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[0:00] A very famous politician. I thought it would be good to have a little quote from a politician this year, this election year.

[0:21] ! I'm not going to get political, so don't worry about that. But a very famous politician once said, He said, I believe the Bible is the best gift that the Lord has ever given a man.

[0:36] All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book. And then he said, I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.

[0:53] He was a politician. His name? Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln. I could wish that he was running this November.

[1:05] I'd vote for him in a heartbeat. In fact, I might even just write his name in on my ballot. I said I wasn't going to get political. But of course, we're living, of course, in an age when, I don't know if most is the right word, many anyway, of our leaders have little or no respect for God's word at all.

[1:29] That's the day we're living in. And I guess we shouldn't be surprised by that because more and more, in fact, I would even say certainly the majority, of citizens of our nation have very little respect for God's word.

[1:49] And so out of our citizenry, we have leaders come to places of power who really don't have any respect for God's word.

[2:00] Now, they quote it from time to time. I mean, it's almost a kind of a popular thing to do that, I'm sure, for political expediency, many of them.

[2:11] They'll quote it, and I don't know if you've noticed, I certainly do, being a preacher and a student of God's word, many times they misquote it. And if they quote it right, they make the wrong application for it, take it completely out of its context.

[2:27] But it is still somewhat a popular thing to at least quote scripture. And many will invoke some Bible principle, you know, maybe say that that is their principle for living, although it becomes apparent that many of them don't realize that it is a biblical principle.

[2:47] And then there are, of course, those who will, you know, praise the virtues of the Bible. So it's not unusual for these kinds of things, and yet it's pretty apparent that many do not love God's word.

[3:05] And they don't really believe in God's word. And they certainly do not live according to his word. But all that to say this, one day, all will wish they had.

[3:24] Maybe not in this life, but in the one to come. Because I don't know if you realize it or not, and certainly the majority of people living in this world do not know this, but all will be judged upon the basis of what is written in this book.

[3:42] This is the basis of God's judgment, and God will be the judge. But your life, my life, will be judged based upon the contents of this book.

[3:54] That makes it pretty important, doesn't it? So I want you to turn, first of all this morning, turn to a passage of scripture, a very sobering passage of scripture. And in case you don't have a Bible with you, here it is right there in red.

[4:11] Though these are not Jesus' words directly, but they are the Lord's words, of course. But Hebrews chapter 4, verses 11 through 13. I want to just kind of walk through this.

[4:27] I'm taking a long time because we want to get to my study, our study this morning of the doctrinal statements. But here is what, and Tom's not in here so I can say Paul wrote.

[4:43] Here's what Paul wrote. Now he's been talking about that rest prior to this passage, and the rest here could be defined as full salvation.

[5:00] Salvation in the fullest sense. Perhaps even reference to ultimately heaven itself. So, therefore, let us strive, strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

[5:21] The same sort of it. Well, what disobedience? Well, unbelief. Whose disobedience? In this case, Israel's. Israel's failure to believe.

[5:31] In fact, we can go back a little ways earlier in this chapter, and read verse 2, and I'll just read it for you. For good news came to us just as to them.

[5:42] Who? The Jews. But the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.

[5:55] They didn't respond in faith. They rejected. They didn't believe. For we who have believed enter that rest. So let us, therefore, strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

[6:11] For the Word of God. That's our subject this morning. The Word of God is what? Living and active.

[6:23] Contrary to what many are saying today, the Bible is not a dead book. Not a dead book. You know, a translation of dead languages.

[6:36] It's not dead. Somehow belonging to a people or long gone. To a culture that no longer exists and so forth. It's not. It's living. And active.

[6:49] Certainly is active. God's Word is active. Sharper, the passage says, sharper than any two-edged sword. Some of you who have studied this passage know that the word sword is really a reference to a surgeon's knife.

[7:05] A scalpel. And that's very fitting. Piercing. He says piercing. That is penetrating. Penetrating to the very division of soul and spirit and joints and of marrow.

[7:21] Simple explanation is that the Word of God penetrates even to the impenetrable. And it is able to divide even that which is invisible.

