We have taken several weeks out of the direct study out of the book of Hebrews to study the Reformation. And as we're kind of wrapping up that study, we decided to take a look at Sola Scriptura and what that means. We began that last week and there's an immense amount of material out there to look at, but today we're gonna finish this up, Lord willing, on what Sola Scriptura means. I would encourage you and give you a little bit of a question for a provoking thought. Have we really been out of the book of Hebrews? And the answer is no. The answer is no. The very next section we're going to be going into in the book of Hebrews is that for the Word of God is active, living, sharper than any two-edged sword. And what I want you to do in the next couple of weeks, I want you to be thinking about Hebrews 4.12 without the Reformation. And you know what that means now because you would not have the Word of God in your hands. You would not have the Word of God on your shelves. You would not have the Word of God accessible to you. And so I want you to, as we begin to make a direct Re-entering in the next couple weeks into the book of Hebrews. I want you to think of what God has given to us in and through the Reformation I want to read this morning out of Psalm 19 to begin our study in Psalm 19 you have the first six verses in which describes that God has revealed himself in creation and and in verses 7 through 11 that God has revealed himself through his word, and in verses 12 and 13 give us our response to the knowledge that when you look out, God has revealed himself. When you look into his word, God has revealed himself. So I just want to pick up in verse 7 and go to the end of this psalm to verse 14. Verse 7, the law of the Lord is perfect. reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned, and keeping them there is great reward." Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. When you study the Reformation, you see that the Reformers had what I will call a bold confidence in the Word of God. A very bold confidence. Remember during the Reformation, the Word of God was, in all effect, sidelined from the worship services. It was banned. And the Reformers come along and they do something amazing. They actually read the Word. They studied the Word. They taught the Word. They preached the Word. They wrote the Word. They sang the Word. They prayed the Word. Their whole life was centered around the Word of God. They knew that God does His work through His Word. They knew that God's work of salvation and God's work of edifying the souls of His children comes through the knowledge of His Word. They knew that God's instrument of reformation was nothing less than the Word of God. Just think about this. They had smelled They had smelled the smoke of hell from within the walls of the so-called church. And they had been liberated by the very Word of God. And they were not going to surrender. They were not going to give back the Word of God to the people who had kept the Word of God in darkness and chains and shackles for centuries. They would not go back to a scripture-less life. Martin Luther, as you know, had a way of writing things and saying things. He was asked about his role in relation to the Reformation, and I want to read to you this quote, and as you'll hear this, it's certainly authentic of Martin Luther's personality. This is what he writes, I opposed indulgences and all papists, but never by force. I simply taught, preached, wrote God's Word. Otherwise, I did nothing. And then while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it. I did nothing. The Word did it all." There's a man who understood what does the work of God. And it's the very Word of God. May I say to you that we need men in the pulpit who have this type of confidence in the Word of God. May I say to you that we need churches who are filled with people who understand that it's the Word of God that does the work of God. That we do not need the wisdom of the world, we do not need the entertainment of the world, but we need the very words of God, because they alone are alive. They alone are active. They alone are sharper than any two-edged sword. Listen to that quote that Ken read from Steve Lawson. Those aberrant ideas about God are in the church. Because the church has abandoned her confidence in the authority of the Word of God. We need men, we need churches who demand that we bring the book. That we hear the Word, that we study the Word, that we live the Word. And I need to say that I could not be more grateful to God than for you. to have a church who desires to hear the Word of God, to have a church that desires to study the Reformation, who says, don't give me one, but give me two messages, and while you're at it, can you teach a little bit about the persecution that goes along, and while you're at it, can you give us two messages on soul scripture? You're hungry! But may I say to you that you're a rarity, and what we have going on in here needs to be guarded. But it cannot be guarded by human means. It could only be guarded by the continued proclamation of the Word of God. Today here, what we're going to do is we're going to continue looking at what sola scriptura means and how sola scriptura should impact our