Well, brothers and sisters, tonight we'll have the joy and the privilege of bringing two messages to you. The first will be on Sola Scriptura. I have the joy of bringing you that message in just a minute. And then the second message for this evening will be Sola Gratia. Grace alone. Pastor Henry Johnson from Trinity Presbyterian Church will bring the word of God and open up that wonderful doctrine for us tonight. And I hope, I wanna encourage you to grab some of these brochures in the back that have a detailed biography of all of the speakers, if you're interested, and the churches that we pastor, and some of our background that's available to you. And then in the morning, you'll see that in the morning, We will have a short time of breakfast. We'll have a opportunity for some fellowship and just some orange juice, some coffee, some donuts and things like that. That'll be at eight o'clock. And then our first message will start at nine. And then Brother Patrick Hines will be bringing us that message. And brother, I gotta get my glasses on. So, um. Oh, well it says nine. No, no, it says eight, you're right, that's right. So Pastor Patrick Hines at eight o'clock, so the breakfast will probably be from anywhere from like seven to eight, you can come early. We'll have orange juice, coffee, donuts and whatnot. And then at eight o'clock, Pastor Hines will be bringing the message of Sola Fide. And he will open up that doctrine and then we'll have a short break. And then from 9.15 to 10.15, Pastor Johnson, well, Pastor Johnson will be bringing the message, Sola Gratia. Saturday morning, it's Sola Christus tonight. So my apologies for mixing those two up. So tonight, Sola Scriptura, and then Sola Christos. And tomorrow, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia. And then Pastor Jim Thornton at 10.30 to 11.30, will bring us the message on Sola De Gloria and then after that message we'll have a break and we were planning to do something of a panel a simple small question and answer time for any question that comes up during these messages that you would like to ask us pastors. And so I would encourage you to write those down as we go along and be bold enough to ask the question, because I'm sure that if you have the question, someone else has thought of it too. And that's what this whole conference is about. As the Christ Reformed Presbyterian Church as a denomination, we are committed to these foundational truths, to these reformed truths, to these biblical and scriptural truths. And we believe what this world needs in all of its chaos and all of its disorder is light. the gospel light, gospel truth. We need the light of God's word, we need the power of the Holy Spirit, and we need to preach these same truths that reformed nations and towns and countries long ago can do it today. And we believe that. And it's not because we believe it, it makes it happen. It's because God has taught us this in his word, as we will probably touch on some of that here and there as we go along in the conference. So brothers and sisters, this is our first conference as a denomination. Our hearts are being poured out here because we wanna bring these simple truths to you and demonstrate in pastoral fashion how important these things are to your daily living. The things that you believe and how you take your faith and put it into practice. That's what our goal is here in this conference and we will do this again next year. This is gonna be something we do, Lord willing, yearly. and to open up these biblical and reformed truths to you and just keep preaching them. Just keep preaching the gospel. Keep preaching these doctrines. Just keep, every time we get a chance, go deeper and deeper and deeper into God's word, demonstrating that darkness has nothing that compares with it. Darkness has nothing on light. And so we stand dependent upon the Lord and his word and dependent upon the unction and the power that he gives us to bring these biblical messages to you. Well, beloved, I'm going to reserve greater introduction to these speakers when they come up to speak. So. I'm going to now take the scriptures and ask you to open them to Matthew chapter four. Matthew chapter four. Before I read verse four, let's ask the Lord's blessing upon us. Now, gracious Father, we come now to the reading and the preaching of your word. Now, Father, as we set before us this topic of Sola Scriptura, this very important topic, this foundational truth, Lord, bring it to light. Attend it with power, with your glory, with your presence. Lord, may we in this message demonstrate the necessity, the witness, the power, the glory, and the usefulness, the completeness of your word. And that we all come to the conclusion based upon the word that we need nothing else to teach us and to lead us in truth and doctrine and to reveal to us the gospel of Jesus Christ. The father bless now the reading and the preaching of your word we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Now beloved Matthew chapter four and verse four. This is the temptation of Jesus Christ. Satan is coming to Jesus to tempt him. before his ministry there is a connection between the first Adam and Jesus being the last Adam and Adam having failed his temptation and Jesus is now going to undergo his temptation and. Well he is going to be approved he is going to win the day and I want to bring your attention to verse four of what Jesus says and what he used in order to defeat the devil in his temptation. Look there with me at verse four and hear now the word of God but he being Jesus answered and said it is written. Man shall live by bread alone. Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Our Lord Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter eight and verse three. As we look at this doctrine of sola scriptura, We are addressing the fundamental issue of authority. What is our authority? What is it going to be? As Protestants, we have rested on the doctrine that scripture is going to be our primary authority. It's going to be our supreme authority. And any other authority that has been instituted by God would be subjected to the authority of God's word. The Roman Catholics have a trifold view of authority. They too will say that scripture is an authority. They will admit that. And they have to because God's word is so clear about itself. But they will also add two other authorities to the list. So one is tradition. Church tradition is also an authority in the Roman Catholic Church. And then thirdly, the magisterium, church leadership. You probably have heard some of the idea of the Pope speaking ex cathedra or bishops or councils speaking in sort of an authoritative way of bringing some moral issue to a conclusion based upon the council at that time. Now, brothers and sisters, as we consider this aspect of Sola Scriptura and what will be our authority, we are told all over the internet that the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is an absurdity. It's absurd, it's foolish, it's a waste of time. I started to create a list of words that our Catholic friends, if you can To be proper and polite, our Catholic friends that would say, look, you guys, we get it, you have a high view of scripture, but this is absurd. This is ridiculous. And then they would go on and they would say something to the effect, nowhere in the Bible does it say it's the final authority. You can't find those words in the Bible, they say. Nowhere in the Bible does the Bible say, these are the only 66 books of the Bible. Because in the Catholic Bible, there are seven more books. That they will say is authoritative. Now brothers and sisters, I do not have the privilege of time to go and open up all of these arguments for you. That may be something we do later on in another conference. There are many good websites, Protestant reform websites, that are defending these doctrines, all the solas, and they're worthy of your time if you really want to know If this is a real interest to you, I would encourage you, you can see me after this message and I'll be glad to direct you to some of those websites and there are some good debates and lessons even on YouTube addressing these things. Well, brothers and sisters, just briefly, as we look at Matthew chapter four and verse four, even our Lord Jesus Christ does not appeal to tradition. He doesn't, in the midst of the temptation, he doesn't pause and say, wait a minute, what did the pharisaical council, what did the rabbi say? He doesn't do that. Now, this is our Lord Jesus. Our Lord Jesus, who is fully man and fully God, makes his appeal to Holy Scripture. He doesn't even appeal to Moses per se, does he? He doesn't say, well, Moses said, he says, no, we are to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, proving and demonstrating that what Moses wrote is Scripture. Proving, as anyone that would look at this text and do just a minor exegesis, proving that what Moses had written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is considered the Word of God and authoritative and beloved, sufficient, capable, and complete in and of itself. to strengthen Jesus through his testing, to fight off the temptation of the devil. The word of God proved to be adequate. He didn't appeal to the rabbis. And he doesn't appeal even to his own day. He doesn't appeal to any modern day group, Sadducees or Pharisees. Jesus appealed solely to the word of God. And based upon that, I mean, there were only like a dozen scriptures I could have used as a proof text to open up this doctrine. But I wanted to at least demonstrate that if our Lord Jesus can rest upon the word of God, We can too. If he can trust the word of God we can trust the word of God. If Jesus has no problem appealing to scripture and in fact appealing to a very old text of scripture by the way written a thousand years 1,500 years before him as adequate. then I think we should look at this and then seriously consider it to be our authority as well. So what I want to do tonight in our remaining time, the best that I'm able to do and capable of doing, is I'm going to take the Westminster Confession faith chapter 1 those 10 paragraphs where the doctrine of Holy Scripture is set forth and in a pastoral way I'm going to do I'm dividing those 10 paragraphs It was a struggle. I'm dividing those 10 paragraphs into three main points Because what I want to do my goal is is to demonstrate and show you how useful, how adequate, how complete, and how beautiful the word of God is. And you should not be embarrassed to appeal to it. You should not be embarrassed or ashamed in any conversation with anyone that doesn't believe in the doctrine of sola scriptura. You should not feel inadequate as you have this conversation with them about scripture being your authority. I hope to appeal to your conscience and reason. I hope that the Holy Spirit will come down in each of our hearts and testify to this truth, testify to the word, make these things convictions to us, that they would be solid and strong, that we would not be like Paul said, children tossed to and fro. children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine." Well, the first break in this paragraph that I want to take is paragraphs one through three. Now, I