[7:35] That's the power of God's Word. Even to, as the passage goes on to state, discerning the thoughts, even to the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

[7:48] And by the way, that's the only thing that really matters to God. The thoughts, the intentions of the heart, the motivations, God's Word is able to penetrate, pierce, penetrate in such precision that it even goes that deep into a person's life and reveals those things.

[8:10] And no creature is hidden from His sight. You think you really think you can hide from God? Well, of course we know we can. But literally, actually, in the context, you cannot avoid the penetrating, discerning Word of God.

[8:27] Now, you may go throughout this life, and many are attempting to, and maybe they'll make it all the way to the end without recognizing the penetrating Word of God, without ever realizing who they are and what God's Word reveals about them.

[8:45] Maybe you can go throughout this life that way, but ultimately, you'll come face to face with the penetrating, discerning Word of God.

[8:55] That's why I say that those who reject the Word of God will wish they had not rejected it. one day it will come to roost. And, you know, especially, and this is what I'm talking about, this is what the passage is talking about, at the final judgment, where it goes on to say, all are naked, naked, exposed, to the eyes of Him whom we must give an account.

[9:28] Naked and exposed. That's the Word of God. I once heard a story about a man who had become fascinated by the microscope. And so he purchased one for himself.

[9:41] Bought himself a microscope and almost immediately began to use his new microscope to look at everything he could get his hands on. I mean, he looked at dirt, he looked at bugs and crystals and insects and and and wings of insects and blades of grass and leaves and even his own hair and his own skin cells.

[10:06] You know, you've done this probably, if not anywhere but say high school. He was just fascinated by it, enthralled by the wonders that he could see through the microscope.

[10:17] And one day as he was eating lunch, thought occurred to him, came to his mind, well, I'll just look at my food.

[10:30] I'll look at my food through this microscope of mine. And that's what he did. But much to his horror, he discovered that tiny little living creatures were crawling around in his food.

[10:41] And so, he thought to himself, what am I going to do? I love this food. This is one of my favorite foods to eat. And so, do you know what he decided to do? He destroyed his microscope.

[10:57] Typical, isn't it? And yet, very relevant to what many people are trying to do with the living, active, penetrating, discerning Word of God.

[11:10] Jesus said in John 3, 19, and this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world. That's a reference, of course, to Jesus himself.

[11:21] But by extension, of course, his Word. Light has come into the world. And what? Men love darkness rather than light. Why? Because their deeds were evil.

[11:36] And that really is it, isn't it? And so, that's an appropriate introduction, I think, to our study for this morning as we look at the five doctrinal statements of our church.

[11:51] Now, we have finished looking at what we teach about God. Spent a few weeks on that. Last week, we got halfway through our doctrinal statement on what we teach about the Holy Scriptures.

[12:09] So, we're looking at what we teach about the Holy Scriptures. And so, this morning, let me take up where we left off last week. The Holy Scriptures.

[12:21] We teach that the Bible constitutes the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

[12:34] Now, so, what are we saying by that? The only infallible rule. Now, let's take this a step at a time. I explained this if you were here last week, what this means, the infallible Word of God.

[12:49] That being a part of the nature of the Word of God, it's infallible. And as I explained last week, that's more than just simply is without error. Okay? More than that. A lot more than that.

[13:01] It means that God's Word is trustworthy. It means that God's Word will always work. Okay? Whether you read it or not, whether you believe it or not.

[13:14] God's Word will always work. It's not only without error, but by virtue of the fact it is without error, that it's perfect, it's truth, it will always work. It's trustworthy.

[13:25] It is right about everything that it says about you and about me and about everything. And specifically, the Word of God is the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

[13:42] That is, it tells you what to believe about God. You want to know what to believe about God? It's right here in the Bible. We don't have to guess about it. Remember, we don't have to have holy hunches about it.

[13:53] The Bible's very clear. What we're to believe about God, what we're to believe about Jesus, what we're to believe about His plan, what we're to believe about all that the Bible says. It is the infallible rule, the only infallible rule of faith but also of practice.

[14:10] So not only what you believe about God but how you're to live for God. What is it that pleases God? What is it that God wants you to do? How does He want you to live? How should you think?

