The Church and the Word

Transcript

GRM 1218
03/03/19
The Church and the Word
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

Well it is good to have you here on this cold morning. When I think of this kind of weather—how did people survive here a hundred years ago? It’s amazing this place was settled before we had central heating and things like that. It would have been a challenge but the Lord is gracious and caused us to be born in this day. I think, reading through the Old Testament some this week and thinking of men like David and Solomon with their castles or palaces and all their resources and they didn’t live as comfortably as we do. Trying to get warm, trying to stay warm in those big cold palaces they lived in and here we have, we go from our warm house to our warm car to our warm buildings. How blessed we are. That doesn’t mean I never complain, but it is true.

We’ve been sort of between book studies, which is our normal flow, and I want to take another week and then I anticipate we may begin. Note I said we may begin a new study next week, and I know you want to know what it is. So do I, so we’ll all come next week and we will find out for sure. But we’ve talked about the church, and various aspects of the church, and one area that I probably talk about more than anything else, and I have talked about it recently, I’m aware, but I want to talk about it again and that is, the focus we have on the word of God. You know 1 Timothy 3 says the church is the pillar and support of the truth and that is what we are about, we can’t lose that focus, so I thought one more time I would use that as a reminder and just walk you through some of the basics about our focus on the word of God.

I think this is where the weakness begins in evangelical churches. They begin to lose their hold on the word of God. We believe the bible is the word of God but the seriousness about the word of God weakens, and over time, that has its impact and we get weaker and weaker in the Scripture, and then we begin to fill in with other things that may mask the seriousness of our condition. An article, I’ve shared with you that comes out of a book how different churches, evangelical churches that we came to believe even to be evangelical churches, bible believing churches, but you see how they are, subtly and gradually moved away from their prime focus.

The first man I’ll mention, I’ve heard him preach. He would be able to preach the gospel as clearly as anyone and yet, he’s built a huge mega church and the focus is not where the Scripture says it ought to be from what I can tell. This pastor says, “Church (according to this pastor, he’s the senior pastor of this church, he says,) ought to be fun. Most churches you go to are boring. Our service moves, there’s no dead time.” In fact, they call their church the exciting church. “The service is carefully crafted as a Disney presentation. This is no accident. The church has sent its staff to Disney for training on everything.” Now you think you might be embarrassed to let that out but that’s where their church staff goes to get training on how to do church. “We send them to Disneyland.” Now this is a church that would be considered a conservative evangelical church but you can see something’s beginning to change.

There’s another church in another state. This also would claim to be an evangelical church. They also sight the Disney approach as a source of inspiration for what the pastor calls entertainment evangelism. This pastor first realized that church services should be entertaining when he observed crowds lining up around the block for the premier of the movie “Batman”. Now that’s where he got his inspiration for what the church ought to be, by looking at people lined up, crowding to go in to watch the movie “Batman”, so he decided he needed to learn from Disneyland as well. He wondered how the church could utilize the power and creativity of modern entertainment to create a similar sense of excitement at church services. He decided that his church should provide exciting dramatic services that would attract crowds comparable to those at summer movies and popular concerts. I’d say we’ve lost the focus the church is the pillar and support of the truth. I’m still waiting for it to come up, anything about the truth or the bible. You see we begin to look and see what the world’s doing and saying. Well, if we produce what the world’s doing they’ll be excited to come here. For what? Well it’ll be just like going to a Batman movie; they’ll go out and say our church is exciting! If you enjoyed Batman, you’ll enjoy our church and another evangelical church in another state.

These are three different states, just to have as an example, because it shows it’s not just an isolated—fun, lively, and contemporary services that provide new forms for worshiping are at the heart of this church and others associated with it. All our services share a commitment to enthusiasm, innovation, creativity, relevance, liveliness and informality. Did you notice there’s one thing missing, the bible truth? We are so focused on creating excitement and that’s where the mask goes over because they will include some bible verses. They won’t deny the Scripture and so the people pour in. People begin to say look what the Lord’s doing, but really the Lord has nothing to do with it. Disneyland is very good at it and the methods they use work. The problem is the church is the pillar and support of the truth, and that is our ministry. That is our mission, so I just want to talk a little bit more about the truth again.

