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Matthew 4, beginning at verse
1. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to
be tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted 40 days
and 40 nights, afterward he was hungry. Now when the tempter
came to him, he said, if you are the Son of God, command that
these stones become bread. But he answered and said, it
is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every
word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Let's pray. Father God,
we thank you for your scriptures. They are such an encouragement.
We love the promises in your word. We love the instructions
for science. We love every aspect of how your
word is a lamp unto our feet. And we pray that as we dig into
this passage, that our hearts would be stirred up, not only
to adore you for all of your goodness and your wisdom and
your generosity to us, but we would also be motivated to look
deeply into your word as a paradigm for life. And so we pray for
the anointing of your Holy Spirit upon my speaking, as well as
upon our hearing hearts. And we pray it in the strong
name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. People tend
to live only to the height of where their vision is. And so
if you're not convinced that God is going to make the nations
live according to God's law again, you're probably not going to
strive that hard to make a difference to that end. If you're not convinced
that the Bible speaks about science, you're probably not going to
notice where the Bible speaks to that subject. because you're
not looking for it. Our vision tends to limit how
we live. It tends to limit how we think.
It's one of the reasons why I think dads You know, don't notice the
kid that's screaming across the way because their vision can
be focused in so tightly on a narrow thing. Well, let me use an illustration
on myself. I have to many times ask Kathy,
would you please come over to the office? I know it's here,
but I cannot find it. And one of my problems is I will
see a book as being read and it's not red, but because I think
it's red in my head, I am looking and looking. It's right there
in front of me, but I cannot see it. And our mind tends to
filter things out. It tends to, because we're not
omniscient, our mind has to function that way, but it tends to filter
things out that are not a part of the paradigm, that are not
a part of the vision that is driving us. And so we're gonna
be looking at expanding our vision so that we can live more broadly
than we ought. Now, I was blessed by missionary
parents who really had a much broader vision than a lot of
missionaries in Ethiopia that we grew up with. He was always
driven by a future perspective. And so my dad would plant fruit
trees Even though he knew he was going to be moving on to
another station later on. And people say, why would you
plant a fruit tree? You're not even going to be able to eat from this. And
he was saying, yeah, but there will be other people in the future
who will be able to be benefited by this. The way he taught made
sure that he multiplied the teaching. So he taught people to teach
others, to teach others. And he taught in terms of the
Scriptures applying much more broadly than other people tended
to do, and the results have been pretty phenomenal. That was about
60 years ago. There were a handful of churches
in Kambatha province, and Over the last two or three years,
I've been in contact with one of the church leaders there,
and this guy says that now, 60 years later, over 95% of Kambata
province is solidly Christian. A little over 90% of the neighboring
province is solidly Christian as well. And my father, even
though he was very farsighted and applying the scriptures as
broadly as he could, probably had no idea that things would
grow to this extent. And so the church there is having
to wrestle with questions that they had never thought about
before. Things like city planning, what does the Bible say? Things
like what are the limits of civil government? What are the limits
of church government? And if you were a missionary, would
you be able to give answers to people who queried you on things
like that? Could you answer their questions
on why female circumcision is wrong? Or why it's really not
a good health thing to be pulling the uvula out of your kid's throat
by a thread that's tied around it. That's a practice that's
frequently done in some of those Ethiopian tribes. Could you give
them answers from the Bible? Now, my dad was teaching from
the Scripture. He had gotten the churches there
to the point where they were going to forbid female circumcision,
which is an abominable practice that has caused many deaths for
women down through the years. And it's still being practiced,
especially in Muslim countries, something you need to be aware
of and be in opposition to. But he had almost gotten the
church to that point. And some young buck missionary
came along and said, oh, no, that's cultural. The Bible does
not speak to that. And he got them to not make that
decision. And this is an area that is really
passionate for me that's passed on from my parents. The Bible
speaks to all of life. It certainly speaks to issues
like that. And people who especially are
in leadership need to be able to give answers to those kinds
of questions. I talked with the chief of a
village of Dalits in India, and he begged me for teaching on
how to rule his village from a biblical viewpoint. Now, his
entire village had become Christian. And he wanted to glorify God
in the various things that that village was engaged in. But he
said, all I know is the Hindu way of doing things. And I've
asked Western missionaries to give us some information. And
the Western missionaries were absolutely no help because all
they were talking about was evangelism, some personal growth issues,
maybe some church issues. I was the first missionary that
was actually giving them answers on what the Bible said about
economics and starting businesses in their village and civics and
questions like that. And the problem was that missionaries
had not learned how to live by every word that proceeds out
of the mouth of God. I talked with a brilliant Indian
by the name of Vishal Mangalwadi, and I've mentioned him to you
in the past. He was converted to Christianity by trying to
figure out why the West was so blessed in technology, art, music,
science, liberty, education, so many different areas. And
he discovered that it was the Bible that was the foundation
for virtually everything that he admired in the West. And what
shocked him, absolutely shocked him, was that the West was no
longer looking to the Bible in any of those departments. When
he came to the West, he was troubled and saddened that Christians
hardly applied the Bible to anything. He was shocked to find out pastors
didn't even know the Bible did apply to science and music and
so many other disciplines. And he predicts that we are going
to be losing the amazing fruits, the beautiful fruits of Western
civilization unless we get back to the roots of the Bible. And
he's written a fabulous book on how the Bible really is what?
Not Christianity, because Christianity was not always consistent with
the Bible. But when they were willing to take the Bible seriously,
that it had produced these wonderful fruits. Now he's talked to many
church leaders about this, but they're not interested in sola
scriptura. And so he said that the sun is
setting on the West because we are no longer living by every
word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. It's really sad
that it's a third world scholar that has to rebuke the church
of the West. Now what about ordinary day to
day issues? When families need counseling,
where do they typically go? Rarely do they go to the pastor
who is schooled in the Bible for counseling. They go to a
psychologist who is schooled in the wisdom of the world. When
Christians start businesses, where do they go for wisdom?
