Well, we have this topic this evening of They Have Moses and the Prophets, and we would like to speak on the subject of, or the doctrine rather, of the sufficiency of Scripture. And I would like to begin by giving a brief overview of the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. What do we mean when we say that the scripture is sufficient. I'd like to begin here by looking at some key scriptures for the sufficiency of scripture and what will come in a little to Luke chapter 16. You might turn to 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 15 through 17. Here Paul is speaking to Timothy, his son in the faith, and he says that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect Thoroughly furnished unto all good works you notice there Paul speaks of the scriptures which are able to make the wise unto salvation notice also the the third last word there and the inverse 17 all Good works the scripture is profitable unto With the blessing of the spirit of course unto all good works. It is enough. It is sufficient You might go also to Paul's epistle to the Galatians chapter one, that well-known and solemn warning that he gives in verses eight and nine. Galatians one, verse eight, Paul says, but though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." And then he repeats it, as we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. Even though it would be an angel from heaven that would come and speak, anything in addition to, anything that would take away from the gospel that has been received, that angel is to be accursed. You see then the sufficiency of the scriptures of the Old and New Testament. In addition to that, you also have the several passages in the Bible that warn very solemnly against either adding or subtracting. And again, behind that you see that the scripture is sufficient, that you don't add to it, you don't take from it. It's interesting too that when you look at the three verses in scripture that speak to, or that warn against adding or subtracting, you find one in the law, one in the prophets, and one in the very last book of the Bible. You have Deuteronomy 4 verse 2, The Lord says, ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you. And then Proverbs 30 verses five and six, every word of God is pure. He is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar." And then you know that the warning right in the last chapter of scripture, Revelation 22, that solemn warning of the Lord saying he will add the plagues that are written in this book to the person who adds to the scripture. He will take away the name or the person from the book of life, the one who takes away from the scripture. And all of that is telling us the scripture is perfect, the scripture is complete, and the scripture is sufficient. Not only you may not, you must not add to it. You must not take from it. Now, when we're thinking of summarizing this doctrine, we can't do any better than our confessions. And I won't read the whole of the Article 7 of the Belgic Confession, but let's read the first part of that. Belgic Confession, Article 7, the first part. We believe that those holy scriptures fully contain the will of God and that whatsoever man ought to believe unto salvation is sufficiently taught therein. For since the whole manner of worship which God requires of us is written in them at large. It is unlawful for anyone, though an apostle, to teach otherwise than we are now taught in the Holy Scriptures. We find the same truth in the Westminster Confession, chapter 1, paragraph 6. I'll just read the first part of that to you. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture, unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Well, let's try to draw, before we look more directly at Luke 16, let's draw some conclusions and observations from these scriptures and from the confessions. The first thing that's clear is this, that when we speak about the sufficiency of scripture, when we say that scripture is sufficient, we mean that it is sufficient for the purpose for which it was given. It is sufficient for the purpose for which it was given. So Paul says to Timothy that they are able to make the wise unto salvation. The Westminster Confession limits the sufficiency of scripture to all things necessary for God's own glory, faith and life. So in other words, the Bible is not a manual that tells us about everything. It's not It doesn't tell us everything about science or biology or something like that, but that was never its purpose. It's limited to God's glory, faith and life. The second conclusion is this, that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice. We use that word very deliberately. It is our only rule of faith and practice. Listen to Benjamin Warfield. Speaking of the sufficiency of scripture, he says, this is to make scripture something more than a rule of faith and practice, something more than the rule of faith and practice, in the sense of merely the fullest and best extant rule, something more than even a sufficient rule of faith and practice. It is to make it the only rule of faith and practice to which nothing needs to be added to fit it to serve as our rule and to which nothing is to be added to make it altogether complete. as our authoritative law. It contains not only enough to serve all the purposes of a rule of faith and practice, but all that is to be laid as the authoritative law of life on the consciences of Christians. I understand there's a lot there, but the sufficiency of Scripture is teaching that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice. A