This is our series called foundations in which we are attempting to identify the trunk, the substance, the basics, the foundational elements of the faith, and just a couple of things. Number one, friends. I may not be presenting it perfectly. Some of you may say, well, it's not exactly in the right order. I'm just kind of walking around the trunk and pulling off pieces of bark. Here's good one. Here's another good one. And so some of you may say, I wish it was more systematic. I wish he could put it in a better order. I wish he could identify the things that are more important than other things. Friends. Okay. We're doing the best we can to identify a trunk here. And, uh, if you really want to understand what the Word of God says, you need to show up for the next 30 years of preaching from this pulpit. We're going to get into a lot of stuff. My main point is that there are majors and there are minors. According to the Word of God, Jesus said, you can strain at Nats and swallow camels. And there are fundamentals and the fundamentals are attached to everything else. So we're not trying to minimize anything else. It turns out a tree involves more than a trunk involves branches connected to trunks and leaves connected to branches. So there's more to it. But if you have these, these leaves up here, but they're not connected to any basics, any fundamentals, you still got a problem. So that's why we come back to the trunk from time to time. Second Timothy three now starting with verse 13. Hear the word of God. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But continue, thou and the things which thou has learned has been assured of, knowing of whom thou has learned them that from a child thou has known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness. The man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to all good works. I charge the therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, the instant in season out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts, shall they keep to themselves teachers having itching ears and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned onto fables. Here's the here's the broad message. There are difficult times in which the storms come and you're in a little boat. You're trying to get this little boat across the sea and the waves are going 20, 30 miles per hour. What do you do? Paddle. Paddle. Do I, do I stop paddling? No. You have one thing to do. Paddle. Paddle. Paddle for dear life. Preach the word. OK, that's the sermon y'all can go home now. Now, there may be some controversy on when to apply this passage. I believe that you can apply this passage from the point at which the apostle Paul wrote it. All the way to when Christ comes back. We're in the new heavens and new earth Okay, that's that's my eschatology. I hope I haven't run into anybody else's eschatology. That's mine So I I believe this word applies now. It does say that evil men get worse and worse that typically happens when the good is repenting. And we see a trajectory towards the application of God's word and the implementation of God's word in a society. There's an evil element of society that gets worse and worse as the good element repents and repents. I think we're seeing something like that happening in our present day. But let me give you some context for it. Back up the second Timothy chapter three at the beginning there. So just follow back to the beginning of chapter three. So we understand the context of this message. This know also that in the last days, perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truthbreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despises of those that are good traders, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof from such turn away for this sort, are they which creep into houses, lead captive, silly women laden with sins, led away with divers, lost, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. So that's the context. The context is. Tough times, perilous times. Challenging times, waves are 20, 30 feet, maybe 40 feet. Starting to feel it. Maybe not everybody feels the peril of the day, but I feel it. Boy, does anybody ever feel a little peril? It's a little peril. Feel a little bit of peril. Perilous times are marked by what? They're marked by rebellion against parents. And that's the Proverbs 30 principle, where these people who rebel against their parents, their teeth are like daggers. They do their best to obliterate the poor from off the earth. Rebellion against parents is a scary thing Especially when you have the pop stars of the day with number one albums referring to their mothers as female dogs and you And by the way, some say there's been some repentance here and there and wherever there's repentance That's a good thing. But when you've got you know, 150 million albums out there with some of the most vile lyrics that anybody's ever concocted in the history of music. It seems to an end. They're selling hundreds of millions of copies of them. I'm concerned. Anybody else concerned? I'm concerned. Seems to me it may be perilous days ahead. Because friends, it's the rebellion. of Kim Il-sung against his Presbyterian father, elder, and Presbyterian pastor, grandfather, that yields the horror and the destructive persecution and the absolute worst stories on planet Earth comes from what? The rebellion of a covenant son raised in a Presbyterian household in the 1930s and 40s. I'm concerned. I'm very concerned. Ernest Hemingway gets his father. The sights of his gun does not pull the trigger, but most of his life he spends cursing his father and mother. And then you see the results of that man's work. It's a concern. It's a concern when men rebel against their parents, a huge concern, huge. Especially those who are raised in nice little Wheaton College households on G.A. Henty books speak, of course, Ernest Hemingway. OK, let's move on to a time of where there's no natural affection, a few references to that without natural affection, lovers of themselves, covetous, boast is proud, loving themselves rather than loving God. It's a day in which men are concerned about themselves. Why have there been two to seven billion babies, at least seven billion babies, prevented and aborted? We have no idea what the ratio, it's hard to know what the ratio. The ratio of aborted babies is somewhere around two, four, five billion babies have been aborted worldwide since 1960, thanks to the chemical abortifacients and all the technology that has enabled an existentialist, me-centered lifestyle. And that's a concern. It's a concern, natural affection out the window. Does this affect human relationships? Does it affect the 50% of kids born to women less than 30 years of age who are leaving their children in single parent households without a father? Is that cruel? Is it cruel for a father to conceive a baby, half of the population of America today, and walk away? Is that cruel? Is that cruel? Is that lacking in natural affection? You bet it is. Perilous days ahead. Selfishness, licentiousness, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Then exceedingly proud men, there's about six or seven words used for arrogance. Pride. Heady. High-minded. Arrogant. Puffed up in knowledge. Shot through our system. Pride seeps in and seeps in. You know, and I mention these things not because it affects everybody out there. And thankfully, we're here. None of us have a selfish issue. And none of us have a pride issue. Come on, guys. Has it affected any of us? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it seeps in around the edges all the time. God have mercy on us. But there's lots and lots of learning, lots of learning. Verse six says deceitful men and silly women bloggers are creeping house to house. I added the word bloggers. It's just, you know, it's harder to get. You don't go house to house today. Too much of a hassle. You have to go up to a house, say, OK, I'm here to, you know, share something that's really going to disturb the entire Church of Christ, blow the unity of pieces and and create more and more heretical notions. Here I am. And then you've got to move the next out. But here's what really makes this efficient today is you open up a blog. You can mass produce it, right? You get around. Kind of cool, huh? For those who want to get around. Silly women, bloggers, deceitful men, usually excommunicated from some church out there or their divorcees ruined their homes, their own houses, their own relationships, ruined their own churches, did their church hopping. Nobody knows who these people are. They're just wicked, divisive people, trolling about and wreaking havoc. Now, I'm not saying that's every blog. I blog from time to time. But I'm saying there's some of that out there. There may be more than we think. And it's associated with lots and lots of learning. Sometimes the people who do the blogging have a classical education, got PhDs, PhDs, master's degrees, lots and lots and lots of learning, lots and lots of rhetoric and debate classes. But they've never quite come to the knowledge of the truth. never quite come to the knowledge of the truth. So that's these. These are the descriptive devices Paul uses for a very dangerous society in which the church itself is in peril. The potential of the church being ripped apart, pulled apart at the seams is very, very high. Moreover, Paul says in verses 12 and 13, persecution is practically inevitable. Yea, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. How many of you have thought, I wonder if persecution is coming soon. Church across losing power, losing influence in society. The little pieces still exist are fighting each other into oblivion. It was pulling together all of the pro-family organizations found that they constitute $261 million against the billions and billions of dollars given to Planned Parenthood and the $16 billion redistributed to all the liberal organizations like Acorn just two weeks ago. And you know, the hundreds of billions of dollars that, and then you have this little $256 million we pulled together for the pro-family organizations around the country. And we're just a tiny little flea on the backside of the dragon and we're chewing our own legs off We got a new strategy what if we chew each other's legs off Maybe that will help us win the battle No, it seems to me that Persecution is practically inevitable Deception will be everywhere versus 12 and 13. Again, evil men seduces show wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived. Now what? Okay, that's the context. Now, what do we do? Some of you say, well, this hopeless. There's no way we get out of this. This is hopeless. What we can do. What are we going to do? Take a look at 1415. He turns to Timothy and he says, but as for you continue in the things which you have learned and have been assured of knowing of whom you have learned them. And that from a child you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. So what do we do? Maybe we ought to spend the rest of the day, the rest of the week checking out Facebook. Reading the blogs. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Timothy, keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the ball. Get in the word. Stay in the word. Say, well, that's that's it. That's that's it. That's that's pretty much it. That's that's the strategy. Yeah. Yep. That's the strategy. Stay in the word. Now, the scriptures. are the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. No question, Paul is referring to the Old Testament in verse 15. And as you read the early church father talking, talking to apostolic fathers, you do not find them drawing a hard line distinction between teaching the New Testament and teaching the prophets. They are always referred to as the prophets and the apostles. That's the way the apostolic fathers talk of the word. So throughout the apostolic fathers writings, I don't have the quotes in front of me right now. I'm sorry, but if you read the apostolic father, I can send you the 300 extent pages. If you want, you're going to find these guys emphasized teaching in the prophets and apostles, teach the apostles and the prophets. If you're trying to do a new Testament church. Why should we believe the Word of God? See, what he's saying is all the deception is going on. What do you believe? What do you believe? I'm going to speak to the young people this morning because I think our young people are tossed about with some doubts. Some of whom I've talked with in the last few weeks, there's doubts, doubts. Why are there so many doubts? I tell you why there's so many doubts because there's a hundred million opinions out there and they picked up 90,000 of them on Facebook just last week. That's why that's why there's so many doubts, doubts, doubts, flying everywhere, flying everywhere. But why do we believe the word of God here? A couple of reasons. Number one, not because it makes sense. Not because our emotions tell us it's good, not because of the charisma of the preacher who takes the Bible and waves it in your face and uses lots of emphasis. Okay. I do that, but that's not why it's true. That's not why it's