Remaining Faithful to God’s Word

Transcript

GRM 1249
11/22/2020
Remaining Faithful to God's Word
Psalm 119, Selected Verses
Gil Rugh


We're going to do something a little different this morning, we've done it on other occasions, but rather than looking through one particular passage of scripture I just want to talk to you about the word of God, the interpreting of the word of God and some concerns I have, along with others, about what is happening in the evangelical world. I'm using the word ‘evangelical’ broadly of those who claim to believe the Bible is the word of God, God's inspired word, and yet I see a serious departure from faithfulness to that word. I am reminded of some of the parallels even as I see what is going on in our country in these days and the divides that occur. We see divisions between… I'm not particular, I'll just pick out the names… progressives and conservatives (if you like different names, fine), the conflicts that are there, the discussions that take place. Recently we had the issue of appointing a Supreme Court justice and part of what was involved in that was are we looking for those who hold that you interpret the Constitution the way it was originally written, according to the intention of those who wrote it? Or is it a living Constitution that is adjusted and changed and interpreted through the eyes of what is going on in the world around us? Some of those things are similar to what is going on in the conflict over the Bible and over whether we interpret the Bible according to what the original authors intended when they wrote it or is it to be updated by reading it through what is going on in the world around us. I'll be reading some excerpts from different writers -- that could be difficult when you are sitting there listening so I'll try to limit that. I keep reminding myself, don't get carried away, but then I ignore what I tell myself so you'll have to do that, too.

First I want to look at a few passages with you on the word of God just to remind ourselves. Come back to Psalm 119. Because we are going to be dealing with people who claim to believe the Bible is the word of God, and indeed it is, let's just settle what the scripture says. I've just selected Psalm 119, I'd encourage you to go back and read through this psalm sometime this week. I did that for myself in preparation for our study and it is just a great reminder of the fullness, completeness, of the word of God. And it is God's intention to use His word to meet our every need. In Psalm 119:4, “You have ordained Your precepts, that we should keep them diligently.” Verse 9, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word.” Verse 11, “Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” Verse 14, “I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, as much as in all riches.” What a statement! David was a very wealthy man as the king of Israel, he may well have been the author of this psalm, that's not specified, but often credited to him, but the wealth of the world is nothing compared to the wealth of having the treasure of God's word entrusted to us. Verse 17, “Deal bountifully with Your servant, that I may live and keep Your word. Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from Your law.” Verse 24, great verse to keep in mind, “Your testimonies also are my delight; they are my counselors.” Where do I go for counsel when I desperately need it? I go to the word of God, what He has said. Verse 38, “Establish Your word to Your servant, as that which produces reverence for You.” It brings us to honor Him more, to give Him praise, to revere Him. Verse 50, “This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your word has revived me,” can bring an inner strength, even when our physical bodies may be deteriorating. Paul wrote about that when he wrote to the Corinthians and said though my outer man is decaying, yet the inner man is being renewed and strengthened day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16).
Verse 63, a good verse and it pertains to what we are going to be talking about, “I am a companion of all those who fear You, and of those who keep Your precepts.” This is a dividing line, even among those who profess to be believers, who profess to believe the word of God. Do they keep it, do they teach it, do they live in light of it? Verse 67, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.” Because God loves us He disciplines us, like we discipline our children when they disobey. God expects us to obey His word. That's encouraging because that means He gave His word to be understood, to be grasped; He didn't make it so we couldn't know what He was saying, what is He talking about. Sometimes we do resist, rebel, wander astray, and He disciplines us. Verse 71, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes,” that's what I want to know, if God has to discipline me I want to learn from it. “The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.” The riches of the world are nothing compared to the riches of God's word, that's what the psalmist is saying, it is better than the earth's treasures. Verse 75, “I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.” Verse 80, “May my heart be blameless in Your statutes, so I will not be ashamed.”
Now note this, we have a permanent Word, verse 89. “Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven,” or as you have it in the margin, “stands firm in heaven.” Keep that in mind for what we will be talking about in a little bit, the word of God is firmly settled in heaven, it's an unchanging word. Verse 92, “If Your law had not been my delight, then I would have perished in my affliction.” Good reminder when we seem overwhelmed in some of our troubles and trials. The best thing I can do is go to the word and my soul, my spirit, is strengthened and refreshed so the afflictions don't overwhelm me.
Verse 97, “O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.” The Law was the portion of the word of God that the psalmist had to this point, we have now the completed word, but the point is the same, we are to love it with a deep love. One of the checks we have on ourselves when we are satisfied to stray away from it, we don't delight and look forward to being in it, to being taught it, to studying it, to talking about it with fellow believers. What do we meditate upon in those downtimes during the day, what fills my thoughts? The world has a lot of things to put into our minds to occupy us, but our minds fall back on the word of God. That's the great thing about memorizing the word, thinking through the word, thinking about the wonders of the God that we serve and His workings.

