You please find in your Bibles tonight Second Timothy chapter
3, Second Timothy chapter 3, and I want to commence to read at
verse 10. Second Timothy chapter 3
beginning to read at verse 10. And when you find the place,
then we will read together God's Word that is now here, the
reading of God's precious Word. But thus fully known, my
doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering,
charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions which came unto me
at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra, for persecutions I
endured. But out of them all the Lord
delivered me. Yeah, and all that will live
godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution, but evil men
and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being
deceived. But continue thou in the things
which thou has learnt and has been assured of, knowing of whom
thou hast learnt them, and 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 in righteousness,
that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished
unto all good works. I know that God will be pleased
to bless his reading, the reading of His word tonight.
For Jesus sake. We'll just bow again for prayer.
Dear Lord, we're gathered here before thee tonight.
My word is open before us. A congregation is gathered,
preachers found in the pulpit, and all we need now is power
from heaven. We're thankful for that time
that Christ ministered among the people, and the Bible tells us
that the power of the Lord was upon him and that the word that
he preached was with power. That's something we can't work
up in and over sails. That power is something that
comes from above. And so for the time left to us
this evening, as we come to think about this time of the
year, about the Protestant Reformation, about the Bible
that was rediscovered, about the great blessing of God at that
particular time when the world really was changed.
And we pray that we might be encouraged to look again to the
Lord, to do even a similar thing in our day.
It was a dark, dark time. The wonder they called that
period prior to the Reformation, the dark ages.
People lived in darkness. They were ignorant of the
gospel, ignorant of truth. And oh God, thou didst do
something wonderful that has continued even right up to this
day. And we ask of thee that
especially in our day that we will see times of refreshment
from the presence of God. Many hearts will be open to the
gospel, many blinded eyes will be illuminated, and many
hardened hearts softened, and that many will seek the Lord
while he may be found, and call upon a while is near.
Abide with us now, and bless us together, for we ask these
things in Jesus name, Amen. Let me read verses 16 and 17
again with you. All Scripture is given by
inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
that the man of God may be perfect, truly furnished unto
all good works. Now for a little time this
evening I want to preach about the Protestant Reformation and
the theme is getting back to the Bible.
Now, 500 years ago, the world was changed by the Protestant
Reformation, and there's a very simple way to remember the
reformers, the message of the reformers, and the message of
the Reformation. It is simply called the five
solas. Now these are 5 Latin phrases
starting with the word sola, which means alone, our own way,
and they cover quite a lot of doctrinal and theological ground
quickly and in a memorable way that each one of us can clearly
remember. We don't know who thought of
them, when they thought about them, or where they first
appeared. But this thing we do know that
they were crucial to the 16th century Protestant Reformation,
sitting aside the Reformers, setting them apart from the
erroneous teachings of the Church of Rome.
I've mentioned in my prayer that prior to this, that period in
history was called the Dark Ages.
Now the people lived in darkness.
They didn't have a Bible. And even if they did have a
Bible, they couldn't read the Bible because they were
ignorant. They had no education, no
teaching, and so they were just in darkness and left to perish
in their sins. But then, at that crucial moment
500 years ago, God sent the light in the form of that
Protestant Reformation. God intervened in grace.
May the Lord be pleased to do the same for us in our day, the
day in which we live now. These principles stand at the
heart of our faith, affirming the authority of Scripture, the
centrality of Christ, and the doctrine of salvation by faith
through grace, all for the glory of God.
Now, what are these five souls? I'm sure Mr McLaughlin, from
time to time has drawn your attention to these five
important matters. Well, first of all, there is
soul. The Scripturia.
Scripture alone or Scripture only.
Then there is sola Christos, Christ only, or Christ alone
solely, Phaidae, faith alone solely, gratia, grace alone,
sola de la Gloria, That is, to God be the glory.
The glory belongs to God alone. So these five solas show us the
foundation of our faith, namely the Bible.
And of course we know the Bible to be the Word of God.
They bring us also to the means of our salvation by grace
through faith. Then they go to the centre of
our faith, that is Christ Jesus, because Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners. And finally, we are reminded
that whatever we do, we do to the glory of God alone.