third conclusion would be this, and this is coming out of the Westminster Confession. What can be deduced by good and necessary consequence is included in this sufficient rule. Now here we're speaking, and the confession is speaking against something you might call biblicism. Now we all want to be biblical. We all want to go to the scripture as our only rule of faith and practice, but we're speaking against something called biblicism. This is where people would come and they would say, well, okay, the Bible is sufficient. The Bible's enough. But where in the Bible does it say that we ought to baptize infants? Show me the verse that says God changed the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day of the week. And of course, the answer is that the Bible is sufficient to answer these questions, but it does so by drawing on good, a necessary consequence. I mean, you could ask the same question and you can see where this would lead. If you push this to its logical conclusion, where in the Bible does it say that God is Trinity? Where in the Bible does it say that woman can sit at the Lord's table? Where is the verse? But you can deduce, and we must deduce these things by good and necessary consequence. The Lord Jesus did the same. He's speaking to the Sadducees. The Sadducees do not believe in the resurrection. And the Lord quotes Exodus 3, verse 6 to them. Moreover, he said, quoting Exodus, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now, where in that text do you find any express reference to the bodily resurrection? And yet the Lord Jesus uses that text and by good and necessary consequence, silences the Sadducees and proves the resurrection. Where is Abraham at the time God speaks to Moses? Well, he's dead. He's not alive. And yet the Lord here does not say, I was the God of Abraham. The Lord notes that he says, I am the God of Abraham. And here now is the good and the necessary consequence or conclusion. But this God, Jehovah, he is not the God of the dead, but of the living. What does that tell you about Abraham? Abraham lives. And Abraham will have the fullness of life, body and soul. So we need, in our sufficiency of scripture, in our doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture, we need a place for this good and necessary consequence. A fourth conclusion from the sufficiency of scripture is this. The sufficiency of scripture undergirds the regulative principle of worship. That principle that you know that we need not and more than that we must not add anything to God's worship which he has not required from us in his word. either expressly or by good and necessary consequence. The best confessional statement on this, as far as I'm aware, is the Heidelberg Catechism, Lordsay 35, question 96. What does God require in the second commandment? That we in no wise represent God by images, nor worship him in any other way than he has commanded in his word. The Belgic Confession that we read made it explicit. It told us concerning the sufficiency of Scripture that for since the whole manner of worship which God requires of us is written in them at large, it is unlawful for any, though an apostle, to teach otherwise than we are taught in the Holy Scripture. So practically, whatever we do in worship, we must be able to say God requires this from me in his word. And if we cannot say that, we ought not to do it. The elements of worship that we find in scripture are clear. We have the reading and preaching of God's word. We have the singing of the Psalms and we have the praying for things agreeable to God's will in the name of Christ. And we have the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. So the sufficiency of Scripture undergirds the regulative principle. And I want to note here, last conclusion, is the two great enemies to the sufficiency of Scripture that were highlighted for us in the Westminster Confession. And these are the traditions of men and people who claim new revelation. And you might think, well, that's You know, that's far off from us. We don't claim new revelation. And we don't seek to uphold the traditions of men. We might look at the Roman Catholic Church, and no doubt they are the most egregious in terms of the tradition. Roman Catholicism, as you know, gives the church equal authority with the scriptures, and indeed It supersedes the authority of the scriptures. In other words, the Bible's good, but it's not enough. You need the church to give you more. There's also people who claim special revelation. And again, you might think, well, you think of the charismatic movement, and you say, well, yeah, there's the people that claim to have new revelation. God spoke to me, and he told me this, and this is the word of God. But I think we have to recognize, too, how close these enemies of the sufficiency of Scripture come all the way to our own hearts. As Calvin said, our own hearts are factories of idols. And we need to hear this time and again to the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. It might express itself this kind of way. You know, the Lord spoke to my heart. And then you ask and you inquire and you realize this is not, we're not speaking about the Bible here. It's not a text that has been blessed. It's just someone who feels something. And it can even come to this, the Lord told me to tell you. And so suddenly you have the voice of the Lord coming to you from someone else. And it's, as it were, a new revelation. This is denying practically the sufficiency of scripture. There's also the danger of coming to this