true. Friends. I could do that all day long. I could do it with a, a really, really loud voice. He could turn me up to 170 DBs. You know, maybe that will help. Maybe that'll impress the importance of God's word upon you. And, and not because you don't believe this word because I got a little portion of this morning. I took it out of context, but I found it really encouragement for the moment. So based upon, you know, my feel goodness, my, I was really encouraged. I found six words. I was really encouraged. So it must be true. That's not the basis of it. Whether or not you're encouraged by it is not an issue. It's a no, that doesn't establish the truth of it. You can read, you can listen to Joel Osteen. Be encouraged. Heard a testimony of a guy this week who is living the absolute most profligate lifestyle I've ever heard. Professional baseball player. Came to our Shepherds conference, gave us a little testimony. He said for five years, his mom introduced him to Joel Osteen for five years. He continued his lifestyle of hanging out with the prostitutes and basically breaking the seventh commandment every single day. And if he was ever a little discouraged, ever had a little bit of guilt, ever had a little, he took a little Joel Osteen. And then, then one day he pulled up some Joel Osteen right there on the sidebar of YouTube. There was preacher rebukes Joel Osteen. And he clicked on it. He says, who is this joker? He says the guy had his hair all messed up and his shirt was all tucked in way too far and his pants were way up. He had grasshoppers hanging out of his mouth. He says, who is this geek trying to attack Jules? And he heard the warnings to escape the judgment to come upon men who were saturated in sin and had not repented and sought Christ to save them from their sins. And he knew that he knew he was headed for a hell forever. He knew it. And he listened to a thousand sermons where he used to have five prostitutes a day. He displaced it with five sermons a day for a year. Listen to a thousand sermons. That man's perspective was radically changed. He says, I am an entirely different person today. My mind was completely cleansed. My perspectives, everything. This is a Jeffrey Dahmer experience. A radical conversions. Heart and mind came about by way of the word of God. Every word of God is God breathed. Take a look at the text again. Second Corinthians or Second Timothy three sixteen, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. It's God breathed, can't say that about anything else, any other blog or any other book or anything else, everything is subservient to the truth of this book. Paul respected the Old Testament scriptures. and the New Testament scriptures. Peter speaks of us having a more sure revelation in the New Testament, even over the experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. So comparing human experience to the words that were recorded by the apostles and prophets, friends, these words are God breathed. Then it cuts. It cuts. It's powerful. Why do you believe it? Because it claims to be the Word of God. Say, well, somebody needs to prove to me that this is the Word. Well, who? Who needs to prove it to you? Say, well, Lee Strobel. If Lee Strobel could prove to me this is the Word of God, if he could say, I'm a lawyer, okay? And and I know what constitutes good evidence. So why don't we go ask Lee Strobel? Let me ask you this. Who's Lee Strobel? He's just another guy. So how in the world is Lee Strobel going to convince us that this is the true blue revelation of Almighty God? May I suggest somebody else who could confirm that this is the truth of Almighty God? You see, who is that? Well, try to think of somebody who's even more authoritative than Lee Strobel. Try to think of somebody. Can you think of anybody? How about God? How about we just ask God what he thinks? See, and you say, well, that's circular. It has to be circular. You say, well, if God shows me his driver's license, then I might believe that he is God. Well, who issued God the driver's license? Now you got to check with the, they're just nobody's. So see, that's the issue. The issue is God's word must be self-authenticating in its authority or it cannot be the word of God. It just simply can't be. This word is precious gold and a point to men who shed their blood to keep these words available. William Tyndale. He died over this issue, trying to get this into the common tongue. Or think about the martyrs in North Korea today. I referred to North Korea earlier. These martyrs, you understand that a family over the last 40, 50 years was able to keep a Bible in a bird's nest for the last 50 years. As far as we know, it may be the last Bible in North Korea, and the authorities found it, or a neighbor found it, and that family died the death. And that's only one story of many, many stories. That one came out just, what, about six or nine months ago. People have shed their blood over this book. That's how important it is to have this book available. The truth of God available. And why do the tyrants of the world want to get rid of it? Because they know it's dangerous. Well, why don't the tyrants in America want to get rid of it? Because in America, people have access to four or five, six copies of this word. But you say, well, What's wrong with the word and its effectiveness in the lives of people today. It's the fact that we lose. We've lost the faith to acknowledge the word, to be what the word really is. We don't see the authority of it. We don't see the relevance of it. We don't see the importance of it. That's why People over North Korea shedding their blood for that book here. We hardly pay attention to it They sit around the basement copies everywhere and we don't respect the words that are there We sit and do our Bible time because we know we supposed to but we don't understand that what we have in our hands is a sword that's gonna pierce and penetrate and pierce and penetrate and transform lives and We need a little faith in the prophet-ness of Christ, the authority of Christ, before we pull this word out. See, Gutenberg was a problem for the devil, right? Why? Because Gutenberg was going to get that word into every home in Europe and America. So the devil had to come up with another strategy. How could he do it? Well, he did it by de-relevantizing the word, by higher criticism. Brilliant men found reasons to find internal contradictions and say, see, those internal contradictions don't allow for a perfect, adequate, representation of truth for faith in life. And now the word is fallible in the minds of most of