don't have time. I'm not going to take time to read each paragraph because that would take time away from explanation. I'm hoping you will read that for yourselves, even if it's tonight or sometime over the weekend or Lord's Day afternoon when you're in between church or whatnot and you're sitting there and you're wanting to have a devotion you can think about some of these things and then open it up and have you a great personal time of devotion with the Lord with these things. But first break is between paragraphs one and three. Now what are the, what's the purpose of these three paragraphs? Or what's the purpose of Sola Scriptura? It's very simple. The aim. of Sola Scriptura. Well, the aim of Sola Scriptura is the aim of Scripture. It's the aim of every other doctrine that we find in Scripture, and it is twofold. It's always twofold. This is simple. You're going to easily remember this. The aim of God's Word, the aim of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura and every other doctrine is twofold. One is to glorify God, and the second one is to teach us how to enjoy him forever. That's the aim. That is the aim. It teaches us to glorify God. Why? Because in his word, God has revealed himself. Paragraph one even says it this way. It is so pastoral. He says, and it pleased God to reveal himself in writing. Now think about this. God was not, even though God had handed down doctrine orally, but God was not satisfied with that. The confession teaches us that it pleased God to move among men to put it in writing. And then the first paragraph goes on to tell us that, well, why did he do that? Well, for the better preserving, so that God's people might be preserved. So that from one generation to another, God's people would be able to stand the tide of sin and darkness, whatever it is around them in God's providence, whatever they experienced, they'd be able to be preserved in that day. And God's people have suffered many days, all kinds of days. We find ourselves in a mix of darkness and chaos, but God will preserve us. How? Through teaching, the teaching of his word. God's gonna unfold his word to us. God has sent ministers to preach and open up the word of God. As Paul said to the Corinthians, I brought nothing to you but the word of God. And that's it. I didn't need to add anything else to it. I just brought to you the word of God and the Holy Spirit testified that what I gave you was the word of God. So it's not just the preserving of the church, it's the propagating of the truth. We sit here in the comfort of, in the beauty and the comfort of knowing that one generation can hand the gospel down to another generation and another generation and another generation so that your children and children's children and children's children's children can all know the same God in the same way, in his saving mercies and grace, in his love, his kindness. And in the midst of the church, that is the kingdom of God the confession says that the scriptures reveal to us. But it also addresses and deals with those battles we face that inward carnality that we faced on a daily basis that we faced when we got up this morning that we faced when we were going to sleep last night that we face now. and we'll continue to face until the Lord removes us out of this world. The word of God reveals to us, God put it in the writing so that anytime we find ourselves slipping, we can take our eyes and our hearts to the word of God and we can read it and pray over it and meditate and thank God for it and implement it. and put it into practice so that we might stave off those desires that spring up in our heart. But it's not, it just doesn't stop there. It's the malice of Satan and the world. You know the world hates you. How do you deal with that? Satan hates you. If Satan could, he'd kill everybody. He's the father of lies and death. He's the first murderer, if you will. The Word of God teaches us, it shows us, it brings to light. Look, you're going to face these battles. God's Word tells us. But when you do, you're going to face it in the whole armor of God. You're gonna face these battles in the light of the word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. And as we walk by faith before our Lord, submitting ourselves and giving ourselves over to him. Brothers and sisters, listen, in these three chapters, we find that the one thing that is one thing to hang our minds and our hearts on is how necessary the word of God is. And that's what the confession says, it's necessary. Now, when we talk about necessary, we really need to think about what does necessary mean? Well, it means you can't live without it. Now, in what sense? Well, we're talking about a saving sense. We're talking about in a way that we come to know God in that grace, that saving grace sense. That is, the scriptures are most necessary if we're going to be reconciled to God, if we're going to obey him and we're going to know him in an intimate fashion, if we're gonna know what to believe about him and what he requires of us, we're going to need to know him through his word. We don't get that from nature as adequate and as sufficient as nature is to render the whole human race as condemned before God. It is not sufficient to lead anyone into that saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And nor is tradition. And nor is the magisterium. You will find no appeal, you check me on this, You will find no appeal. If you look up all of these proof texts, you can look at dozens and dozens and cross-reference those and look up those, and you're gonna find no appeal to tradition when it comes to