Bibliology – Sola Scriptura?

Well, as I said in leading up to this, you can probably sense that there's some degree of— I don't know, discomfort's not the right word. I think pastors are supposed to have opinions, but I also think it's dangerous for people to rely on pastors' opinions when the Bible makes it very, very clear that we're to preach the Word. There's this imperative, this command that the Word is the food for the sheep. Sheep, right? When Jesus tells Peter to feed his sheep, what he means is give them the Word of God. That's what he means. And I'm thankful even for my professors that instilled that in us, that they really pressed that home. Like, yes, you can gain an audience and a following by having opinions and editorializing and commenting on the things of the world, but what the sheep need is sheep food, and that's the Word. So it's unusual for me to talk about subjects or things like that. Now, we do it in Sunday school and Wednesday nights and things like that, but usually in the pulpit, I don't think of subjects like that. If we do topics, it'll be a biblical topic, right? It'll be like the topic of something in Scripture, like marriage or hell or whatever the doctrine will be. It'll be a subject that comes out of Scripture and a systematic handling of that. But this is less that, even though I still forced it into the mold to be more like a topical message from Scripture. I have passages for everything I'm going to say. But I just want to tell you that it's unusual, and I'm not uncomfortable because I trust that I'm going to give you biblical thoughts, right? I want to serve the Lord and be faithful to Scripture. But I also just want you to know, don't get used to it. Don't get used to Pastor Jonny soapboxing. Don't expect any messages on politics. Don't expect those things. I'm not going to be preaching a sermon on the Constitution of the United States ever. I love our Constitution. I love that flag. But those aren't— this is for preaching the Word. That's what it's for, is to bring the Word of God.

So I trust that what I say will be biblical, even if it isn't a direct out-of-the-Scripture message exegetically, expositorily, or topically. So here's what's going on. The reason I feel compelled to do this, I'd actually had something very different scheduled. I had planned on preaching, starting again a series, and I will do this eventually in a few weeks, on the London Baptist Confession. I haven't taught that in years. That is the confession we hold and the doctrines that we talk about and believe, I think, are pretty well outlined in the London Baptist Confession. I taught it years ago. It's been— I don't know if it's multiple decades, but it's definitely been over a decade that I taught the confession. And it's something that's good to teach and to get reacquainted with if you haven't been lately. And so that will come soon. I don't know exactly when, but that was the plan. But then these things happened, just so you know where my heart is, these things happened privately in conversation where some of the subjects that I'll be covering in this keep coming up. There's this refrain behind the scenes in conversation with me and other people and people at our church, people not at our church too, where I keep hearing the same things over and over again. I keep hearing the same questions over and over again. I keep hearing the same arguments over and over again. And where in the past I might have not chosen a series to address them. I would have been even somewhat dismissive of them. This time, one of them in particular, the subject of same-sex attraction, hit home. It hit our church. Two times. It hit our church two times in one year. And I'm not talking about homosexuality, the practice. That's not what I mean. Three weeks from now, we're going to discuss it in detail. That we're not talking about people practicing homosexuality. We know, or at least we think we do, that that's liberal, and that's what we see in other Methodist movements and stuff like that, even Presbyterian movements that have gone liberal. That's not what we mean. We mean conservative churches who are now sympathetic to the attractions toward same-sex things. This is happening at my friend's church to the point where I wrote this in my notes to one of those sermons that my friend had to get up in front of his church, a church like ours, a Calvinistic conservative church like ours. Pastor Heinrich knows who Pastor Mark Smith is. That's who it was. He had to stand up and say, we either discipline this person, or you have to fire me. That happened at a conservative, theologically conservative church recently. So I thought, you know, let's get out ahead of this and discuss it. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about the things that are leading, things that are happening, these things that are influencing the church, and then maybe what is causing it. What are the causes of those things? Why would the church be so susceptible to these kind of things? Maybe we can even make some judgments and discussions on those.

So Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, I said it this morning and I knew I was going to say it again tonight, that it's a great book to read right now. If you just read through the whole book— I think Angelo did that one time when I asked him to do it. He just read through the whole book. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, "That which has been is what will be. That which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun." The title of the sermon and the reason I'm taking the silly— I mean, it's bad grammar to say "Not New Things Facing the Church" because you could say "Old Things Facing the Church." But the reason I'm saying "Not New Things" or "Not New Issues" either either way, is because I want it to echo what Solomon says, "Nothing is new. Nothing is new under the sun." And I want to sort of appeal to Solomon's wisdom as we discuss these things. When you buy something used, you all know this phrase, right? It's used, but it's new to you. Have you ever heard people say that, right? Something might be used, but it's new to me. Well, a lot of the things that are creeping into the church, in the modern church and the modern conservative church, so everything I'm saying is not modern evangelicalism, the liberal movements out there, theological liberal movements. I'm talking about people like us, okay? So everything I'm saying is new to us, but it's not new. Like things that are happening in our world, like TikTok. TikTok is new, this phenomenon where people are just scrolling infinitely looking at little video clips of people doing silly things. But people finding endless ways to do pointless self-aggrandizing things, that's not new at all. People amplifying self is not a new concept. It's just new, the technology is new that has put it in such a broad circulation. YouTube is relatively new. Relatively new, even though it's about 20-something years old. The idea of being able to just post what you're doing in life so everybody can see it, even in long form, that's kind of a new development in technology. But it is not new at all in the world where people platform themselves and proclaim themselves as experts. That's not new at all. People have been self-proclaimed experts for decades. The legalization of harmful substances is new. The decriminalization of such things too, where it's not, you can't even get arrested for doing these things anymore, even in public, even where there's children. That's new, but the idea of people hedonistically living lives and selfish lives that crash and burn, not new at all. So even though the manifestation of the things might seem new and unprecedented, it's just new to us, but it's not new at all. There are things that the church has faced for years.

So we have unique things to think about DNA. AI is a major thing happening in our world right now. If you think it's not, I say congratulations to you because you've done the Pastor Jonny and insulated yourself from the effect of what's happening in the world. But make no mistake, AI is changing everything. Everything. People are losing jobs. There's not going to be any such thing as a graphic designer anymore. There's not going to be any such thing as— maybe even— you all know what a PA is when you go to the doctor? What's a PA when you go to the doctor? Yeah, those aren't going to be around anymore because the doctor is going to be able to have an assistant that does AI for him from his practice, his viewpoint. He just programmed the AI. So now you go in and talk to the AI instead of an actual human being. So we're already one step separated from the doctor. Now we're going to be two steps separated from a human. These things are happening in our world. So the ability to use technology is fantastic. If the, if AI helps you see a cancer problem and you get that fixed, hallelujah. I'm not against technology. I don't want to go back to stone tablets and chisels. But I do think we need to recognize that all of that stuff that's happening in the world, it would be just fine if the world stayed to itself. What the world does is try to infiltrate the church. And then we feel pressure to respond to the world and its pressures by adjusting to it and being influenced by it. So the good news is it's always been the same. You don't have to learn every falsehood. You just have to be anchored in truth. You don't have to learn every lie. That's the wonderful thing about our faith is that the truth is narrow and clear and understandable. The truth of Jesus Christ, the truth of the authority of Scripture, the truth of God being real, the truth of salvation, the things that are most important on earth, the basic things, the ordinary things, to use my language, those things are clear and they haven't changed. They can be understood. And that truth addresses and tears down all falsehood, whatever form it takes. So even though TikTok is a thing, the Bible comments on TikTok. Even though AI is a thing, the Bible absolutely comments on AI.