the mainline denominations of the 1920s, 1930s. So Gutenberg was a problem for the devil. The devil also suggested that we derelevant ties, large portions of the Bible. And the problem is that we derelevant ties Genesis chapter one and two. You know that it's going to, the value of the authority of scripture is going to slip a couple of knots in the minds of the average person. We're not going to use the Old Testament as authoritative, equipping the man of God for every good work because of all the theological systems that we impose over the word. And I'm here to tell you, I think the systematic theology is in the minds. of a lot of Christendom. I'm talking about conservative Christendom has displaced the authority of what God said originally in the minds of a lot of people. Devil's strategy is to de-relevantize the book. It's not relevant. It's not applicable. Who really needs to read it? Who needs to apply? Who needs to live it out? Look at Isaiah 8, verse 19 and 20. Here we have Isaiah talking to all the people about the familiar spirits and the wizards that peep and mutter. And the wizards that peep and mutter are all the sources of wisdom and knowledge and coming or pseudo wisdom and pseudo knowledge coming from, well, the blogosphere, Facebook. That's effectively Facebook. and the new stories, the new theory that we just found another ape somewhere in Africa. And trust us, this is, this absolutely is a seed for the human race. And they believe it just like the Neanderthals were. Neanderthals were not human. but were something of a distant relative of the human race until most recently they did full analyses of the DNA and found that the Neanderthal is human. But now what are the wizards and all the wizards that peep and mutter say in the 1930s and 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s with a hundred million kids and all the K-12 schools, the high schools and the college, what were they saying about the Neanderthals? They're a distant relative of the human. It's one of the links. We found the link. Well, now all these years later, they've confirmed the Neanderthals are human and fits well within the DNA code that exists around the world today. So the wizards that peep and mutter that came out in the 1950s and said Neanderthal is a distant relative What does the Christian do? What the wizard say well the wizard had a white coat on it's got the PhD and It's got the authority of the Academy. Not only that he's got four trillion dollars of the Emperor's new clothes Propaganda machines pushing and pushing and pushing putting it in the Smithsonian and putting it You know throughout the entire nation having all the high school textbooks. He's got all of that Wow, the Wizards are getting around a bit these days So with all of that, what does the Christian say in? 1954 concerning Neanderthals To the law and to the testimony, if it is not according to this, it is because there is no light in them. Science itself is destroying itself because all of these wacko theories and all this pretended pompous, arrogant confidence. They're not, they're not saying with 92% probability, uh, with a 5% alpha risk based upon these experiments, we kind of think that it might be right to change the process, uh, because there seems to be something of a cause effective relationship here. That was humble science. That was the engineering science. That was the kind of science that, that I did, but no, no pompous science today is comes out with all of the authority of the Academy. It says, trust me. to the law and to the testimony. It's not according to them, it's because there is no light in them. Went back to my college course, Introduction to Philosophy textbook for the definition of humanism this week. And I found this definition of humanism. You want to know what humanism is? The false religion that governs everything today. Here it is. Any law that people are counseled to obey, that is not of their own making, enslaves them and robs them of their dignity. If human beings are God's creatures, then presumably they are totally subject to the will of the creator. Theistic authoritarianism is destructive of humanity. OK, that's humanism. The most fundamental rebellion of all is. Yay. Half God said. That's a problem. You get to the fourth word there. And you are committing the original sin, at least in the mouth that came in the mouth of the serpent. Yeah, half God said, yeah, half God said. We find with Christ, we find with the word of God much concerning the authority of the word as it is given. Let me give you a couple of texts here. I understand I haven't given you notes today. I'm sorry for that, but you'll have to just jot these down in your notebooks as we go. Is that all right? Matthew seven and verse twenty nine. So at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ preaches there are three chapters. And then at the end is that people were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority. Romans three and verse four. Paul is looking at all the worldly wise men out there, all the theories, all the trying to identify what's true about the world, what's true about us, what's true about God, what's true about creation. And he says, Romans three and verse four. Yay, let God be true and. Every man a liar. Okay, what that means is you stack all the newspapers all the scientific studies all of the official reports that have come out of every university on this side All the media reports all blogs. Yes, even Facebook And everything that anybody has ever said on Facebook and then you put the Bible over here and Paul says let God be true and and every man a liar. That's the kind of faith that Paul had in the authority of Christ. Jesus, when he was addressing a question concerning the resurrection, still, this is kind of a shocker to my system. But I want you to think about this. Jesus respected the absolute truth of the revelation of the Old Testament. He hinges the argument on the resurrection on a verb tense, where God turned to Moses and said, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And Jesus said, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and it's dead for 400 years? And God says, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he said, and you haven't read that. What's wrong with you? I said, well, you mean he wanted them to get down into the verb tense of one tiny verse in Deuteronomy? He wanted the Sadducees to so respect the Old Testament that they are studying the verb tenses. every verse in the Old Testament Every word that God says in the Old Testament Yes Say wow, that's a lot