Now, above all else, the Reformation was a return to the
Bible. And the Reformers, they're
focused, they focus on making the Bible accessible to ordinary
people. And that was a tremendous step
forward, a tremendous move. And they did that through the
translation of the Scriptures into the common language like
German and English. And the key aspects include the
principle of Sola, Scripturia and the reformers, men like
Martin Luther and others. Martin Luther, for example,
translated the New Testament into German.
William Tyndale, he was one of the men who gave to us the
English translation of Scripture, along with John
Rogers, who followed in his footsteps.
And this movement that these men were involved in, they
challenged the Roman Catholic Church's authority and LED to an
increase in lay literacy, an individual study of the Bible.
You see, at that time the Church of Rome was the only authority,
the main authority, the old powerful authority, and they
kept the ordinary people in darkness, They kept them chained
in their bondage to sin. But Sola Scripturia emphasises
the Bible as the sole source of religious authority, leading as
it did to the translation into the vernacular languages.
Now society today has by and large rejected the Bible.
That's sad, sad times in which we live.
Even among professing believers, some doubt the authority, the
authenticity, and the accuracy of the Bible.
I can't understand that, but that's the way it is.
Some things just never change. There has been a constant
attempt and attempts over the centuries to erode our
foundational belief in the Bible.
Now, although it may come from different and different forms,
it's aim remains the same. To deprive the people of God of
their great heritage. Having an open Bible, having the
book of God, having the truth. Can you imagine not having a
Bible? Can you imagine what it would be
like without the Bible? Now?
It's sad to say that many of our churches are quite small, or
some of our churches are quite small and some of them happen to
be in Protestant area, so-called Protestant areas and they sit
just with a handful of people week after week.
That shows you the state of Protestantism.
It's dead, it's bankrupt of truth, it's apostate, it's
turned away from God and that's the state of Protestantism in
these days. And yet we hear from different
lands of missionaries declaring the gospel of people who have
been in darkness for decades now, for centuries, are
embracing the gospel, coming to a knowledge of the truth.
God is not. It doesn't seem that he's moving
here, but he is. It may not be to the same extent
that we'd like to see him work, but on the other hand, God is
moving in these places, gathering in a great people for
the glory of the Saviour's name. So the church and the Christian
people need to be on alert today of what is happening now.
The purpose of my message is not to defend the Bible.
We do not have to do that, Spurgeon said.
And I like the way he put it. There's no need to defend the
lion when he's been attacked. All we have to do is open the
gate and let him out. He will defend himself.
And that's what I want to endeavour to do tonight for a
very short time. I want to talk to you about the
Bible. Not necessarily the history of
the Reformation, but I want to talk to you about the Bible
itself. And what was said of Goliath's
swords can truthfully and rightly be said about the Bible.
There is none like it and there is nothing quite like the Bible.
And so we want to have a look, and I want to focus your
thoughts upon these two verses that we've read from Second
Timothy, chapter 3. And I have some very simple
things that I want to leave with you.
First of all, there is a defined extent of an inerrant Bible.
An inerrant Bible is a Bible without error.
And I believe that what we have in the word of God is a Bible
without error. And you'll notice the words
there, verse 16. All Scripture is given by
inspiration of God, and that little word all is very
inclusive. Do you know what that little
word all means? That means all.
And I think of Proverbs chapter 30, verse 5, where we read every
word of God is pure. It's true.
It's inspired. We can trust every word of God.
Now there's some people who say I believe part of the Bible, but
not all the Bible. That's interesting.
I wonder what part they believe. Is it the part that suits them?
What's the part they don't believe?
Is it the part that that doesn't, that doesn't suit them?
And there's some people, that's the way they operate.
That's the mindset that they have.
If it suits me, that's OK. If it doesn't suit me or fit
them with my plan, well, I, I, I don't want to know about it.
Others say the Bible contains the word of God, but it is not
the word of God. But let's open the gate and let
the lionoid, let the Bible speak for itself.
And here the Bible says that all scripture is given by
inspiration of God. That now Protestants
historically have used 3 keys or three terms to describe what we
believe about the Bible. We speak of verbal plenary
inspiration and that word plenary simply means all.
There may be different degrees of worse in the Bible, but there
are certainly no different degrees of inspiration.
For example, let me explain myself there.
One may get more out of reading the Sermon on the Mount of
Matthew, chapters 5 through 7 than one would from reading the
genealogy of Matthew chapter 1. The genealogy is very dry and
it's hard going to read through a book full of genealogies.