lives. So let me give you the roadmap for today if you're going to take notes. The first heading is going to be sola scriptura defined. And if you were here last week, you know that we already started that. So it's sola scriptura defined continued. Second heading is we want to look at the authority of scripture. And if the Lord gives us time this morning, we're going to look at our submission to scripture. And if we don't have time to that, that's okay, because we're going to look at that when we get to Hebrews chapter 4, verses 12 and 13. Anyway, so let's look at sola scriptura. What are we talking about, Sola Scriptura? Remember, it's a Latin phrase, simply means Scripture alone or by Scripture alone. Remember, Sola Scriptura is the answer to the question. What's the question? The question is, what is our ultimate, final authority in life? And that's the Word of God. Reformers came along and said, listen, tradition, church councils, church creeds, papal authority, all of that, is not our ultimate final authority, but it is the very Word of God. Let me again remind you by quoting to you J. I. Packer as he explains what Sola Scriptura means. I read this to you last week. Here it is again. He said, Sola Scriptura was the belief born in upon the Reformers by their own experience of Bible study, that Scripture can and does interpret itself to the faithful from within, Scripture is its own interpreter. So that not only does it not need popes or councils to tell us, as from God, what it means, it can actually challenge people and conceal your pronouncements, convince them of being ungodly and untrue, and require the faithful to part company with them. As Scripture was the only source from which sinners might gain true knowledge of God and godliness, so Scripture was the only judge of what the church had in each age ventured to say in her Lord's name." In other words, the Word of God, as you study it, it can stand up against all established ecclesiastical, meaning church, Doctrines, church authority, church stances. The Word of God was the power of God to the Reformers. And as they studied it, they said, wait a minute. What's going on in our churches does not match the Word of God. And what did the Catholic Church appeal to? Tradition, the councils, the creeds, the papal authority. And what do the reformers appeal to? Thus saith the Lord. And so there we see, as we talked about last week, the two different types of authority. We as Protestants say that there is a one type of revelation, one source of revelation. It's the Word of God. Catholics say, no, there's a two source of revelation. It is the Word of God and? Church tradition. Okay, so again, so when we talk about Sola Scriptura, what we're saying is that the Word of God is our final, ultimate authority. And it is important to remind ourselves of this very important truth when we begin to look further at Sola Scriptura, that Christianity is based upon words. God has revealed himself to us in words. And we must read words. We must know words. We must study words. We must live those words out. In fact, these words that have been revealed to us by God need to be the ground for all of our life, all of our doctrine, and the way that we worship God. The Christian life is to be transformed by the given, revealed, objective Word of God. Not our emotions, and not our intuitions, not what we feel is right, but by the very words of God. God has revealed Himself clearly in His Word, and He has told us what He requires of us, and it is our duty, and it is our privilege to be in the Word of God, to see what He has given to us. whether it is the Catholic Church or it is any other group, that if there is any elevation of man's words to the authority or to the same level as God's Word, that denigrates the Word of God. And we need to be careful that we never elevate man's words to the same level as inspired Scripture. Now all that is pretty plain, isn't it? Now what I want to do is I want to spend a decent amount of time in defining what Sola Scriptura means by defining what it does not mean. And I think, and I hope, for nothing else than just a fun Sunday morning, that it might hit you strangely on some of the things we're going to say. May not have thought about it this way, but we need to make sure that we don't swing to the extreme side of the pendulum when that's not what they meant by that. So let's start looking at this. When the Reformers talked about Sola Scriptura, number one, they did not mean that Sola Scriptura is against the teaching from man. They're not against teaching from man, but they're against the teaching of man. Okay? So when you talk about Sola Scriptura, the Reformers are saying that we're not saying we're against man teaching, we're against the teaching of man. Now, just think about this for a moment. How many sermons did the Reformers preach? That's just amazing amounts of sermons. You go and you try to look at the volumes of Calvin's works and Martin Luther works, and then you just get to the Puritans like, oh, and I mean, these men were constant. They were prolific writers and teachers of the Word of God. When they understood Sola Scriptura, they weren't saying, all I need is the Bible, all I need to do is quote the Bible, and I've got the