of respect You know, I don't have people taking my books apart and saying now Kevin Swanson said he used this verb tense He used a past tense here and so, you know, and they're preaching for my books and all that I Hope that never happens That would be horrible, but Jesus has this amazing respect for Old Testament revelation. Job 40 verses one to five is my other text. Of course, the whole context of Job sets it up for these last comments. The Lord is coming to Job and saying. Shall he contend with the Almighty? Shall he that contends with the Almighty instruct him, he that reproves God? Let him answer it. See, what we're getting here is this huge contrast between Job and God. And it's again, it's I guess it would be a little bit like a little two year old challenging his pastor father. You know, we can it would be two year old kind of dad, I'm going to challenge you on your understanding of faith and works challenge you on that. For one thing, he can't, he'd have to say, I challenge you day. I challenge you. I challenge you about your belief about God. So windy. What's that going to say? Listen, kid, I'm dad. You're two years old. There's a little bit of that going on here. Job 40. And God is shaking Job up a little bit, you know. And some people think, well, shouldn't God have been a little more tender towards Job? No, he's teaching him a lesson here. He rewards him at the end of the book. But in Job 40, he's saying, Job, you've talked too much here. He that contends with the Almighty, instruct him. He that reproves God, let him answer. Then Job answered and said, and this is Job's repentance. I think this is the end of Job's comments in the entire book, but he repents here at the end. How is Job's repentance coming about? Job answered the Lord and said, Behold, I am vile. What shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will not answer ye twice. I will proceed no further. Any who contend with God will end up having to answer to him. Canst thou thunder with a voice like God? The implications to this, friends, is we've got to have a little bit more respect for the Word of God. And I like to summarize the biblical worldview by way of an epistemological question, and that is W.D.B.S.A.T. Some of you remember that. I used to say that maybe five, six years ago. I'm bringing it out again because I still think it's helpful. You know, like a W.J.D. What would Jesus do? Remember that? I came up with this really long one. WDB SAT What does the Bible say about that? It's just kind of one of those barn door ways to figure out whether you respect the Bible or not Someone brings out a question about something Doesn't matter what it is egalitarianism courtship voting educational neglect, whatever What does the Bible say first thing what is the Bible say about that before you draw in the confessions or common law or these other things. The first thing on the minds of those who have a biblical perspective, things are going to be, what's the Bible say about that? Now they're going to go to history eventually, wind up with apostolic fathers and maybe a creed or a confession. But here's what concerns me. Even among reformed people, they can be offended when you bring up the Bible. Reformed people can be offended when you bring up the Bible. And I haven't figured out why. They want to go to the confessions first. They want to bring out the confession first. They don't want to go to the Bible first. And I think we got to be very, very careful here, friends, because our epistemological authority is betrayed by where we go first, what we consider to be the ultimate authority. Now, there may be some questionableness in how we're taking this verse or that verse, but let's start with the authority of Almighty God. What does he say about it? And people are afraid of this book, and that's one reason they stay away from it. They're afraid of it. They're afraid of what it might bring about. It might draw them to repentance. They might find out that the way they've been doing their perspective of debt is completely wrong. And a wrong view of scripture leads to a cultural kowtowing. Where if you're in a church business meeting and you're talking about pushing the church into debt and somebody says, well, what does the Bible say? Shut him up. Shut him up. Somebody shut him up. Don't you understand that the zeitgeist of the day is that everybody's in debt. That's just the way it works. It's the way John Maynard Keynes set it up. So get over it. We don't need to talk about what the Bible says about it. We're just going to go with whatever everybody else is doing out there. Why? Because what everybody else is doing out there becomes the epistemological authority. It becomes the driving force. And we begin to hold the scriptures to the cultural presuppositions of the day. There is also a mistrust of God's wisdom and God's word out there. And friends, I'm telling you, when you've got an emotional psychological problem happening within your church, and it's pretty intense, there is a temptation to want to send the person off to the guy who's a trained psychiatrist, a trained psychologist. He's studied the books. He's rooted in Skinner and Freud and all the others. And he's got all of that. I know what I'm doing. All of the support of the institutions, the Christian colleges, maybe not all the Christian colleges, but a lot of the Christian colleges and the Christian churches and some of the pseudo Christian psychologists, they're all behind this approach. And then when you get a guy coming in, chewing on grasshoppers and saying, you know what? Let's get into the word of God. It is Pastor Billy Bob. You know, and he said, how much are you going to charge me, Pastor Billy? But nothing. I just love you. I just, you know, figure that this word is going to be helpful for you. Well, over here, if I pay five thousand dollars, I get all the professionalism of the day to come to help me with this desperately difficult emotional psychiatric problem. Who are you going to go with? Who are you going to go with? You see how that test your epistemological authority, doesn't it? I'm like, oh boy, I do. I really believe God on this one, or should I go with something else? People have a hard time believing that God's law is going to work for politics. Yeah, I know the Bible protects victims rights. It's not big on prisons, but it's big on work and restitution. I know that the biblical law punishes severe crimes, doesn't regulate everybody else to death. I know it preserves freedoms for innocent people, preserves parental freedoms and preserves the rights of