.
Somebody says this refers to baptism, that's not heretical because they're not suggesting that baptism is necessary for salvation. They're simply saying that He's asking those who have been baptized to hold fast to the confession that they have made in that baptism statement.
That's all that they would say the author is saying there. That's not a heretical belief. I don't think it is the best take on the passage. Here I think is the best take on the passage. I would suggest that the phrase, having our bodies washed with pure water, is a reference to the same kind of cleansing mentioned earlier in verse 22, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.
The author is doing here something that he has done throughout the book of Hebrews, done so often you can almost spot it now. He is taking an Old Testament picture and he is drawing a New Testament parallel to it.
An Old Testament picture and he is drawing a New Testament parallel. He is speaking in the language that a Jew would understand, a Jew who was familiar with the Old Covenant ceremonies. And he is describing here a New Testament, a New Covenant reality in terms that would have been familiar with those who are familiar with the signs and the pictures of the Old Covenant.
So what is the sign or the picture of the Old Covenant that is being described here? A priest, before he could approach God, either on a holy day or doing any of the functions of the tabernacle, had to wash his body with pure water.
So for instance, we read in Leviticus chapter 16 concerning the day of atonement in Yom Kippur. Leviticus 16 .4, he that is speaking of the priest shall put on the holy linen tunic and the linen undergarments shall be next to his body and he shall be girded with the linen sash and attired with the linen turban.
These are holy garments. Then he shall bathe his body in water and put them on. So anyway, there was a labor that was outside of the tabernacle itself out in the courtyard and a priest was to bathe himself in that water, washing himself before he put on the holy garments and then went about his priestly duties.
There was a ceremonial outward cleansing that was a symbol or a sign of something. And the priest had to do that, the high priest had to do that before any of his functions on the day of atonement. But it was also true that an ordinary priest who just went into the tabernacle to change the showbread or to put coals on the altar of incense or to trim the wicks on the lampstand, that's the word I was thinking of a couple weeks ago, to trim the wicks on the lampstand inside the tabernacle.
That priest before he went into the tabernacle to do any of those functions also had to bathe with water. So we read in Exodus 30 verse 18, you shall also make a laver of bronze with the base of bronze for washing and you shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar and you shall put water in it.
Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet from it when they enter the tent of meeting and they shall wash with water so that they will not die. You hear that? They had to wash with water so that they would not die.
Or when they approach the altar to minister by offering up in smoke a fire sacrifice to the Lord so they shall wash their hands and their feet so that they will not die and it shall be a perpetual statute for them for Aaron and his descendants throughout their generation.
So a priest could not come near to God without two things. Number one, the sprinkling of sacrificial blood which symbolized the payment for sin and the removal of guilt. And second, the washing with water which symbolized the removal of the defilement of sin, the impurity of sin.
Those were the two symbols, the sprinkling of blood and the pouring out or the washing of water. They had to have those two symbols, one symbolizing the removal of their guilt, the other symbolizing the removal of their defilement.
In other words, sin had to be dealt with not only in its guilt but also in its impurity and its defiling effect. And no priest could approach the Lord in any capacity to do any function within the tabernacle without first having that taken care of, without the guilt being removed and without the defilement being removed.
And what accomplished that? The sprinkling of blood and the washing of water. So what is the author saying here? We are to draw near, but remember the Old Testament priest who first had to have their sin removed and then the defiling effect of sin taken care of in washing the body?
Similarly it is with Jesus. You and I cannot approach God without a sacrifice that makes a way into His presence possible. So unless the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is applied to you and the merits of what He has accomplished in that work, if they do not belong to you, you cannot approach God.
An unbeliever cannot come and approach God on any terms because he has no warrant, he has no path, he has no means. That unbeliever cannot draw nigh unto God because there is no sacrifice that has been made for his sin.
He must first come to Christ and by virtue of his repentance and his faith, then his guilt is removed, then he is cleansed from the defiling effects of sin because his heart is sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.
Then that sinner, though he is still in a sinning state, having been declared righteous, that sinner can draw nigh unto God. Why? Because the guilt of sin has been removed and the defilement of sin has been removed.
But that comes through Jesus Christ. So we are to draw nigh near to God with a sincere heart, in full assurance of faith, having been cleansed from our sin. If you have not been cleansed from your sin, you have no warrant to draw nigh unto God.
You have no ability. You must have your sin removed. The Old Testament priest, if he tried to come unto God's presence without the blood of a sacrifice and the washing from defilement, God would kill him.
That was a picture of something. You can't draw nigh unto God on your own terms. He's the offended one. You're the offending party. You want to draw nigh unto him, you draw nigh on his terms. What are his terms?
Through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He has inaugurated for us by his blood a new and living way. Through the veil that is his flesh, that is how we draw nigh unto him. With a sincere heart, in full assurance of faith, having been cleansed from sin.
You don't have those things. Don't draw nigh unto God. That is the attitude. That is the posture of one who must draw nigh unto God. Full assurance of faith, sincere heart, being cleansed from sin. What does it mean at the end of verse 22, or I should say the middle of verse 22, that our hearts are sprinkled clean from an evil conscience?
Does that mean the conscience is evil? Our conscience is not evil. It does a great work. It tells us when something is wrong, tells us when we've done something wrong. But from the perspective of those who feel the pains of conscience, that conscience is doing an evil work on us, isn't it?
It's pointing out our evil. It's making us to realize our evil. It's demonstrating our evil. It reminds us that we've committed evil deeds. And in that sense, the conscience, convicting us of the evil that we have done, is doing to us something that we feel or we sense is like evil.
Well, Jesus Christ, because of what he has done, he has sprinkled our hearts clean from an evil conscience. If you're in Jesus Christ, there is no reason for your conscience to continually torment you about sins you have done in the past that you know are forgiven and covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.
If you have been justified and declared righteous, then your conscience has been cleansed by Jesus Christ, and the only one bringing up those sins between you and God is you. Because God's act of justifying you means that he will never in the future bring up any sin that you have committed, because those sins do not govern or determine or affect his relationship with you or how he feels about you.
If you are justified in his son, he has determined to think of you as if you are righteous and to attribute to you none of your sins and to credit to you only and solely and infinitely the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
And if that's true, you have had your heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. This is the glory of what is provided for us in the gospel, that not only is the guilt of our sin removed and not only is the defilement of our sin removed, but the waiting effects of our sin are removed in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
So we can be forgiven, we can know we're forgiven, and we can approach God as if we are forgiven, all because of what Christ has done. So now when we approach him, we approach God daily and we confess our sin, we confess our need, we confess to him that we need the grace to remedy the sin that still remains in us, and we do so in this constant state of humility and repentance and faith and pleading for grace, not because we want to live under the oppressive guilt of an evil conscience, but we do so because we live in the light of the glorious justification that we have in him because of what he has done on the cross for us.
Two totally different things. Let's pray together. Father, you are glorious and good and merciful and kind, and we thank you for the forgiveness that we have. We marvel over that each and every week, what you have provided for us in your Son, and we thank you that you have declared righteous guilty sinners by faith and faith alone.
We have no reason to cling to our own righteousness or to the philosophies of men. We have no reason to approach you with any doubt, with any lingering hesitation, with any lingering anxiety at all, for you have purged us and cleansed us from our sin.
You have taken it out of the way, and we thank you that we stand before you as those in Jesus Christ, fully righteous. Help us to appreciate that and to live in light of it and to live in the glory of it and to love you as a result of it.
We thank you for your grace to us in Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Please stand.
Jesus, look for justice and mercy in the Son of God. Give our measure to our Savior and Savior and Savior. Have a great week.