salvation. We're gonna look at some of these verses. I hope we get to look at them. You're gonna find the appeal is solely upon God, his power, his word, his grace. that grace that's revealed to us in His Word. So when we talk about necessary, young people, we're talking about just as air necessary for you to live. So the Word of God is necessary for us to have a saving relationship with the living God, in His Son, Jesus. Without His Word, it's impossible Without his revelation, without God speaking to us, it's impossible to have an intimate saving relationship with him. But there's another aspect. There's another aspect to this. When we talk about the necessity of it and we can become convinced, we say, okay, pastor, I believe you. I see what Jesus is doing here. What does Jesus say? Jesus says, man shall not live on bread alone. What is bread? Bread is the sustenance of life itself. But that's not sufficient. That is, bread is sufficient to keep you alive and to keep you living, working, paying your taxes. But bread is not sufficient to make you right and pleasing in God's sight. That comes from the Word of God. That comes from God opening up to us what God wants us to believe, what God wants us to do in this matter. But then we have to ask the question, well if scripture is necessary, where do we find it? Now you have to understand every paragraph, every, each paragraph in chapter one, 10 of them, each paragraph defeats a Roman Catholic fallacy. Each one of those paragraphs, cleverly crafted for pastoral reasons, defeats some Roman Catholic fallacy. because we have to ask the question, well, what is the word of God? Where do we go to find it? And so you open up the confession and you'll see a list of the 66 books of the Bible. The Old and New Testaments are listed there and they make this claim. These alone are the word of God. Now here's where it gets interesting because some of these Catholic apologists will say, well, nowhere in the Bible is that list found. Well, that's a true statement. I mean, I can't turn to any page, I mean, Matthew doesn't list out all these books, right? Paul doesn't list out all these books. But so what's the answer to this? Well, beloved, I'm just gonna give you the very elementary, simple answer of it. The scriptures testify to themselves. You see, that question, when a Roman Catholic brings that up, what they want you to do is go, gee whiz, You're right. Oh my, what do I do now? Now you see the importance of the magisterium. Somebody has to declare these things to be the counsel of God, the word of God. And you see the importance of the Catholic tradition and the Catholic church. That's what they want. But you know what our confession says? The confession turns that up on its head and says, no, no. The scriptures themselves witnessed themselves to be the scriptures. The scriptures testify that they alone are the word of God, and listen to this, primarily by the witness of the Holy Spirit in the heart of each person. You see, beloved, When we talk about the revelation of God's word and we go well where do I go to read God's word where do I go to find the holy scriptures and they list out these books of the Old and New Testaments. That this is the extent of it. This encompasses these 66 books of the Old and New Testament. They complete what we call the canon of scripture. And it wasn't created by the church. I've had plenty of them tell me, well, you owe the church your gratitude because the Catholic church created the canon. No, it did not. It did not. The Old Testament was complete in and of itself hundreds of years before Jesus came on the scene. They already had a Old Testament scriptures. And of course, when Jesus came as the embodiment, as Hebrews one, verse one through three says, that in these last days, God has spoken through us in his son and his son completing that revelation and handing that duty over to the apostles that they might write these things down. that we would have a very sure testimony of what we should believe and how we should live. 2 Timothy chapter three, 16 and 17 teaches us the sufficiency of scripture, that the word of God is his word. And of course, when Paul talks about, and the scriptures are God breathed, he certainly had the Old Testament in mind. Why? Because they were using the Old Testament. They were quoting the Old Testament. Paul was breaking open the Old Testament and then speaking to them what it meant and how they needed to understand it and how all these things, what? Taught about Jesus. That's what Jesus did on the road to Emmaus in Luke chapter 24. What did Jesus teach his disciples? He says he opened up the law and the prophets and what did he do? He showed them Christ from those places. That was to demonstrate if we are to rightly understand the Old Testament, we're gonna see Jesus back there. If we rightly understand the Old Testament, we're gonna see saving grace back there. If we rightly understand the Old Testament, we're gonna see God's grace back there, God's love, God's mercy. We're gonna see the means of grace. We're gonna see sinners confessing Christ to come and believing and trusting and resting in him and being saved from their sins. And even back then, beloved, We are taught Deuteronomy chapter four, verse two, that we're not to, well, add to or take away from God's word. That is, as each opening and closing of God's revelation was off limit to man, to alter and change. That's the importance of sola scriptura. It's not up for councils to change it. It's not up for debate. It's not up for the magisterium to take the word of God and to bend it, shape it, and mold