Study & Prayer: Accurately Interpreting God's Revealed Will

All right, we are in section two of your notes, which is that page two? Yeah. And tomorrow morning, again, Lord willing, we're going to look at the whole topic on prayer and the importance of prayer in the will of God from Colossians chapter one. So I want to talk more in this time about studying carefully God's revealed will, the scriptures, and some of the different words and terms in defining them.

So if you'll turn to 2 Timothy 2. 2 Timothy 2. Again, many of these verses you all probably know by memory. But 2 Timothy 2, verse 15. Do your best, it says. The Spirit of God says here, do your best.

To present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. Rightly dividing it, literally cutting it straight. There's so many abuses with God's word and interpreting it wrongly. so as we think about God's word and the truth of it just recently there was a shepherds conference on inerrancy out in a grace community with Dr.

MacArthur about 16 major speakers were out there talking about the importance of God's word that it's God's word and it's without error and one of the speakers Sinclair Ferguson he sort of closed with this and a lot of these you can watch them they recorded them and they usually end up on YouTube if you go there, Shepherds Conference 2015 you'll see so many of them and you can just sit and watch them and Sinclair Ferguson says in his Scottish accent he says the father did not lie to the son and the Son did not lie to the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit did not lie to the apostles and the apostles did not lie to us So we have God truth This is 100 I mean, God's word is 100% authoritative and 100% certain. There's nothing else like this when it comes to truth. Let God be true and every man be found a liar.

If it contradicts God's word, it's 100% true, 100% authoritative and certain. But that's not the way we tend to approach truth today in our culture. We approach it like this. Have you ever heard that phrase before, all truth is God's truth? It's often shouted by well-meaning Christians who think truth is all over the place out there. And so I come up with truth. intuition if I feel something's true it's true that's the way the thinking is today in our secular pluralistic postmodern kind of thinking subjectivism which is part of this whole area here is that truth originates and is verified from within let me say that again, subjectivism is that truth originates and is verified from within.

So God told me something. Well, how do you know it was God? I just know it was. There's no other verification outside of me. It comes from me, is verified from me, and people walk around and they'll tell you things with facts. You know, absolutely yes.

Well, where'd you get that from? I came up with it. Well, how do you know it's true? I just know it is. And you're going to deal with people like this. I mean, in ministry and talking, the truth really has come from their own being, sort of intuition.

I had taught this to a woman's group and they said the question was, is this more common with women than with men? Well, maybe. That's kind of a hard question to answer in front of a whole group of women I should have asked well what do you think But yes more so even with the whole issue of women intuition You don't hear men's intuition, although men are not immune to, I know this is true, I just believe it is.

And they're the source of their own truth. Then you have another place, like, oh, truth is all over psychology. philosophy, sociology, and so they'll study these in school. They'll become majors in this, and maybe some of you were majors in this area. And all of these different theorists will speak their theory as if it's true. Right? And there's not a lot of commonality.

They're saying well over 250 different theories of man, man's problem, and man's solution. Wow, I mean, who's right? Well, they all think they are. So people go, I got truth from Dr. So-and-so and Dr. So-and-so, and this book that I read told me this, that, and the other.

Then you have hard science, the empirical approach. It's more hard science in the sense of the double-blind crossover tests, and I'm thankful for this. I mean, it's the best that we can do, humanly speaking, to know for sure this is best we can. This is the truth about gravity. This is the truth about getting to a rocket to the moon. This is the truth about some of the empirical sciences.

And this is more where you're dealing with more careful observation. Sometimes they call psychology science, but really it's a soft science. It's unsaved man observing unsaved man. and then telling us what's normal. So it's often called soft science. This, what we're talking about here, is hard science, empirical method. And then you have the Bible.

And they'll say, all truth is God's truth. There's truth all over up there. As if all truth is on the same plane of authority and certainty. Do you follow that up there? You look at that and you go, this looks like a smorgasbord. This looks like a buffet table.

I take some from here and here and I take some from the Bible And they think it a buffet line As if all truth up there if there is truth in all those other areas it all of equal weight of certainty and authority. And that's not the way truth comes to us. It was an article written by one of the profs out at the Master's Seminary, and this is how he talks about it, Dr.

Robert Thomas. And you can find this even online in the Master Seminary Journal in 1998. He said, truth comes to us in various levels of certainty and authority. Truth comes to us in various levels of certainty and authority. And the first level of certainty and authority is God's revelation. so he puts it right at the top absolute authority and certainty is God's divine truth and he gives truth through general revelation about himself and then he gives special revelation God's revealed will to us that tells us interprets and lets us know more about God and who we are what our problem is what the solution is what the future is everything we need to know for life and godliness the knowledge of Christ that's revealed in scripture.