I could read you the old article by Charles Spurgeon. I had another extensive article from another 18th century preacher but Spurgeon’s article that I shared with you before, Feeding the Sheep or Amusing the Goats. “An evil is in the professed camp of the Lord, so gross in its impudence that the most short sighted can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years, it has developed at an abnormal rate, even for evil. The devil has seldom done a more clever thing than hinting to the church that part of her mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them.” Now Spurgeon died in 1892 and he was writing about this then. You see the cycle goes on. It’s like God said to Israel. “You have become weary with Me. You say, Oh, how wearisome it is.” Another prophet says, “You say it’s tiresome.”

I know, but we want more excitement, we want the unbeliever to be excited to come to our church. Pretty soon we change the focus from, we want God to be pleased and honored when we come before Him to worship Him. Do we want to please the people and yet even as Spurgeon noted well over a hundred years ago, “The devil has seldom done a more clever thing than hinting to the church that part of her mission is to provide entertainment for the people with a view to winning them.” And he was in England, London, and you know where that is today. Less than 5 percent of the people go to any church of any kind in England. Why should you? You get probably better entertainment and better quality someplace else. What’s the reason to go? The truth subtly gets squeezed out, moved to the side and becomes irrelevant, and God’s people want something more exciting. The most exciting thing we have is the word of God.

Now be careful, we get a swing to another side and it’s happened in our city. It’s happened to people who sat here. It’s several years ago, someone who had attended Indian Hills and now was attending another church that had been a bible believing church came to see me about the disaster that had overtaken their church, and I happened to bump into another person here just recently and he came up and was talking to me. He used to attend Indian Hills. Part of the blessing we have as a church is to provide good people for other churches and we want to thank the Lord for that privilege. So, we had an enjoyable conversation and he expressed his appreciation for the time in the word here and how that had been a foundation for his life. Now he mentioned the church he was going to now, and I knew about it from my previous conversation with another person and I said, “Well, how is that church doing? Is it recovering?” He talked about how very difficult it is. You know what happened to that church? Key evangelical men who were the teachers in the church converted to Roman Catholicism, and that caused such a confusion in the church. Many people left, now they struggle to exist. He said to me how people left and one of those who led the way had been a pastor in this city for many years. He was not the pastor of that church. He had gone on to advanced degrees and then somehow decided Roman Catholicism was what he was looking for. What happens to God’s people is that they are led astray somewhere along the line, and the people who came to me a few years ago when they were going through the trouble said, we had a good strong bible church. Our pastor taught the word. Somewhere, something got lost that the devil infiltrated, so I’m concerned that we not follow that pattern.

The most precious thing we have is God’s word and the solution is not on one end to go to entertainment, then on the other end we don’t want entertainment, they go to something of ritual form. We want something that feels like worship and you know the emerging church and others like that darken the auditorium, have candles, pick up the ways of the monks of past centuries and so on and the formality of the ritual, and so we go from the lightness of the entertainment to the serious mood style church of ritual and form and it just feels like we’re worshiping and in the presence of God and God’s people go from one thing to another. It’s blown about by every wind of doctrine as Ephesians 4 says. Every wind that comes along the church has something new. Something that will do what? Well we’ve done the word of God. People aren’t as interested in that and we’re a little tired of it ourselves, I mean how often can you keep studying the bible? It’s an inexhaustible treasure but the drift goes. We find it with young people, it’s a challenge. They have to hear and respond but pretty soon, we’re thinking well, we want to hold our young people.

I meet people from Indian Hills formerly and ask, where are you? Well, it’s not the best place. It’s almost like they want to apologize to me. But my kids have friends there and that’s where they wanted to go. You don’t care about their eternal soul. You know it is the word of God that brings salvation, don’t get lured in. Well we follow Jesus. Tell me what you know about Jesus. He’s the Son of God. How do you know that? The bible tells me so. He came to earth to die for our sins. How do you know that? The bible tells me so. He was crucified then He was raised from the dead. How do you know that? You know how we know God is through His word.

This week in the news there was a large meeting that was held in Florida. Forty thousand young people gathered together, to start another Jesus Movement in our country, and the picture, people with their hands up and all the excitement and they had a list of the speakers. My goodness, nobody cares about theology. Oh, we’re going to tell people about Jesus. They’re the most radical, heretical, charismatics and other kinds of people there, and we’re going to—I mean Benny Hinn was one of the speakers. God comes and puts His arm around him when he’s shaving in the morning. I mean where do we get this but we’re going to have a Jesus Movement.