it to whatever the whim of the day is. It remains as it was given. It remains as it is at that time, and it is not to be altered. It is not to be changed. So beloved, when we talk about these first three paragraphs, We recognize the necessity of the word and we've already talked about those reasons. We also talk about where we can find the word of God and what is not the word of God, because they address the apocrypha. Isn't it interesting how every year the whole apocrypha comes back up? The book of Enoch, you know, all of these different books of the dragon, I don't remember all seven of them, But every year it seems to confuse so many in the church. Well, wait a minute. You know, I was watching this YouTube video and they said that, you know, people altered the word of God and they changed it because these books are the real truth. These books are the real gospel. And we need to be listening to them. If we would just rest ourselves upon the foundation of the holy scriptures and these truths that they've been handed down, you know what? We wouldn't be tossed to and fro. We'd be able to just rebuff that and say, listen, let me encourage you to stick with the 66 books that we have. Study those. And this is what I would find, and this I think is something to point out. There are always, it seems always more interesting and adventurous to go after books you don't have, you don't know, versus studying. keeping, loving, memorizing the books you have. Brothers and sisters, study what you have. Rest in what you have. Now let's look at, so he addresses that. One of the reasons, let me just give you a couple of reasons why we adjust the Apocrypha. Well, the Apocrypha is never quoted in any of the scriptures. It's never quoted. In fact, There are contradictions, serious contradictions in the Apocrypha itself. In fact, there are some moral dilemmas in the Apocrypha itself that the reformers were appalled at and said, there's no way. These books don't testify to the majesty, to the beauty, to the glory, to the content of the rest of these books. Therefore, there's no way these books can be scripture, not to mention the Jewish church always rejected those books. They rejected them. And in fact, remember this one, kind of tuck this one away, even after the death of the latest, the last apostle, even some of those church councils and early church fathers already had canonized the 66 books of the Bible before, they had all rejected the Apocrypha anyway. It was later, several hundred years later that the Catholic church added them back into the canon. Just so you know, if you are pressed on the argument of antiquity, that was not the case. Now, brothers and sisters, I think it's important, and this is a failure of my own, when I talk about Martin Luther, because Martin Luther is sort of given, he is sort of the one that, they say, well, he's the one that sort of invented Sola Scriptura. Martin Luther didn't invent it. He just recognized it. He just recognized it. And yes, in God's providence, he was the one that highlighted it in its importance, amen. And let me give you a little bit of background before we move into our second point, because it's fitting. There was one thing that just really, really offended that German scholar Martin Luther, and it was John Tetzel. Tetzel was a priest of the Dominican side of the Catholic Church. They have many factions, by the way. They have many groups. They're not a monolith like they say they are. And he was the one going around selling indulgences. If you gave so much money, you could buy your loved one's soul out of purgatory. And this was highly offensive to Martin Luther as it should have been. And because Martin Luther had found great comfort and personal solace in the doctrine of justification by faith. And he saw this as an attack on that great doctrine of justification by faith. And so Martin Luther went to address this idea of purgatory and this idea of being able to spring someone you love by giving a certain amount of money in purgatory and so he crafted these 95 theses and his theses and several of these theses addressed and dealt with this and of course this brought Martin Luther great infamy. In the land because it it really did. Well it it got attention. And this is where the Roman Catholic Church began to put pressure on him. And there was one Catholic scholar. Johannes Eck. That took Luther to task and was able to manipulate Luther. And really trick Luther. into opposing the Pope. Because Eck knew if he could get him to oppose the Pope, he would win the day. And this is the sort of the famous, this is where Martin Luther, one of his great stands and one of the great quotes, but when he was pressed by Eck about the authority of scripture, here's what he said. I don't care if I have to oppose 1,000 Augustines. I don't care if I have to oppose 1,000 Chrysostom's or 1,000 Popes. If they are not in agreement with the word of God, I stand opposed to them. He had pushed Luther to that point and that's all he needed because that's what the Pope heard. The Pope saw that this man was now opposed to him and he excommunicated him. This is what caused Luther's excommunication. It wasn't his justification by faith alone. It was the doctrine of who's in charge, who's the authority, where is the authority for God's people? And this is what got Luther excommunicated. So brothers and sisters, these are no light matters. And then we come to that second part of the confession of faith, chapters four through six. And then these chapters, it's not just set forth the authority of scripture being that God alone is the authority, that God's