Bible. No, but rather what they did was this, they taught the Word, and they understood that the Word of God had to be taught. Now listen, if you are a sola scriptura person, That means you're going to commit yourself to the very things that the Word of God teaches, right? Then you have to come to texts like Ephesians chapter 4, which say something like this, and God has given some apostles and prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. For what? The equipping of the body. What you see is this, for the building up of the saints, what you see is this in Scripture. When you come to the Word of God, if you're going to be in Scripture and say, this is my final authority, what do you have to reckon with? That God has given to the church what? Men to teach. See, when we think of Sola Scriptura, don't think that this dismisses men teaching. It just dismisses the teaching of man, meaning man-centered, man-based teaching, that which is against the Word of God. What you want is this. You want men who stand up and teach and preach the very words of God. Sola Scriptura, far from being against Man's teaching. They were for it. And they practiced it. And we too must be those who set under the Word of God. Let me give you a second thing that Sola Scriptura is not against. Sola Scriptura is not against creeds and confessions. Sola Scriptura is not against creeds and confession. Now we live in an anti-credal, anti-confessional day and age. We like to say what we believe in such lack of clarity that we ourselves don't even know what we believe. We don't like to be clear in what we believe. We don't like to be dogmatic in what we believe. We don't like to have a standard of what we believe. And that is left to maybe certain theologians. But for us, generally speaking, we don't really want creeds. We don't want confession. We don't want a standard by which we hold to. In fact, our day looks like this and sounds like this. I have no creed but The Bible. That is one of the biggest, loudest statements you hear out there. I have no creed but the Bible. Now, what in the world does that mean? I mean, just think about that for a moment. I have no creed but the Bible. What they're saying is this, is number one, that their interpretation of the Bible is all that matters. There's no standard, there's no objectivity, it is me and the Bible. Okay? What they're also not realizing, when they say, I have no creed but the Bible, what are they saying? They're saying their creed, aren't they? What's their creed? Whatever their interpretation of the Bible is. Please understand, that when the reformers said sola scriptura, they were not against the creeds and confessions. And I want to prove this to you even a little bit further here. In the 16th century, 1561, there was a Belgic confession that was written in the Netherlands. Then you have, in the 16th century, you have the Heidelberg Catechism, which was written, and that was in Germany. In 1646, you have the Westminster Confession that was written. In 1658, you have the Savoy Declaration, which is another confession that was written. And in 1677, you have the Second London Baptist Confession. Now, I want you to think about this for a moment. When we talk about Sola Scriptura and the Reformers, what did they write? Confessions! What did they hold to? Confessions! And it just wasn't those who were in England. It was those who were in Germany and those who were in Netherlands. In other words, the universal application of sola scriptura was not against creeds and confessions. Rather, it was the exact opposite. They viewed confessions and creeds as tools. as opportunities to express and to teach the truth of God's Word. But they never elevated them to inspired scripture. As such, confessions, as they were faithful to the Word of God, what did Reformers do? They held to them. They taught them. They utilized them in the churches so that young people and adults could say, this is what I believe and this is why I believe it. May I say to you that I don't believe it's by any coincidence that the American church, who in this day, this very day, is the most atheological. I mean, we don't care about theology. At the same time, we're also anti-credo. How come it is when we say we don't need creeds, we just need the Bible, we know so little about the Bible? And the Reformers come along who come out of all of that and say, no, wait a minute. We need to have a clear expression of what we believe and to hold to that. The Reformation Study Bible puts it this way, the Reformers did not despise other authorities or deny the value of tradition and the creeds, but they distinguished the singular authority of the Bible as the only infallible rule of faith and practice. Do you see the difference? We're not saying that creeds and confessions, we're not saying the teachings of man is the Word of God. It's not our final authority. Only the Word of God is our final authority. But they are tools. They are expressions of the Word of God that we ought to hold to. Let me give you a third reason, or a third aspect of Sola Scriptura that they were not against. Sola Scriptura is not against tradition, per se. It's not necessarily against tradition. I want you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 15. Matthew chapter 15. Anytime you depart from a teaching or a movement, you have a tendency to swing to the extreme side of the other pendulum. Here what we see... with the Reformers, and I think what the Word of God makes clear to us, is that yes, there was an undue, unbiblical emphasis of tradition from the Catholic Church. But when you look at the Reformers, most of them were not so quick to depart from the Catholic Church, were they? What did they want to do? They wanted to reform the church from within. And over time it became clear they could not do that. So they did come out. But tradition in and of itself, is it a bad thing? Is it a wrong thing? Is it an unbiblical thing? Here in Matthew chapter 15, let's start in verse 1. Let's just read the first nine verses. Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, Why do your scribes break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat. He answered them, And why do you break the commandments of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, Honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. But you say, if anyone tells his father or mother why or what you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father. So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, This people honors me with the lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as the doctrines the commandments of men. Here comes along an opportunity, and Jesus teaches that what the people had done is they had elevated the tradition of man over the Word of God. What they were doing was they set up an opportunity to give money to the temple, temple services, to things of God, and mom and dad come along, they have a need. Mom and dad need some financial help, they need some food, and what does son say? Sorry, it's already given away, it's already devoted to this over here. And so what Christ says is what you've done, you've taken honor, your father and your mother, and you have put it underneath what? Your traditions. Is there anything wrong with having traditions? Is there anything wrong? Is Jesus attacking traditions itself here? What is he attacking? The elevation of the tradition over the Word of God. See what he says here, look at what he says here. Verse 3, and why do you break the commandment for the sake of your tradition? Now tradition here, and we're going to look at a few more passages, it's the Greek word paradosis. Now what does that mean? It simply means a handing down or a handing over. It refers to either oral tradition or written tradition. It means you're writing this down, you're handing it over, you're handing it down by some sort of teaching. Is it teaching verbally? Is the teaching in written form? Now, scripturally, how was it passed down? It was passed down from Moses, right? To Joshua, to the elders, and so on and so forth. Over time, what happened to the Jewish people? They began to add rule upon rule upon rule, tradition upon tradition upon tradition, to where scripture itself was lost. But here what we see is that the problem was not their tradition itself, but the problem was that they were giving more attention to their tradition than they were the very words of God. Tradition is not wrong, but elevating to scriptural authority is where error takes place. Here in Matthew, the context of tradition is really negative, isn't it? He comes along and says, listen, you're doing tradition wrong. But in his negative condemnation of tradition, does he negate tradition? No, he does not. Now, I want to just go to 2 Thessalonians. You see the same word here, 2 Thessalonians. Chapter 3 2nd Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 6 we come across these words Now we commend you brothers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ That you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with what? The tradition that you received from us, again the word paradosis there, it's the same word. Now, the question is, is what is this tradition? Well, the tradition is either apostolic inspired scripture that had yet to be written, or that which had been written but had not been there in Thessalonica. What this is saying is this, you were told, even though you don't have the book in front of you, Okay? You know what you've been told to do and you need to do it. And it's in the tradition form there that it was given. And you see the same thing in 1 Corinthians 11 verse 2 where it says, Now I command you because you remember me and everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. Now there is certainly a difference of the traditions that Paul gave them and the Catholic Church traditions, right? There is certainly a difference of traditions that Paul had and the traditions we might have in our own lives, correct? So what he's talking about here is these traditions have something to do with apostolic authority, traditions that have to do with the Word of God. So, what's the issue at stake here? The issue at stake is this. When we talk about tradition, does it line with the Word of God? Is it at odds with the Word of God? Does the Word of God still have authority over our tradition? For example, you may say, well, we are good, wholesome Protestants. We don't have traditions. Really? Now that may seem