100%. You don't discover this. God discloses this. It's called revelation. And it's in a plane, in a whole area, all by itself. 100% proof.

Then you drop way down, I mean way down, to empiricism, to science, hard science. I mean, don't even put those close to each other. God's 100% truth, authoritative and certain, never changes. And then down to what we can put together in hard science, which does change. There were practices, even just having gone through a heart procedure, I had an EMT in my class and he said, oh, we change, he said, when I first started studying about heart attacks, if the heart stopped, we would inject a whole syringe of adrenaline right in the heart.

And then we get the pals and we get that heart going. He says, that's how I was trained, he said, when I first started. He said, but now? No, that would be forbidden to do. Because what they found out in hard science was the adrenaline that got the heart going put the brain in a coma. And so they were losing people, the brain in a coma, although their heart was pumping.

But that was the best science they knew at the time. and it changes. Eggs are bad for you and now eggs are good for you. Coffee's bad and then it's good. All kinds of things keep changing but it's the best we have on a human level trying to get truth, find out what's more accurate is using the empirical method. Then you drop way down again to the soft science of psychology and philosophy.

They're not on equal plane here. Man studying man, unsaved man studying unsaved man and telling us what's normal. Something's really wrong with them. And so all the personality profiling, I took a test one time just out of fun to find out whether I should have married Zahner, actually whether she should have married me. it's one of these things of looking at personalities and so we took the test and I scored really low on some areas sympathy, but I didn't care laughter so she it was just so low and I looked at it and she looked at the results and based on the results her results and my results we were not compatible and that was after 10 years of marriage and we were doing quite well.

We had to thank the Lord for his grace. But I said, why did I score so low on sympathy? Well, one of the test questions, which I asked to see the key, it was a friend of ours who gave us this test. They looked at the key and said, oh, wow, you got this answer wrong and it was worth a lot of points. I said, well, what is it? They said, here's what the question is.

If you were driving a car with your family, would you do everything possible to avoid hitting an animal in the road And I said no I mean I got my family You got a car If it's an elephant, that's one thing. If it's a squirrel or a rabbit, I'll try to veer a little, but no, I'm not going to ditch the car and hurt family members for the rabbit or the squirrel. I said, no.

That docked me way down. Now, is that how you really measure sympathy in the scripture and caring for people? No. See, it's unsaved man coming up with these questions, redefining terms, and then telling us what's normal. Jesus is our pattern of normality. You want to study abnormal psych?

Study everyone further. The further you get away from Jesus, the more abnormal you're going to be. and then the last one is the most subjective and that's intuition that would be the area that you do not want to put much standing or stock or weight on what you think in and of yourself so truth comes to us in a descending order of certainty and authority so in our own life are we listening to all kinds of voices out there all kinds of people saying this is what's true this is what's true and we think that they're all equal on the same level or are we thinking wait whoa god speaks and he's on a whole nother level perfect level of certainty and authority and i i need to listen more to him read his word in scripture and then be careful about the other avenues of what they say is true. This is what ought to be taught in our schools, this kind of thinking, rather than all truth out there is God's truth and we just go shopping as if it's all equal in authority.

So it makes the difference on how you approach Scripture. Here's one approach. The critics of Scripture, they think they're above Scripture. They look down at Scripture. They're outside and above it. And they just start working with it and sort of the reader has the last word of whatever the Bible says and means That is problematic This is where you get into real trouble It usually goes over into liberalism Here's another approach that's common among evangelicals today, and that is we're alongside of the Bible, and we have the last word.

We'll get in groups and say, what do you think it means? It doesn't matter what you think it means. it means one thing. God's Spirit gave it to us, and it means one thing. So we can read the Scripture, that's what God says. We study it carefully, this is the meaning of it. And then if you want to say, how do you think it applies to your life?

Oh, that's good. That's what we should do. It applies in many ways to our lives. but what it says and what it means is what the spirit gave to it not what you think it means you follow that we don't come along and have the last word on the text really what we should do is this submission to god's word let god be true and every man be found to be a liar if it's in contradiction and so we're underneath it in a humble posture so that's just the proper approach as we we look at scripture now you have in your notes there on page two this diagram a lot of you have seen this before you're in a church where you're taught the scriptures and how to apply the scriptures you probably have seen this before and we want to start with the scriptures the canon just means the 66 books of the Bible not the footnotes not the end notes I used to tell my children believe the Bible from cover to cover well I don't do that anymore in the back of my daughter's youth Bible was hot topics for teens and back there was a whole page on eating disorders and it says if eating disorders strike you during the teen years as it does millions and millions become victims of these eating disorders the more probable cause is low self that was in the hot topic for teens in the youth Bible and so you going to believe them what are you reading back there Krista I reading the Bible Oh good good Well the end of the Bible outside Revelation, she was reading, becoming quite proficient at reading and embracing at the time.