[14:22] How should you interpret life? What's your world view of things? All of that is given to us in the Word of God. So it is the infallible, the only infallible rule.

[14:36] Someone will always say, you know, well my problem preacher is I don't always understand the Bible. But did you know that that's not really your problem? It's never our problem.

[14:48] We think it is and it kind of, we kind of put it out there up front as more or less even though we may not realize it an excuse. We're not reading God's Word and studying God's Word.

[15:00] But the problem is not a lack of understanding. I like what Mark Twain once said and I'm not so sure that Mark Twain was a believer based upon some other things he said. But he said this, he said most people are troubled by those passages of Scripture which they cannot understand.

[15:17] But as for me, Mark Twain wrote, I have always noticed that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those which I do understand. We can say amen to that.

[15:30] We know that's true. See, there's where the problem lies. It's that part of Scripture we already understand. But the Bible constitutes the only, and I want to emphasize that word, only infallible rule of faith and practice.

[15:47] Now there are a lot of other books that try to teach us and help inform us and counsel us about faith and practice. I mean the Christian bookstores are chock full of books written on the subject of Christian living and so forth.

[16:01] And they have some value, many of them, not all of them. But even those books, as accurate as they may be, do not represent an infallible rule.

[16:13] So don't ever get away from the Bible, okay? Don't think you can go to the Christian bookstore and find the answers there if you're not going to look at the Bible first. Because it is the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

[16:27] Next, and this pertains more to the nature of Scripture, we teach that God spoke in his written word, I mean it's written word but he's God speaking in it, by a process of dual authorship.

[16:45] Dual authorship. Now what does that mean? How does that work? Who are these two authors? Well I think we all know, don't we? And just in case we're not quite getting that in our minds, here's the rest of that statement, part of the statement.

[17:02] The Holy Spirit, that's the big A author, okay, of Scripture. The Holy Spirit so superintended the human authors, and we'll talk more about the superintended part of that here in a moment.

[17:16] But the Holy Spirit, big A author, so superintended the human authors, those are the little A authors, okay, of Scripture, that through their individual personalities and different styles of writing, and we're going to stop right there for a moment, individual personalities and different styles of writing.

[17:41] Now we could really expand even more upon that statement, because it's more than just those two things. But Hebrews 1 and verse 1 says, God at various times, and note this, in various ways, in various ways, spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, the Bible writers.

[18:07] So God used visions, we know that from Scripture, don't we? God used visions, God used dreams. We've been studying through the book of Daniel on Wednesday nights, and all about prophetic dreams and prophetic visions that have become a part of the Word of God.

[18:27] God spoke through dreams and visions, and I would also add that God sometimes spoke through verbal dictation. He dictated His Word.

[18:39] We have several examples of that in the Scriptures. For example, Exodus chapter 20 and verse 1. The Bible says, and God spoke all these words saying, and then you have all those words written for us in Scripture.

[18:52] God spoke, Moses wrote it down, exactly what God said. And we have other examples of that in the Bible. We could go to the New Testament, for example, go to Revelation chapters 2 and 3.

[19:05] Those chapters were dictated by Jesus himself to the apostle John, and he wrote verbatim all of those words. Now, how do we know that? Well, chapter 2 opens this way, to the angel of the church at Ephesus, write.

[19:23] And then it's written down for us. It's like Jesus saying to John, or you've got paper and pen in hand, or quill, whatever he used. Here's what I want you to write.

[19:35] And so he began to write it down. And we have chapters 2 and 3. Those are words, the very words of Jesus dictated to the apostle John. So sometimes scripture is dictated, had been dictated through the Bible authors.

[19:51] But that's only one method by which God gave his revelation to the Bible authors. Each author wrote from his own unique personality, as we've said.

[20:03] Each of the Bible authors had their own personalities. personalities, wrote therefore in little different ways, conveyed ideas a little differently, their own personalities.

[20:13] They used their own writing styles. We can look at the scriptures, look at the various books. We can see differences in styles of writing. It's very clear. Scholars have analyzed that.

[20:26] Sometimes overanalyzed that. But they've used their own vocabulary. vocabulary. They have interjected their own emotions. They are drawing from their own intellect and level of education.