silly here in a second, but they're traditions. How many of you expect us to start every Sunday morning at 10.30? Oh! We pretty much now know that on non-communion Sundays, we have four songs and a closer. We know on communion Sunday, there's no kid's corner. We know that unless it's a big holiday or big thing, what are we going to have every time after service? Food. Are we into traditions? We are. We do. Okay. Are any of those wrong? No, but anytime we elevate those over the Word of God, That's the problem. And that's what happened in the day of Christ when he had to address them as giving money to God, but they would not take care of their parents. And it's what happens in the Catholic Church when they elevated all their tradition over the Word of God. So here's the issue. Does tradition align itself with Scripture? If our traditions, our practices, align itself with Scripture, then can we keep them? Yes, but what if they don't? Then we need to reject them and we need to throw them and abandon them and get them out of our lives. So what is the key? The key to Sola Scriptura is this. Does the teaching of the man, does the teaching of the creeds and the confessions, does the practice of tradition align itself with Scripture? That's what Sola Scriptura is concerned about. Where they align, we submit to them as being faithful teaching of God's Word. Where we don't see them aligning with God's Word, again, we reject them. And this is exactly what Martin Luther was getting at when he was asked at the Diet of Worms to recant his teachings when he said this, Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scripture, or By plain and clear reasons and arguments, I cannot and will not retract. For it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen." What was Luther's final authority in his life? It's the Word of God. I challenge you to go back and read the works of Luther and tell me where he was against man's teachings. I want to go back and see where he's against creeds and confessions. Go back and tell me where he was against traditions. He was not, and neither were the Reformers. But what we do not do, and we must always be careful against, is to elevate anything of man to the status of Scripture. Scripture is always the master over our traditions and our teachings. Let me give you quickly two more things that Sola Scriptura is not, and these are very important for us to just tuck away. Sola Scriptura is not simply reading the Bible. Sola Scriptura is not memorizing the Bible. Let me ask you a question. Is the issue of the Bible having content in your head or the right meaning in your head? Let me ask you a different question. Who knows more about scripture, you or Satan? The issue is not reading the Bible and saying, I believe in Sola Scriptura. If you believe in Sola Scriptura, you're gonna read the Bible. It's not somebody saying, well, I got the books of the Bible memorized. I've got passages memorized. So is Satan. If you do hold the Sola Scriptura, you will memorize. But what's at stake is the meaning of the Word of God. You must have the right understanding of God's Word. That's what's at stake. We must go to the Word of God and understand that, listen, there are false interpretations, there are erroneous interpretations, there are blasphemous interpretations, and simply having the words in our head is not enough. That's why. One of the main ministries of the Holy Spirit is to do what? Is to illuminate our hearts and minds. Is to give us understanding as to what the Word of God means. So Sola Scriptura is not against men teaching. Sola Scriptura is not against creeds and confessions. Sola Scriptura is not against traditions per se. Sola Scriptura is not simply reading the Bible and it's not simply memorizing the Bible. But what Sola Scriptura is talking about is that the Bible is our final and ultimate authority. Now at this point I wanna distinguish again, flush it out a little bit more than we did last week. The difference between Sola Scriptura and Sola Scriptura. Sola Scriptura, what we've been talking about, believes and practices that the Word of God is our final authority given to men. But, with that, we believe that God has given us means by which we understand what the Word of God means. In other words, God gives us what? Teachers. God gives us parents. God gives us books. God gives us commentary. He gives us those things by which we are able to grasp the Word of God. But again, all of these means are subordinate to the Word of God. Means are always servants. Scripture is always the master. Now, Solo, S-O-L-O, Solo Scriptura, however, believes that Scripture's final authority means all they need is the Bible. They don't need teachings from others, they don't need the teachings of pastors and teachers, they don't need the mutual encouragement from other believers, they don't need creeds, they don't need the church, etc., so on and so forth. See the difference? Both believe that Scripture is the final authority. One says, listen, God has given us means in which we gain a proper understanding of the Word of God, while the other one, soulless, says, all I need is me and myself. Okay? Again, let me quote from R.C. Sproul. He says this, and again I gave this last week, he says, there