I mean, she was only nine, but reading and saying, oh yeah, that's that, you know, it just strikes you during the teenage years. You're on your way to the locker and all of a You get struck by an eating disorder. I mean, I'm a victim, and on it goes, and it's low self-esteem. No, that was her former Bible. So you have the Old Testament. So God gives us truth from Genesis all the way up to Christ, the coming of the Messiah.

But you have truth upon truth and truth. It just added more revelation as God saw fit. But at any given point in time, when the revelation ceased at that time, it was sufficient for God's people at that time. And then God saw to give more truth. And then Christ came, and the New Testament is then built on top of the Old. And you just see so many fulfillments of promises in the Old Testament.

There's coming a Messiah. He came. Jesus came. And all the promises about Christ were fulfilled in him. So you see truth upon truth, and at the end of the book of Revelation, it finishes. That is God's truth, what we're to study and be careful of.

So the Old Testament, New Testament, and we want to study that. I mean, that's the canon. And then we want to use accurate biblical principles of studying scripture, often called hermeneutics. An exegesis of studying what does the scripture say and mean. And using a historical, critical, grammatical study method of it. What you have above this diagram in your notes just are a few points from Dr.

MacArthur's book, Getting the Most Out of God's Word. These are sort of classic principles of careful Bible study. You'll find them in a lot of different books, even books that Tim and I used to read back in our hermeneutics class in seminary, just basic, careful Bible study principles. Just what does the text say and mean? The first responsibility of anyone seeking to understand scripture is to discern the meaning of the text at hand.

What did the original author expect his original reader to understand? What did the original author, human author here, that the spirit was using, expect his original readers to understand. Just try to take it literally wherever you can take it literally. I mean, there are certain genres of scripture that are poetic, and there are some when you get into the book of Revelation that Tim just finished, I mean, some of that represents different things, but God didn't give us his word to confuse us. he wanted to communicate to his children in order to know him and know his will and do his will for his glories.

But just the literal principle. Secondly, the historical principle. What did it mean to them? Relevance, context, plot, the theme. What was going on back then at that time in that era? and this is where oftentimes you need, I mean, the context can tell you, some of the other books of the Bible can tell you what's going on back then, and then there are some helpful tools that tell you Bible backgrounds of certain cultures or people or the time and things that they found and excavated in archaeology, and it helps us know a little bit more, oh, when he said this, that has even more meaning now as I know what was going on back then. then you have the grammatical principle.

Who's talking here? You know, who's the subject? What's the object? What's the main verb? And just verses before and after. Had that one guy or whoever the person was who took the verse, so if you worship me, it will all be yours, and had just read the context, the verse before it he would realize oh this isn a promise for Christians to claim This was Satan tempting Jesus So looking at the word order there the grammar who speaking would really have helped that individual So the grammatical principle.

Then you have the synthesis principle. this is what does the rest of scripture say about this portion of scripture since you have one divine author the holy spirit and he doesn't contradict himself what does the rest of scripture tell us about this portion of scripture sometimes it looks like a paradox like there's something almost like one portion contradicts another portion. Well, it doesn't. So I need to understand both portions carefully.

It looks like they contradict, but they don't. And people will point to things like Romans, justification by faith, and then James saying, if you don't work, your faith's dead. And so you have what looks like a contradiction. It really isn't. Both of them believe faith comes as a gift from God. And we We live by faith.

It's not just a point in time and justification. It's we live it out. If you're not living out your faith, you don't have faith. A faith without works is dead. So they're both, they're not contradicting each other. And then you have the practical principle.

How does this affect my life? God didn't give us his word to just know more. he gave us his word so that we might be saved, know the gospel and respond, and then to grow in our faith. And so you want to keep asking the question, so what? This is what God says, and so what? How does that change my life? How am I to respond in relationship to the scriptures?

Being a doer of the word, not a hearer only. So those are just important principles in the study of God's word. Dr Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology book he gives a couple of points here of what does it mean that God word is sufficient for us And I just read these it very helpful just in this section of this theology book. He says, we should be encouraged that everything God wants to tell us is found in scripture.

Number two, we are to add nothing to scripture and to consider no other writings of equal value to scripture. Number three, God does not require us to believe anything about himself or his redemptive work that's not found in scripture. number four no modern revelation from god is to be placed on a level equal to scripture in authority number five nothing is sin that is not forbidden by scripture either explicitly or by implication that's helpful to know nothing is sin that is not forbidden by scripture either explicitly or by implication. Number six, nothing is required of us by God that's not commanded in scripture, either explicitly or by implication.