Verse 104, “From Your precepts I get understanding,” that's where I get my understanding, not from the TV, not from the people in the world, I get my understanding from God's word, “therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Verse 113, “I hate those who are double minded,” James would say, a double minded man is unstable in all his ways, he can expect nothing from the Lord. Keep that in mind for some things we will be mentioning shortly. “But I love Your law. You are my hiding place and my shield; I wait for Your word.” Down to verse 118, “You have rejected all those who wander from Your statutes.” You'll note, they may have started out in the right place but they haven't ended up there. “You have rejected all those who wander from Your statutes, for their deceitfulness is useless,” its falsehood. So they have claimed the word of God but not to stay with it, reveals something about the character of the person. Verse 120, “My flesh trembles for fear of You, and I am afraid of Your judgments.” Down in verse 127, “Therefore I love Your commandments above gold, yes, above fine gold. Therefore I esteem right all Your precepts concerning everything,” I go to the word of God to guide me in everything, it is the foundation for my life. “I hate every false way.” It's important to talk about the mixture that takes place in our day in the evangelical world. I’m being true to God and His word and His character, I love what He loves and I hate what He hates. Verse 130, “The unfolding of Your words gives light,” we live in a world of darkness but God's word brings light, “it gives understanding to the simple.” That encourages all of us, I don't have to be a great scholar, I need to learn from God and then I'll have a wisdom above what the wisdom of the world can give. Verse 142, “Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your law is truth,” note that, this is God's word, it is truth. Verse 151, “You are near, O Lord, and all Your commandments are truth.” We're going to be dealing with this. Where do you find truth, absolute, objective truth? That's God's word. “Of old I have known from Your testimonies that You have founded them forever.” We have an unchanging word, we have a complete word, it is just as trustworthy as it was when it was given 2,000 years ago, 3,000 years ago, it's a forever word.

Do you want to sum up God's word? Look at verse 160, “The sum of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.” One of the concerns I have that we're going to reflect on is in the evangelical world and churches there is the idea that we find truth apart from the Word and God's word needs to be updated in light of the day in which we live. And those in the evangelical world are not embarrassed or ashamed to say that. God's word is no longer sufficient, it no longer speaks to the needs of the day, but we believe it is God's word, we just are making it relevant. God speaks through the psalmist to address those issues because they are not new, they are the devil's ideas recycled from generation to generation to generation.

Verse 165, “Those who love Your law,” again ‘Your word’ as we have it now complete, “have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble.” You have peace, that fits with the fruit of the Spirit doesn't it -- love, joy, peace. Where do I go to find it? I need my favorite psychologist, I guess, the world needs help. We have God's word. I need to stop. Lord, my heart is… I'm in turmoil, I'm churning on the inside, I can't settle down. I'm afraid, I'm fearful. “Those who love Your word have great peace.” Sometimes I need to be honest: God ,You know, You see my heart, You know I'm afraid, I'm fearful, I'm… I'm unsettled, I'm not sure. I just maybe go in and open God's word and let Him speak to me. Shut up and listen, Gil, close your mouth and open your ears, read what God says and let Him refresh my spirit and bring His peace to my heart.

Well, we could read the whole psalm, there have been times when I thought for the message of the morning we are going to read Psalm 119, so I prepare you for what may happen in a day ahead. Let me just recite to you, quote to you, a couple of verses that would fit with what we've read. Psalm 40:8, “The word of our God stands forever.” “The word of our God stands forever,” in this uncertain, changing world one thing is certain forever, and we have it. Other verses I have here but for time we won't go through those. I want you to have the foundation for what we are talking about. Those who disagree with the word of God disagree with God.