as our sort of ultimate authority. This is the way it's always been. Now I'm a conservative. I want to conserve what's good and best about our own tradition, both here in the Dutch Reformed and the Scots tradition also. But we all have to consciously come and say, where in the scripture do we find this? We have to recognize a real temptation here. Temptation that is sweeping across the church today at large. The danger of adding to scripture, the danger of adding to God's worship. And oftentimes we have to acknowledge, oftentimes for what might seem to be good, pragmatic, even devotional reason. You know, the Lord has blessed me here. Good ideas, creative ideas, people speak about people with good intentions. This will hold the people. This will keep the youth. This will keep the seniors happy. Now, we want to keep the youth in our church. We want the seniors to be, to have true happiness, of course, but more than anything else, We should want to please God and do what he says and give honor, the honor that his word deserves and demands. Well, let's move now for the rest of our time to look at this passage here in Luke chapter 16. And here we have really this conclusion concerning the sufficiency of scripture that Christ in all the scripture is sufficient to make a sinner wise unto salvation. Christ in all the scripture is sufficient to make a sinner wise unto salvation. Now understood here is the necessity of the work of the Spirit of God. It's understood that as our brother said, we can have the Word in our head, we can have it in our minds and that's good, but we need more. We need the Word to be blessed to us by the powerful, sovereign work of the Holy Spirit of God, applying that Word powerfully, making a people willing in a day of His sovereign power. But in terms of the of this doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture, this is true, that Christ in all the Scripture is sufficient to make a sinner wise unto salvation. And when we begin, especially as we look at this passage, when we begin to see this, we realize how vitally important it is that we bring the Word of God to people. I remember an apologetics professor saying one time in class, If God ever removes his word from any people, God is saying that people are damned. And that's the teaching of scripture. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. If there's no word of God, then there is no knowledge of sin and misery, there is no knowledge of deliverance, and there is certainly no gratitude. If God's Word does not come to any people, the people are lost. And so that's why we pray and we seek to support work such as this in the Trinitarian Bible Society, work of translating the Scripture, of getting the Scripture into the languages of people so that they can read it. This Word that is being translated, as our brother said, is totally different to any other work It's a living word. It's not the Lord said, it's the Lord saith. As the Holy Ghost saith, Hebrews 3, 7 says. Quoting Psalm 95, a Psalm of David. And even there in Psalm 95, pointing back to the wilderness generation. Today if you hear my voice, harden not your heart. And David says, today, But when we read in Hebrews 3, 7, we don't read that the Holy Ghost said, we read that the Holy Ghost saith. It's a living word. It speaks, it's powerful. He saith today, if you will hear my voice, harden not your hearts. It is imperative that we get this word into the language of people so that they can read it because the Spirit makes the reading. especially the preaching of the word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners. Well, you look at the sufficiency of scripture. And here in this passage in Luke chapter 16, you see also then this critical importance of the translation and the distribution, the proclamation of the scriptures is highlighted here in the solemn parable. At Luke 16, 27, let's read some of these verses again. Then he said, I pray thee, therefore, Father, that thou wouldest send him, Lazarus, to my father's house. For I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses, and the prophets let them hear them. And he said, Nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Now here consider the solemn reality of the existence of heaven and hell. Something we could never have known about, except we had the scriptures. Now we don't know everything about heaven, we don't know everything about hell. but we know enough. We have a sufficient knowledge to know that these places are real. There is a glorious heaven. There is a place where Christ is worshipped in the beauty of holiness with no sin, with no pain, with no suffering, with no night there. There is a place where God's people see the King in his beauty. And the land of far distances, as Isaiah I think 33 says, but there is also an awful hell. That's not something that's popular, but there is a place of tremendous pain and everlasting woe. There is a lake that burns with fire unquenchable. There is a place where the worm of an accusing conscience will never die. And the words here are so solemn. Here's this man in verse 23, we read, And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments. Being in torments. What an awful expression. What an awful reality. Being in torments. This place of torment, he says, with not a drop of water to cool his burning tongue. It's clear from scripture to that there is no other state. There is no other eternal state. There's no soul sleep. There's no purgatory. There's no limbo. There's no annihilation. These are things that have been added to Scripture