What about the word of God? What about truth? Well, we’ll have different views, different opinions but we’re going to tell people about Jesus. You know it becomes a name that is empty, it’s meaningless, it’s whatever your emotional feeling is and let’s just stir people up emotionally and get them excited and we’ll go out and talk about Jesus. Sometimes we even say, isn’t it good to see young people excited about Jesus. Many people talk about Jesus. What does God say?

We have to come to God’s word to know about God? There’s no other place to know about Him. That’s it, this is it. Everything He intends us to know is contained in His book. He expects, He requires us, note there’s two responsibilities. There’s the responsibility of those who would teach the bible and James 3 tells us, don’t many of you be teachers because you’ll have a greater judgment, but He also holds the people accountable who listen and hear, so we are all going to be accountable for what we do with the word of God.

Come back to Jeremiah. I like Jeremiah. Some people think it’s because I can be a gloomy person. Marilyn says I always see the glass half empty. I’d say she never knows when the glass has never had anything in it, not half full but we balance each other. She’s right 20 percent of the time and I’m right 80 percent of the time, so it’s pretty even. I love preaching. Marilyn never gets to give a response. Someday if you come here and she’s up here, go home. (Laughter) How did I get into that? This is just one of those sermons, rambling with Rugh.

Come to Jeremiah chapter 5 verse 30. Jeremiah had a difficult ministry. All the prophets did. We know Jeremiah as the weeping prophet. He wrote The Lamentations of Jeremiah. He prophesied at a difficult time, the Babylonian Captivity, Israel’s disinterest in the word. Look at verse 30 of Jeremiah 5. “An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; (for that they will be severely judged, but note the next line,) and My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it?” You see what’s happening. It’s like Paul said to Timothy, there’ll come a time when they won’t want to listen to healthy teaching but they’ll heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. He’s talking about God’s people. Those who profess to belong to God at least. The world has never had an interest in the word of God but God’s people, Israel being an example. Over time, they found it tiresome, wearisome. How do you tell the eternal God who has spoken, You’re boring me. It’s almost sacrilegious to say it but God says He sees them, as they are, even then your attitude that’s what you really say. It’s wearisome. We’re tired of Your word and worshiping according to Your word.

Remember what Jesus said to the woman at the well in John 4:24. God is looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and truth. Be very careful, if you take the truth out, all you have is your emotion and you equate that with genuine worship. It could be subtle, but it is a deadly disease. Look at Jeremiah, chapter 6 verse 10. I’ll read the whole verse. “To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? Behold, their ears are closed, and they cannot listen. Behold, the word of the LORD has become a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.” What a terrible thing to have happened to Israel. These were God’s people. He had said He had put His love on them, set that nation apart for Himself, and now they close their ears to hear the word of God, and what happens? Well, it just doesn’t happen that one day all the Israelites got up and said well, we don’t want to listen any more. You know it’s like a disease that begins to invade your body and it progressively takes over, and in subtle little ways we lose that love and passion for the truth and the recognition that it is God’s word, it is precious.

I’m not saying we don’t. Sometimes, you know, we say we hit a wall. You feel dry. You wonder what in the world, am I doing anything? Maybe I need a change. Let’s come back, Lord You are the same. You are the God of wonder. Your word reveals Your riches. That’s when I need to drive myself back to the word. You know like Paul said, I discipline my body bring it into subjection, make it my slave. So, we’re not just talking about that we go through a time and think well, I really don’t feel like studying the word. The Lord wouldn’t want me doing it if I don’t feel like it, or at least maybe if I do it less, I’ll, you know, want to get back to it more. You know, I have to decide here’s what God says.

Those are the times I need to get apart and say Lord, I need Your word more than ever! You know my heart. It’s like I read your word and it’s dull, but Lord I’m going to keep reading. Open my eyes to behold the wonders of who You are and a greater appreciation, and I’m not going to leave until it happens. I’m going to keep reading and taking it in. You know we sometimes go by how we feel and you know how it is. It gets oh, do I want to get up early on Sunday morning. Oh, do I want to…? As someone shared who had been here for many years when someone asked him, why don’t we see yah? I’ve just found that it’s easier to get up have cup of coffee and read the paper in the morning. Well I don’t doubt that. Most of us here could say on a cold morning like this, you look out the window and you say close the curtain. But we don’t go by our feelings. We go by the truth and the wonder of it. We keep going.