Just turn to one verse in Isaiah, Isaiah 8, look at verse 19, “When they say to you, “Consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter,” should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.” The light hasn't shined upon them, the light of the living God who is light, that comes through His word. We have ‘evangelical’ Christians who supposedly have gotten a message from a dead child, a dead person. Have they never read Isaiah 8:19? It's the unbeliever who lives in darkness, who looks to find out something about life after this life from a dead person who cannot communicate back. Perhaps the spirits, the demons, can communicate but there is nothing coming from that person. The scripture is clear. And it's a mark of an unbeliever who is looking for that. So we want to be careful, where do we go? “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word it is because they have no dawn,” no light. Everything is measured by this word, when we part from this word we move into the realm of darkness, everything that the word of God addresses. This is crucial. This means that many who are included in the broad term ‘evangelicals’ are nothing of the sort.

Something similar to what happens in our country, and I want to be careful, don't misunderstand, I'm just making a comparison with what is going on. Because what is going on in and around our world, where we see young people who have grown up in prosperity and with much, and now they are off chasing after things that are contrary to everything they have been taught and blessed with. So we have in the spiritual realm, in the church, young people grow up in Christian homes, they are taught the word of God, they go to Christian schools, colleges, seminaries, but something is missing in their life, they are unsettled, they are unsure. We recognize this in the world, they are always looking for something. We've been to Isaiah, the wicked are like the restless sea, they are constantly churning up the filth. There is something else, I need something, something is missing, something is out of my life. Well, sometimes these who have been part of a Christian family even, a Christian church, Christian schools, they have that sense of emptiness. Something is wrong, something is missing, the world is going by me, what do I do? And the reality is they have learned all the facts, some of them teach in our seminaries, but have never truly trusted Christ and come to understand the peace, the satisfaction, and the completeness that is found only in Him. So they begin to think it is something lacking, so they don't throw away ‘Christianity,’ the Bible they claim to continue to believe it, but they want to bring something and add it, and now I have the kind of Christianity that brings to me what I have been looking for. But the reality is they never had true, biblical Christianity. That's a serious matter and I think it is going on. And we see what happens in our country, when the foundations are eroded the building collapses. That's what is happening to the church and we don't realize it because these people claim we believe the Bible, we are Bible-believing Christians.

I'm going to read to you from seminary professors -- yes, I believe the full inspiration of scripture but I need more than that, I need something other than that. What is confusing is they don't deny the basic truths but it's like the Galatian heresy, the Judaizers who said, yes, we believe in Christ, we believe He is the Messiah, we believe in His death and resurrection, but that's not enough, we must have the Mosaic Law and its ordinances. Doing the same thing. So I'm going to read you some excerpts, these are all from those who claim to be evangelical, Bible-believing Christians. Most of those claim to believe in the full inspiration of scripture, they have not even wandered so far as I-only-believe-part-of-the-Bible. So this is coming out and claiming to believe that the Bible is the word of God. This is edited, put together by a couple of seminary professors from an evangelical seminary. One of them writes the introduction and he says, quotes “Through experience he went through,” something happened in his family, “I came to grips with the inadequacy of the Bible alone to handle life's crises. The Bible is not sufficient; it's important…” He'll say it is helpful, it is even authoritative, but it's not enough. Now when you say it is not enough, then I have to look for something else.

He goes on to say later, “Through this experience I found that the Bible was not adequate, quite frankly I found that the Bible was not the answer.” This is the man who still is a teacher at that evangelical seminary, a leading authority in evangelical circles. “I found the scriptures to be helpful, even authoritatively helpful as a guide but without feeling God,” and he puts the emphasis on the word feeling, “but without feeling God the Bible gave me no solace.” So the problem is the inadequacy of the Bible, I need to have a feeling, so I have the Bible, now I have to find a way to have a feeling. And he goes on and he gives points to help you work through this and, “You have to remember the Bible is not a member of the trinity.” Hm-m-m.