[20:41] Each author from his own knowledge of history. He wrote according to his knowledge of history and current events and so forth. His own unique life situations.

[20:53] Using various literary techniques and on and on we could go. Some of the authors even wrote, or at least portions of what they wrote, were from previously written material.

[21:06] And so sometimes they'll quote that material. Sometimes they'll paraphrase that material. So in many different ways. See, God spoke to them at various times down through the centuries, the millennia in which the Bible was written.

[21:21] And he spoke to them in various ways. According to our statement here, another way to put it is, God superintended the human authors of Scripture.

[21:35] What does that mean? It means he managed them. Managed them. Managed their lives. And all that was true of each one of them individually, he managed them.

[21:47] He moved them. Like the passage in 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 21. Let me read the whole verse.

[21:59] I just gave you the latter part of it. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God.

[22:11] Spoke from God. As they were what? Carried along. They were carried along. Moved. Managed by the Holy Spirit.

[22:22] But there's more to this part of the statement. They composed and recorded God's word to man without error.

[22:33] We've talked about that. Without error in the whole or in the part. So without error in the whole as well as in the part.

[22:44] And then this classic passage of Scripture Matthew chapter 5 verses 17 to 18. Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets.

[22:55] By the way when Jesus used those two terms law and prophets he was talking about the whole of God's word. Don't think I've come to destroy that. Do away with that. Put that aside. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

[23:10] And this is the part I want you to look at. For assuredly I say to you. This is quite a statement. Till heaven and earth pass away. day one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

[23:28] That's an incredible statement. What does it mean? Well it means a whole lot more than just the fulfillment of every prophecy down to the tiniest detail.

[23:40] It does mean that but it means more than that. It is also a testimony to the complete inspiration God breathed nature of scripture and therefore the inerrancy of the word of God.

[23:56] This is a statement concerning that down to by the way the smallest part of every letter in scripture. Jot and tittle.

[24:08] A jot by the way is the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. alphabet. It is a yud. That's how it's pronounced.

[24:20] Yud. It looks a little more than like an apostrophe in our English language. Looked just like a little mark, a little apostrophe. But it's a letter in the Hebrew alphabet.

[24:32] So he said every part, not even one jot, that is the smallest character in the alphabet, will pass away until all is fulfilled. And then the word tittle, even smaller still, the word tittle, just a tiny little stroke of the pen.

[24:51] A little, tiny little mark that distinguishes one letter from another letter of similar form. And I'll give you an example.

[25:01] A bet in the Hebrew language looks like a backward C. It would go like that, but that would be right for you. So I'll do mine backward, a backward C.

[25:14] A bet is a backward C in the Hebrew alphabet. And then there's a letter called calf. And it looks like a backward C with a little bitty mark at the back part of the bottom of it, back part of the bottom.

[25:32] So it looks like a C with just a little mark at the bottom. I mean the smallest of little marks to make the distinction. And without that little bitty mark, you wouldn't know if it was a bet or a calf.

[25:48] So you see, down to the very jot and tittle, the smallest letter in the alphabet, down to the smallest little marking that communicates, that distinguishes a certain letter, not even a jot or a tittle will pass away until all has been fulfilled.

[26:06] So not just simply every prophecy is going to be filled exactly as God said it would be, down to the tiniest detail of a prophecy, but also down to the very markings of a letter that helped form a word, that go together to make a phrase, all of it to convey the truth, down to the tiniest portion of Scripture.

[26:30] Scripture. Not one bit of it will pass away until all of it has been fulfilled. An incredible statement about the inerrancy and inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.

[26:46] So let's take this a step further. We teach that whereas there may be several applications of any given passage of Scripture, there is but one true interpretation and this is a big one because it's a big one because this is so often violated, this principle of Scripture.

[27:11] One meaning. I mean, get it down about any given passage. One meaning. One meaning multiple applications.

[27:22] One meaning multiple applications. But let me caution you, you dare not make any application of any particular Scripture until you have discovered the meaning of the passage.

[27:36] This is so important. I feel like I'm teaching a bunch of preachers, but this is for all of us who study God's Word. We want to know the meaning of the passage and we need to understand it has but one meaning.