Rarely do they go to the massive amounts of information found
in the Bible on economics, administration, advertising, hiring principles,
sales principles, and leadership principles. They go to secular
wisdom. Why? the church is no longer
used to applying the Bible to all of life like they did in
centuries past. You go through just about every
discipline from grade school through to the university and
you will discover that Christians follow the teachings of humanism,
not the teachings of the Bible. In fact, they don't even know
how to dig into the Bible. You go to Christian college hoping
that the Christian college is going to teach you something
Christian which means biblical. No, no, no. Christian education
doesn't mean biblical education to them. It's really humanism
in a nice environment, in an environment where maybe occasionally
you'll speak about the Bible, but you don't apply the Bible
to those disciplines, and so they're not used to living by
sola scriptura. Well, we're going to dig into
this passage, and I think by the end of this time, it's my
prayer that you will be so excited about the sufficiency of Scripture
that it'll motivate you to dig into it and to apply these questions
to every area of life. Let me give you a little bit
of background before we dig into the verse. And the first thing
I want to mention is that Jesus was quoting this from Deuteronomy
chapter 8. And the connection between Deuteronomy
8 and Matthew 4 is very, very strong. There is a symbolic connection
between the two. Just as Israel was tempted and
tested in the wilderness, Jesus was being tempted and tested
in the wilderness. Just as there was a nation under
Moses that really was not looking to God for wisdom, they were
looking to Egypt. You find the same thing in Matthew
chapter 4. John the Baptist and Jesus have
been having to call Israel to repentance and treating them
like pagans. Why? Because they're living like pagans.
Just as Deuteronomy 8 shows a leader trying to direct people's eyes
to the Lord after a period of fasting, 40 days of fasting for
Moses, Jesus was trying to lead and direct the eyes of the people
to the Lord after a period of fasting as well, 40 days of fasting. Both passages call us to faith
and prayer and dependence upon God and humility before God and
other issues that we won't get into this morning. Both passages
deal with how easy it is for Satan to suck us away from dependence
upon God into independent living and thinking. And both passages
deal with the fact that the Bible is designed to guide our thinking
on every facet of life. So, I don't want you to think
that Jesus is doing eisegesis as if he's doing bad proof texting,
taking a verse out of context and applying it to the devil.
No, he is very faithfully applying the Word of God. The second thing
that I want to do before we dig into the passage is to show four
things that Jesus is not saying in Matthew 4. Jesus is not saying
that we can ignore the need for bread. I think the word alone
implies the exact opposite. Man shall not live by bread alone
implies we do need to live by bread, right? So when God had
Israel fast in Deuteronomy 8, he was not denying that they
needed bread. In fact, he commanded them to
seek bread and he promised to provide bread for them. What
he was doing was he was testing whether they would have an absolute
dependence upon him in every area of life, including eating
and drinking. He commanded Israel to seek bread
in his time. and in his way. OK, so Deuteronomy
8 makes it clear that even the issues of eating have to conform
to scripture. That's the point I think that
Jesus was making. Secondly, Jesus is not saying
that we don't need to make a living. I think that's implied by the
alone as well, and certainly the context of Deuteronomy 8
mandated that Israel work hard to make a living to work to earn
money for their families. Jesus spent the first 30 years
of his life working as a carpenter and if that carpentry was not
important to God he would not have had Jesus doing this, engaged
in this way. If you remember when Jesus was
12 years old, he told his parents, I must be about my father's business.
And his father's business is understanding the word, applying
the word, but he goes back and he engages in carpentry. which
means his carpentry was being about his father's business,
but it was always under the authority of the word, and so there was
no secular, sacred divide in Jesus's life. And if you don't
think that the Bible says much about carpentry, I've got in
my file a paper that I can probably dig out and photocopy for you. It was done by a friend of mine
up in Canada, and he was a teacher in a Christian school for, yeah,
carpentry, It was all the different shop disciplines. So he wrote
this paper, wow, the Bible says a great deal about these kinds
of trades. Whether we eat or drink or whatever
we do, we're to do all to the glory of God. And the only way
we know how to glorify God is in the Bible. So Jesus is not
saying we don't need to make a living, we do. In fact, scripture
says, if a man work not, neither shall he eat. Thirdly, Jesus
was not saying that God is uncaring about life. On the contrary,
Deuteronomy 8 says that God cared very, very much about Israel,
even though Satan was tempting them to think God didn't care
about them. Otherwise, he would have been providing for their
every whim and their every wish. If Israel would have reminded
themselves of the incredible promises of God, they would have
realized God cares about every facet of their life. The short
period of fasting was simply a test of their faith, just as
Jesus' fasting in the wilderness was a test of His faith. Fourth, Jesus was not calling
for escape from life into a monastery, as a couple of ancient commentaries
have tried to make it out to be. The context of Deuteronomy
8 actually reiterates the dominion mandate, but unlike Adam and
Eve, who tried to engage in the dominion mandate independently
of God's will, our attempts must be firmly grounded in God's word,
and God's word does speak to issues of stones that Satan was
tempting him with, and bread, and every area of our dominion.
So let's take our verse apart word by word. You don't need
an outline. I didn't have time to put an
outline for you. We're just going to look at it
word by word. and see what it does mean as a paradigm for our
lives. The first word is but, and that immediately indicates
that Jesus was contradicting the devil. Now that's not a very
polite thing to do in our pluralistic age, but it is imperative, absolutely
imperative that we do that if we are to see long-term change. I have met liberals here in Omaha
and in other states who are quite happy with you telling them that
you believe certain things. Oh, that's great. You know, they
affirm you, even if you're weird in your beliefs. Oh, that's good
for you, you know. And that could be true for you,
that's good for you, but this is true for me and this is good
for me. Where they get angry, where they
get irate is not when you tell the truth, it's when you say,
but what you are believing is false. That is antithesis, and
it's that but that enables you to begin penetrating into culture.
Years ago, Francis Schaeffer was warning the evangelical church
that they would lose the culture battles if they did not start
maintaining absolute antithesis. Now, antithesis is a sharp, clearly
demarked line, no fuzzy gray areas, a sharp line between truth
and falsehood, between A and non-A, between right and wrong,
between light and darkness. Okay? We have lost the battle
because postmodern thinking has infected the church. Postmodernism
rejects antithesis. Now, Schaefer pointed out, you
have not fully defended the truth if the only thing you're willing
to say is what you believe, what is true. You must also deny the
truth of the opposite. You must oppose falsehood, and
that right now is not politically correct. That's what's going
to get you into trouble, is doing what Jesus did. Anyway, Francis
Schaefer said, to the extent that anyone gives up the mentality
of antithesis, he has moved over to the other side, even if he
still tries to defend orthodoxy or evangelicalism. And that,
my friends, is an indictment of almost the entire evangelical
church of today, and they desperately need to hear this message. And
I want to read that quote again from Francis Schaeffer, to the
extent that anyone gives up the mentality of antithesis, he has
moved over to the other side, even if he still tries to defend
orthodoxy or evangelicalism. You see, one of the biggest problems
with the modern church is they want conversation and not debate. They want opinions freely stated,
but no opinion to be called false. They don't want anything called
heresy, and so the word heresy has ironically become heresy.