Now later another professor will write a chapter, for him humorously saying, “The trinity is the Father, the Son and the Holy Bible,” and then he points out that that can't be true. “People elevate the Bible too high.” But if the Bible is the very words of God, how do you separate that from God? How do we know God? You remove the Bible, what do you have? Well, you can have a life filled with experiences, some experiences may be very real and very moving, but what do you know about God? It's an artificial distinction. True, the trinity is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and we know them by their words. If you don't obey the Bible, you don't obey God, right? I mean, how can you talk about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit apart from the Bible? So it's an artificial distinction that is being made, and when it's being made by someone… this is one of the foremost Greek scholars of the New Testament in the world today, written perhaps the major Greek intermediary grammar, I use it all the time, it is great… but he is saying this. The Bible is not a member of the trinity, what does that mean? Of course it's not a person, but it's the revelation of the person. But those kinds of distinctions set up: we have the Bible, now I want to know God, I want to have a feeling with God.

And here is how you begin to put the other side down who think the Bible is God's word, and not only God's word, it is sufficient. “Ever since the days of the Princetonians,” these were leading theologians at Princeton Seminary in the days when Princeton Seminary stood for the word of God -- Hodge, Warfield, Machen, et al, “American, non-charismatic evangelicalism has been dominated by Scottish common sense, post enlightenment, left brain, obsessive/compulsive, white males.” Boy, that says it all. So this is the problem with those who believe the Bible is sufficient. We had this battle with psychology. We were called the ‘nothing butterists,’ nothing but the Bible, where you have to take the psychology that worldly men like Sigmund Freud, Karl Jung discovered those principles, and wed them into the Bible, then we have something. Yes, a work of the devil. You read anything they are always saying the problem with those who take the Bible literally and take it as the final authority, they are colored by Scottish common sense, enlightenment thinking, they are left brain, obsessive/compulsive, white males. Take me to a verse of scripture where Paul talks about people have a problem with common sense, whether you call it Scottish common sense, or left brain, obsessive/compulsive, white males. You see now the thinking of the world and the talk of the world comes in now to how we are going to view the Bible. And really, the thinking of the world shapes our thinking and now we come to the Bible with that, so those who interpret it simply the way the psalmist did, I guess the psalmist was just a left brain, obsessive/compulsive, not-quite-white male.

Then he gives: here is how we are going to understand the Bible. And this is where we will talk about hermeneutics shortly. He gives you three things we have to do to adjust our handling of the Bible. Number one, “the white evangelical community needs to listen to and learn,” and ‘learn’ is the emphasized word here, “from the black evangelical community.” Now you see where we have moved. The Bible is not an authority that stands outside of us as the objective authority by which we all will be judged, it's a standard. Now it depends on your race how you will view the Bible and we'll come to an understanding of the Bible when we have people of different races give us their view. That, I hope, causes you a problem. The next point he makes is “we have to understand the Holy Spirit does not work just on the left brain, He also works on the right brain, He sparks our imagination, causes us to rejoice, to sing, create. Few Christians are engaged and fully committed to the arts today.” Well, I think some people are talented by God, in the world we have a mixture. But where would I get, reading the epistles…? Christ addressed the seven churches of Asia, He didn't say some of you are not engaged enough in the arts. They did have the arts, they had plays, they had artists, we still view some of their sculptures. Didn't say the problem is we need more of the church's energy directed toward that, that will help us understand the word of God better. See, we have to go outside the scripture for that which is lacking. And then the third area, you know this is coming, “we men have failed to listen to the women in our midst and this failure is related to our not hearing the voice of the Spirit.” Wait a minute, I thought God spoke His word through men, to women, to people of different races. But the problem we have in understanding and not understanding the Bible correctly is the Spirit speaking through the women. Now we begin to think, this is beginning to sound a lot like the world, isn't it? The problem is the racial issues in the world -- the white people are not appreciating the black people, the black people are being oppressed by the white people. “The white males have exercised authority and they have not let the women…” You see, we read Romans 12:1, remember? After going through the gospel, through the first eleven chapters of Romans, what did he say? I beseech you, therefore, brethren, on the basis of the mercies of God that have been poured out on us in our salvation and sanctification, do not be conformed to the world. But that's the constant pressure and now the foundations of what is called evangelicalism -- you may not be aware because we live in a little bit of a bubble -- are being eroded. And these are some of the professors doing the teaching.