Now that, I mean, people go, God impressed on me to give $50 to this person. Well, I don't know where that impression came from, but they think it was from God. And you say, well, what if you didn't give the $50 to that person? Well, I'd be sinning. no god doesn't command you to do anything that's not in the scripture commanded in the scripture see what he says here nothing is required of us by god that's not commanded in scripture either explicitly or by implication now you just use principles to figure out is that the wise thing to do is give fifty dollars to this guy and there have been illustrations even my own life where someone asked for money for food near a grocery store, and my son was with me at the time, and I said, I was on the phone, I said, if you'll hold on just a second, I'll go in the store with you and buy you some food.

Well, he didn't wait for me to finish my phone call. He went over to another person who was getting out of the car and asked the same thing and this person was giving money to the individual and my son got upset with me you know like why didn you give him money dad i mean like he had to go over there and get money i said well it's because i'm not sure what he's going to do with the money well he said he wanted he was hungry he needed food well that's what he said but it may be true i just don't know i just want to make sure if he's hungry i was going to get him some food. So we were then walking into the grocery store and he was checking out by this time.

And in God's providence, there was only one thing in his hand and it was a six pack and it was not soda, it was beer, no food. What a teaching moment for a son, right? So nothing's commanded that's not in the scripture. There's no authority with impressions. There's no authority with promptings. The authority is with God's word.

And it's just important for individuals who think God is, his authority is all over the place with every kind of subjective desire. That's not true. Number seven, and this is the last thing he says, we should emphasize what Scripture emphasizes and be content with what God has told us in Scripture. That's in his systematic theology, pages 130 to 134. Just very helpful.

Boy, God has given us what we need. We don't need more. so you have the different principles there we covered and then upon careful study of scripture we then study biblical theology or what does god teach about certain truths in their location we call a propositional truth it's um if you want to study the holy spirit and the gospel of john what is the gospel of john what does the Spirit teach us about himself in that Gospel? The truth of the Spirit in the Gospel of John, propositional truth there.

Or themes running through the Bible. And so one major theme that runs through the Bible is creation, fall, redemption, and consummation, categories of truth, where when you are studying Scripture, is this talking about creation? Is it talking about man before the fall? Is it talking about the fall? Is it talking about about man after the fall? Is it talking about Christ, the coming of Christ, and what he's going to accomplish, what he did accomplish through the cross, or is it talking about what's going to happen in the future?

Christ is returning. We all agree to that. He's returning. And then new heaven and new earth. So you have themes running through the Bible. And then you keep studying and you find out, wow, this is, what does all of the Bible teach about certain truths? and we call this systematic theology.

And you have all these ologies. You have the theology proper. You have study of Christ. You have the study of the Spirit, the study of salvation, the study of man, anthropology. You have the study of sin. All kinds of different...

It's what all the Bible teaches about certain doctrines, certain truths. And it can be very helpful. and then finally the applied theology this is how do we change and grow very essential in studying god's word so in all of the study of god's word someone has come up with different things here where they say this you don't want to doubt the word they're all alliterated you don't want to doubt the word that's what Satan kind of goes after has God said as he did with Adam and Eve you don't want to deny the word for God has not said you will die as Satan did you don't want to distort the word and boy there are all kinds of distortions where did you get that from the Bible I was sitting next to a lady on a plane where she saw my grading things and she saw my Bible and she said, are you a Christian? Are you a teacher?

And I said, yes, both to those. And she said, well, I'm a Christian writer, an author. I said, oh. I introduced myself. I wanted to know who she was. I'd never heard of her, but that doesn't mean I know every author.

I just wanted to know who she was. And we were flying to Louisville from Atlanta, and I said, do you live in Louisville or do you live in Atlanta or are you somewhere else? And she goes, no, right now I live in Atlanta, but God hasn't shown me the second donkey. I going man do I have to get my hearing checked I mean what did I just hear And I said excuse me what And she said, God hasn't shown me the second donkey.

I'm thinking, what does that mean? So I said, so what is that? And she goes, you know your Bible, don't you? Apparently not well enough. She said, do you remember when Saul was looking for his father's donkeys? Yeah?

He found them, and they're dead now. You know, well, God hasn't shown me the second one yet. There's another way people make decisions. That is really distorting the word. She was going into narrative, looking at God had to reveal donkeys. Remember that?