Church discipline is castigated. Intolerance is ironically no
longer tolerated. They're thinking like the postmodernist
pagans. I've brought five copies with
me of a book I just picked up two weeks ago, and I'm really
glad that this is finally in print. And this is called Rebuilding
Civilization on the Bible. proclaiming the truth on 24 controversial
issues. Now the fascinating thing about
this book is that these evangelical writers, most of them are reformed
writers, have looked at most of the controversial issues of
our day. They've affirmed the truth from
the scripture, and then they make a denial from the scripture.
We affirm this, we deny this. And what's good about that is
it keeps liberals from being able to sign on to any of these
statements. I've been in organizations where we've had fabulous doctrinal
statements and a huge multi-million organization, dollar organization
that I was on the board for several years. It was taken over by liberals
because they were able to sign onto it with crossed fingers
and just say, well yeah, generally speaking, that's a good idea,
good paradigm. And what is really needed nowadays
is not just affirmation of truth, but where we say, but we deny
as a scurrilous doctrine from hell. Well, they don't say that
in here, but that's what I would say. These other heresies, these
other talks, that keeps liberals from having any wiggle room and
being able to sign on to the documents. And it keeps evangelicals
from pretending to be reformers when really they're cowards.
They're not willing to have antithesis in their life. So I've put on
the back table there five of these. And you can just give
BB, we're just doing it, you know, basically it costs 17 bucks
for those. I think that's a great paradigm
for how to maintain this antithesis. Now, the second thing to notice
is that Jesus had an answer to every one of Satan's temptations.
Verse 4 says, but he answered and said. He had an answer. And it is critical that the church
learn to find answers from God's word, even in the simple areas
of life. Would you be able to give an
answer to your son or figure out how to dig out an answer
when your son asks you, hey dad, can I wear a necklace? Now you
may have prejudices one way or the other on that question, but
would you be able to give him an answer, at least say, let's
study this out. Let's get out a concordance,
let's look at how to study. If you don't know how to do your
own inductive study, talk to me. I'd be happy over a period
of two, three, four weeks to show you step by step how you
dig out questions like that. Joel actually years ago brought
up that question to me when he was a kid. I was surprised by
the answers that the Bible gave. Well, there's other questions.
Do you know whether it is biblical or not for your daughters to
wear makeup? And if you think it's biblical
for them to wear makeup, do you know how to instruct your daughter
on exactly how to do it in an appropriate way and where the
accent should be And how makeup can point and direct, even how
you clothe yourself can point and direct attention to the face
versus to other parts of the body. Can you, do you have a
biblical philosophy of modesty and of makeup and some of these
different things? On the makeup question, I've
got a BB booklet you can download and it'll give you at least a
jumpstart on thinking through some of those kinds of questions. Can you help your son to stop
his poor purchasing choices by teaching him the 26 principles
of resistance to salesman techniques and strategies that are found
in Genesis chapter 3? And you may not have realized
that Genesis 3 even talks about that. Satan is a brilliant strategist. He is a brilliant salesman. And
he uses almost all the salesman techniques that are used in modern
business. But in the process, the way God
has written that chapter, it gives us clues as to how we can
teach our children not to be sucked in and pressured, how
to develop sales resistance to that. Now, my point in bringing
up these illustrations is that the Bible must not be seen simply
like a dictionary. Okay, every once in a while we
don't know how to spell a word and we pull it down. You know,
we pull down the Bible because we're curious about something,
you know. How do you spell Nebuchadnezzar? I don't know. No, this is a Bible
that we need to be living by every single day of our lives. Now, I'm an academic and so I
use the Bible in ways that maybe you're not called to do. And
over the past 15 years, I've had quite a few opportunities
to go to UNMC and to Creighton, and I've been invited by the
student body there to either do debate or to do some teaching
on medical ethics. And I love showing, not just
in medical ethics, but in other areas, how the Bible has the
answers to the philosophical problems that plague the various
disciplines. Take mathematics, for example.
There are huge debates between the mathematical schools of logicism,
intuitionism, formalism, predicativism, and Platonism. All of them have
been stymied in being able to prove the truthfulness of mathematics. Now, some people say, well, who
cares? I just use math and it works, right? And that's true,
we peons use it because it works. But could you prove that it worked
if push came to shove? Well, if you had been digging
into the scripture for answers like Jesus had been digging into
the scriptures, I think you would be able to demonstrate that the
Bible shows the foundation for mathematics because it gives
all the axioms for mathematics, but it also interprets mathematics. It gives a worldview framework
within which to understand it, how to use it in godly ways. It gives philosophical answers
to some of the mathematical problems, like Benacerrif's epistemological
problem. And I've got an article I can
send to you by Vern Poythress. That's a marvelous introduction
to a biblical philosophy of mathematics in areas most Christians haven't
even thought through. James Nichols got a wonderful
book on mathematics is the Bible silent. And I won't bore you
with all of the details, but the Bible gives answers to the
perplexing problems in every academic discipline by having
an omniscient creator infallibly revealing the axioms for life,
giving a worldview framework within which they make sense.
It also helps us to answer any ethical questions that may come
up. I had a friend in Lincoln, Nebraska who called me one day
and he said, Phil, I really need some wisdom from you today. My
cousin has been in a car accident and she's in the hospital here
in Lincoln and she has been declared brain dead and they're wanting
to harvest her organs. I'm the one who's got the medical
power of attorney and I don't know what to do. Could you please
give me some advice? So I was asking questions, trying
to find out exactly what had happened and where she was at
and I was able to tell this guy No, you should not allow for
any organ transplant. She is not dead biblically, guaranteed
she is not dead biblically. So I walked him through all of
the biblical principles on how the Bible defines death and some
of the other ethical principles in there. Well, the end of the
story, to make a long story short, is a week later, she was up walking
around as healthy as could be. Here's a brain-dead person, they're
going to harvest her organs and now she's walking around brain-dead.
Now, if I had not already studied these principles from the scripture
to be able to give an ethical answer on something that could
happen to any one of your relatives, that lady probably would be dead,
really dead, not just brain dead, okay? And so we need to look
to the scripture and the scripture does give medical answers on
which organ transplants are legitimate and which ones are not and what
are the criterion for death. It's certainly not brain death.
It gives answers on fertility. Studies assisted suicide and
many other medical questions and I believe that many pastors
and many leaders Do not dig into the Bible to find these kinds
of answers because they're really not convinced that 2nd Peter
chapter 1 is true when it says that the Bible gives to us all
things that pertain to life and and godliness, not just ethics,
but life and godliness. They're not convinced that that
is really true. Jesus was ready with an answer
because he had already dug for answers in the Holy Scriptures.
And that's the third thing I want you to notice from our text.