“Some would argue,” this is a different writer, different chapter, but another professor, well-educated man, an evangelical, “some would argue that the focus of meaning is in the intention of the original authors and others would say it changes a lot.” He says, “Hermeneutically, in my opinion, the most satisfying solution to this problem is thinking of fusing the two horizons -- the author, the text, the reader.” So he doesn't deny that you have to study what the original authors meant, but that's not going to give you the meaning. Now you have to find out what the reader is reading into it, and that's why it's important whether it is a white person, a black person, a yellow person, a red person, whether it is a man or a woman, because you don't know objectively for sure what the Bible says. You know what it says but that's only part of understanding it, now you have to know what people read into it as they read it. Now if we put that all together in this spiraling mixture, we'll come to a conclusion.

That's the Galatian heresy all over again, put the error of the world… We studied the book of Jude, what did he say? I have written that you contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. But the evangelical world is not contending these days, the churches are not, this is true of some of the evangelical churches in our own city, it is just not where we are. We don't have to always be fighting, there are things we learn from the world and the world will appreciate us more and we can have a relationship with the world if we become more like the world and the Bible is no longer the final objective authority. Oh, the language still gets talked, like that man said, I believe in the inspiration of the Bible, I believe it is even authoritative. But it's not enough. Well, that's what the Judaizers said, we believe the Bible is the word of God, we believer Jesus is the Messiah, we believe He died and was raised from the dead. That wasn't the battle at the Jerusalem Conference, the battle at the Jerusalem Conference was is that enough. And Paul wasn't looking for ways to merge together; I don't care if it's an angel from heaven, he said, you change that gospel, you are cursed to hell. Believers lose the battle by thinking they win by giving in, by yielding; well, these are good people, they teach at good schools.

Here is what another writer says, “One of the banes of modern evangelicalism is rationalism.” Rationalism is a philosophy where you find all the answers to life through rational thinking and rational development. Of course we don't, but we approach the scripture rationally. What do I want to say? I hope you will study your Bible this week and do it irrationally. Oh, sometimes you'll say about something someone says that wasn't even rational, it wasn't an orderly, consistent thought, I can't make any sense of it. But that's one of the banes of modern evangelicalism -- rationalism. People think they should approach the Bible with rational… that's obsessive/compulsive, white male thinking, you have to be rational. “In our tradition we have often effectively locked God into the pages of the text of scripture.” What does that mean? That's the problem with evangelical tradition, that's the problem with fundamentalism -- we have “locked God into the pages of the text of scripture.” In other words, that's great you believe it's the word of God, but don't stop there, you have to find God out here, too, and then you bring them together. These are not far-out people, the editors of this book are professors at Dallas Theological Seminary. The speakers are speakers that are associated with a place like Wheaton College, I mention those, I hesitate to do it because they are not the only ones, but the ones… the names that you would be familiar with. Realize this is going on, people coming out. We think our young people are where we are, they are moving away from that and they find they are fitting with the world.

I have to read you another book, been on my mind for a while, here is one, he had great influence in the 1970s, this has been going on since the '60s. You had the hippie revolution, you had this going back into the '40s with neo-evangelicals and the new evangelicalism, we're going to bring social action, political action, equality between men and women. One of the writers in 1976 predicted more Christians would come to view the world through Marxist eyes due to young evangelicals and their zeal for social change. These writers aren't hesitant: we are evangelicals who believe the full inspiration of scripture, but we believe that Karl Marx and Marxism has the right view on social and political issues. We sometimes wonder, what are people in the world thinking, as we look at our own country. You understand this is going on theologically, and this man is not hesitant to say it, and yet he is well-known, well-respected for 40 years or more. He has been recognized, his works are published by evangelical publishers and he is positive young evangelicals are learning the Marxist view, look at the world through Marxist eyes. And do you know what? That was 1976, now in 2020 we are finding out this is where young people are. You say, well, I don't think so.

Another one writes, this is a different person but from the evangelical community, he said, “Here is the Christian hope. The Christian hope is lying in the fact that when Jesus died on the cross, God was repudiating all His power in order to lift up the weak and oppressed as an example of what His followers are to do with their power.” He’s talking, oh, yeah, I believe Jesus Christ died on the cross and was raised from the dead. Why do you believe that Christ died on the cross? Well, “when Jesus died on the cross, God was repudiating all His power in order to lift up the weak and oppressed as an example of what His followers ought to do with their power.” So one thing that ought to motivate us as Bible-believing Christians, believing in the death of Christ on the cross, is we want to give up all our power, we ought to humble ourselves, we want to have just complete equality everywhere. We are in a Marxist world of make-believe, where with one of the Beatles we can imagine, imagine what a world is. This is supposedly an evangelical Christian who is writing?