For example, over in Chronicles, you have chapter after chapter.
How many of you have come to those chapters and said, will I
leave that for some other day or some other night?
You never get back to it. Let's try reading.
But then when you do start to read, you come across a name
like Jabez. What a wonderful little story
there in the list of names God gives.
Whet's the appetite, if you like, and just gives us that
grace to continue on. Because every word of God is
inspired of the Lord. So the genealogy is just
inspired as the Sermon on the Mount.
The genealogies are just every bit as inspired as John 3 and
16. Because every word of God is
inspired. It's all inspired of God.
And then that word verbal, it simply means every word.
It comes from a Latin word meaning word.
And this means that it's not thoughts that are inspired, it's
not phrases that are inspired, but every word is inspired.
And Jesus adhered to this when he said, there, Matthew 5/17/18
Verily, verily, I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, not
one jot or title shall at no wise pass from the law.
That's interesting. The jot is the smallest
character in the Hebrew alphabet, and the title is the
smallest smaller than a comma, and it is used to distinguish
consonants. Now this can be illustrated, and
it was illustrated by another preacher from the English
alphabet, and this is the way he illustrated that.
You have the small A, you go back to school, you have the A's
there, and then you have the dot at the top.
Can you see the drawing up here at the front the line?
There's the dot. So that is what the preacher
said about the jot. It's just like the dot on the A.
And then what about the cross? I'd better draw this arrow way.
Now I'm I'm drawing AT can you see it down this here?
And then there you see the big cross at the top there.
So you have the dot like the dot on the eye.
And then you have the title. That's like that little bit of
cross on the top of the T. So what Jesus saying that the
dot on the eye and the cross and the teeth shall not have passed
away from the holy, inspired, infallible word of God, the jot
and the tell, it will not disappear.
That's what God has said here in his precious word.
And then you come to that word inspiration.
And that simply means that the text of Scripture is God
breathed. It's breathed out by God.
God breathed out, and the man that God chose, they took down
what God breathed out and they inscribed it in the originals.
It's inspired of God. So all the Bible, every word in
the Bible, in the original manuscripts are breathed out by
God. And men wrote down what God told
them to write down. Some say God gave the thoughts,
allowing man to write down them and his own words.
But we believe in verbal inspiration.
God gave the words and these individuals chosen by God, they
wrote down what God said. So there's the defined extent of
the inerrant Bible. And then the second place, there
is the detailed evidence of an inerrant Bible.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, so Scripture
is given. It's supernatural because it
came from God. It came from above.
It originated with him, not with man.
None of the apostles ever thought of it up.
None of the prophets either. It was of God.
It was God breathed. And the detailed evidence of
this fact is found in the unique nature of the Holy Bible.
The Bible is not really a book. The Bible is a library of 66
different books written over a course of about 1500 years by at
least 40 different writers from all walks of life.
Some were fishermen, some were prophets, some were kings, some
were shepherds, some were doctors who came from three
different continents, Asia, Africa and Europe.
Yet the Bible has come together with one theology, one plan of
redemption, 1 theme running throughout its pages, leaving no
explanation for its unique nature outside of God Himself.
It's given by inspiration of God.
Everything's tied together in a most amazing fashion.
Can you not see this? This is one of the evidences
that the Word of God is inspired.
Then also it's evidenced by the way in which it can change
people. Now, there are people here
tonight. I don't know you all, but I
assume that quite a number of you are saved.
You're not what you used to be. But what brought about the
change? Well, the grace of God.
You heard a message from the Bible.
It gripped your heart. It broke down your resistance to
the gospel. It brought you to the cross.
You repented. You believed you're not the
person you used to be. You're changed by grace.
So hearing the Word of God and when you think of millions and
millions of people all down through church history have been
changed by the grace of what you think about the millions in
heaven. They're not in hell today, but
they're in heaven because of the message that came to their
hearts, The message of full salvation in Christ through
grace. And heaven will continue to be
populated until the purpose of God comes to an end and every
rejoicing soul is brought home to glory.
But I think that the greatest proof that the Bible is indeed
the word of God, as in the way prophecy has been fulfilled down
through the centuries, through it as pages, the pages of truth.