Over in Jeremiah, chapter 8 verse 9. “The wise men are put to shame, they are dismayed and caught; behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, and what kind of wisdom do they have?” You realize what He’s saying, there’s no place to go for true wisdom that is not founded in the word of God. That doesn’t mean everything you can know is in the word but the true wisdom to discern everything else in life comes from the word and that relationship with our God. Verse 11, “They heal the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace.”

Part of entertainment. People don’t go to entertainment to be told they are sinners, guilty and lost, that there’s an eternal hell. No, tell me what I want to hear. Have my ears tickled; that’s the verse we know from the Psalms. Jeremiah 8, verse 22, “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has not the health of the daughter of My people been restored?” What’s the problem, the word of God is a healing balm. It does bring spiritual life, restoration, healing from the sickness of sin. What’s the problem? The people don’t want the cure. They don’t want the word of God and so it goes on.

Jeremiah 9:23. “Thus says the LORD, ‘Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things.’ ” How do you come to know the Lord? Through His word. We’ll turn to a few of those passages in a moment. Come over to chapter 12 verse 2. At the end of verse 2, “Thou art near to their lips but far from their mind.” You know how easily that settles in on us. We have to talk spiritually, we have to talk like we’re, you know, really motivated by the word, but these people… The Lord is looking at the heart, as He says in chapter 17 of Jeremiah, which is deceitful and desperately wicked, but they’re still talking the talk. You are near to their lips but far from their mind. Where am I really Lord in my walk with You? I’m here today. Where am I really? You see me as I am. My thoughts aren’t hidden from You. The condition of my heart is not hidden from You. You are near to their lips. You’re far from their minds.

Over to chapter 15 verse 16 and then we’re going to have to leave Jeremiah. “Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts.” You see what Jeremiah does in the midst of everything and he is rejected by all around him, but the word of God is his treasure. I ate your word I took it in, I meditated upon it. I thought on it, I let it get down into my heart, and that caused me joy because when all’s said and done the God that I serve is sovereign. He’s taking care of me. He’s providing for me. He has not left me. Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart. Jeremiah is a good example when you get down and when you get distracted. When you despair, go to the Word and let that refresh your heart and soul. We sometimes go the other direction. That’s true of those who have been called by His name.

I said we’ll have to leave Jeremiah. We will after chapter 23 verse 28. So much in Jeremiah, it’s hard to leave it. But verse 28 of Jeremiah 23, “’The prophet who has a dream may relate his dream, but let him who has My word speak My word in truth.’” What is the church? It is the pillar and support of the truth. We have His truth, what are we to do? Speak My word in truth. “’What does straw have in common with grain?’” When I thought of this passage, I thought of those that said we go to Disneyland to find out how to have an exciting entertaining service. I got the idea and inspiration when I saw people lined up to go to see a movie. What does straw have in common with the grain? What does chaff have in common with the grain? The one is good for burning that’s all. You compare God’s word to these things. Then what He says about His word in verse 29, “‘Is not My word like fire?’ declares the LORD, ‘like a hammer which shatters a rock?’” What we can never lose sight of is the word of God is the power of God. It is the word through which the Spirit of God works. Think about it. What does the world have? We have the word of God. It’s like a fire that burns up. It’s like a hammer that shatters rock. In other words, there is nothing that can stand against the word of God. That’s why the devil works so hard, relentlessly to turn us away from the word. That’s all right, you don’t have to deny the word, you don’t have to reject the word of God, but you don’t have to go overboard. What do you mean go overboard? This treasure that God’s given us.

You’re in the Old Testament, back up to Psalm 119. This is about the word of God, this extensive Psalm. Look at verse 4. I’m just going to read you some verses that are familiar to you. “You have ordained Your precepts.” Note that. “That we should keep them diligently.” God has given His word for a purpose and that’s encouraging. People think oh, the bible is hard to understand, everybody has their own interpretation. I rely upon our priest. I rely upon our preacher. I rely upon the church fathers, but what do you say? You’re saying God doesn’t know how to communicate to the people He created to communicate? He gave the ability to communicate, but He does it in such a mumble jumble way that we can’t know for sure what He said? “You have ordained Your precepts, that we should keep them diligently.” That means God thinks He has spoken in a way that must and should be understood so you can obey it. You don’t take your child and give him instructions in Latin that if he doesn’t know Latin and then say, I expect you to do that. So that’s why you have to speak to me so I can understand. God says He has.