[27:51] One meaning. Maybe several applications. but one true meaning and don't make any application of Scripture until you know that meaning. Until you've discovered that one meaning.

[28:03] And the meaning of the passage never changes. It hadn't changed since the author wrote it because the meaning of the passage is the author's intended meaning.

[28:17] When he wrote it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So the meaning doesn't change when the culture changes. The meaning doesn't change when definitions of words change and they do because language is a living thing.

[28:33] That's why we've got to go back and find the meaning of the word as it was originally written and many other things we have to consider. One meaning. I would drive that home to you.

[28:45] one meaning. And it is the author's intended meaning and that's what we must discover when we study the word of God.

[28:57] Now let me add a next slide before I expand a little bit more on this principle. The meaning of the scripture is to be found as one diligently, I emphasize that word, diligently applies the literal grammatical historical method of interpretation under the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.

[29:23] Now that's a big chunk. Actually some of this we've already talked about, remember? Literal, grammatical, historical. We talked about that last week and let me explain just basically. Literal means the plain, ordinary meaning of the passage.

[29:40] The plain, ordinary meaning. That's what we ought to look for first. Not looking for something in behind the words or some symbol in approaching scripture. Well it really can't say that.

[29:50] It's really actually saying some other thing. It's a hidden meaning. No, we need to look first of all at the plain, ordinary meaning of the passage whether we like what it means or not.

[30:02] This is what it says. Grammatical, that is the meaning that's conveyed through the words. And phrases and the sentences.

[30:14] Meaning that is conveyed using grammatical rules. That tells us about the meaning. I mean, if we're talking about some future thing or past thing or present thing. I mean, there are all kinds of grammatical rules that must be followed and so that part of the scripture is inspired as well.

[30:32] And it helps us understand the meaning. So the literal, grammatical, and historical, basically what the author would have meant when he wrote it. And not only that, but what the readers would have understood the author meant when he wrote it in light of the historical context.

[30:51] That is, their culture, their life situation, their individual worldview of that day. See, you can't, when you read scripture, you can't inject back into the passage, your culture, your way of thinking.

[31:09] Even, to some extent, the meaning of words. Got to discover what the author meant when he wrote it based upon his historical context.

[31:20] And it's very important that we do that. Let me explain a little bit about this. Any given passage, and some of you may have already wondered about this, but any given passage of scripture has but one meaning, as I've said, unless otherwise revealed by the passage, or by the Bible.

[31:46] And for example, there are some Old Testament passages that don't appear to be symbolic of some New Testament truth, or foreshadowing of some New Testament truth, or even a prophecy of some New Testament event, or fulfillment.

[32:01] there are some passages that just don't even look prophetic, and yet, when we get to the New Testament, the New Testament author connects the dots for us. And we understand that that passage way back there that David wrote, or Ezekiel wrote, or whomever the author may have been, is actually prophetic, or it's actually symbolic, or it actually represents some New Testament truth, or some New Testament person, namely Jesus.

[32:28] But you can't do that unless the New Testament connects that dot. Be careful about that. We must let the Word of God establish the exception to the Bible.

[32:40] Otherwise, Scripture, any given Scripture, has but one meaning, and it is the author's intended meaning, and no application should be made until we discover that meaning.

[32:54] Let me give you a couple of classic examples. Maybe one of these you won't like, but nevertheless it stands. First one is this one, Matthew chapter, this is a classic, I guess, what I would say, a classic abuse of this principle.

[33:13] Matthew 18 verse 20, Jesus said, I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them.

[33:28] by my Father in heaven. Wow, what a promise. I have cancer. I know I have at least two who would agree with me in prayer that God would heal me.

[33:44] And so, why then am I not healed? At least based, that is, upon this promise. I mean, what does it say?

[33:55] two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.

[34:07] What's the meaning of that passage? In the larger passage, we discover the theme. God and in this passage in Matthew 18, Jesus is giving instructions about what to do about a sinning brother in the church.

[34:27] It's a passage related to church discipline. and not a passage that is simply a carte blanche promise to prayer in general.