Jesus reasoned from the objective written revelation of the Bible. Matthew 4.4 says, but he answered
and said, it is written. Now this was shocking for the
Pharisees, I've read a little over 1,000 pages in the Talmud,
which is the collection of the teachings of the rabbis and the
Pharisees and the scribes. They almost never appeal to scripture.
Almost always what they're saying is rabbi so and so said, but
this other rabbi said this other thing and they're always looking
at opinions and you have heard it said, but Jesus cut through
all of the opinions of man by saying, hey guys, this is what
God says. Okay, let's say one for once
and for all, it is written. He was able to reason from the
Bible and the Bible must be our axiomatic starting point for
every area of life. The reformer John Wycliffe said,
all law, all philosophy, all ethics are in Scripture. In Holy
Scripture is all truth. Now he's not saying that the
Bible is a textbook in the modern sense of the term, but Wycliffe
was saying that just as mathematics flows from its starting axioms,
Every discipline in life flows from the starting axioms of the
Bible, okay? So even though the Bible is not
a textbook on mathematics, it gives us the axioms from which
we can build a system of mathematics and from
which we can write textbooks on mathematics, and it gives
a whole bunch of other things related to mathematics in the
process. So Wycliffe said all mathematics, philosophy, music,
and truth systems flow from the Bible. Was he exaggerating? Is
he just a nutcase? What's going on there? I do not
think that he was exaggerating at all. I've been reading some
of the most recent research on the biblical foundations of Western
music. This is fascinating, fascinating
stuff for me. Things like the Gregorian chant
and how some of the church fathers were talking about where they
got these ideas from, where they got their music theory from.
It's been all very carefully preserved in the text of the
Hebrew and the diacritical marks of the Hebrew. Now these marks
show not only the notes, And that's very clear, that's just
slam dunk. But it also shows the harmony,
and it shows variety in tempo and scale, so they're not just
using the diatonic scale, that predominates in the Psalms, but
they had other scales that were divinely given that show that
there's experimentation in music. And the marks show the meter,
sometimes 5-4 meters, sometimes 4-4, and there's other meters
that are out there. Josephus speaks of the different
meters, and he lists the meters that were written by David. Now,
a lot of critics nowadays, they look at this newest research
and they say, that can't possibly be because The diacritical marks
and the vowel points did not come into existence until the
9th century AD. Well, I've got some irrefutable
evidence that that is not the case and that the reformers were
right when they said that these vowel points and these diacritical
marks go back to Ezra. When they came back from the
exile, a lot of the people didn't speak Hebrew as well as they
should. And in order for them to be able
to know exactly what every word, how it was pronounced, and in
order to distinguish some of the corrupt texts that the Samaritans
had developed from the true text, that he came up with the new
square Hebrew text, with the vowel points, with the diacritical
marks, And the reason I have irrefutable evidence of this
is we've got manuscripts that even liberals say predate Christ
by two centuries that have these vowel points and diacritical
marks. I tell you, in the next 50 years, all of this research
is just going to turn liberalism upside down. It's great. We're
living in exciting times, brothers and sisters. It's really wonderful.
The point is, don't just assume that some of these older writers
like, you know, Usher, he had access to documents that have
long since disappeared. But don't think these older writers
are nutcases because they're coming up with radical ideas
that we just don't understand. If you've never researched it,
keep your mouth shut. Don't be, you know, cutting down
people from the ages past who were brilliant people, people
like John Owen, who said, yes, all of these diacritical marks
and vowel points stem way back to Ezra and were put there by
inspiration. Now, I will hasten to say I've
just begun my research on music, and some of it's a little bit
above my head because I'm not rooted in music theory and some
of those other things, I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, okay,
I'm going to have to run this past some people who have really studied
music heavily. But it does make sense to me
in terms of the philosophy that the scripture sets forth. Let
me quote from Luther. Martin Luther. said about Scripture
that it is, quote, in itself most certain, most easily understood,
most plain, is its own interpreter, approving, judging, and illuminating
all the statements of all men. Therefore, nothing except the
divine words are to be the first principles, and that's a synonym.
First principles is a synonym for axioms. He says, therefore,
nothing except for the divine words are to be the first principles
for Christians. All human words are conclusions
drawn from them and must be brought back to them and approved by
them. Well, I dare say there are hardly
any Christians who live by that principle, but that was the Reformation
principle. The Bible provides the axioms
or the starting points or the presuppositions upon which all
thought and research and planning and teaching should be based,
tested, and evaluated. Now, the next word in the sentence
is the word man. But he answered and said, it
is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every
word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. I want you to notice
he doesn't say, Israel shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. No, by using
that word man or mankind, he is indicating that the paradigm
he is about to share with us is a paradigm that was intended
for us, and that's so important to understand. You see, in all
of the debates over God's case laws, people get distracted in
trying to figure out which of these case laws are moral laws
that apply to all mankind, And which ones are ceremonial laws
that only apply to Israel? Now, that is an important question
to decide because we're not under the ceremonial law as a moral,
ethical imperative. So we do need to figure that
question out. But let me tell you, brothers and sisters, ethics
is only a small part of life. God hasn't given a lot of commands.
How many commands did he give to Adam? Don't eat from that
tree. You can eat from anything you
want. Okay, maximum liberty. So ethics really is only a part
of life. And yet, there is so much that
is found in the ceremonial laws that are information for living
even though we're not bound by those ceremonial laws. For example,
several of the axioms for mathematics are found in the ceremonial law.
Without the ceremonial law, you would not have a sufficient foundation
for truth. And if you like classical geometry,
wow, you'll have a heyday studying the tabernacle and the temple.
And I used to read through those things and just think, oh, man,
I know I need to read this if I can honestly say I've read
through the Bible in a year. But boy, this is boring stuff,
you know? It just tediously goes on and
talks about how many clasps and the shape of them and how many
cubits they are and how they're all hooked together. And it's
like, we're never going to build a tabernacle. Why do I need to
know all of this stuff? But you see, it was not just
intended to give them the foundations for their ceremonial law, but
it was intended to give us patterns for aesthetics. That means beauty.