Verse 11. “Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.” Knowing the word holding on to the word, treasuring it in our heart so it’s there, it’s our first thought. Look at verse 14. Is this true of us, in our well to do world? “I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, as much as in all riches.” This is the most valuable possession I have. If somebody said to you, what would be the one thing you would not let go of--well God’s Word. David was a wealthy man, the king of Israel. You can read some of the wealth he had and passed on to Solomon. Verse 24. “Your testimonies are my delight, my counselors.” Where do you go? Where could I go but to the Lord seeking a refuge for my soul.

Where do you go in the down times? I would build a whole development of Christian counseling. Well, if people know the Word they know where to go. It doesn’t mean you don’t sometimes go to a mature Christian to talk about things. We’ve just sort of abandoned the idea that Christians should know the Word and go to the Word. Verse 38, “Establish Your word to Your servant, as that which produces reverence for You.” You know you don’t bring people to a recognition of who God is, to give Him honor, to give Him praise, to give Him glory apart from His word because this is what reveals who He is. I realize we experience things. Our emotions are moved but once you step outside the Word, you are on a drifting--you don’t know where. My emotions are controlled, and checked by the word of God, and they ought to be moved by the word of God.

Verse 50, “This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your word has revived me.” It’s like Jeremiah in his affliction. What? Chapter 15:16, “Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.” In my affliction, Your word has revived me, the psalmist says. The same thing. We have so many Christians that get down. Go to the Word more. Oh, I didn’t find it worked. Well then keep going, keep going. Psalm 119, verse 63, “I am a companion of all those who fear You, and of those who keep Your precepts.” So, we gather together. It doesn’t mean we don’t rub shoulders with the world and in various ways as we go about our jobs and our activities. We’re not cutting ourselves off from them, but we are bound together in a relationship with those committed to God’s truth, who keep Your precepts. We don’t just study it for intellectual satisfaction. We study it to have a life conformed to it.

Verse 67, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.” You ought to see some of the trials that come into our life. We’ve talked about this. Maybe to drive us in a deeper way to the word of God. I’ve read to you the comments of Charles Spurgeon. He said I lived my entire life with my head in a dark cloud. Depression and despair partly caused by some physical ailments that he probably had, but nonetheless it didn’t keep him from being used mightily of God. Perhaps those afflictions, like Paul. I have a thorn in the flesh and when I went to the Lord, the Lord said to me, it’s necessary for me to use you in greater ways. Paul says, then I can thank the Lord for the thorn in the flesh. Well you think, ah Lord you have to take this away or I can’t be used. Then I have to say Lord, You’re sovereign. Evidently, You’ve brought this into my life so I can be used in a greater way than I otherwise would. You see the word of God in its riches keeps us from getting sidetracked and so consumed with fixing this that I’ve failed to appreciate. No wait, this is what God has for me. Verse 75, “I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.” That helps me. I don’t have any troubles the Lord doesn’t bring into my life for a purpose, so then to draw me nearer. Oh, I’d like to be used like Paul but forget that thorn in the flesh whatever it might be. I’d like to be used like David but I don’t care for the afflictions and trials.

Verse 80, “May my heart be blameless in Your statutes, that I may not be ashamed.” Verse 89, “Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven.” I don’t have to find out what the newest thing for the church is. You know there’s more books that come out and here’s the secret for your church, here’s what the church… God’s word is settled forever in heaven. It’s just as fresh, just as new, just as necessary as it was the day God gave it. I’m not leaving it. The church is the pillar and support of the truth. Somebody asks you, what’s your church like? What’s it about? We have a great children’s program, we have great music, we have people who are involved with one another in a variety of ways, meet each other’s needs. But you know what, everything we do as a church is based on one thing and one thing only, the word of God. That’s what controls us as a church. That’s what permeates everything we do because there’s nothing more important, more necessary, or more foundational than the word of God.

Verse 92, “If Your law had not been my delight, then I would have perished in my affliction.” Some Christians go under. You know the life preserver is the word of God. You know in your darkest times you go to the Word and you take hold of it. Lord You know my despair, You know my fear. You know I feel helpless and hopeless. But I come and find out that God tells me that’s not so. You know this ought to be our natural response, in verse 97, “O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.” What do you think about through the day?