Side note, I hate AI music. If you want to, since I'm using Pastor Jonny's opinions now, I'm going to tell you, don't send me AI songs and say, this is really good, Pastor. Don't do it, please. Because not only do I hate it as a Christian because I hate the giving away of knowledge to the internet, but I also hate it as a musician because my daughter practices really hard to play piano well, and I don't like that I can say, "Give me a Bach-like piano concerto that sounds like this song and this piano player," and AI does it. My daughter worked too hard for me to think that's a good idea, and there's no soul when it does it. So AI music, AI video, I don't like any of it. You can have it. You can like seeing Albert Einstein play tennis if you like all that. That's great. Have fun with that. That's for you. Cats doing disco? You can have all of it you want, but I don't like it. In fact, we are pretty good in my house at spotting it. We keep taking these tests in my family whether we can spot AI. We're doing good. I can hear AI instantaneously. Takes me no seconds at all to hear AI because I have somewhat of a trained ear. So, side note, that's just for you. Don't send me AI stuff and think I'm gonna like it. It's taking away people's jobs. When I see like how talented people like Those two Magaña brothers back there, Zach and Josh, are with video and having a visual eye to see things. And then I see people think that that robot spitting it out is equal. It bugs me. I have friends who are writers and they're brilliant writers. And so, yeah, I'm not a fan. So I'm going to fight for us humans as long as we can. The image of God is in humans, not in AI. And I want us to be able to do what God calls us to do. By the way, AI is not very good at preaching, just so you know. And I'm not saying I am. I'm not saying it's not as good as me. I'm saying it doesn't have it down yet. So you budding preachers, don't use AI because it will mislead you.

All right, well, I'll pray and we'll dig into our first major subject. This should go pretty smoothly because in this one, in tonight's sermon message, things are sort of, they build on each other. They're sort of logical in order. The subsequent messages are not so much. They're more just various subjects that I put together in a given night. Next week will be somewhat in order. After that, it will just be a variety of different subjects that our church is facing and that we need to be aware of. But tonight, it'll be kind of built on itself. It's kind of— you'll see, it'll be somewhat sequential if I can put it together like that. Let's pray. Father, these subjects, even though a good portion of this is my thoughts on the subject and me having putting together my viewpoint on things, that's not really what I care about most. What I care about most is what what your Word says. And I do think in these areas your Word is clear, and I think we are supposed to put your Word in the forefront of our minds so that we can see these things that the world is dealing with outside, and then now things that are infiltrating the church, and be on guard as believers to not being influenced by the world, to not let the world have sway over us, to not let the devil creep in unawares, to not be falling for false teaching and influence over the church. So help us be solid in truth when we study these things tonight, I ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

Now, the major theme of tonight is the authority or the place of Scripture in the church. And in times past, this was something very important to the church, which you can see in your notes as the deterioration of sola scriptura. The idea that what we have in our day, and I'm going to emphasize it a lot tonight, what we have in our day is a breakdown of the emphasis on sola scriptura. And if you don't know what sola scriptura is, It is that one element of the 5 solas of the Reformation, which is the cry that our authority as believers, the only authority believers have is Scripture. It isn't popes, it isn't denominations, it isn't priests, it isn't other books outside of the Scripture, is that the sole authority for the life of faith and practice and the life of a Christian is sola scriptura. And so that had been fought for in the Reformation, and it had been assumed by all solid teaching denominations and people over the centuries. But now that doctrine is assumed and not talked about or defended. And so what you're finding out now is that people are biblically illiterate. They don't know Scripture. So we say our church believes in sola scriptura, the church says amen to that. But then if you quiz any number of Christians in the church, what does the Scripture say, for example, about same-sex attraction, about political involvement, about things like that? What does it actually say? What does the Scripture say? And people will have a tough time applying Scripture and understanding it. They might be able to give you a treatise on election because their church is in a great tradition of Reformation theology. But then you ask, okay, how are you supposed to treat your next-door neighbor and what does Scripture say about that? Now you're in trouble. Why are you and your wife fighting all the time if you believe the Bible, right? So does Scripture have the place in your life where you are literate, functionally literate? You handle Scripture, you know how to apply Scripture, You think in Scripture. Scripture is what you care about.