authority is embedded and speaks from the scriptures itself. But it tells us, this is so important, that in these three paragraphs, In each of these paragraphs it highlights the witness and the testimony and the power to believe and trust and rest in God's authoritative word does not come from man but from God himself. Brothers and sisters, this is a great reformed Calvinistic principle that you need to know and understand and not be ashamed of. We don't just have the word of God in our laps here tonight with our eyes looking at it, treasuring the bindings we have and whatnot, but it's that God has put his spirit in us and is testifying to us that this is his authoritative word. He is superintending this with his providence. God is superintending his creation. You know, as Calvinists, we need to have a high view of providence. God's word does not need the protection of the church. The church needs the protection of God's word. The church did not create God's word. It is God's word that birthed the church. You see how the Catholics turn it upside down. And those three paragraphs, beloved, you will read in there, the majesty, the beauty, the glory, the symmetry, of the scriptures and how God has organized it, structured it, put it together, that it can be witnessed, that it can be seen, that we can all notice it, but even that alone is not enough to convince any person that it's the word of God and authoritative. That comes through the testimony of the Holy Spirit. And that does separate false professors from true professors. You see, beloved, you can be here tonight and have a high view of scripture. You can memorize it, you can put it on your wall, you can put it on your phone, your computer, your laptop, and you can love to talk about it. But it's that inner working of the Holy Spirit. I love what A.A. Hodge said, It's that internal witness of God's favor to his people. Why? Because we don't have the natural ability to force ourselves to believe in these things. That God moves in us and weds us to this authority. He weds us to this doctrine. He calls it to be a conviction and our hearts soar with gladness so that we can testify with the psalmist, oh, how I love thy law. You can't say that any other way. There are, in fact, let's turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter two. One of my favorite, I don't know, just one of those verses I really like to take people to As Paul writes to this church in Thessalonica, you can go and also read about the Bereans in Acts chapter 17. Well, this is the church, this is the Thessalonians that Paul said were more noble-minded. Look at verse 13, he says, for this reason, we also constantly thank God when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. Where does Paul bring up tradition? Paul, that's a great place right there for Paul to bring up. You know, in the apostolic tradition, you believed it because we told you to believe it. Now we are the authority figures here. We are in that succession of Peter, so to speak. We are that apostolic council, so to speak. And we're telling you to believe it. So whether you agree with it or not, or whether you're convinced in reason or not, just believe it. Now Paul didn't do that. Paul says, we preach the Word of God to you and you received it for what it was, for what it is, the Word of God. And you believed us because you believed the Word of God. What's he saying? That the Holy Spirit moved up in your hearts to believe that God was speaking to you. and calling you to repent of your sins and calling you to put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. It's that inward witness of the Holy Spirit. John 16 verses 13 and 14, the Holy Spirit is the guide for believers in all of truth. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 2, verses 10 through 12, that the Holy Spirit is the one who reveals the deep things of God. Not tradition, not even the best tradition. And certainly not the magisterium, but it's the word of God. It's the Holy Spirit that's taken the word that he moved men to write. It's the Holy Spirit that's doing what? Demonstrating that this word is God's word. And it holds authority in our lives. And brothers and sisters, In these three paragraphs, we talk about the witness of the Holy Spirit. When we talk about the witness and the care and the majesty and how the word of God has been collected and put together and how it too testifies to the divine providence of God. God has been able to preserve his word. God's been able to preserve his people. God's been able to preserve the truth. Listen, all of this chaos is not gonna do away with the church. They're not gonna get rid of the word of God. They're not gonna get rid of the gospel. I don't care how hard they try. I don't care how loud they get. They can be like the prophets of Baal. They can cut themselves. They can kick and scream and cry and moan. And in the end, they're gone. And God remains. And God's truth will remain. And God will, again, raise up his people as he has throughout, in various points in history, raise up his people to give them a body and a truth and gospel that they can, what, believe and live out. Well, it has to do with all of these things, beloved, are sufficient. The scriptures, I mean, look, the scriptures are not gonna help you with your math homework. The scriptures aren't gonna help you understand your water bill, but they will help you walk before God humbly and sincerely. They will help you repent of your sins. They will show you your sin. They will show you your frailties, your weaknesses, and your sins. They will show you what you need to