or are taking away of Scripture's truth. There is a heaven and there is a hell. And there is no passing from the one to the other. One of the most solemn things about this place, listen to this man in hell. In verse 24, what's he crying for? He's crying for mercy. He's crying for the same mercy that the publican cried for a couple of chapters later here in Luke 18. God be merciful to me a sinner. That was a cry of faith looking to the sacrifice of Christ. Here's a man who's heard the word and he's crying out for mercy in hell. and there's not a drop of water to cool his tongue. There is no mercy in hell. What an awful thing to have heard about mercy your whole life long and to come to a place where finally there is no mercy for you. There's a great gulf fixed, Abraham says in verse 26, so that they that would pass from hence to you cannot. Neither can they pass to us that would come from thence. My dear friends, this is not an academic discussion we're having. These things have eternal reality behind them and in them. But what's very clear from the Word of God is this, that it is your relationship to the Christ of Scripture on this side of the grave that determines whether you go to heaven when you die or if you go to hell when you die. It is your relationship to the Christ of Scripture, not the Christ of our imagination, not the Christ that people make up and speak about, but the Christ of Scripture, this side of the grave that determines whether sinners go to heaven or to hell. Look at these men again. Christ gives us these two men and what a contrast he paints, what a contrast there was in their life. The one man, he had it all, we would say. He lives in luxury. He's clothed in purple, a royal color. He's very affluent. The other man, he has nothing but wounds, sores, dogs to lick the wounds. He's begging for food. What a difference in their life. What a difference at their death. I understand that one level, there's no difference at death. Death is the great leveler. Thus to thus, Psalm 49, thus to thus, thus the mortal dies, both the foolish and the wise, none forever can remain, each must leave his hoarded gain. But in terms of the funeral, the one man, outwardly at least, the beggar, he had no official funeral, no death announcement most likely, no family around him, perhaps some Generous man buried him. Probably most people were happy that he was gone. He was a pest and a nuisance to them. But the other man, you can well imagine his ceremony, you can well imagine his funeral. The great pomp, the great oration that's made for him, the great eulogizing. Telling everyone how funny he was, how kind he was, how generous he was, and assuring everyone that while we'll miss him, firmly believe that he's gone to a better place. But now look at the contrast. Look at the contrast on the other side. Look at the contrast that scripture gives us. And even as this rich man's family are eulogizing, saying what a wonderful man he was, saying how he never, his place in the synagogue was never empty, verse 23, in hell, He lift up his eyes being in torments. The word being there is the same word for possessing. It's very striking. A man's life does not consist in the abundance of things that he possesseth. Same word. And you think of all that he possessed, this rich man, but what does he possess now? The money's gone. The friends have gone, the family's gone, the luxury's gone, the wealth has gone. He possesses torments. But Lazarus, he had no one to care for him. But look at him now, what a contrast. Now angels, ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation. Angels come and carry him, not down, but up, up into Abraham's bosom. Lazarus, he died, he breathed his last in this world, he closed his eyes in death, but when he opened them, there he was in Abraham's bosom, the souls of believers that at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass into glory and their bodies still united to Christ rest in the grave until the resurrection. What a change, what a contrast. But notice that what made all the difference was not the riches the one man had, it was not the poverty the other man had. The rich man did not go to hell because he was rich. The poor man did not go to heaven because he was poor. What made all the difference was their relationship to the Christ of Scripture. Now both these men had Scripture. The Pharisee, the rich man, he had much more of it. He had the whole scroll. He had all the books. He no doubt had memorized much, if not all of it. He thought of himself a teacher, no doubt. I know the Bible. I know the truth. God has blessed me and favored me with this. But this beggar, what would he say of this beggar? Perhaps with just a few scraps of the prophet Isaiah there. This beggar in the street, what do we say of him? Who sinned? Him or his parents that he is in this kind of state? Yet the whole time the God of the Bible was saying to the rich man, I never knew you. But Lazarus, he goes to Abraham's bosom. He believed in the one who came from Abraham's seed. He was blessed with father Abraham. He sits down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God. My dear friend, it is not enough simply to have or to read the scriptures, and we must have them, and we must read them, but we must come to believe and to love the Christ they proclaim. But look now in verses 27 through to 31, look at the view that heaven has of scripture, and look at the view that hell has of scripture. And behind that we have to see the attitude to the Christ of scripture. Here's the rich man in hell and