Saul couldn't find them. So God had to reveal where they were at. And so she was going, I don't know where to move to, so God has to reveal that to me like the donkeys. And so he apparently had shown her some things about decision making, her decision, but hasn't shown her the second donkey. It was like, that was sort of far out there. but that's distorting the word going in and using the word like that don't dilute the word make it mean less or say less than it means like loving your wife all the ways to love your wife and then diluting that to one love language I mean all that it says about husbands and wives diluting that down to love and respect.

There is so much more about sacrificial love than that. Do you follow that? It's diluting down to something that we might like, not always what Christ has commanded us. Or devaluing the word. We just give it lip service. but we really live the way we want to live. We're dividing allegiance to the word and we have some other authority in our life other than just scripture Now let go to a couple of words here and their meanings I think this is on page, well, whatever it is on, if you have, yes, at the bottom of page two.

Some key definitions. And the first one is God's will. One will, two aspects. one will and two aspects the first one that you'll see in some of those verses I gave you at the first hour talk about this part of God's will called his sovereign will or his decretive will this is what he he's planned from the beginning to the end and everything in between in Isaiah it says he declared the end from the beginning everything in between everything God's decreed that's going to happen will happen and this is Ephesians 1.11 everything works according to his plan and purpose nothing goes on outside of his plan we don't know this ahead of time a couple of factors here in this decree of will it's a secret plan he hasn't revealed everything to us, what he's doing moment by moment, every day.

That's the secret things, and they belong to the Lord. I don't know what's ahead unless God has disclosed it in scripture, in the form of prophecy. Other than that, I don't know. I don't know what God's decreed will is five minutes from now, ten minutes from now, in the future. I don't know. What he has today.

Maybe Christ is coming back today. Wouldn't that be wonderful? I don't know. But I do know it's God's decreed will that you be here. Why is that? Because you're here.

You can see God's decreed plan by looking backward. Just look backward. All history. I mean, from creation on, it's all God's decreed plan. Everything that's happened has been part of his plan, or it would not have happened. He has no eraser up there. like oh I didn't know Stuart was going to do that today I thought he was going to take the right turn this morning to get here thankfully Paul was with me I have been lost somewhere out there in the countryside and would never have made it here with all the turns God not up there wondering what we going to do So we don't know what's ahead unless it's in the scripture in the form of prophecy.

But we can trust him. That's where he wants us to trust him. He's all wise, he's all powerful, and he's perfectly good. And you go, well, I want to know his will. What will are you talking about? Which aspect of his will are you talking about?

If you're talking about his sovereign decree to will, it's not going to happen. And you may not want it to happen either, because you couldn't handle it. I mean, think about your life, all of you, your life, up to this point. Had God shown you, here's all that's going to happen, we would have said, oh, Lord, please just take me home now. I don't want to deal with some of those things.

They're real blessings, but there's some real heartache, wasn't there? A lot of difficulties the longer you live. So part of God's decreed will is suffering for us. It's trials. But there's blessings, and there's graces, but that's his plan for our life, and it's unfolding. One thing to remember in his decree to plan, you don't have plan B for your life.

There's only one, and you're right smack dab in it. You go, yeah, but I just did all kinds of... I know, and he knew that. You go, but I married so-and-so. I was a believer, and she was an unbeliever. Yeah, which means you violated his revealed will, and there's grace and forgiveness, but you're not on plan B.

There's no perfect one that was for you out there, and now what are they going to do? And, I mean, all kinds of things come up in counseling. No, just one plan, you're right in it. Now, how does he make sure his decretive will happens? It's called providence. You've heard that word, providence.

We call it providentially. He did this or did that. That's how God orchestrates his decreed will to happen. He moves people. He moves circumstances. He orchestrates things that his decreed will will happen.

And he sovereignly controls, all-powerful, and does that. And you can't read that ahead of time either, his providence. You say, I know what God's up to. You don't. I mean, I can see this. This is all going to work out just right.

How many times have we been wrong on that one? But you can look backward and see his providence. And I look at things I was rehearsing last night with Tim. we were talking through some how I met my wife, and she was down in South Carolina. She was a grader in school where my dad taught. She was a grader for my dad. He had several graders, and she was one of them.

And I'm up here in Indiana at Grace Seminary, and I'm working at a church with Randy Patton. Some of you know him. I was there working with him. And my dad calls and says, you know what, one of my graders, the more I get to know her and I know you, No pressure, but boy, I wish you all could meet. I think you all are very much in common here. She's low on sympathy, you're low on sympathy.

No, he didn't say that. She's actually very high in mercy. But anyway, how's that going to happen? And I said, well, you can't. I'm working full time with Randy, and I'm in school. I can't just take off and come down there.