And it was intended to give us foundations for mathematics and
geometry, as well as teaching us all kinds of beautiful doctrines
that we can live by about what grace looks like, and what Jesus
Christ looks like, and what the New Covenant is going to look
like, and other kingdom realities. Okay, so why does God give all
of these details in the tabernacle and the temple? Well, Sir Isaac
Newton, he just went wild over that stuff. He loved it. He said,
he credits the Bible with many of his discoveries, and I read
with absolute fascination Newton's, Sir Isaac Newton's discussions
of the biblical cubit, and he's narrowed it down to exactly how
many inches that cubit was, and the relationship of that cubit
to the temple and to the size of the earth. And he goes through
all kinds of different things. Now, is he accurate on all of
that? I have not yet evaluated that. It seems like he is absolutely
mathematically precise in what he has done. I guess he would
be. He's a lot better genius on math than I am. But here is
the point that really I struggle with. Sir Isaac Newton was a
heretic. Okay, now he called himself a
Christian, but he was not a Trinitarian, and yet he had more confidence
in the Bible for living in every area of life than most Christians
today do. He's a rebuke to Orthodox Christians
today. We need to have more confidence
than a person like Sir Isaac Newton would have. And my point
is that in addition to giving Israel essential information
for ceremonial law, it gives us information for so many other
areas. For example, I was reading a
book recently that had a chapter that was critiquing some fad
diets and I think did a fairly good job in doing so. And just
as an example, there's one fad diet that says that it's really
wrong to ever eat any meat. And this chapter says, well,
that's ridiculous, because God's word infallibly says that God
commanded the Israelites to eat meat on a number of occasions.
In fact, their ceremonial laws, like the Passover and other things,
they had to eat meat. But even apart from the ceremonial
laws, they were commanded to eat meat. Now, would God really
command people to eat something that was bad for them? No, because
the very laws that command this, God says he's giving these things
for their good, right? Now, was this book trying to
impose the ceremonial law on us? No, not at all. You can eat
meat, you cannot eat meat, but it's saying you are absolutely
legalistic if you say it's a sin to eat meat, or if you say it's
bad for your health to eat meat. You're contradicting the wisdom
of God. And the chapter went on, and
it was contradicting other fad diets that forbid salt. When
scripture says salt is good for you, and actually science is
catching up. When saturated animal fats being good for you. Now,
not overdosing on them, but animal fats being good for you. Well,
science is catching up, isn't it? Honey and fruit and grains
and cheese. The book said that those laws
were intended for our good. Not binding as ceremonial law,
but she's using it I think now you're getting the point of who
the book is about. Okay, I'll tell you. Trim Healthy Mama,
you know. She's got a little chapter in there. I thought it
was a great little chapter, you know, critiquing the fad diets. Now, is she imposing that? Do
people have to follow it? No. We have freedom. We have
liberty. But you can use the Bible to critique so many things
in the world as well as to give God's good wisdom for our daily
living. Here's the point. We must live
by even the ceremonial law in some sense of the word live or
we're contradicting Christ's words here in Matthew 4 verse
4. The Bible is not just intended
for Israel. It was intended for mankind,
every word of it. It gives us wisdom for living. So don't just think in terms
of ethics, okay? That's where people get hung
up. Yes, there are distinctions in ethics where ceremonial law
is no longer binding, but think in terms of wisdom for living.
Now, the next phrase indicates that the Bible is not a replacement
for living, but the foundation for living. Jesus did not say, man shall
not live by bread, but only by the word of God. That would turn
us into ivory tower theologians who would starve to death. We should not look at it that
way. Instead, Jesus wanted us living out the scriptures by
taking dominion and subduing planet earth to his glory so
there's work to be done and every bit of our dominion work must
be captive to scripture. The moment we exclude the scriptures
from things like rocks, like Satan was trying to do, and bread,
or any other area of life, we have entered into the realm of
humanism and independence, and of course that was the great
temptation of Adam and Eve. Why should I be looking to God's
word on whether I can eat from this tree of the knowledge of
good or evil or not? I'll do like scientists do. I'll
evaluate it myself and determine whether it's good or whether
it's not good. That's humanism. Every if Jesus said that he did
not do anything or say anything that was not in conformity with
God's will We cannot eat or do anything that is not in conformity
with God's will and so Jesus was making exactly the same point
when he was hungry in the wilderness that Deuteronomy 8 was making
when Israel was hungry in the wilderness. God tests us as to
whether we will handle stones, food, and the rest of our life
according to his word or whether we will take dominion independently
of his will. Now this means that it's impossible
to glorify God by keeping our heads in our books, right? God intends us to master the
Bible so that whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we
do all to the glory of God. We've got to live out the Bible
in science and architecture, farming, chemistry, every area
of life. We've got to have orthopraxy
as well as orthodoxy. We've got to have godly living
as well as godly thinking, or as Jesus worded it, we're to
love the Lord, not just with our minds. But also with our
souls, our hearts, our very strength. So he's not against the trades
and taking dominion. No, no, no, no. He's just saying
there's a deeper foundation. And now the next word indicates
that every word of scripture is important. But he answered
and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone,
but by Every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So this
is a call to live by the whole Bible, not just the New Testament.
It's a call to live by every word of the Holy Scriptures.
Now I remember when I first began to realize that the church is
just in the infancy stage of applying the Bible to all of
life, I was at Covenant College and I was furiously taking notes
as fast as I could while my genius professor, Dr. J.C. Keister,
was at the blackboard writing out the axioms of mathematics,
just using ordinary exegesis up there on the blackboard, and
he came to demonstrating the distributive
law of addition as revealed by God. And the distributive law
is that A times the quantity B plus C equals AB plus AC. That's a pretty basic axiom.