For example, Isaiah, who wrote about 700 years before the birth
of Christ, he wrote that the promised Messiah will be bored
of a virgin who would have come up with that idea, something
that never had happened and never would have been apart from
what we read of in Matthew's Gospel.
A virgin would become the mother of the promised Messiah, a
teenager at that. That's an amazing thing.
A lowly teenager would become the mother of the promised
Messiah. And yet 700 years before the
event, the servant of God, Isaiah, received from God of
breath that cultivated his mind. He took up the parchment and
began to write a book. This verse.
Behold, a virgin will be the child.
That's an amazing thing in Michael.
In Michael's book, 500 years before the birth of the Lord
Jesus Christ, he foretold that the Messiah would be born in a
little town called Bethlehem. Now when the wise men came from
the east, they made their way to Jerusalem.
That was the place they expected a king to be born in the capital
city. So they made their way to
Jerusalem. They thought that's where they
would find. Where is he that is born king of
the Jews? This cried.
And then the scribes, they started to search the scriptures
and they turned over, and they turned over and they came to
Micah, and there's the red mic. And they discovered that the
Child, the promised Messiah, would come to a place called
Bethlehem. And so 500 years before it
happened, this man was moved of God to take up the pen and to
write it down the parchment that the Messiah would be born in a
place called Bethlehem. No one ever expected the child
to be born there. Sure, it's got to be Jerusalem.
No, it was Bethlehem because God said it was to be in Bethlehem.
This book's a wonderful book, wonderful book even.
To this day, the prophecies found in Zechariah and other
places are still being fulfilled and will continue to be
fulfilled until the jigsaw puzzle comes together finally at
the end. You know what it's like if you
have a jigsaw there. And my wife and myself, we
bought a few jigsaw puzzles and we got the table up there and we
started to build. It took us a long time to build
the first one, you know, bit by bit, but we couldn't get that
bit in there. We could get that bit more in
there. Then with the passing of time
and things began to come together.
We could see the picture and then it became easier to get the
pieces all put into the proper place.
And then it was over. We we called little grandson.
He'd been there watching at different times, and we allowed
him to put in the last piece into the jigsaw puzzle.
And then we stood back and we can see the picture.
And all down through history God has been put into place.
All the jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces foretold in the
Scriptures, the inspired Word of God coming together, we can
understand more clearly now than what we were able to understand
maybe 30 years ago. With the passing of time, we're
seeing more and more of the prophecies of God's Word being
fulfilled. The coming of the Lord draweth
nigh. You need to prepare to meet God.
That was the message of the Old Testament.
Prepare, prepare to meet by God. And this book that we had before
us is a wonderful book in the original for that word
inspiration. I'm not going to attempt to
pronounce the word in the original Greek, but it means God
breathed it's passive and the Bible then as a result of the
breath of God. Now God used men, but he did not
breathe in men. He breathed out of men the word
of God, just the way a skilled composer creates a score
utilising the flute and the tuba and other instruments.
So God chose his own instruments, his own men,
somewhere different as flutes and tubas, yet he chose them and
used them to breathe out to give us his word.
What an honour it is to have the word of God.
They're in the bench at home, but sitting there beside the
bed, you can imagine a time when there was no Bible, a world
where there was no Bible and the darkness and the superstition
and the debauchery. I think that we're going back to
times like that because by and large, society has rejected the
Bible, rejected the truth, becoming more Pagan than ever
before. And then when you get our king
going to pray with the Pope? Sad, sad times.
First time in what, 500 years? Sad.
We're talking about the Protestant Reformation.
Change the world. May God be pleased to change
things again for the praise of his name.
Now, these writers were not mere mechanical dictators giving
dictation. The Bible writers were not mere
stenographers, having their minds in neutral and playing the
part and be nothing more than a puppet.
The writers were had their own individual personalities.
They had their obvious styles and that appears in the
scriptures and you can think about that when you read of the
different men. Given this responsibility, God
used their own personalities to get the message across, but God
was in control. God controlled their
environment, their salvation, their call and everything about
their lives. God controlled everything.
And we read there in second Peter one verse 21, holy men of
God spake as they're removed by the Holy Spirit.
We have a wonderful picture there.
You go down to Portrush. There's not much of A wind.
You see a sailing boat out there.