And so then I was playing soccer with a lot of guys who were Cedarville at Grace, and we were all playing. I tore my ACL, my ligament in my right knee. And Randy Patton, I said, it looks like I'm going to have to get surgery. And he said, why don't you just take the summer off and get that taken care of? And I go, well, if I'm taking a summer off, I might as well go home to South Carolina.

My mom's cooking. I mean, I just live by myself. I mean, it's like, let's go where there's cooking. and sure enough got down there and my wife it just all the things when I look back now and see all the pivotal things God orchestrating in his providence it's it's really remarkable I mean it's a God thing but looking ahead you you don't know what God's all up to and orchestrating but we trust him because of who he is right because of his character we trust him and his promises The second thing area of his will the second aspect is called his preceptive will sometimes called his moral will sometimes depending on which book you reading it can be called his commanded will It's scripture.

This is the will in Deuteronomy 29, 29, has been revealed to us and to our sons forever, and nor that we might do the words of the law. This is the will God wants us to know and to follow. don't be trying to search out his decretive will get to know his revealed will and different passages we read this morning that I looked at and I mentioned talk about that aspect of his will some talked about his decretive sovereign will other passages where this is God's will for you, your sanctification it's right there, black and white in the scripture That's his revealed will. So we do letter B here.

We follow, study carefully and follow and obey his revealed will. He takes care of his decreed will. That's his responsibility. So here's one way that I've tried to illustrate it in a diagram that you have there in your notes. if we represented the beginning and the end here in a diagram all events past present and future everything from beginning to end sort of an aerial view looking down at it would be god's decreed will he declared the end from the beginning everything in between in isaiah 46 now in this decreed will put it this way in our past before we were Christians for those of you who are believers in Jesus Christ we all lived in there everyone lives in the blue no one lived in the black I mean it was the kingdom of darkness but we're all there in the blue nothing happens in God's plan outside of his plan then he gives us to his children His revealed will, the scriptures.

All through the Old Testament, the law, and more was added, more was added until the book of Revelation. God's revealed will, the scriptures. In the scriptures you have commands and principles Thou shalt and thou shalt not Commands You don vote on those It's not a buffet line. We obey the commands for God's people, especially the commands that apply to all of God's people for all time.

Not commands that he commanded Paul to do something or he commanded Moses to do something. is commands to his children, both then and children of faith. And then you have principles in Scripture. I'll try to, if I could use two illustrations here. Commands are like a road map. It will tell you where to turn left and where to turn right. So what should I do if someone sins against me, if a believer sins against me?

You go to the Bible. Go to him in private. So it says, well, what if he doesn't listen? Hang a rite and bring one or two with you. Well, what if they don't listen to them? Then turn another rite and tell it to church.

It's pretty much a road map in some places in Scripture. That's commands. Principles are more like a compass. They don't tell you where to turn. They just give you more direction. Do I turn south, north, east, or west?

Principles will kind of help you go west. There's ten roads I could take going west. And you have the freedom to go down any one of them. But it will give you direction. But it won't tell you exactly turn left or take that route. You follow the difference there between commands and principles. and with principles there's purposeful freedom wow I can go west and I can take any of these roads going west and following these principles so it's encouraging but it's purposeful freedom it's not freedom to do anything I want to do our liberty in Galatians 5.13 our liberty is not to be used for an occasion for our sinful flesh but in love we're to serve one another so even in my freedom I'm thinking of God's glory and other people good you just don go anything I want to do at any time it I always living for God glory whether I eat or drink or whatever I do and I always thinking about the good of other people around me It's not just occasion for be selfish.

Now, before I do this, when I was first saved, God converted me at 18. I told you, I was just all over the place on decision making. I didn't know what to do, how to make the decisions. I was flipping coins, I told you. I was listening for some, you know, God to say something. I was looking at tree limbs to make a decision on where do I go work for the summer.

And there's a line here. I want to show you what God's after in his children's lives. He wants, he takes you where you're at as a new babe in Christ, and he matures us with the word. He doesn't leave you where you're at. Remember Paul said, when I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child. But then I grew up.

If I was still flipping a coin, like when Tim calls and says, hey, would you be willing to come up and do our Bible conference? Well, hold on just a minute, Tim. Let me get my coin out and flip it. You go, boy, that's, really? I mean, you're making decisions like that, that way? He wants you to grow and mature. and it will look like this.

If you're following this line, you can maybe see it up there. It's pretty broad, pretty broad, but then it narrows in. You see that? He's wanting to tighten us up to be more biblically minded and our lives to be more biblically influenced in the sense of obeying the commands and principles. We won't be perfect there. We won't be perfect.