he realizes there's no way to get out of this place. There's no drop of water to cool my tongue. But then into his gnawing conscience comes the realization the worst is not yet. The family I've left behind, those over which I was the head of the home, they're coming here too. And they're coming here as those who are under my authority. And he knows what they're going to say. It's your fault. You're the one that led me in sin. You're the one that did not point me to the Christ of Scripture. You deceived us. You brought us to this place. And so this man begins to think of a way, a plan he tries to devise to have his his five brethren not come to this place. Now listen to what this man basically says about the scripture. He says the Bible is not enough. That's what he's saying here. He's saying my brothers, they know Lazarus. You need to do something else. They'll recognize Lazarus if you send him from the dead. If he comes back from the dead, they'll know who he is and he can tell them about the reality of what he's seen in heaven and the reality of where I am here in hell. And notice what he says, they will repent. They will repent. This is a method that will work. He's saying they have the Bible. They're memorizing it. They're reading it. They know it. I did too. But listen, Abraham, they need something more. The Bible will not work. It's not enough. Look, it did not work for me. I read it. I studied it. I memorized it. I taught it to others. And look where I am. If there was just something more, something extra, something spectacular, something that would get their attention. It's a miracle. some superhuman experience, then I would have believed and they will believe. But all I had was the Bible. It's the same so-called evangelism that will knock on your door and say, the Bible's good, but you also need the watchtower. It's the same thing the Roman Catholics will tell us when you say, the Bible's good, but you need our tradition and our church. It's the same thing we find in our own hearts when we say we believe the Bible, but there's something more than the scriptures that we need. The evangelism of hell says you need to find a way to make the gospel relevant. Listen to John Murray. He says the attempt to reconstruct the gospel so that it will be relevant. Now he's speaking back in the 50s and 60s. The attempt to reconstruct the gospel so that it will be relevant is the capital sin of our generation. It is because we have not esteemed and prized the perfection of scripture and its finality that we have resorted to other techniques expedients and methods of dealing with the dilemma that confronts us all if we are alive to the needs of the hour. Some rely on our heritage and tradition. Others have been so influenced by the flabbiness of present day thinking that witness to the whole counsel of God has suffered at these points both of breadth and of depth. We used to say that so much religion is miles wide but only an inch deep. It's not even miles wide anymore. What would Marie say now? But he says here, when we are tethered to the Word of God as our sufficient rule for faith and practice, there will be a commanding relevance. For it will be the message from God in the unction and power of the Spirit, not derived from the modern mentality but declared to the modern mentality and all the desperateness of its anxiety and misery. Hell says the Bible is not enough, you need something more. Let us watch this and guard against this because heaven says the Bible is enough. Isn't that what Abraham is saying? Your five brethren have all that they need. to not come to this awful place of woe. Verse 29, he says, they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. You know, Christ in Proverbs chapter 8, as wisdom says, who so findeth me, findeth life. Who so findeth me, findeth life. You find Christ, you find life. You have Christ for your soul. You have life. Where do you find them? Where do you find Christ? Where do you find the Savior? Here, Abram is saying they have Moses and they have the prophets. It's not from an angel from heaven, Paul says to the Galatians. It's not somebody saying, well, here is Christ or there is Christ. Don't believe them. Many false Christs have gone into the world. It's not from some spectacular thing happening. Where do you find Christ? Moses and the prophets. They have Moses. You go to the first five books of the Bible and you find Christ in them. You find Christ as the creator of the ends of the earth. You find the fall of man, that which explains our sin and our misery and our depravity. But there in Genesis 3 do you not also find the promise of the seed of the woman. that will crush and bruise the serpent's head. You will find Christ in Genesis. You will find him in Exodus. You will find him as the Passover lamb. There is the angel of death going from home to home, every home. The Egyptians and the Israelites, the angel of death visits every home. But you find with the blood of the sacrifice on the doorposts and the lintels, the angel of death passing over, when I see the blood I will pass over you. There's Christ, the great Passover lamb. You find them in Leviticus. You find there that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. You see in Leviticus with the sheer complexity of the sacrifices, you need to do this. If it's this kind of sin, if it's that kind of sin, you do this. And there's this complexity. Sin is not easy to get rid of. This sin is something that is difficult, but you find in Leviticus that there's life in the blood, pointing to the great sacrifice of