It's not making much progress. And then all of a sudden there's
a bit of a gust of wind and you can see the sail being filled
with the wind and then it suddenly moves forward.
That's the picture we have here, that the Holy Spirit came and
filled the sail of these men that God chose to give to us the
Scriptures and moved them along. That's the picture we have here.
It's a wonderful picture. God controlled them.
God moved them and as a result of that, then they did a perfect
work in the original languages. Sir Isaac Newton did not give us
gravity, God did. The writers of the Bible did not
give us the Scripture. God gave to us the Scripture
because all the scriptures given by inspiration of God, the
writings are what were really inspired.
Paul was not inspired to write the book of Romans.
The writings themselves were inspired.
God did not breathe on the words of men.
God breathed out words himself. That's exactly what Second
Timothy 316 is all about, referring to the breath of God,
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
So God breathed. Isaiah wrote down his prophecy,
God breathed. Matthew wrote down his gospel,
God breathed, Luke wrote down his gospel, and John wrote down
what God gave to him, and God breathed, and Paul wrote down
his epistles. What an amazing picture we have
here in the Holy Scriptures. Every one of them, every writer
points to Jesus Christ, every prophecy in some way points us
to Christ. And did not Jesus say search the
scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life?
And they are they which testify of me.
Remember that day in my Mace Rd. The two disciples were downcast,
they were sorrowful. The world just seemed to come to
an end because Christ, they felt, was still dead.
They thought he would deliver the people, the nation from
Roman authority and power. But now he was dead.
The whole purpose was completely frustrated.
But here they are travelling out to Emmaus, 7 or 8 miles and
suddenly a stranger draws near. He was a stranger to them.
The rays were holding that they could not know him, and he began
that Moses and all the prophets expounded unto them, and all the
Scriptures and things concerning himself.
What happened? Did they not say later on?
Did not her heart burn within us as He talked with us?
By the way, the word of God preached burned into their
hearts. The Word of God caused to give
them a burning heart. It was what He talked to them
about, what He expounded to them, thrilled their hearts, and
bless their souls. So you have the defined extent
of the inherent word, the detailed evidence.
You have the divine effect. All the Scripture is given by
inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
Now this book that we have before us is profitable.
It's profitable for doctrine, teaching us what we never had
would have known otherwise. God wrought a miracle when He
revealed to us our need of salvation, when He wrought with
our hearts the great work of grace, acquitting us with the
Scriptures and our need of salvation and our need to repent
and believe the gospel. The book acquaints us with our
fallen condition and God's plan of redemption.
We never would have known about these things had it not been
revealed to us by the Spirit and the Scriptures of truth.
Everything we need to know about doctrine, about how to live for
Christ, about the future, about eternity is laid down in the
Word of God. Everything we need to know about
how to live a successful Christian life is laid down in
the book. It shows us the way to heaven.
It shows us how to repent. It shows us how to get right
with God. That tells us all of these
things and much more. How to prevail in prayer, how to
get answers in prayer, how to witness, how to tell the good
news, how to win our families for Christ.
It's all laid down in the book. It's profitable.
It's profitable for reproof as we send the Bible convicts us.
Jeremiah 2329 says is not my word like a hammer that breaks a
rock to pieces. So the Bible says that it's
effect is the effect of taking a hammer that continues to beat us
with conviction and reproves us over sin.
And so when we do go astray, the word, the inspired word, it's
like that hammer that God uses to break us into obedience.
It's always easier to obey the the teaching of the word of God
than they have God chasing us. It's better to just accept it as
it is and believe it and exercise faith in it than to
hold out against God and to fight him, causing God to send
some discipline into the life to chasten us.
But that's that's a dangerous place to get to.
So He uses his word as a hammer to to break down the hardness of
our hearts. When we stray from the right
path, He corrects us, showing to us the way back into fellowship
with Him. It's also profitable for
instruction. So we do go astray.
He uses the hammer, He corrects us.
Once we get that correction, He brings us back into the right
path again. And then He instructs us.
He trains us in the way we ought to go, how to grow in the things
of God, how to develop spiritually.
We see proof of this profitable statement, for example, in the
epistles. The book of Romans is profitable
for doctrine. It's a deep theological epistle.
The Corinthian letters would be for reproof Galatian.