Christ was perfect, lived perfectly, and God's word is fully righteous, and he was a law keeper. But there should be a difference now, years later than early on, that we're growing in maturity in Christ. That's what God's after. His spirit is working to help us to be more in his word. What does the word say? And you see that with the writers in the New Testament when questions would come up.

Do we do this or do that? and the writer would go, well what does the law say? What does the word say? Christ did that. What does the law say? Back to the word and dealing with issues in our lives. So that's our sanctification process.

Some of the different confessions of faith state something like this. For example, this is a Westminster Confession of Faith. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down in scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture, unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men.

You hear those godly men coming together to write this, going, let's just make sure they stay with the Scripture and nothing outside, nothing added. No new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men. this was J.C. Ryle in the 1850s he was dealing with all kinds of teaching that was errant on how to be sanctified he's the one God used to deal with let go, let God philosophy the Keswick philosophy in 1850 but he said the Bible must be our standard whenever we're confronted with a question about Christian practice, we must apply the teaching of the Bible.

Sometimes the Bible will deal with it directly, and we must go by its direct teaching. That's a command. Often the Bible will not deal with something directly, and then we must look for general principles to guide us. It does not matter what other people think. Their behavior is not a standard for us. But the Bible is a standard for us, and it is by the Bible that we must live.

This, I don't know, you can hardly maybe read this. I just try to take a picture of it. This is Martin Luther and his preface to his 1539 works. He said this in Psalm 119, David, well, we're not sure it was David writing this. It doesn't say who wrote Psalm 119. It's probably more like Daniel.

But anyway, David always says that he will speak, think, talk, hear, read day and night and constantly, but about nothing else than God's word and commandments. For God wants to give you his spirit only through the external word. Not internal word but external This was a picture I couldn resist Dr. MacArthur, fielding a question. I'm sorry, I stopped listening after you said the Lord told me.

It's just, let's stay with the scripture, not something you think God's saying outside of scripture. this was a uh well here are other terms uh another term to think through to be realized what it is is wisdom wisdom you always hear that i pray for wisdom pray for wisdom wisdom technically is knowledge applied to a moral end and when you're talking about the wisdom of the bible i mean the Scripture is wise. Psalm 19. The scriptures are wise.

Wisdom is knowledge applied to a holy end, a moral end. So how do we grow to be wise? We take the knowledge of God's word and we, with the Spirit's help, and God's people's help, right? We have the people of God to help us too, to apply the word to our life and we become more wise. We choose these things according to Scripture rather than those other things, the foolish things.

So when you say, I'm praying for wisdom, really what you're praying for there is help me to know the Scriptures, the commands and principles that will help me with my current decision or trial. In James 1, if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. And God graces that. He doesn't give us epiphanies. Sometimes you go, boy, I just, this verse came to my mind, or maybe so, but it'll be scriptures.

Scriptures that have bearing on how to deal with that trial. Scriptures on how to deal with a difficult decision. I remember we were sitting in a staff meeting, and we had a very difficult case to deal with at our church, out of grace community. And it was very hard. two, a man and a woman who were living together. They had children together. And the woman comes to church and God saves her So she living with this guy and has children and now God saves her And the more she coming to church she wants her husband to come to church and he no no no.

And so she comes and talks, and she hears a message on the importance of marriage. So she goes and talks with a pastor, one of the associate pastors, and says, can we get married? the guy I'm with, you know, and the pastor's going, well, what verse comes to your mind? Don't be unequally yoked. I mean, you're just like, well, what? But then, well, wait a minute.

How have they been living? Have they been living as husband and wife? Are they just living as, she's just my girl, he's just my guy, but there's no commitment there? They've got children. This is going to rip this whole relationship apart, the kids apart, the whole deal. So this is coming up.

We're all dialoguing through this. Bring the principles, bring the various things. How do we deal with this? They weren't married, and they did. They both loved each other, and they referred to each other when they were out. This is my wife, this is my husband, although they never were officially married. and they had a couple of kids and then he came up are there any situations like this in the scriptures where you just have a difficult decision to make and yes there is there's an illustration of it when you're faced with a decision to make when you have two options and both aren't very good you're going to rip this family apart or just go ahead and marry because they were acting like husband and wife.

They just need to make it legal because he loved her and wanted to be with her. This isn't 1 Corinthians 7. He doesn't want her. So we're going, okay, here we got principles, but are we going to rip them all apart? And is there even an illustration of this? Yes, Ezra.

And we went to Ezra chapter 10, and sure enough, they were in a predicament. Israel. They had intermarried with pagans, I mean with other countries. If they keep doing this there goes the whole pure line of the Jewish nation That not a good option The other option is they going to have to divorce their wives from other countries and then remarry a Jewish woman to keep the Jewish line.