is an Anabaptist error that we call solo scriptura. Here the person affirms all he needs is himself and his Bible. The wisdom of the church in history, the community of believers, are all deemed irrelevant to understanding the things of God. And he goes on to say, "...solo scriptura is reprehensible and ignorant and ahistorical." Now there is a lot there that we could talk about, that we could flesh out, but I'm not going to, and the reason being is you're not solo scriptura. And I can prove it to you. You're here. Right? And you're here every Sunday. And many of you teach, and so you can't be solo scriptura. You are solo scriptura. But let me just put it this way before we move on. And I've got to say this. Practically speaking, nobody can be solo scriptura. It is impossible to be solo scriptura. Okay? The question is, do you recognize that you are needing help, or are you saying you don't need help, but you really do need help? Here's what I mean. Most solo scriptura people that I come across, guess what Bible they're using? They're using an English Bible. What was the Bible written in? Hebrew and Greek. Guess what they're relying on? Translators. They're relying on somebody else to get the Greek and Hebrew and a little bit of Aramaic right. So they're saying, all I need is me and my Bible, but really what are they relying on? The accuracy of the translators who gave them the Word of God that they're using. Now, I'm sure there are some out there who hold the solo scriptura, who know Greek and Hebrew, and so they go to the Greek and Hebrew. But can they be solo scriptura? No! Why? Because if they go to the Greek and Hebrew, they are relying on the teachers who taught them Greek and Hebrew, hoping that those who taught them Greek and Hebrew actually knew what they were talking about. And you might say, okay, well, I didn't learn. See, I'm such a pure solo scripturist. I didn't go to school to learn Greek and Hebrew. I did it on my own. And so really what you're now having to deal with is you have to make sure that the books and the resources that you used were actually accurate. But what are you relying on? Those resources. My point is this, none of us, practically speaking, are solo scriptura. We are all solo scriptura. But the question is this, do we understand what it means and what it doesn't mean? so that we can, as it were, open up the treasure chest of God's gifts of means to us. In other words, man, I could go home and I could put on a sermon, I could understand the Word of God better because of it. Not because I think that sermon is the Word of God, but it helps me understand the Word of God. And then I I put it back in there, and I go in there, and I pick up my commentary, and okay, yeah, it's man's words, it's man's work, but he's helping me understand it. Am I saying it's the Word of God? No. Okay, so I put that back in there, I get a little bit more help, and by the way, the whole time I'm praying. Don't say I'm not praying. The whole time I'm praying. And then I put that back in there, I say, you know what, I want to call up Ken. Ken, what do you think on this text? And we start talking, and this is God's means. Now, why is this so important? Because the Word of God is your final authority, whether you realize it or not. And your final authority has been given to us in extreme clarity, in which God expects us to obey. and to follow. And so what do you need to have in order to obey and follow? You have to have a right understanding of the Word of God. This is further heightened by the fact that you're a faithful people, you're faithful people, and that you come here every Sunday morning, almost. You elk hunter back there. And you come, and you're faithful, and here's what I want you to know. There are means in which you need to be equipped Bereans. I want to say this, a lot of people come up, not here, I've heard a lot of people, not here, want to be Bereans, and they say they're Bereans. But you know what, they're not equipped. They don't know the Word of God. And you need to be equipped Bereans to check everything I say. You need to be equipped to check everything Ken and Tim say. You need to be equipped to check everything that you hear on the internet. Everything you hear through your favorite preachers and teachers and authors. See, God has given it to us so that we would be able to know rightly the Word of God. And our time is quickly fleeing crazy. Let's talk about the sufficiency of Scripture quickly. What we mean by sufficiency of Scripture is that God has given to us all that we need for life and godliness through the Word of God. There's nothing, nothing, nothing that the world offers that adds to the Word of God. There's nothing that they offer that changes it. There's nothing that they offer that enhances it. The Word of God is pure and unadulterated. It is undefiled. It is unstained. It is unpolluted. It is the very pure words of God. And if you believe that this is from God, then you have to stand up and say, God has given you everything you need. If not, God has been insufficient to you. And nobody wants to make that statement, do we? Listen, here's the question. Do you actively, daily, go to the Word of God and say, listen, God, I'm having a bad day emotionally. God, I'm