And the passages that he was using to demonstrate this law
were boring passages. Very, very boring. Okay. I had
read these passages numerous times, because I try to read
through the Bible once a year, and I've done that for many,
many years, and yet I'd never seen this obvious truth from
mathematics. It only became obvious because
he was now pointing it out to me. I had never seen it because
I wasn't looking for it. You see, I began the sermon by
saying that we tend to live only as high as our vision. We tend
to live only as high as our vision and our minds tend to filter
out that kind of stuff, and just like the illustration of that
book, you know, I'm looking, I'm looking everywhere, I can't
see it, why? Because I'm looking for something red. Our minds
tend to filter things out, and I think that's what's happening
when we read the Bible and think, the Bible really doesn't speak
about science, there's not a textbook on math, there's not a textbook
on any of these other things, and so we never see what the Bible
has to say about it. Now, that was what happened with
me because In God's providence, I had been reading exactly the
passage that he was using to demonstrate this axiom in my
devotions the day before, okay? And the day before, to my shame,
I was reading along and I was thinking, wow, that's bad grammar. That's very awkward. If God had
been just communicating a story, he could have said it so much
more elegantly and so much more simply But when Dr. Keister was writing this axiom
on the board, it was like boom. I could all of a sudden realize
it had to be written in exactly that awkward way or we would
not have had that axiom of mathematics. Well, from that time on, I began
wondering, okay, what is my paradigm in my mind filtering out and
keeping me from seeing in the scripture? I began looking for
other axioms in the Bible. And as a result of that one event,
I began noticing all kinds of amazing things in the order of
words, the selection of words, the repetition of words. Every
word of the Bible is significant. In fact, Paul makes a big point
about one letter of one word, and Jesus makes a big deal about
the jots and tittles of a word, which many of the older writers
believed was a reference to the vowels and the diacritical marks
of the Old Testament. And it dawned on me, I had not
been living by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of
God. I'd just been living by the general meaning of strings
of words that had been put together. But when Jesus builds the doctrine
of the resurrection on the tense of a verb, Paul builds a doctrine
on whether it is a singular or a plural word, and Paul later
refutes feminism by the order of events. In Genesis 2, I realized
I better take that word every a little bit more seriously than
I have been taking it in the past. We are to live by every
word. the Bible and when we have faith
that every word counts we're gonna start seeing all kinds
of new things like one one a team of logicians began seeing whoa
the Bible is almost like a textbook of logic you see they see logic
everywhere and they're developing a book that I can hardly wait
till it gets printed it's a detailed in-depth Book on multiple levels
of logic that we can we can learn I've got lower level logic an
entire logic three credit hour course that was taught never
deviating from the Bible Higher logic course now. I think that
could be hugely improved upon and I think it will be in in
in years to come But when we have a confidence that God makes
every word count, we're gonna start seeing axioms for biology. And actually, you'll see a lot
more than axioms. You'll see interpretation and
worldview issues and principles that'll keep you from wandering
down this dead-end road and wasting millions and millions of dollars,
because the Bible says, ah, that's a dead end. Don't even go with
your research there. Go with your research maybe in some of
these areas. It will save us money. It'll save us time. And
I first began seeing some of these things at the same school
that Dr. J.C. Keister taught at, and it
was probably the same year. I was sitting in a biology class,
and Covenant College was so much better back then than it is right
now, but there were professors who really were striving to teach
the Bible and apply it to life. But anyway, Dr. Lauthers, another
gracious, wonderful individual, he showed the brilliant purpose
of God's taxonomy of creatures and how it contrasts with the
current evolutionary taxonomy. You know the taxonomies everybody
has in their Christian textbooks? Did you realize they're all evolutionary?
They are. And it's good to know what the
evolutionists believe, but why does God use the taxonomy that
he gave to us? And there is a legitimate variety
of taxonomies, just like scales, you know, and music. But anyway,
he gave some very interesting insights into biology based on
that taxonomy. And I could go on and on and
pointing to things that most Christians completely ignore.
The fact that we are not even remotely living by every word
that proceeds out of the mouth of God shows to me that we are
living in the infancy of the church. I do not think we are
at the end of history. My view is that every time the
word last days occurs, it's referring to the last days of the old covenant
leading up to 70 AD. We're not in the last days of
the Old Covenant. And I wouldn't be surprised if
we have 100,000 years of history ahead of us, maybe even more,
who knows? But you know, you look at the
Old Testament and even in the historical books that you should
take literally, nobody takes them literally. They always go
to the symbolic book of Revelation and talk about the thousand years
that is there. But what about the passages in
the history books that say that God is going to be faithful to
his people in history to a thousand generations of those who love
him? Now for generations, 40 years, that's at least 40,000
years of history where God is promising to be faithful and
there's going to be people who love him for that many generations.
Well, that's a long time in history. And I take that very, very literally,
a thousand years, well, we're only at 6,000 mark, maybe just
a little bit more than the 6,000 mark right now. And so I would
think if God would give us a little peek into how the church is applying
the scriptures to all of these disciplines 10,000 years from
now, I think it would blow us out of the water, we'd say. That's
amazing. How come I didn't see any of
that stuff? Well, the reason we didn't see it is we're still
in poopy diapers. We're in the infancy stage of
the church, and God doesn't expect as much of infants as he does
of grown people. But what do you do with infants?
Do you keep them infants all the time? No. You keep pressing. We need to press ourselves to
grow. Lord, give me more insight. Give me more blessings of insight
as to how your word applies. So the goal of the church, and
we should spur the whole church to do this, is to grow up in
understanding the Bible and making new discoveries. Every discipline
in which I've been looking into the scriptures is like looking
through a window and I see all of those fields out there and
my heart's just wanting to climb out of that window and start
romping in the fields and start doing some of these discoveries
and I don't have the time to do it, okay? But there's so many
things out there that I'm hoping scholars will dig into and find. For example, I was having fun
two weeks ago reading preliminary research some have been doing
on fractal geometry in the Bible, of all things, fractal geometry.
It is a fascinating study, not just in terms of measuring distances,
but you know all of the little curves and structures within
structures. And so there's applications there.
But one of the things I found fascinating was the structure
of the Bible itself. It is so fascinating. Now, when
I'm preaching through First Samuel, I try not to bore you with all
of the background material I have to master before I teach you
with it. But one of the things that I have been looking at in
the Bible is the structure of 1 Samuel. Occasionally, I'll
throw a couple of these details out. The whole of 1 and 2 Samuel
is one gigantic chiasm and a whole bunch of other kinds of structures
and interlocking structures within the book. But the curious thing
about that gigantic chiasm is it doesn't finish until you get
to the first chapter of 1 Kings. There's an interlocking canonically
between the books and you see different things like this on
how God even developed the canon. Now if you want to get some insights
on what the Bible says about itself as to how the canon is
going to develop. and how we know for a certainty
just from the Bible alone that there's only 66 books in the
Bible. You'll have to download the biblical blueprints booklet
there. But anyway, there's fascinating
stuff that I'm just beginning to realize is out there. Others
are working on biblical information on space having physical structure
and space having some sort of polarity. In other words, a north.
Science hasn't even caught up on that one yet, but I'm confident
it eventually will. There's some kind of a north
in space. How can that be? I don't know.
Space being elastic and expansion of the universe and information
being in our physical bodies, how in the world could that be?
Maybe it's a reference to DNA and some of the other information
that they're now discovering goes way beyond DNA. I don't
know, but when I read passages like that, it gives me goosebumps.
It makes me want to run down a rabbit trail. I don't have
time to run down. And there is other information that could
very well give rise to another scientific revolution if Christian
scientists would only take it seriously. And you miss those
kinds of things if you're not looking at every word of Scripture. Anyway, Matthew 4.4 goes on by
speaking of every word. Okay? Every word indicates that
Christianity is not just about feelings and experiences and
relationships and work and things like that. No, there's something
far more fundamental that undergirds all of those things, and it is
words. Okay? Or what Francis Schaeffer
called propositional truth. Words are important to God and
an understanding of propositional truth is critical to healthy
living. We live in an age when people
just don't have the patience to study that kind of stuff.