correct. They'll show you the scars and the blemishes as you look into the mirror of God's Word. The Word of God is gonna show you these things that you ought to be concerned about and interested in and prayerful of. It's what the preacher said in Ecclesiastes. God has shown you, old man, what He requires of you. He has shown you what you need to believe and what you need to do to walk humbly before Him. You can summarize it up this way, brothers and sisters, even though the Scriptures aren't gonna help you work on your car, it is gonna help you love God and your fellow man. And it will do that sufficiently and perfectly. In fact Jesus. All along the way rebuke the Pharisees for what their traditions. Matthew chapter 15 Jesus even go so far in rebuking them for their traditions he looks at the apostles and he says stay away from them. Have nothing to do with them. They're wedded and committed to their traditions and these traditions are offensive to God. All along the way, Jesus rebuked these Pharisees, these teachers of the law, with statements such as, you err because you do not know the word of God. You don't know what to do in this matter. You don't know what to do with marriage. You don't know what to do when someone brings this question of marriage to you. You err because you don't understand Moses. You don't understand the word of God. That's the problem. Why? Because you've been wedded and committed to these traditions and you've gone astray. You're walking in darkness and you are offensive to the father. I mean, that alone, beloved, is enough to cause us to shrink back and say, oh my, I don't want tradition as my authority. I don't want the magisterium as my authority. I only want what is pleasing in God's sight, which is his word. Now the last point I have to cover this even though so many different things that could be said along the way but this last point is important too because I think this is sort of well really this is this is part of the problem and that is how are we to interpret the Bible. Now we know it's necessary. We know what it's for. We know where to find it. Well how do we handle it. How are we to handle it? And paragraph seven through 10 give us a hermeneutic. It gives us principles by which we can come to God's word and benefit from it. Now, let me say this. Because this needs to be brought out. What we're going to say is or what what are the Catholic apologists is going to say well first of all you shouldn't be handling the Word of God. Only the magisterium is really the authority that can handle the Word of God and and they're the ones that are really able to interpret it and handle it and to understand it. And so will they handle it and tell you what to believe. The Reformation destroyed that idea. The Reformation was built upon that we are all priests before our God. That he comes in to each and every one of us and that he reveals himself to us and each one of us is a son and a daughter of the living God and God is moving within each one of us and teaching us and training us and instructing us in righteousness, reproving us along the way, chasing us when we need it, building us up when we need it and encouraging us when we need it. John says in 1 John chapter two he says, don't you know we have an unction from the Holy One who's the Spirit of God and we know all things. John was referring to that we all have as Christians the Holy Spirit who is working and testifying to the Word of God, to the authority of God. Now I've gotta say many things about this. First of all, let me address the clarity of scripture, because here's what I love what our confession says. And it was good for me when I first read this as a very, very young, naive Christian. Because I didn't know anything. I wasn't raised in the church. I didn't have a head full of church verbiage and language. But what did I read in that chapter on Holy Scripture? What I read was that everything needed to believe in Jesus Christ is plainly revealed in his word. And of course you can cite the Psalms where it talks about how the word of God makes the simple wise. That all that, does that mean that everything is plain and very simple, every doctrine is easy? No, that's not what they said. What they said was everything needed for your salvation. Everything needed for you to trust and believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, son of man. Everything needed to believe that God is one in three and three in one. Everything needed in order for you to be a Christian is clearly, plainly set forth in one passage or another so that even the most naive and simple can understand it. Praise God. You see, this completely is opposed to the idea that only the elite can understand the Word of God. You know what I have found in my Christian experience that proves, that is, my Christian experience doesn't make Scripture true, but my Christian experience has demonstrated what Scripture says is true, and that is, I've met Christians from all over the world. various forms of education. And you know we had a whole lot in common. Why did we have so much in common? Because they had the Holy Spirit and they read their Bibles. And when you have the Holy Spirit and you're reading your Bibles and you're praying and you're asking God, Lord, what do we parents teach our children? Hey, when you pick up your Bible, ask God to show you himself. Ask God to show you what you need to believe. Ask God to show you the way you need to walk. Ask God for help. Don't come presumptuous to the word of God. It's his word. Ask him to give you light. And he'll do it. And what do we find? We find a great