having a bad day financially. God, I'm having a bad day physically. God, I'm having a bad day whatever it is. Do you understand that God's Word is sufficient for that? to come along and tell you, and to inform you, and to encourage you, and to comfort you, and to do all that you need. Listen, the following words, statement I'm going to read to you was given by a commentator on the Old Testament prophets, but it very well could have been spoken of the Roman Catholic Church. Listen to what it says. Throughout the prophetic literature, we notice a common theme. The false prophets tell the people what they want to hear. Then they baptize it with God's name and serve it up as God's latest Word to His people. Listen, when we say, thus saith the Lord, what follows better be the Word of God. When we stand up and we say, this is the Word of God, we are saying, this is binding, authoritative truth that is sufficient for our lives. Listen, the Word of God was breathed out by God. The Word of God comes with the authority of God. God judges us based upon the likeness of our life to the Word of God. We have to live under the reality that God has given us this sufficient Word for our life, for our doctrine, the way we live and what we believe. And I've just got to say this, if we believe Sola Scriptura is true, then all of our doctrines, all of our theological positions need to be willing to be examined and challenged by the Word of God. If we are relying on what we believe based upon what we were taught back then, are we practically any different than the Roman Catholic Church were us in the Reformation? Absolutely not. We must have the Word of God as our authority. When we confess that only Scripture has authority, what are we speaking about? The totality of the Word of God. Every part of the Word of God has authority over our lives. As we said last week, we've been given an amazing gift in Scripture. It's an amazing gift. It's a gift that We need a prize, we need a value. No, we do not worship the Bible, we worship the God of the Bible. But we understand to worship God, we have to know the scriptures, we have to be in the scriptures, we have to study the scriptures, we've got to get the right meaning of the scriptures. Now I want you to think about this for a minute, we'll close up with this. God was proactive. in revealing his word to us. Our job is to be proactive in submitting to that word. I want you to stop for a second. God has given to us his word that is infallible, that is inerrant, it is sufficient, it is authoritative, What is our response to this? I'm gonna give you your third point really quickly. The third point is submission. If the Word of God is all of that, what is our job? What is our duty? It's to submit. You say, okay, what does submit mean? What does that look like? I'll speak to you parents for a moment what that means. That means exactly what you mean when you tell your child to obey. You expect them to do it. You expect them to do it with a happy heart, with a good attitude, with joy. Because though they don't know it yet, mom and dad do know better. And if mom and dad knows better, how much more is your Heavenly Father. And so, Sola Scriptura, again, is not something we leave back to the 16th century. But it's something that ought to impact and transform our very daily practices by which we get into the Word of God. Because we know it's sufficient for our life and for our doctrine. And whatever it says, what do we do? whatever it says. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We confess that we are not in it as we ought. We confess that we do not know it like we should. We take it for granted. Help us, Father, to not do that. Help us, Father, to treasure Your Word more than gold and silver. May we treasure Your Word more than our friends. May we treasure Your Word more than all the other activities that are out there. And Lord, we know that there's nothing wrong with those things. But Your Word must, must be Lord of our lives. So that when we are doing those things, we know exactly what You expect of us in those situations. You teach us how we should think and how we should live and act. I pray, Father, that this week, no matter how good or how bad last week was in relation to us being in Your Word, that this week would be better. And I pray, Lord, that You would, as we read and study, as we talk about Your Word, that You would give us understanding so that we would have the right knowledge of what Your Word says and what it means. We know that we cannot do that apart from the Spirit that indwells us. Help us to live in daily and moment-by-moment conscious awareness of our need of You. Lord, I thank You for the Reformers. Thank You for the Puritans. Thank You for what they stood for. Thank You for the sacrifices of them and men like the Covenanters. But Lord, as I see them, I see Your faithfulness to Your Word. I see Your faithfulness to keep and preserve that which You've started. And so Lord, we close this prayer by declaring our trust in Your Word, that Christ built His church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Lord, may we live this week with such bold confidence in Your Word. We ask this in the name of Jesus, our wonderful, matchless Savior. Amen.