They don't have appreciation for it. But we will never become
a mature Christianity until we become people of the book and
until we see sola scriptura as the defining characteristic of
Christianity. And we begin to use logical thinking
to wrestle with the text. The eighth feature of this paradigm
that is wearing the children out, and I need to hurry through,
is that these words are a revelation from God himself. It speaks of
every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Now, that phrase
proceeds from indicates there's something coming from God to
man, and it's words that are coming from God's mouth to the
prophet's mouth. And this deals with epistemology,
which is just a $10 word meaning how do we know that we know that
we know, okay? Epistemology, very, very important. And the
Reformed Church has got to get back on track in this area of
epistemology. We do not know truth through
science, period. We know whether a scientific
declaration is true or not based upon the Bible, but we do not
discover truth from science. We discover truth from scripture. And there's plenty of evidence
all around us that unbelievers are going to interpret a different
way. They're going to reject, you know, Luke chapter 16, Jesus
gave the parable of the rich man and Lazarus and the rich
man's in hell. He's looking up to paradise. He sees Abraham
and he says please Abraham Bring Lazarus back from the dead to
my brothers so that they don't come here He's basically saying
I want you to show evidence of the afterlife to my brothers
who are still living and then they will believe And they won't
come here And he thought evidence could save them. But Jesus relates
this. Abraham said to him, they have Moses and the prophets.
Let them hear, yes, let them hear them. And he said, no, Father
Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.
But he said to him, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded, though one rise from the dead.
Now where is God's focus? It's not on evidences, as important
as those can be. It's on the Word of God. It's
not on experiences, as important as those are. It's on the Word
of God. It's not on miracles, as important as miracles are.
It's on the Word of God. And if we have a faulty view
of revelation, it will mess everything up. Now liberals believe that
words have no objective meaning. That's why it's so frustrating
to argue with liberals. No objective meaning. They don't
hold to a correspondence view of words where a word has an
objective meaning and corresponds very literally to some objective
reality. And they can't because they don't
believe that the scriptures really are the very words of God incarnated
through human words. They don't believe that they're
the very words of God. They believe that any word is
so colored by my understanding that when I speak a word, it's
going to have a different meaning to me than the same word will
have to somebody else. And therefore, there can be no
objective meaning. They become utter skeptics. They
become like Pilate who said, what is truth? And so what happens
with liberals, they're more interested in experience than they are in
looking for biblical truth. And there are a lot of implications
of this phrase, which I don't have the time to get into, that
deal with apologetics. It's one of the reasons why I
think Van Til, as much of a hero as he is for me, is wrong on
his analogical knowledge. Because he said, okay, do I even
get into this? Okay, okay. Liberals hold to
an equivocal view of words and knowledge. They say that God's
thinking and our thinking are utterly different, there's totally
different meanings for this, there's no correspondence whatsoever,
and so it leads to skepticism, and all you care about is experience,
not truth or meaning. Guys like me, and historically
they held to this as well, until Thomas Aquinas, Gordon Clark holds to univocal
knowledge. In other words, if there was
a revelation of God's thoughts to our minds If a true revelation
has occurred, there's been something communicated, traveled from God
to us, there must be some point at which there is going to be
an absolute identity between our thinking and God's thinking.
Okay, that's univocal knowledge. It's not saying we're going to
think exactly like God will because God knows a chair. Not only in
terms of all of the molecular structure, he knows everything
in contrast to everything that it is not. In other words, he's
omniscient, so he's going to know that in a much more thorough
way than I will. But if I know that chair at all,
then I'm going to know it in the same way, at least at some
point, that God does. And if there are words that came
from God's mind to the prophet's mouth and they actually are words
that traveled from God to the prophet's mouth, then the words
of scripture have to have some point of identity between what
we're thinking and what God is thinking. That is univocal view
of knowledge. Now, Van Til followed Thomas
Aquinas. Now I think I'll see Thomas Aquinas
in heaven, okay? So I'm not bashing him because
I think he's not a believer. But the sad thing is he wedded
Greek pagan thought together with biblical thought and he
created the monstrosity we call the Roman Catholic Church today.
And it began taking over because his textbooks were being used
everywhere and over the next 300 years it just produced disaster. And so he came up with this idea
of analogical. And Van Til followed this, and
Van Til says that what we are thinking is like what God thinks,
but at no point is there any identity. He's so emphasizing
the transcendence of God above man, the creator-creature distinction,
that he says there is a line between God and man, and we say
no. There is a line between God and
man, but God breaks through that line by giving us revelation,
real words. So that is a nutshell difference
between univocal, the good guys hold to, equivocal, that the
really bad guys hold to, and analogical that the really good
guys that are messed up hold to, okay? So, Van Til is a friend
of, I love Van Til, and I think he has taught us so many wonderful
things, but I think that's one area, and by the way, many Van
Tilians have abandoned him on that. John Frame has abandoned
him on that. John Frame holds to univocal knowledge just like
I do. That's a long rabbit trail, and
boy, the kids are really waiting for lunch. OK, if the point I've
just talked about is true, then it means that the Bible has all
the authority of God. The Bible is infallible and inerrant. Why? Because God is infallible
and inerrant. Matthew 4.4 speaks of every word
that proceeds from the mouth of God. When scripture speaks,
it is God himself speaking to you. And so Hebrews 4 says that
the scriptures have all of the attributes of God backing them
up. God is powerful, and so the word of God is powerful. God
sees and evaluates all things and discerns the motives of our
hearts, and so God's word in Hebrews 4. It's almost like it's
a person. And it is a person. It's God
speaking to us. It discerns. the features of our hearts. And
it says God gives life, the Scriptures give life. God heals, the Scripture
heals. If we took at all seriously the
incredibly powerful transformational nature of the Word of God, we
would read it more, we would memorize vast sections of it,
we would meditate upon the Word of God. And B.B. has a little
booklet that was edited by, I forget who wrote it, but it was edited
by Michael Elliott that really helps you to memorize entire
books of the Bible, extended chapters from the scripture.
It's a very helpful book. And it's possible to do that,
by the way, if you just take some time. How precious is God's
word to you? Proverbs says you need to treat
it as more precious than silver and gold. Now most of us work
40 hours a week to get silver and gold, right? FRNs, I'd rather
get silver and gold. But anyway, we work 40 hours
a week or more to do that. Some of us work 60, 70, 80 hours
a week, but maybe you ought to quit being workaholics. But we
balk at the idea of spending half an hour a day in memorizing
and meditating on scripture. Are we really treating scripture
as more precious than silver and gold? In the boarding school
I went to, there were a lot of things that I faulted for, but
there were a lot of good things that they did there as well.