Some of you remember old Clyde Ingwerson and he knew the Word. He told me one time, “I go to bed two hours before I go to sleep because I have to have those two hours to go over my Scripture memory, before I go to sleep.” He was doing work in our former house. We knew he was a retired carpenter and he was working in the basement. I’d go downstairs, say “Clyde, how’s it going?” “Oh, going fine. Have you ever thought about Zephaniah 1:9 and Isaiah 4:7, and how they relate together?” “You know Clyde I was just thinking about that myself. But go ahead and tell me what they say first.” But you know, this is what he’s thinking. He’s hammering nails, he’s doing what he’s doing but his mind is filled with the word of God. It’s my meditation all the day. “I did the book of James many years ago,” he said to me. “Do you think it’d encourage the people if I stood up and quoted the book of James for them some night?” I mean this was on his heart. Yeah, this is precious, it’s my meditation all the days.

Psalm 119, verse 104, “From Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.” The word of God is the standard for everything. It’s for life. It is the anchor for my life. It’s the guide for my life. “Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path,” in verse 105. Verse 127, “Therefore I love Your commandments above gold, yes, above fine gold.” Well is that true for us, we’re a wealthy people. It bothered me many years ago; I did some study on church growth around the world and I’ve shared with you. The word of God goes in and it makes its impact on what we call the lower class financially. Then over time as they become more responsible, they may rise, and over time, the fervor of the Christianity goes down as the success in the world goes up.

David is a good example of a man who had much gold, but he says the word of God is more precious than that the gold to me. Verse 130, “The unfolding of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” If you don’t know much, learn much about the word of God. You will be wiser than your teachers. “Your law is truth,” in the last statement of verse 142. And in verse 151, “And all Your commandments are truth.” Verse 160, “The sum of Your word is truth.” On it goes.

Now come over to Romans chapter 1. I told you these would be ramblings. Romans 1, the riches of God’s word. How blessed are we as a church, as individuals in this church to be entrusted with God’s word. Most of you carried in a bible. Think about that you carry God’s word. You can read it anytime. Romans chapter 1 verse 15, “I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” If that was all the bible said, you understand how important it is. Your only hope for escape from an eternal hell is to hear the truth of the word of God, and believe it. The gospel is God’s word about Jesus Christ, our sin and guilt before God. The provision of His Son to be our Savior. He died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin. You hear that message and by God’s grace, you’ve not only heard it but you believe it. There’s something supernatural happening. This is God’s power for salvation. You can talk about Jesus until you’re blue in the face. You can do all kinds of nice things but it’s the gospel, the truth about Jesus. Why He came, because of our sin and our guilt and our hopelessness. Our inability to rescue ourselves, to pull ourselves out of our hopelessness, to be the Savior. The gospel is the power of God for salvation. Think about that, those words.

Come over to Peter. First Peter is all the way toward the back of your New Testament. Almost to the Book of Revelation, just after the Book of Hebrews that’s the large last book and then you’ll get James and then 1 Peter. Chapter 1, verse 18 says, “knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” His death, that’s what redeemed you. It didn’t matter, the wealthiest man in the world is poverty stricken when it comes to being able to rescue himself. You could give untold billions and they could not buy your way out of hell. It could not make you acceptable to a holy and righteous God. You’re not redeemed with perishable things but with what Christ did, His death on the cross. Come down to verse 23. “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.” It’s that word, His word.

Down in verse 24 there’s a contrast. “‘All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the word of the LORD endures forever.’ And this is the word which was preached to you.” How amazing is that! That’s how you got saved. I became like the seed that was planted in your heart. You heard it, you mulled it over, you thought of it. Your eyes are opened. I’m a sinner I need to trust Christ. You place your faith in Him, you’re born again. God makes you new on the inside so the outside now can change. That’s the beauty. It’s the word of God.

Somewhere along the line when we talk about those in our own city, a man I talked to who grew up here somehow found his way to Catholicism. Something is wrong. I want to be sure nobody can leave and say, you didn’t make it clear. You didn’t tell me. I would rather he go away and say, I got tired of him telling me the same thing. What more important thing? We don’t want our kids to grow up and miss it. We want them to hear it from the youngest age to the oldest. It never grows old. This gospel song, you know we have the old story. Tell me the old, old story. It is an old one. We don’t have anything fresh for the new young people coming up, for the college age young people, something more exciting, something more interesting. We have the word of God. There is nothing more precious, nothing more important. This alone can bring salvation to your home, to your heart, to you as an individual. And there is no other way you can hear it and not believe it, and it has no effect. You can hear it and reject it, but if you hear it and believe it, that’s the difference for eternity.