So Jesus addresses some people in His day, those people called the Sadducees who didn't believe in a resurrection. And Jesus said to them, Jesus answered and said to them, "Are you not therefore mistaken because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God?" What was it the Sadducees didn't know? Well, they were theologians. They were definitely the leaders of denominations, weren't they? They had influence. People thought of them as answer people, and they went to them and talked to them. So in the American church, it is a very big problem right now. And all of the other problems that I will be talking about, I don't know if they stem from this, but they are definitely affected by biblical illiteracy. Not knowing the Scripture and then not being able to apply the Scripture once it's known and interpreted. I know somebody that— I say kind of know him. He's back East. He's a pretty well-known musician. And I know him in the music world. But he has talked about his journey out of the Protestant faith. And he's kind of going into either Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, or Episcopalian faith. And one of the things he said is he said, "People will tell you, Protestants will tell you that they believe in sola scriptura." And then he said, "No, they don't." And of course, I'm fighting in that in my guts, right? In my heart of hearts, I'm fighting that. No, we do believe it. I do believe it. But then when he starts illustrating how we elevate teachers and schools and traditions and theology And we have a capital R, Reformed. And we have a capital M, MacArthur. You could put Sloan in there too, but I don't think of myself as all that important. Where we put people up and we say what they say about scripture is our equivalent of sola scriptura. What my commentator says about scripture is my equivalent of sola scriptura, right? Or, or what I say about scripture is sola scriptura. So the scripture is not objectively true and authoritative, We are. The interpreters are. The denomination is. And I hate to say that that guy has a point. I'm supposed to actually talk to him about that. I didn't want to talk to him about it. I just wanted him to teach me more guitar stuff. But now we're going to talk about theology, because I'm trying to keep him from abandoning the Protestant understanding of Scripture.

Surveys say 82% of Americans think that God helps those who help themselves is scripture. 82% of Americans think that. When asked, is that in the Bible, 82% say yes. 12% said, which I found hard to believe until I went to go look at the poll, Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. 12% of Americans thought that. That's 12% too many. 50% of graduating high school students think Sodom and Gomorrah or husband and wife. So we take for granted that we have a founding pastor who taught sola scriptura and lived it, and I would hope that I have carried on his legacy about the authority of Scripture being the only thing that we need to listen to. And when you and I look at Sodom and Gomorrah, we don't guess what it means. We look at the Old Testament and learn what it means. But that's us. So my first thing that I see creeping into the church that I agree with the solid theologians and pastors and philosophers that are the good ones is that we are Bible-ish and not biblical. The thing I've said for years, which we sprinkle the Bible into our thinking, but it is not the sole source of our truth and thinking. That we like our authors. If I had a nickel for every time someone that I respect said to me, "Have you read this book?" Well, you know what I have read? I've read Romans. I've read Ephesians. I've read Exodus. So I'm sorry if I didn't read your favorite author's book, but I think we read our favorite authors too quickly before we understand Scripture. We're letting men tell us what to think about Scripture.

That leads me to the next point, which is when we are illiterate of Scripture, we won't stay that way. We will replace Scripture with something else. Nobody will leave a hole. And Paul says it when he's talking about preaching the word. He says the time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine, But according to their own desires, they will have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers. They will find people to tell them what they want to hear. But where will they find teachers? What source of teaching material will those teachers be teaching? They will be teaching misrepresentation of the Bible. That's what they will do. They will use the Bible improperly, and the people will say, "Can you tell me where the Bible allows, for example, homosexuality? Can you prove that to me?" And they will find a teacher that will say the Bible allows homosexuality. It just happened this last week. I don't watch the news much, but I heard some things this week because it pertains to our faith, where a very famous person was on the late-night show of another very famous person. And that person said, he said, most people out there don't know that we Christians understand that abortion and gay marriage are not in the Bible. Therefore, they're not things that we should be divided over. So in other words, this person claiming to be a Christian, they're Roman Catholic, liberal, liberal in theology and a liberal in politics, in that case they were both, were saying to the host that most people, if they understood that abortion and gay marriage are not in the Bible, they would know that we have more in common on these things and we are more unified than we think.