commonality among the body of Christ. Demonstrating the authority and the power and the truthfulness of God's word. Not backwards. Not the other way around. Demonstrating that what God has already said is true. I wish I could go to Acts 15 and open up the council to you and demonstrate even because they love to use that passage of scripture and say, see, the magisterium is the authority figure. No, it clearly says in verse 15 that this is what was written. This is what they did. they weren't making new things up as they went along so beloved we can see that in order that first of all scriptures complete number one secondly scripture interpret scripture scriptures complete it's all you need for life of faith and practice it's it it's complete It will help you as a woman, as a man, as a husband, as a wife, a brother, a sister, whatever your calling, whatever your situation, whatever your station in life, the word of God will aid you to be a Christian in that environment. Secondly, not only is it complete, the word of God is its own interpreter. Scripture interprets scripture. And again, this is another area that we are at opposed to our Catholic friends. Because what they're gonna say is that the magisterium. is the authoritative interpretation of Scripture in any controversy. And what we say is the opposite. We say that it's the Scriptures that are authoritative and infallible, and you interpret the fallible with the infallible, from one passage of Scripture to another passage of Scripture. A passage that's hard to understand with a clearer passage of Scripture, or with many passages of Scripture. Taken collectively, those things that are simple, easy, and understandable, to help you discern and to know and understand what the vague says. So often we get in trouble when we take the obscure and highlight it and ignore all the clear passages. Time and time again it's common to get excited people going, we've never seen this before and we highlight something very obscure and ignoring these other clear passages. When you take these clear passages and you bring them to bear brothers and sisters their safety scripture infallible scripture interpreting infallible scripture and then second as we talk about the final authority of scripture or how do we address church authority how do we address reformed councils how are we to understand synods councils and sessions and presbyteries in general assemblies well here's how we understand those even though these are very clear biblical offices and and events that are useful to the church they are subjected to the word of God they don't they're not beside it they're not above it they're way way way below it And it's the duty of all of those assemblies to study the word of God and let the word of God be the final word in any matter of doctrine or controversy of moral duty. And so many, I would say we can beat up on our Catholic friends all we want, but we have to deal with some Protestant Catholicism that want to hold councils. are Presbyterians in a higher position than God's Word. Even in opposition to the clear teaching of God's Word. I can only mention one, or one should do it, but it's just like the homosexual controversy. God's Word is not obscure on the matter. It's not obtuse. It's very clear. God's Word has spoken about it. God's Word has spoken to that moral issue. And it's not the church's job to reconcile it with the day. It's the church's job, it's the church authority, it's the officer's job to maintain, highlight, custodian the truth and to herald what God has already said about it. That's all our job is to do. We're not to be creative. We're not to usurp God's authority and power, ours glory. And that's exactly what we do when we take the word of God and twist it and add to it and make it say what we want it to say. So Protestants are guilty of it. Protestants are guilty of not submitting to the word of God as that final rule of authority. But beloved, Sola Scriptura is the doctrine. That God's word is complete it is sufficient it is necessary it is authoritative and it is clear on every matter of faith and doctrine and practice. It's clear. And all we need to do tonight is praise God for it, thank God for it, and start reading it more. Start trusting it. Start resting in it. Stop apologizing for it. You know, I used to do this as a young man. Well, I'm sorry, but the word of God says, and I got to thinking, I'm convicted that, why am I apologizing for God's word? That's sinful. Brothers and sisters, don't apologize for the word of God. God can defend himself. God can move and listen, God can make the darkest heart light. He can make alive the deadest of hearts. All he has to do is call them forth. But when they come forth, I'm gonna do what one of my old Baptist ministers used to do. When they do come forth, they're gonna believe this book, that this is the word of God, and this is all we need to love our God, to walk before him humbly, sincerely, and practically, and to love our neighbor as ourselves right here. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your blessings, your mercy. Thank you for this doctrine. Thank you for men like Martin Luther that stood up and highlighted the importance of your word, its authority. Thank you for the men that came after him and maintained it and opened it up even further and given us a rich tradition, Lord, like even tonight. We are just recognizing and standing on the shoulders of so many skilled and gifted men, Lord, and we are thankful. Lord, we cherish, we relish this treasure. Help us to love it, protect it, to live it out, Lord, and help us to know it.