And you go, well, none of those decisions are very good. That's right. It's the best option of two not-so-good options. You have to make the best choice of two not-so-good options. And so that's what we finally said. As best as we know, they just need to make their relationship legal.

They've been acting like husband and wife. They have kids that partake of all the blessings of marriage. They even were committed to each other as husband and wife. They just weren't legal. So make it legal and keep that family together. And I don't know what happened after that.

I don't know if he's saved or what the situation is. But it's hard when you're faced with decisions like that. But wisdom, that's what we prayed for, wisdom, to get the scriptures, illustrations, principles, coming in on decision-making. Another word is the word mysticism. Mysticism. What is mysticism?

Well, you could say it's subjectivism in the realm of religion. from me and it's verified by me is my own walk or relationship with God. He talks with me, I talk with him, and we've got this communication going on, and I'm only privy to it. He tells me what he wants and what he wants me to do. Just not the Bible, just outside the Bible. So you have this subjectivism, but in the realm of religion.

A lot of you remember Roman Catholic mystics during the 1500s, It's still, it's a tsunami in the church even today. It's very popular even today. There's a whole movement to go into a mystical way of your Christian walk. It's even in the Five Views book on Christianity and counseling. A whole division is on this mystical deal. This was R.B.

Kuyper, a prof at Westminster Seminary early on, and he said this, it's the essence of mysticism to separate the operation of the Holy Spirit from God's objective word. Mysticism will take you away from the word of God that we have. And the further you move away from God's word, the more mystical you become. That's the essence, is to separate the Holy Spirit from the word he inspired, the word he wants to take us to.

And we don't want to go down this route. I'm just saying it is so popular. I'm seeing it in different churches, to read different people who are all into the various mystics. Some of the women speakers and writers, some of the men who are writers and speakers, dabble all in this. I mean popular names if I named them. And you go, well, give us names. well, they haven't died yet.

Which means that God can change them. And I don't want to give names out per se that, boy, what if they change today? I'll say a name goes out that they're something they're not. But be careful when reading different things and you get... Individuals will say things that you just go, whoa what is that Here was one that I just read Let me see here if I have it In a book Very good yeah very good author Conservative individual If I mentioned his name, some of you would go, I know what he's written is really good.

He's an excellent speaker. But this is what he wrote in one of his books. and I'm quoting, when the spirit speaks be ready to listen. Learn how to hear his voice. Not so much as an audible word although if the spirit chooses to speak that way, that's up to him or as some sort of infallible indicator for daily decision making don't go around saying God told me to do this or worse God told me to tell you to do this.

But as the gentle guide who is constantly drawing us toward true spiritual life. When the Spirit prompts us to pray, we should pray. But just that phrase, listen for the Spirit, listen for the Spirit, and He may even come and speak audibly to you, that's dangerous. Now you're outside the Scripture. Let's just stay in the Scripture. Once you leave the scripture two things happen One you have no way to know it God Once you leave the scripture number one you have no way to know it God You say, well, God did this, God told me this, God did...

There's no way to verify it. No way. I mean, there's people who say, he showed up in a dream, Jesus showed up in a dream. You don't even know what Jesus looks like. How do you know it was Jesus? I mean, all these kind of things are happening all around the world. people that do, and I saw a vision, and there are different cult members who also saw visions and angels of light.

But number one, you have no way to verify it's God. Number two, there's no safeguard from error. There's nothing to keep you from derailing and going in a dangerous route. Once you leave the Bible, God's word and directions and commands and principles, you say, well, God told me God's doing all he wants you leave it no way to know it's God no safeguard from error that right there she said well I'm just going to keep with the scripture 100 authoritative 100 certain this was uh on a a plaque when I went into a church they had all this what the church believed about the bible and I'm reading down at our church we believe this we believe we believe and it was a And I was just reading down and nothing new caught my eye.

But this one I thought I like this This is what it said Well there This is it said we seek to have it the scripture permeate and direct every decision, word, and deed. It's pretty good, isn't it? That the word of God would control us. Let the word of Christ, Colossians 3.16, richly dwell in you. and we'll look at tomorrow where that's what Paul was praying for the Colossian believers, that the word of God would just dominate their thinking, everything about them, is that that ought to be like a prayer request, a desire.

Lord, may your word, may it just permeate that what I say, my decision, what I do, it's just we walk by faith in the word and God in his word. It's just our steps are on commands and principles. On commands and principles, the steps we're taking. You know, as you came today and you reached out to one another, there's commands for that. Love one another.

Care for one another. Encourage one another. See, all the one another's are all underneath a lot of what goes on here, even today. And that's how we're to walk, is underneath there's commands and principles, and our walk with Christ.