Now, I have a question for you. If you know that it costs a lot to follow Jesus, doesn't that sound appealing? Like, you mean I don't have to fight over these things? I don't have to prove that abortion is sinful and murder. I don't have to prove that. I mean, I have a gay next-door neighbor, so I should be— it's easier for me if I learn that God is okay, so okay with it, he didn't even put it in his book to talk about gay marriage. So these things I'm telling you about, these things are things I have talked about with individuals weeks from now, not years from now. This just happened. I just had a conversation where somebody said the argument their family was telling them on that subject of same-sex attraction, the thing they kept saying And the person telling me this clearly agreed with them. Like, they agreed with them. They couldn't help but agree with them because it's so logical that the word attraction is not in the Bible. So that means God hasn't spoken on that subject. That's what— that was their conclusion. Because the word is not in the Bible, then that means that we have freedom to figure these things out apart from Scripture. Do we believe in sola scriptura or not? So what did they figure out? How did they fix it? You all know this. Anybody in this room, except for maybe, I don't know, Gabriel, he might be too young, but everybody else in the room. If anybody asked you or anybody you know 10 years ago, what is a woman? There was no confusion. Or what is gender? There was no confusion. Gender and sex were synonyms. We all understood it that way, right? Everybody in here. And right now you might not even know why I'm saying that. You might not even know that there is literally, that is what's happening in your country right now. Is a debate over what the word gender means.

So in our world, if you ask any liberal, and I mean liberal theologian or liberal political person, they're gonna tell you that gender is a thing that is decided. It's not a thing that you're born with. So you say, well, that's crazy. How can they understand it that way? That's not the point right now. We already lost that fight. That fight's over now. You're not going to fix that. The only source you have to fix that is to stand on the truth of God so that when people say what they say, you say, that is a lie. This is what God says. He made them male and female. They're made what they are, right? That's the only thing you've got. Because you're not going to win the argument of semantics and words out there in the world. That argument is lost. Now, why am I saying all of that? Because now the same thing is happening with the word attraction. If I had talked to you 5 years ago, not even 10 years ago, 5 years ago, do you see that attraction and desire might be synonyms? Everybody would say, "Yes, of course they are." The thing I'm attracted to, I desire. Of course, that's logical. It's reasonable. No, no, no, no. Drive a wedge in the logic. Drive a wedge in the meaning of words. Start taking a word out of its normal vernacular use. If you want to know a technical word, you'll like this. You can take this and impress your friends with it. Vulgar use. Vulgar doesn't mean gross. That's not what the word vulgar means. Vulgar means the common language. That's what the word vulgar means, okay? Now, don't use it that way. Don't say, "I like vulgar things." Don't you? Because in our world, the word vulgar means gross now. But it didn't used to mean that. So you take the word out of its context, out of its normal use, the word attraction, you change the meaning of it. So this is the way people see truth. Now where we find the effect of it is in the church. It's in the church, it's not outside the church, to where people say, well, since we don't need— the word is up for interpretation. You might have fallen for that lie. You in this room right now, in this church, might have fallen for the lie that there are multiple interpretations of scripture. You might believe that. You might— when people say, that's your interpretation, this is my interpretation, and they are both equally valid, that is a lie. That's not true. God doesn't ever mean two things when he says one thing. God always means one thing when he says what he says.

So the authority of Scripture is being deteriorated. Our literacy and use and functional understanding of Scripture is being deteriorated. And now I'm telling you, the teachers we're adopting who will fill in the gap and will come in and teach us better and teach us things like attraction's not in the Bible and teach us things so that we can adjust to our culture better and have more of an impact, of course, because you want to show the culture how nice you are and kind you are. And you do that by being careful not to be too judgmental and open-minded and open your arms to the culture. It sounds a lot like Corinth. And to allow these things and bend the meaning of words. So we replace the Bible. And when we replace the Bible, that gets us to our second major point. Which is the advancement of autonomy, that when we think the Bible is malleable, moldable, shapeable, that the Bible is a thing that we are allowed to mutate and form and however we want it to be, when we do that, we become our own authority. We become the self-appointed expert so that now even, and I say even, Most Christians, I think most Christians put more credibility in their ability to understand truth than they do that the truth by itself is the truth. They trust their opinions more than that that book sitting on your shelf is true without my interpretation. Meaning, they believe what the liberals did, what the neo-orthodox people believe, like Karl Barth did, that it becomes true Once I understand it. We have become our own authority. The Bible's not our authority. Our use of the Bible becomes our authority. When we have properly understood it, according to what we think it means, it is now authoritative. Wrong! The scripture is authoritative no matter what you say about it. The scripture is God's word regardless of your opinion about it. It doesn't become more God's word when you think you understand it. But our culture thinks that that's how it works. So we become our own self-appointed authorities. This is the kind of thing Jesus condemns when he says, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, and in vain they worship me, teaching as the doctrines the commandments of men.'" So men become the authority. We become the arbiter of truth. We have biases, and we find our biases just the way we like them in scripture. Like the thing I want to make most important, I'll find a way to manipulate the word because remember, I'm the authority. I determine how it's understood. My interpretation is the final say-so. So I can go to a passage from scripture and even though the church has understood it the same, which I said to this person a few weeks ago, I said, so for 4,000 years, everybody has understood it the same. All teachers have understood it. Even people that don't agree with each other, right? Even denominations that disagree with each other for 4,000 years from before Jesus, in Abraham's time all the way up till now have believed something is true about Scripture, because Leviticus talks about homosexuality, doesn't it? Right?