the accused, doesn't create breeding grounds for more criminals like welfare and prisons do. But I still can't trust God on this one. There's something wrong with that guy. Can I get an amen? There's something wrong with that guy. There's wisdom in the general equity of the application of God's laws. Wisdom. I'm so thankful that, yes, our confession of faith was careful to preserve the general equity in the capital crime laws. So when somebody rejects the Word of God by mistrusting God's wisdom and God's Word, that is an indication that people are not bowing the knee to the epistemological authority of Jesus Christ, who is the source of all wisdom and the King of kings and Lord of lords. Jesus Christ says in John 12, 48, I want you to listen carefully to this, because if at this point you are not valuing this Word, And you're still planning not to read the word this week. You're going to be sloughing off on your devotions this week. You're still not quite there yet. I want to share one more thing with you from. John, well, 48, Jesus Christ himself said this, he that rejects me and receives not my words has one that judges him in the last day. The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day." Now, anybody want to read it? Do any of you drive? Raise your hand. Young people especially. Young people, do any of you drive? Before you drive, you need to read the driver's manual. How many of you read the driver's manual before you went out there and drove? If you don't read the driver's manual, and you break the law codes, they will fine you $160. At least that's what Bill Jack told me this week. Sorry, Bill, wherever you are. But I'm here to tell you, we're not talking about traffic You read the traffic manual because you didn't want a ticket. Read it. You say, well, what is the book that's going to be drawn out as the book of the covenant by which people are going to be judged on the day of judgment? It will be what's revealed in this book. Take it seriously. Now, thankfully, within this book, you're going to have a way out of all of the sin, all that sinful record that's turned you towards the negative side of the judgment of God. So I'm not going to get into all the details, but the encouragement is to read this book. You know, when someone says these words are going to judge you in the day of judgment, That's pretty much the highest authority that you could ever bring to any written word in the human language. So I can't get beyond that in establishing epistemological authority of Jesus Christ himself. So the word is relevant. It describes you, instructs you, rebukes you. It's intended for you. It's talking directly to you. You say, who's talking to me? I read the Bible. Who's talking to me? God is talking to you. The word is personal. It's relevant. That means it's not sort of pie in the sky by and by. It's it's for you. It's for you in your present condition right now. It's perfect for you. It's also personal and it's redirected. That's what we get in the last part of the verse. Look at first 16, be one more time. All scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, to equip the man of God for every good work. And that's that's every good. It's good works in the voting booth, good works in the workplace, good work at home, good work wherever, any kind of good work. It will equip you for that and it will adjust, correct and reprove every area of life. Once you pull out those words for a moment, you get to that word. We talked about this when we talked about repentance. Every time you get in front of this word, it's going to take the big old four foot long wrench and go one degree, one degree, one degree. It adjusts you. Now you can be saying, no, no, I don't want to be adjusted. I don't want to be adjusted. I don't want to be adjusted. It will adjust you. It will correct you, will change every part of your life, such that brothers and sisters, we should not be always happy with the status quo. You come to the word saying, you know, I'm pretty happy about myself. Actually, you know, I don't need any adjustment. Well, this is not for you then. But you need to understand the word of God adjusts, corrects. OK, an application. A couple of things. Number one, Paul's application. I read straight through verse 16, 17 on to chapter four and verse one. What does it say? It says, OK. This is Paul, and you can just see him standing up on the table on the kitchen table, just like Farrell did with Calvin in Geneva. Remember that he stood up in a curse on your house. If you leave this place, you are called to ministry. Remember that Farrell said that to Calvin? This is what Paul is doing here. Verse one, I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead and his appearing and his kingdom preach the word. I get the sense Paul's serious. Y'all get that? I tried to express it as best as I could, but it seems to me, Paul's just deadly serious here. It says, okay, there's a judgment day and we got to prepare people for that day. And the way we do it is we preach this word. Secondly, and brothers and sisters. I personally think it may be appropriate for you to listen to a thousand sermons. Some of you may be slogging away in some sewer somewhere and and and you know, maybe it's not five girls a day. But it could be you need five sermons a day for a while. As this young man. Use for himself. It's five sermons a day, let it be five sermons a day. But you need the word. You need to hear the word preached. Secondly, let me ask you a question. What is it that establishes your habits day to day, your life? It's kind of look at your whole life. How do you live the life you live? Why do you live the life you live? What establishes your habits, your goals, your life patterns? Who do you work for? Why do you do the things you do? Where are you getting your advice? Can you trace it to scripture? Or are you living out the life that you want to live out for yourself? So draw some lines. So I'm asking you to least list the way you live your life. Maybe, you know, 10 or 12 different things the way you live your life. Now, why do you live your life that way? Can you trace it to scripture? Are you living your life according to the word of God? Apparently Saul who later became Paul was not living his life according to the word because in Acts 9 We find him on the Damascus Road, and this is the conversion experience. This is this is the massive 180 wrench correction in Paul's life or Saul's life and and and you know These are the words and these are important words where Paul or Saul responds to the Living Christ and Christ is