The Galatian epistle is for correction and the Ephesian
letter is for instruction to teach us.
You have the the way it's divided up there.
You have in Ephesians the first 3 chapters that tells us what we
have, tells us about our wealth, what we have in Christ.
Then you move on to the next part, starting chapter 4.
You have our walk in Christ and then you come to the last, the
last verses there in chapter 6 about the warfare we have in
Christ. So there we have instruction
given there and the book. Do we, do we know the book?
Do we ought to know the book? Is it living to us?
Is it our guide? Do we cherish it?
Do we love it? Do we give it first place?
As far as we're concerned, is it just like Goliath sword?
There's nothing like it. We just can't leave it down.
We can't leave it on the shelf. We can't abandoned it.
Sometimes when we get down and discourage the first thing we do
is abandoned the book. We're getting nothing from it.
Let's try I'll try praying about it.
Try get it on your knees. When it doesn't open up, try
again. Keep on at it.
Keep on praying, keep on on your knees seeking the face of God
and eventually it will open up. Is that the way it is with you?
Oh, I I didn't get anything from my Bible readings tonight.
I'm not bother with it anymore. I'll just give it a few days and
so on. And then it turns into a week
and a month in there for you where you end up bad.
Just down a loaded bar, the place of no pasture.
Lost heart, lost interest, things of God.
Oh, this book's a wonderful book because it reveals to us Christ.
Yeah, he has all together lovely.
What a wonderful picture we have of him, the shepherd coming to
seek the sheep. He follows the sheep out into
the wilderness. Not dangerous place.
And then he finds the sheep and he places the sheep on the
shoulder. That's a place of strength.
He brings his back into the fold, and there's great
rejoicing in heaven when that happens.
Have you grown cold at heart? Have you lost your way?
Get to this book. Get on your knees before this
book. Begin to pray.
Let it come alive. Lord, use this word to thrill my
soul, to instruct me, to teach me in the way that I ought to
go. The Bible just like God's road
map. 1st we begin with doctrine, the way that we begin the road
with Christ. He tells us about the way of
salvation, how to be saved. That's great doctrinal truth.
And then he moves on to teach us along the way how to walk, how
to serve Him. And when we obey and come to
Christ, we get on the right Rd with him.
But what happens when we get off the right Rd?
It's profitable for reproof. David should have been out
leading his army in battle. Instead he's lying upon the bed.
The time of ease in this palace he sees a woman bathing.
He sent for her. He sent with her.
He suffer for her. Until one day, Nathan the
prophet came into his presence with a parable.
David, I've got a message from God for you.
And Nathan told David the parable.
And David shook his head. That's a terrible thing that
person did in the parable. And then the preacher stepped up
and said to the king, thou art the man.
Thou art the man that broke David.
He'd been holding out for a year.
Some believe that he had actually contacted leprosy.
He was having trouble physically, mentally.
They weren't the man. And as a result of the challenge
of the Word of God, the reprisal came from the Word of God.
He gives to us Psalm 51, Psalm 32, other psalms as well.
Psalm 23. He restores my soul.
He says, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the
days of my life. What about the the blessed man
of someone? He's a blessed man because of a
separation. There's certain things God's
people don't do, you know. Oh, that might offend some
people. They think, oh, I'll get right
with God and I can do whatever I jolly well want to do.
I know that I'm not going to be inhabited by any restrictions
placed upon me. I'm under grace, I'm not under
law. But the Bible does say thou
shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shall not commit
adultery and so on. That's the law of God.
It's never been withdrawn. Still in place, you can find all
of these things and some people say you can't find a law about
the Sabbath. Hebrews 9 tells me one of the
verses there. I think it could be maybe verse
10, I'm not sure. There's something remains from
the old dispensation. It's the keeping of a Sabbath.
So all of the 10 commandments are mentioned again in the New
Testament. Some things just never change.
There's some things you don't do.
You don't walk in the council of the ungodly and you don't stand
there with sinners. You don't sit down with a
scornful no. So that's the negative side of
the Christian life. But then there's the positive
side that comes in verse 2. It's the study of the man of
God, has the lighters and the law of the Lord.
And then as Lord of the meditate day and night, there's a book
that restores his joy. He's separated unto God.
He's a man of study. And then where do we find that
man? He's pandered by the rivers of
water. There's plenty of refreshment
there by the Spirit of God in his life.