Yes, he's writing about far-out stuff, I've mentioned some, here is another. “An expanded understanding of both the gospel,” here this person is critiquing this, this book is doing a critique, “An expanded understanding of both the gospel and as a result the church's political obligations and corporate social responsibilities became a hallmark of the progressive evangelical movement as a whole.” So you see it's not just the gospel -- Christ died for our sins according to the scripture, He was buried, He was raised from the dead according to the scripture -- but that's not all there is to the gospel. “The gospel and the church's political obligations, corporate social responsibilities. To practice the whole gospel meant to have integration, to remove all forms of discrimination, to improve educational facilities and to fight poverty.” That's a quote from one of these progressive evangelicals. That's what the gospel means -- “to have integration, to remove all forms of discrimination, to improve educational facilities, to fight poverty.”

Some of you remember Tom Skinner, you have to be old to remember this, that's not why I'm not giving you all these names, some of you are too young to remember. Tom Skinner was a black man from Harlem, professed salvation, exploded on the evangelical scene in the '70s and the '80s, he was speaking everywhere and his books were written, he had a great impact. There was another person who was identified with him, also from the black evangelical side, it was different, and he is saying, “The purpose of the gospel was to burn through all racial, cultural and economic barriers, challenge all economic and social orders, call people to fellowship and to make a new family; the goal is to break the cycle of wealth and poverty.” Wait a minute, what about the death of Christ paying for our sin? You see when you bring, you wed something to the gospel you have corrupted the gospel and you are left with the social/political emphasis.

Samuel Escobar who was in a discussion with a person I consider a leading evangelical missionary spokesman on a trip we took together. I was taken aback. Samuel Escobar is bringing new life to our missions and Escobar rejoiced after Fidel Castro's triumphal entry into Havana. But he’s committed to the Marxist idea of rescuing society and political change, but also you preach Christ. “A uniquely Latin American interpretation of scripture in which the biblical text and historical situation were mutually engaged motivated the rise of both Catholic liberation theology and Escobar's theology of liberation.” Do you see what we have done? Remember that hermeneutical spiral where you take this and you wed it with the scripture and then we will have one complete idea?

According to this concept of redemption (this man was a president of a seminary I attended for some graduate studies) this is his statement. “The payment that Jesus made through His shed blood was a larger payment than many fundamentalists seem to think. He died to remove the stains of political corruption, and of all human forms of human manipulation and exploitation. And He calls us to witness and to enjoy the fruits of full redemption.” And then the observation is made. “According to this concept of redemption, Christ's payment for sin could potentially extend to human structures in which the majority of participants are not even believers.” We have to change the world, part of this comes from ‘kingdom now’ theology. If you knew what I didn't read to you, you would be appreciative. This was done in 1946, so this is when we get this taking hold after the modernist/fundamentalist controversy, but the war is not over -- the modernist/fundamentalist -- and the fundamentalists come out of that strong. Well, now the war is over and that was just a battle in an unending war. We do battle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies. The devil just doesn't say, “Suffer defeat, we're going… where? We've just laid the foundation, we have just begun to fight.” The fight has been going on for millenniums.

This is a man who writes we have to change our view of the kingdom. He makes clear he does not support the dispensational idea of the kingdom, which recognizes the kingdom will come when Christ comes and establishes it on earth. But then he disarms you by saying, “The burden of these articles,” and the articles comprise this little book done in the 1940s, “the burden of these articles is not to press a personal kingdom viewpoint, but rather to promote an evangelical conviction that nothing is so essential among fundamentalist essentials as a world relevance for the gospel. Whatever in our kingdom views undercuts that relevance destroys the essential character of Christianity as such.” He claims to be a fundamentalist, but he is critiquing it supposedly from the inside. Whatever in our kingdom view undercuts that relevance -- we have to have a world relevance for the gospel. You say, yes, we want to be… Wait a minute, am I saying, God, you are irrelevant? I don't come to find out what You told me about the kingdom, I decide what view of the kingdom would make me relevant to the world, now I'll come back and reinterpret the Bible so it fits that view of the kingdom. You see what we do? We go out here, and this is a problem with so many in evangelical leadership, they have imbibed so much of the world. I don't know whether they were ever saved or not. But they are now coming to the Bible, looking at it through the lens of the world. Now he says the burden of these articles is not to press a personal kingdom viewpoint so I'm not arguing that.