saying, why are you kicking against the pricks? Why are you persecuting me saw and what did Saul say? That's what I want to focus in on here. What did he say in Acts 9 and He trembling said okay, so you got to get the picture here. He's shaking. He's on the ground. He's vibrating just Vibrating he's spinning around like a guy doing a breakdance except he's not trying to do breakdancing He's shaking as he comes face-to-face with the living Christ. And this is what he says, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Boy, is that a good response. Isn't that a good response? Jesus, I'm in your army. I'm on your side. Jesus, I'm with you. It's a Samuel spirit, a little Samuel. Speak, Lord, for thy servant hears. OK, thirdly, third application, beware of that which displaces the words of 40. Beware of that which display other things in your life that displaces the word authority. Now, you may say, well, no, I just in terms of the sermons I've listened to all these years and I've taken presupposition apologetics six years in a row, I understand the authority of scripture, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm asking, practically speaking in your life, are there? influences that slowly but surely displace the word's authority in your life. And I'm thinking like dreams, experiences, anecdotes. These are the things that can disrupt the authority of scripture, especially on a Sunday morning when the word is being preached. I got to be careful that I'm not getting on into my own ideas. I'm getting back to the word. I'm rooting in the word. And I'm trying to communicate the word at the end of the day, are people walking away with the idea that the word is exactly how it's been expressed itself to be in the word. Here's the other thing. Does your own mind displace the word's authority? Okay, here's the answer to this. Yeah, just about every other day. No, no. Every other hour. Someone said the mind is a terrible thing. We don't need the two ways part of it. The mind is a terrible thing because the mind is playing tricks on us constantly. It's good. New ideas, ideas about people, things that aren't truthful about others. Uh, you have ended to be tormented by thoughts. Anybody ever tormented by thoughts? And you're like, you bang your head, you bang, bang, bang, bang. You know, enough of this. Enough of this. You literally have to hit your head. Or take your head and just put it under a faucet of water or something. You just have to. The best thing to do is get into the word of God and receive the word's authority. OK, fourthly. Do you spend your time in the word of God, as we sang in Psalm one in his word, does he meditate day and night? That's what describes the godly man. That's the fundamental difference between the godly man, the ungodly man. Godly man is in the word meditating day and night, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. Why? Because he's not watering his crop with sewer water. He's watering it by the water of the word day in and day out. Are the birds of the air plucking the seeds out of your mind? Sometimes the wicked one comes. Matthew 13. The demons and they pluck the word out of your mind. Are there demons here right now, do you think? Do you think demons ever show up during the preaching of the word? Think that ever happens? Where where maybe the demons are picking the word out of your ear canal. Boring. Oh, I'll bet the pastor is going to get the application. He's going to drill in now. I've heard these applications before turning all this off from here on out. I don't need to hear any of this after this. There's nothing really relevant here. Sometimes the mind flits and flits and flits around while the word is being preached. Or or while you're trying to read the word if you ever tried to read the word and you can't focus on it Very well, you're thinking about everything else going on that day and you might make it through half a verse But man within two to three verses your mind is completely off the subject Has that ever happened? Do you think that the the wicked one is out there to pluck the word? Out of your ear canal or out of your mind as you're reading the word. I think it does happen and OK, a couple of reasons why doubts are growing among the youth. I want to give these to you as we close the message today. One is that our youth sometimes are not rooted in the word. I had an interesting interview with Josh McDowell about a month or two ago. He said something very profound. Here's a guy who's been working with youth since the 1970s. And we're talking about the difference between the 60s and 70s and the millennial youth today. And this is what Josh said. He said, when spiritual leaders fall. And that happens. Spiritual leaders, great, you know, pastors or great ministry leaders of the day, when they fall, when they fell in the 1960s and 1970s, young people would say there must have been something wrong with him. But when they fall today, young people say there must have been something wrong with the word that he preached. Is that a wow? That's a huge wow. That's a difference. And you know what that is? It's postmodernism. It's postmodernism. Because people have moved from being rooted in the truth to being rooted in a person. Young people are not rooted enough in truth. such that they would see inconsistencies between somebody's life and somebody's words. By the way, Jesus Christ addresses this exactly in Matthew 23, 1 and 2. Write that down in your notes if you're taking notes. This is really critical. It's one of the most critical passages you're going to find on this issue. Jesus had such a profound respect for the scriptures, even with the lousy, hypocritical, wicked, adulterous, God's law-softening, divorce-ridden Pharisees. Even with those guys. He said, Matthew 23, one speaking to the multitude and to his disciples, the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat all therefore whatsoever. They bid you observe that observe and do, but do not you after their works for they see, say, and do not. Jesus is not postmodern. Jesus says these leaders will fail you and they will fail you and they will fail you, but you're not rooted in them. You're rooted in the word. The teacher, therefore, is largely irrelevant when it comes to the authority and the truth that is conveyed. We have doubts and fears. It's probably because our thoughts are not rooted in the epistemological authority of the word of God, but they're being shifted around by the epistemological authority of the devil suggestions here and there. If you're doubting the promises of God, where do