He's been fruitful. He's multiplying.
He's growing in grace the things of God.
The Bible is profitable. Oh, we need to be under the
control of the Holy Spirit of the Lord to be filled with the
Spirit. Now, some people think wrongly
about a certain thing. They feel that when they pray
that God will fill them with the Spirit, that they're getting
some more of the Spirit's power into their life.
The thing is, when we are regenerated by the Spirit, the
Spirit of God baptises us into Christ and we receive a person.
The Holy Spirit is a person, not a net.
The holy, the Holy Spirit is a person.
We receive the person who comes to take up his residence in our
hearts and our lives. So we can't get any more of the
Holy Spirit. We get all of the Spirit at the
time when we are baptised into the body of Jesus Christ and
when we pray for power, we're simply praying that the Holy
Spirit will get more of us, that we would surrender to Him, that
He will take more control of the life.
He's there all along, the whole person, the third person of the
Trinity and wells us. So we don't get any more of the
Spirit. The point is this, when we pray
for that enabling of the Spirit, the Spirit of God gets more of
us, less of self, less of the flesh and more of us.
That's when we have power. And, and you read in the book of
Acts of the same disciples and apostles been filled with the
Spirit on the day of Pentecost. And then later on they're filled
again for service to give them boldness to preach.
It's the Spirit of God taking more and more control of them.
They have matured, they grow, and then the Spirit flows
through them to the glory of God.
And so we have these three things.
Another point, but I just mentioned it to you, the desired
end of an inerrant Bible, that the man of God may be perfect,
truly furnished onto good works. This is where we arrive at when
the Spirit of God is taking control, the whole man is
completely revolutionised, brought to that place where God
wants him or her to be. When the Word of God is in
control, when we are completing him, then the Lord takes us and
He fills us with the Spirit. We can't go anywhere, we can't
do anything without the Word of God.
We can never be the people God intended for us to be without
the Word of God. It's our guide.
It's the Holy Spirit that uses His Word in all things.
And Jeremiah said, thy words were found, and I did eat them,
and they became the joy and rejoicing of my heart.
Now, a Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to someone
who isn't. Now, if you see an old Bible
sitting there by the bedside or in the living room, it's been
tattered and worn and written on and falling to pieces.
You can be absolutely sure that the person who owns it is not
falling apart. They're often found in the Holy
Scriptures, reading and studying the Word of God.
Oh, let's cherish what we have. Let's cherish the wonderful,
blessed book that we have before us because all of it is
inspired. Every word is inspired in the
original documents. It's what God has been pleased
the best down through these 500 years of history.
May the Lord be pleased to move again and send to us time for
refreshment from the presence of God.
And let us always cherish this tremendous book that we have
before us, all structure that's given by inspiration of God and
is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be
perfect, truly furnished unto all good works.
May God be pleased to bless His word.
We'll close now in prayer. Father, we do pray that Thou
will bless Thy word to all of our hearts this evening.
We're thankful for the treasure that we have in the Holy
Scriptures. We're thankful for the way that
there has been pleased to use thy truth to rescue millions of
lost sinners on the road to hell by bringing to their hearts that
message of salvation from the Holy Word of God, that Christ
receive a sinful man. We thank thee for the way God
has manifested his power even throughout the generations of
church history. We're thankful for the great
exploits of God. What he did in Old Testament
times, what he did in those early New Testament times, what
he did at the time of the Reformation, what he did in
times of reviving, times of reviving in Wales and Scotland
and England and here in Ulster further afield, Oh God, do it
again. May there be a reviving of
gospel preaching, a reviving of Bible readers.
May the Lord be pleased to move in and power in these dark times
against all of the odds. Be pleased to move and continue
to bless faithful servants of thine who do faithfully,
fearlessly declare the whole council of God that will deal
with those who oppose the going forth of the Word, those who
oppose those who stand in the open air, those who seek to tear
in pieces the the old scriptures of truth that we love and
cherish. O God, send us times of
refreshment from the presence of God.
Dismiss us now with Thy blessing, and then thy fear.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest in the night upon all of
God's believing people now and forevermore, for we ask these
things in Jesus name, Amen. I don't intend to go to the
door, but May God bless you and may you be encouraged in His own
precious truth tonight. Amen.