People say, Well, everybody has their own interpretation. When they say that, I usually like to have a little New Testament. I like to read them a few passages. The bible says all have sinned. Now, you may have a different interpretation. Do you understand what the word all means? I think it means everyone. You understand what the word sin is? Most people have a concept of sin. Somebody doing something they should not do. Something that is wrong before a holy God. It says everyone is guilty before God. It says the penalty for sin is death. What don’t you understand about being paid what you deserve? The penalty, the wages. You understand what death is when the bible talks about it, you’re spiritually dead in your sins and you know we explain that. Take them through. Say, what don’t you understand? I’ve done this in college classes. They say oh well, everybody has their own interpretation. Really. I understand that, let me read you a verse and you tell me what it means. Well I guess it means everyone’s done wrong. That’s pretty good for somebody who’s only in his third year of college. You know, what’s it say? Well how do you know? Well the bible tells us all Scripture is God breathed and profitable.

That’s how God gave it. You’re telling me there’s a God who could create everything but couldn’t communicate to His creation without people getting it all flubbed up. I don’t believe that. And God says the way He did it He had His Spirit direct those individuals, so when they wrote the Scripture He directed using their personalities to write exactly the words He wanted. Otherwise, you have a God out there who’s not able to communicate. I have to tell people, you know the authority is not the preacher. The authority is not the church. The authority is not your denomination. The authority is the word of God. They say well, my church believes this. Now wait a minute, where’s the authority, in your church or in God’s word? Well I believe my church’s interpretation of the bible. Oh really, and you think God will excuse you if your church is not right?

Maybe use the word in Jeremiah 15, that we read. The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests teach out of their own thinking and my people love to have it so. That’s not excusable! What’s God say? It doesn’t matter what I say, it doesn’t matter what you think, it doesn’t matter what your church says. What’s God say? It says all have sinned, there’s none righteous, no not one. You believe that or don’t you? You’re going to say God’s a liar and you’re the truthful one. He says He sent His Son to be the Savior, all based and founded in God’s word. I realize I’m talking to the choir out here, to you who are here, but we don’t want to lose hold of this. We don’t want to lose our grip on the truth because we’ll end up like Israel. God gave them His word but somewhere along the line, it wasn’t precious. You know they started out, oh we will do it. We’re committed. Somewhere along the line, they let go and that’s the cycle for God’s people over time. So, we want to be a church that’s faithful with the word. It doesn’t matter whether they line up outside or not. It doesn’t matter whether people find it exciting or not. We come to please God. We want the people who come to find God’s word interesting and precious. The unbelievers who come… I can’t change a heart, you can’t change a heart.

I’ve shared with you what my homiletics professor at seminary pounded into us. You men are not the Holy Spirit. You present the word of God so that the Holy Spirit can use His word to do in a heart what only He can do. When I begin to try to measure what I do by results, Jeremiah is a failure. Nobody listened to him. Nobody paid attention. At the very end, we find they’re dragging him where he didn’t want to go, where he told them they shouldn’t go, but he kept at it. He kept at it and so we as a church keep at it. We have the precious truth. Tell your friends. Tell them to come to my church. Yeah, you’ll like it. We study God’s word. Tell them how important it is to know what God said. Interesting and exciting it is. Think about it. You can sit and hear what God said. Not because the preacher is so interesting, but because God’s word is, and you can learn what God has said, and then you will know what He says for you and you won’t be dependent on someone else.

Let’s pray together: Thank you Lord for Your word. It is a precious treasure. It’s good for us as Your people to remind ourselves what a treasure has been entrusted to us. Your word, which is more precious than anything we possess. More precious than life because it is a word that brings life, spiritual life. Lord, it can do what nothing else can do. It can transform the lost into the saved. The children of the devil into children of God. Lord, it is a powerful word. It is a word that nourishes and nurtures the spiritual life of Your people. Lord, you know us as we are. There are times when we struggle, and we find ourselves having a hard time, even taking in Your word. Lord, it is good to remind ourselves that you are the God who is our sufficiency and in Your word, you provide for us. You strengthen us. You keep us. You prepare us. We pray that Your word will guide us in all we do today and the days before us. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.