[34:41] It's about church discipline. And the promise concerning, and it is a promise, all right, it is a promise, no doubt, it's worded that way, it is a promise, this is a promise concerning God's seal of approval when a church comes together and decides about the disciplining of a sinning brother or sister within the body.

[35:07] Makes a big difference, doesn't it, in its application. Now, if you want to find promises that relate to prayer that God has given in his word, and he has, you can go other places, but you can't go here.

[35:22] If you're looking for a promise about two coming together and praying about a certain issue, certain health thing, or certain need, or whatever, you can't go here and say this is a promise from God.

[35:35] You see, before we make an application, we must discover the one true meaning of the passage. Let me give you another example.

[35:47] This is a classic one too. Jesus said in Revelation 3.20, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will sup with him and he with me.

[36:06] Familiar with that passage, aren't you? Is the author's intent, and in this case, Jesus is the author, well, you know, he's the author of the entire Bible, but I mean directly, because he's speaking, John is writing it down, remember I mentioned that about Revelation chapter 2 and 3.

[36:25] so in this case, it's Jesus speaking, is his intent to be evangelistic? That's usually the way the passage is taken, interpreted, applied.

[36:41] I mean, is this a picture of the Savior? Is he intending for us to see a picture of himself standing at the door, knocking at the door of the sinner's heart, the unbeliever's heart, and pleading then with that unbeliever to open his heart's door and receive him in?

[37:10] Is that what this passage is about? That is the popular interpretation, and because it's so quiet in here, I'm thinking that's probably what you believe about this passage, have always been taught about this passage.

[37:29] I mean, there's even a famous painting, isn't there, of a door and Jesus standing there knocking on that door. But in this passage, Jesus is not talking to lost sinners.

[37:47] Who is he talking to? He's talking to the church, a particular church in this case. And so we have to, the implication is that these are believers, in one sense, that doesn't mean that every church is full of believers and no unbelievers.

[38:05] I mean, sure, there are unbelievers in this church, but Jesus is knocking at the door of the church here, not the sinner's heart. This passage is located in one of the seven letters Jesus' address to the seven churches of Asia Minor.

[38:24] In this letter, it's a letter to the lukewarm church of Laodicea. And so it's not the door of the sinner, but it's the door of the church that Jesus is knocking at.

[38:39] Let me in, back in, to your church. church. I think he's knocking at a lot of churches' doors right now, actually. Now, you know, there are plenty of passages in the Bible that reveal what we would call the gospel call to sinners.

[38:57] Plenty of passages that deal with that. This is just not one of them. And so we can't apply it that way because if we understand the meaning of the passage, then the application must be in accord with the meaning, the one true meaning of the passage.

[39:17] And that takes hard work, doesn't it? I mean, what I'm suggesting here, what I'm actually saying must be the case, discovering the one meaning of the passage, it takes work.

[39:29] I'm here to tell you. Takes work, takes diligence. And so, you know, when it comes to studying the Bible, are you a tourist or an explorer?

[39:43] You know the difference between the two? I mean, there's a huge difference between a tourist and an explorer. The tourist travels, you know, relatively quickly, stopping only at the most popular sites, you know.

[39:57] That's basically what we do. Now, some of us might like to get off the beaten track every once in a while, but basically that's the approach of the tourist. But the explorer, on the other hand, takes the necessary time to search out all that can be found.

[40:15] That's how we ought to approach scripture. Too many of us read the Bible like tourists, and then we complain that our study of the Bible is so unfruitful and even frustrating.

[40:27] But we must take the explorer's approach in studying scripture and discover all the nooks and crannies that lie beneath the surface of scripture.

[40:38] scripture. We're not alone, of course, in this process, are we? Under the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.

[40:50] Now, the word is very deliberate, enlightenment, not inspiration. We kind of use inspiration to mean a host of things. You know, we listen to a song on the Christian radio station and say, you know, the author of that song was inspired.

[41:09] Well, not inspired in the same sense of scripture, okay? So, it's not inspiration. It's certainly not revelation. Otherwise, we need to, like I said, one other time, we need to have a loose-leaf notebook for our Bible and just add things when God reveals new information and new truth.