those doubts come from? Any of you doubt the promises of God from sometimes and just have a hard time holding on and somehow you're slipping and slipping. You ever had a doubt like that? I think some of you young people may. I have. And if so, where do the doubts come from? There are thoughts coming in your head. They're coming from three possible sources, the world, the flesh or the devil. Now, let me ask you this. Are you going to believe the world, the flesh or the devil? Are are they believable? Let me ask you that. Are your fleshly thoughts, the worldly thoughts you've picked up out there, are they believable? That's it. Who are these people in the world? The flesh, the devil, the flesh is you. You're not believable. I can tell you that the devil is not believable. Hasn't been believable from the beginning. And the world has a really bad record in terms of believability. Didn't I point out the Neanderthal man and gave you that example. You want me to give you another a hundred billion examples, or do you want the sermon to end in two minutes? There's a difference between young men and who are in the word and those who are in Facebook. Or Twitter or Taylor Swift or postmodern disconnectedness of some sort, there's there's a difference. It's possible you're giving too much credence by immersing yourself in other ideas, whether it be entertainment, books, Facebook, whatever, that suggests something different from what God's word tells you. And this is the thing we're grappling with right now. Why is it that 17-year-old homeschooling girls become a postmodernist after studying Bob Jones curriculum and heading off to Summit Ministries for two weeks? People are asking this. They're asking these questions. Well, why is she now a postmodernist after all of that? Why is it that those who subscribe to absolutes have dropped from 14% in the 1980s to a half a percent with the mosaic generation? Why the 97% fall off? on the very, very most basic element of biblical worldview with the, with the postmodernist millennials who are raised in Christian households where 14% still believed and absolutes. Why the drop-off even amongst many homeschoolers or Christian schoolers in which they purportedly got something of a Christian education. Why I suggest it's because of this. The medium is the message. You're going to have to think about that for a moment. The medium is the message. The mode is the message. And when the 17 year old girl has succumbed to the postmodern medium, she becomes the postmodernist in her thinking. When, when her worldview is set by Billy Jove's Twitter, becomes her new truth until Billy Bob's Twitter shows up two minutes later. Now that's the new truth. And then on to Jimmy Joe's twit, 40 seconds later. Now that's her new truth. And that'll be your truth for 60 seconds. See it's input, input, input, flashing, flashing, flashing, flashing, flashing. These are the truths, but the truth itself, the epistemological theory comes from the medium, not the message itself, the medium, and the medium says, there's a new truth that's coming your direction every 30 seconds. And that's how she becomes a postmodern relativist. It's very surreptitious. The information explosion is a worldview of relativism. If you've sold your soul to the information explosion instead of this book, your dedication, time, energies are more into the information explosion than this book here. Then that person has been inducted into a different religion. It's a very bad religion, by the way. There's no basis for truth. It's chaos. And you have surrendered all basis for truth when you've done that. Christian young people. I'm speaking from my own perspective here. When I was young, my parents gave me the Word of God. They said it before me. I memorized it. I listened to it. I understood something of what it was saying. But it was almost as if my parents were doing lectures on life preservers on this little fishing boat out in the North Seas. And so they did their, their lectures on the life preserver. There's the life preserver. There it is. This will help you when the storms get rough. This will save you. These promises are critical, et cetera, et cetera. And then the storms came up on the deck as I got older and we begin to get into the 10 waves, 10 foot wave stuff and then 20 foot and the 30 foot and the 40 foot. And now we're standing in water up to here. And there's somebody still lecturing on life preservers. They've got the whiteboard out and they're lecturing about it. And the waves are now to 70 feet and the water is up to here. And somebody is still lecturing about life preservers. And then I realized I need to get it on. I need it on. I need the promises of God right here and I need to hold on to it for dear life. I hope that helps you to understand my life. I'm talking about the way it's happened over the last five years or 10 years, 15 years. I'm beginning to understand. I need this book. And finally, your salvation hangs on your willingness to receive this simple statement. I've done the best I can to establish the authority of this book. But now here you go. This is late. Earlier on in First Timothy, chapter one, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. Why? First of all, why? Because God said it. So this statement, Paul says, here it goes. This statement is trustworthy. and deserving of full acceptance. More than any scientific report, more than any Twitter you got just now. Zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip. Forget that. Forget everything else. Nothing else matters right now. Paul says this saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. And that didn't come by Twitter. How can you believe that? Because God says it. He wants you to know it. And He wants you to know it because He cares enough about you to fill you in on it. Very important news. Very important news. That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, rebels, hellbound, blind, and deaf rebels, of whom I am chief. Now there's a truth you can hang on to for the rest of your life. Everybody hold on to it. Grab your Bible right now. Grab your Bible. Hold on to it. Hold on to it. Hold on to it. Hold on to it. Father in heaven. Oh, God, thank you for the truth. That you reveal to us. Through your word. God, there is nothing else. All men are liars. Right now, everything else fades in the background. Everything else fades. But that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. We believe that. We hold to it. Spirit of God, work in our hearts. Draw us, draw us to the truth. Thy word is truth. In Jesus' name, amen.