Note the next paragraph, “No study of the kingdom teaching of Jesus is adequate unless it recognizes His implication of both the kingdom is here and it is not here.” In other words I don't have a burden on whatever your view of the kingdom is, but you don't have a right view of the kingdom if you believe it is future only. If your view of the kingdom undercuts the relevance of the gospel to the world, you destroy the essential character of Christianity. In other words, a view that the kingdom is totally future, because that's what our hermeneutics show us, you have made Christianity irrelevant, you have destroyed it. Wait a minute, that's how serious these people are, they will fight to the end. And you know what happens, we see it. If their fight is so severe and it goes on so long, we pretty soon think we might as well give up or there will be nothing left. And that's what has happened to evangelicalism, we keep giving in, and it's a mixture of people who have grown up with Christianity. Like Paul grew up with Judaism and knew the law, but had never had a personal faith relationship with the God of Israel. They've never had that saving relationship. So they know all about Christianity, but something is lacking, something is missing, we are not relevant. And then you mix that with believers who just got caught up in la-la land, and many Christians are in evangelical churches like that, they don't even know these are issues. Well, our church doesn't hold to all these positions, they wouldn't be in agreement here -- I’ve spent time with people that were here at one time, they led me to read some other material -- and I don't follow a literal interpretation about prophecy like you do and like we did at Indian Hills. Well, where are you then, where do you go?

I have another article I wanted to read, he is one of the most influential men. And his conversion story is he found, he loved, Marxist thinking on social and political ideas. Then he went to Intervarsity Christian Fellowship on the campus of the secular university he was going to, and he began to find the mixture that he loved; and he could wed Marxism and orthodoxy together, and he built a huge work in New York City. Now he retired from there and is spreading around the world, so people have no idea of the greatness of his influence among evangelicals. His testimony is he came to know Christ when he found the relevance of Christianity and basically Marxism. That's a conversion? Nothing in there about recognizing I came to see before God that I was a sinner, lost and without hope and that Christ… No. I came to Christ, I realized the relevance of Christianity now. He was raised in an evangelical situation, he didn't want to give that up but he didn't have a heart connection.

All right, we are going to do the principles of interpretation, and you've seen it before but repetition is good. Put this in the back of your Bible, tape it in there. It is not actually part of scripture but it is part of understanding scripture. These are principles, we make literal interpretation, this is how we interpret the Bible. When you let go of this, you do not know where you will end up.

Historical. The historical time, setting and culture, we read the Bible in its setting. In other words, when Assyria was attacking the northern kingdom it is helpful to know something about the Assyrian Empire and what was going on in the period of time when they attack Israel. Then when the Babylonians come on, who are the Babylonians? Who are the Persians, who are the Greeks, Romans? Those are the background, that historical context. What were Pharisees in the New Testament? Not the way we use the term just generally, like he is a Pharisee, meaning he is puritanical. No, they were a specific group with specific convictions, helpful to know that.

Grammatical. The rules of grammar. Now you don't have to go and study… The people of the Old Testament, Hebrew was their language, but they weren't doing serious grammatical studies, they just learned to talk and read in Greek. But we follow the rules of grammar, this is a noun, this is a subject, this is a verb, this is the object. I sometimes say this is a participle, so this is the main verb. Generally we know that, we've probably forgotten the English rules, but we talk that way all the time. We don't say ‘we was going,’ not all the time do we say that; we say ‘we were going,’ we just know that's the way. Sometimes somebody learning English doesn't learn some of those nuances so they'll mix it. But we know the rules of grammar, that's what we do when we read the Bible, you read it and you follow the English there.

Contextually. In other words you put it in a sentence or a paragraph. Sometimes when somebody uses a word and you'll say, put that in a sentence for me. You can go to a dictionary and they'll give you a meaning of a word, then they may put it in a sentence, that helps you understand. So the context determines meaning, it always does, does in the Bible.