Christ. And you'll find them in numbers. In the city of refuge, a place for your soul, a place of refuge for your soul. You find them in Deuteronomy, the great prophet raised up like unto Moses. Where do you find Christ? They have Moses. They have the prophets. You want to escape, you need to escape from the wrath to come. They have Moses, they have the prophets, they have Isaiah. They have Isaiah saying that a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and as a cover from the tempest, and as rivers of water in a dry place, and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Who is that? Of whom does the prophet speak? They have Isaiah. They have Isaiah telling them that All we like sheep have gone astray, and we have turned everyone to our own way, but the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. They have Jeremiah. They have Jeremiah speaking about Jehovah said, can you, the Lord, our righteousness. You have Ezekiel speaking about the plant of renown. They have the prophets. Let them hear them. Christ says, whoso findeth me, findeth life. But my dear friend, if you do not find Christ in the Scriptures, in the Bible, you will find him nowhere else. Though an angel would come from heaven, though Lazarus would rise from the dead. It really is such a tremendous statement about the depravity of man, is it not? You would not believe though a man rose from the dead and told you the truth, though one of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs rose from the dead and said, I have been in a lost eternity for thousands of years, and it is still the wrath which is to come. Repent and believe the gospel. You would not believe. Christopher Hitchens was a militant atheist. He wrote a book called God is Not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything. What if he rose from the dead? And he came and he told his fellow atheists and he told us, this is true. The Bible is true. I'm in a place of eternal misery. They would not believe. One of your own, somebody you knew, comes back from the dead, a family member comes back from the dead and tells you about the reality of eternity, you would not believe. What would they say now? What if there were people now saying, go tell my son, go tell my daughter, go tell my friend, go tell my husband, go tell my wife that they are to repent and believe. They'll believe if they see somebody rise from the dead. What would they say now? They have Moses. They have the prophets. They have the New Testament. They have the Gospels that tell you about the birth and the life and the suffering and the death and the resurrection and the ascension and the life of Christ, of Jesus of Nazareth. And they have Acts that tells us about how Christ, the ascended Christ, continues to teach and to work and how this Gospel has transformed sinners by the powerful work of the Spirit of God. They have Romans that so clearly, with such tight reasoning, tells us about sin. All have sinned, whether you're Jew or Gentile, and come short of the glory of God. There's not a man here who can do good and who does not sin. And yet that tells us so clearly that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Christ Jesus our Lord. And you have Hebrews. Hebrews that keeps telling us that Christ is better. He's better than the angels. He's better than Moses. He's better than Aaron. Telling you not about many different sacrifices that are needed to deal with the complexity of your own sin and misery, but about one sacrifice. about one shed blood that does what all the blood of bulls and of goats could never do, that takes away sin. They have revelation that shows the destruction of this world and the victory that there is in Christ. You have the overtures of mercy. You have a full and free salvation proclaimed in Christ. You have Christ not simply in types and shadows, but Christ the reality. In Christ you have This is what they would say. You have one who did die. You have one who took the very pains of hell itself. No drop of water to cool his tongue on the cross. One who died and was buried. And one who by the power of an endless life rose again and lives forever and was seen by hundreds. and lives now in heaven above and says, I am he that was dead and I'm alive and I'm alive forevermore. And yet what's the effect? Some believe and some believe not. This is the sufficiency of scripture. The scripture is enough. It's enough to tell us about the reality of sin, of death, of hell, the wages of sin, but also of Christ and of salvation and of life in him and heaven and resurrection and glory. What about those people who don't have Moses? Who don't have the prophets? Who don't have the New Testament? Yes, let us support. Let us pray for the work of the Trinitarian Bible Society. that this word would get to the people who don't have it, to the law and to the testimony, that they speak not according to this word. There is no light for them. The Hebrew word is there's no morning for them. They remain in darkness. They never see light. Let me close with a quote by the English reformer John Jewell. Are you a father? Have you children? Read the scriptures. Are you a king? Read the scriptures. Are you a minister? Read the scriptures. Has God blessed you with wealth? Read the scriptures. Are you a usurer? Read the scriptures. Are you a fornicator? Read the scriptures. Are you in adversity? Read the scriptures. Are you a sinner? Have you offended God? Read the scriptures. Do you despair of the mercy of God? Read the scriptures. Are you going out of life? Read the scriptures. Amen.