[41:29] So, it's not revelation, not inspiration. It is enlightenment, enlightenment. We could even use the word illumination. of the Holy Spirit would be another good word to use because it means basically the same thing, that the Holy Spirit sheds light on the meaning of scripture, illuminates the meaning of the passage and its application as well.

[41:53] A few passages of scripture we might consider. John 7, 16, God is not mine, but his who sent me.

[42:06] If anyone wants to do his will, he shall know, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God. How we know? Well, here is this passage in John 16, 13.

[42:18] When he, the spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth, and the spirit of truth has come. He abides in every believer. He's taken up residence in you, and so you can trust him to aid you, to enlighten you, and illuminate you as you diligently study God's word.

[42:38] Now, let's finish this up this morning. It is the responsibility of believers to ascertain, I'm going to skip by those passages, you can write down 1 Corinthians 2 if you want to, read that on your own.

[42:57] It's a long one. It is the responsibility of believers to ascertain or discover carefully, all these words are pretty important, to discover carefully, take great care, the true intent, it's your responsibility.

[43:18] Our responsibility as believers through diligence, through discovery, through careful discovery, discovery, to discover the true intents and meaning of the scripture.

[43:31] Okay, that's important. We've already talked about that. Recognizing, and this is the important part I want you to focus on, recognizing that proper application is binding on all generations.

[43:51] Binding on all generations. You know, so many people today, especially of the younger generations, what some have liked to define or describe as the postmodern generation, those who kind of have a postmodern type of worldview or outlook on things, where truth, basically, we could define the postmodern view as truth originates in me, truth originates in God and his word.

[44:25] But the thinking today is, I'm the arbitrator of truth. Truth originates with me. Truth is what I believe it to be, regardless of what experts may say or other authorities may say.

[44:41] It's kind of a postmodern way of thinking, though I think it's basically a bunch of hooey. I don't know if hooey is a word, but I like to use it from time to time.

[44:53] It conveys meaning, doesn't it? So many people today think that somehow the Bible is just not relevant anymore. Not relevant. I mean, it's old, it's dated, it's dead, and it's written to people and cultures far removed from our culture.

[45:12] We think differently. We've arrived, and so forth. So it's just not relevant anymore. That's a postmodern thinking, though it's a thinking that has been the sin of man since the Bible was written.

[45:25] There's nothing new. But the problem is, in response to this kind of so-called postmodern condition, many preachers today are abandoning sound exposition of Scripture.

[45:41] You know, with the idea of thinking that what we've got to do is attempt to somehow make the Bible more relevant, more applicable, more palatable, which is really the bottom line for it, more acceptable.

[45:58] We've just got to make it relevant. But listen, and I've said this many times before, we don't make the Bible relevant. That's not my job, make it relevant. Relevant and application are not the same thing.

[46:11] application is guided by, it is dependent upon the relevance of Scripture, the meaning of Scripture. So, we don't make the Bible relevant, but rather when properly interpreted, finding that one true meaning, when properly interpreted, it is the Bible that makes us relevant, makes our mindset relevant, makes our way of thinking relevant, that makes our lives and the direction of our lives and the goals of our lives and on and on.

[46:57] It is the Bible that makes all of that relevant, if properly applied. And that really is the, I think, the basic import of the final statement.

[47:12] In our doctrinal statement on the Word of God, truth of Scripture stands in judgment of men or mankind.

[47:23] Never do men stand in judgment of it, though they may try. though many think they are.

[47:37] In judgment of the Word of God. But it didn't work that way. You see, we're broken. Mankind is broken.

[47:50] Broken. Wrecked. By sin. We can't think right. we can't have in and of ourselves the right mindset on things.

[48:09] We're broken. We need God's Word. And not, by the way, just on Sunday when we come to church. For many people, that's the only time they get any Word of God, any Bible.

[48:24] They come to church. Maybe if they come to Sunday school. we need it every single day because we're broken.

[48:37] We are broken and therefore leaky vessels. I think you ought to think of it in those terms. We're leaky. So we can't just give one little, you know, meal of the Word of God and expect that to last.

[48:53] it leaks out. We need it every day. As someone has said, the only way to keep a broken vessel full is by keeping the faucet turned on.

[49:10]  That's good. That's good.