One of the good things that they did is from the time I was in
grade one, every one of us kids had to spend the half hour immediately
before breakfast memorizing scripture. And we kids, all of us, we were
memorizing not only topical verses, but we memorized entire books
of the Bible, memorized all of Ephesians, Philippians, James,
all kinds of books that we were memorizing. And we were just
ordinary kids, okay? But you get transformed, your
brain expands. I've told people who say, I can't
memorize. And I say, well, how long have
you tried to memorize? Well, I haven't, but I know I
can. Let me tell you something, could
you run a five-mile marathon if you had not been working up
to it? No. So why are we so foolish to think
that we're going to be able to memorize without working up to
it? You just keep working at it day
after day after day, and it becomes easier. Some people say, I can't
memorize. I just say, let me give you some
techniques. And I want you to use these techniques
and don't worry about whether it actually sticks in your brain
or not. Just use these techniques for half an hour. And lo and
behold, when they do it, they've memorized. They've memorized.
So talk to me if you have difficulty memorizing, but don't tell me
that you treat the word as more precious than silver and gold
when you're not willing to spend at least half an hour in God's
word and memorizing it and meditating upon it. How many times have
you read through the Bible? I've talked to Christians who
have been Christians for 60 years, they have never once read through
the Bible. Are they trading? Is it more
precious than silver and gold? Wow, I'm getting into herringing,
so I better move on. But Deuteronomy 32 says this,
set your heart on the words which I testify among you today, which
you shall command your children to be careful to observe all
the words of this law. For it is not a futile thing
for you, because it is your life. And let me repeat that, because
it is your life. And by this word, you shall prolong
your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess. Many people think they have a
high view of scripture because they believe in the inerrancy
of the Bible. And I say, you got a very low view of scripture
because you're not in the scripture every day. You're not meditating
on the word of God day and night. Deuteronomy. says that prosperity
and living does not come from the abundance of things and of
food. Satan hoped to tempt Jesus to think the opposite, to think
it really is important. Food is more important. But Deuteronomy
affirms that prosperity comes from hiding God's Word in our
hearts, meditating on it day and night, conforming our lives
to its every precept. Joshua 1 tells us, this book
of the law shall not depart from your mouth. But you shall meditate
in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to
all that is written in it. For then you will make your way
prosperous, and then you will have good success." And that's
exactly what Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 4.15. Meditate on
these things. Give yourself entirely to them,
that your progress may be evident to all. Too many people send
their kids to government schools so that their kids can walk in
the council of the ungodly, and they wonder why their kids are
abandoning the faith. Psalm 1 says, blessed is the
man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in
the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he
meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted
by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit and its season,
whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.
The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind
drives away. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord
knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall
perish." Now, I'm going to skip over some of what I've written
here, but I would just say evangelicals today are actually far from valuing
God's Word. They're embarrassed by God's
Word. They're embarrassed and they
apologize, you know, when the Bible speaks to issues of male
headship and male voting, and they apologize for the Bible
when it speaks, you know, of the death penalty for homosexuals
or when in various ways. In fact, I know one evangelical
leader whom I love, I think is Heart in many ways is right with
God, but he's got such a prejudice against the Old Testament. But
he speaks of it being abominable that God would. Make a law that
use stone Juvenile a dangerous juvenile delinquents. I think
what's there to be embarrassed about this is a perfect solution
to the parental abuse that's happening in the Bronx and New
York City and In other places where parents are in fear of
their lives. They're held captive the the
children take the social security checks and they're fearful of
their lot of their lives and Now, this would take care of
things very, very quickly. There is nothing to be embarrassed
about the Word of God. In fact, Deuteronomy 4 says there's
coming a time when the nations will become jealous of those
nations that actually implement that Word. That's what happened
to Vishal Mangalwadi. He became a Christian because
he was jealous of the incredible blessings that came to the West
because they took the whole Bible seriously. He was jealous. He
became converted. This is what we should long to
see Christian states set up that are so blessed by God because
they're willing to follow God's law that other nations look at
us and they say, I want that. I want whatever it is that's
blessing them. So there's nothing to be embarrassed
about. In fact, I'll end with one more passage from Jesus.
It's Matthew 5, 17 through 19. Do not think that I came to destroy
the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but
to fulfill. For assuredly I say to you, till
heaven and earth pass away, and last time I looked heaven and
earth has not passed away. till heaven and earth pass away,
one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till
all is fulfilled, and your interpretation of what we've just read better
line up with Jesus' conclusion, his therefore, whoever therefore
breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men
so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever
does and teaches them He shall be called great in the kingdom
of heaven. He is saying that if you both
keep and teach others to keep, All of God's Old Testament case
law, which, by the way, when he's quoting from Deuteronomy
8, it had in mind, including the case law of Deuteronomy,
right? One to live by it. But Jesus is saying, if you both
keep the laws and you teach others to keep the laws, you are going
to be great in the kingdom of heaven. If you teach other people
that the law has passed away and it's no longer relevant,
you will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. That's exactly
what Jesus is saying. And by the way, the least of
these commandments is a reference to Deuteronomy 22, 6, the passage
about the mother bird and her young. It says, when you come
upon young birds and their mother, let the mother go, you can eat
the young birds. And you might say, I don't know
what that one's all about. It doesn't matter. You might
discover later that there is a great significance, but Jesus
said it is significant. It's something you should value.
It's something you should cherish. The whole word of God needs to
be treated like gold. And so, very literally, we are
to live by every word that proceeds out of God's mouth. May it be
so, King Jesus. Amen. Father, we thank you for
your word, and it is our longing to understand more of it. The more I look into your word,
the more I realize how little I understand. There are just
vast vistas that are so exciting that I would love to dig into. And I pray that you would raise
up scholars all over the world who would dig into your word
and apply it consistently to every area of life. And please
forgive the Church of Jesus Christ for the way in which they have
abandoned your word and believed in evolution and believed in
homosexuality and every imaginable kind of humanistic thing because
they're not anchored in your truth. Please forgive them and
open their blind eyes and help the Church of Jesus Christ to
once again be a bride whom you could not be ashamed of, but
whom you would love because she is adorned not only in your legal
righteousness, but imbibes in her living every word of scripture. And do bless us in the remainder
of this day. May it be a refreshing day, an
encouraging day of fellowship and loving on one another. And
we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
Sola Scriptura: Living by Every Word
Series Five Reformation Solas
Protestants often give lip service to the fact that the Bible gives the answers to all of life. But what exactly does that mean? If the Bible is not a textbook, in what way does it give the foundation for all thinking? This sermon unpacks the meaning of Christ's revolutionary paradigm for life.
| Sermon ID | 1241893192 |
| Duration | 1:15:08 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Matthew 4:1-4 |
| Language | English |
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