Compare Scripture with Scripture. Sometimes more technically called the analogy of faith. Just compare scripture with scripture, God doesn't contradict Himself. That doesn't mean we can resolve everything, but He doesn't teach one thing here and the opposite thing there, so there is a consistency in scripture.

Single Meaning. This is important, you can't have ten meanings in one passage, it means what it said. We do that with our kids, we tell them to do something and then they do something else, and we come back and tell them, I told you what to do. Oh, I didn't know you meant that. You say, no, I know you knew what I meant. That's single meaning, only one interpretation of a passage. This is where we get into problems with prophecy. People who don't take the Bible consistently, literal, think when Christ comes, now we can go back and reinterpret the Old Testament and make those passages mean something they didn't mean when they were written.

Progressive Revelation. We recognize the Bible was revealed over time, and every time God revealed something it didn't change previous revelation, it didn't contradict it, but it could expand on it, it could clarify it. The book of Revelation is the last book revealed, it helps us, it doesn't change anything, but now we see prophecy as revealed in the Old Testament; but now it's organized for us so it is more clear how it fits together.

And then point number 7, Choose the Simplest Interpretation. I think that's the way, the clarity of scripture, if you want to sound more intelligent say it's the perspicuity of scripture. You say, what is perspicuity, does it have something to do with purpose? No, it's perspicuity, it is clear. Remember the Old Testament Israelites were shepherds, they spent their days caring for the sheep, they weren't sitting there poring over complicated grammatical issues to try to resolve. God had spoken, they were expected to understand it and believe it. When Jesus picked His disciples, Peter, James and John, fishermen, what were they doing in their time when they were out in the boats, poring over grammatical texts and trying to analyze? No, mending their fishing nets, but they were expected to know and understand what God said. So choose the simplest.

I think this is part of what we call the author's intention, which was rejected by some of our writers, and we move away from that. The scripture means what the original authors meant when they wrote it. Now they didn't always understand everything they wrote, like how the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ would mesh, He could suffer and die, and He could rule and reign. But it meant what they said, He will suffer and die, it meant He will rule and reign. Now how that gets put together timewise and organizationally, later revelation does, but you can't change what it says. This ____ comes with the problem with the kingdom. Instead of recognizing the purpose of progressive revelation, you read like Isaiah, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given and the government will rest upon his shoulders (Isaiah 9:6) -- Well, they say it said a child is born, a son is given, that's when He was born at Bethlehem -- It said the government rests on his shoulders, well, for sure He didn't set up the kingdom over the world, so that must be spiritualized, it's a spiritual kingdom in the hearts and we are in the kingdom today, and all that kind of stuff.

Wait a minute, no wait, later revelation clarifies it is going to be exactly as he says because other passages talk about when He reigns the lamb and the lion will lie down together and the child will play on the hole of the poisonous snake, all those will be fulfilled literally. So Isaiah gave you exact information so you don't go back and reinterpret. It means what the original author meant when he wrote it, these principles guide you in that understanding. If the Lord ever leads you elsewhere to another church, find out how they interpret scripture. You might read their doctrinal statement, ask some specific questions. What do you believe about Israel's future? What do you believe about social action? The kingdom? We don't get into those things… sort of like I read you about Carl F. H. Henry in the 1940s: well, I'm not getting into the issue of the kingdom, but if you don't believe the kingdom is in existence right now… You are corrupting Christianity, and don't tell me it doesn't matter what my view of the kingdom is, if it is corrupting and destroying Christianity it matters. This kind of nonsense just softens us as believers, we don't want to fight with other Christians, we want to get along, we don't want to contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3)). There is no escaping. When you placed your faith in Christ, you joined the battle on His side; before you were in the battle on the other side; everybody is in the battle, in the war. We just want to be sure we are faithful to what God has entrusted to us.

Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for the riches of Your Word. Lord, we want to be mindful of what is going on around us because it reminds us of the importance of being faithful, being careful, being on guard. The infiltration of the devil is quiet, unnoticed, and without realizing what is done, those who would corrupt the truth of Your Word become accepted as defenders of the Word. And the end result is confusion, disorder, and more of the destruction of the Word which is so desperately needed. Keep us faithful individually and as a church as we serve you. We pray in Christ's name, amen.