So this isn't just an Old Testament concept. Paul talks about it to Romans, who were the advanced people of his age. Everybody's understood it. But somehow these people talking right now figured out what all those— not only authors of Scripture, but interpreters of Scripture, the millions of interpreters of Scripture— understood it one way. These people right now figured out we all missed it. Somehow we all missed it. Like, you all here who think that same-sex attraction is something that comes from the heart and God hates because it leads to an abominable action, those of you who think that, you just missed it. You needed better theologians. You needed better teachers who could help you understand it better, because you're not capable of understanding that yourself. And even more than that, you find people say, well, I don't like the idea that God condemns homosexuality, so when I hear the thing that they're saying, That feels really good. I like that. That feels more in line with what I think about the world around me. And so people not only let it creep into the church, they plant churches that think it, they grow churches that think it, they support churches that think it. If you make your ultimate standard happiness and our fulfillment, which modern Christianity does, even conservative Christianity, you hear people talking about scripture as a thing that helps us with our life. Not a thing that is the undeniable revelation of God for His own glory, then you will manipulate it to whatever you want. And that's what's going on. Our agendas have become equal. We assume we're biblical, and if the Bible doesn't agree with us, we just reinterpret the Bible. Just fix it. Fix our interpretation.

One time, it was in a passing conversation, and when Pastor said it, he didn't mean for it to be as poetic and profound as it was. He was just being funny. But I was talking to him on the phone about something, and I asked him— I forget exactly the way I asked him, but his answer to my question was something like, "Who needs context when you have verses?" And I remember thinking, "Oh, he has no idea. That was like Shakespearean." The idea being that I was talking about the right use of the text, and I was kind of asking him about context. And his response to that is what our world would give honestly. They would mean it, which is, "I have Bible verses that teach what I want them to teach, but I don't need them in their context. I don't need them properly interpreted. They sound like on the face value, they say what I want them to say, so I have scripture for my belief." So who needs proper hermeneutics, context, sound exegesis? Who needs good handling of the Word and exposition of the Word when you got verses that say what you want them to say?

God loves everybody, doesn't he? Especially the gays. I think the Bible says something about that, God loving everybody, so he must love everybody. He doesn't hate anybody. There's nothing that's abominable to him, right? So here's what you do. What you do is you're illiterate on scripture. You can't handle it correctly. You don't handle it correctly. And you also don't like what it says when it is handled correctly. So what you do is replace that, and you replace it with teachers who say what you want them to say. You find teachers who agree with you, confirmation bias. You go out there and look for people to confirm you and your belief system. And then what that does is ultimately that puts you as the final authority over the way Scripture is understood. It makes you autonomous. You become your own authority. And when you do that, you only need one expositor, and it's you. You don't need pastors anymore. You don't need teachers anymore. Even though Ephesians says that, you don't even know that. People have said that to me. People have literally said to me that the office of pastor is an unbiblical concept. I've had somebody tell me that. More than one person, actually. One person said it badly, like they were not cursing, but they were condemning me strongly. They were saying I was an egomaniac for taking the office of pastor.

And then now what happens when you see things in Scripture that don't align with your exposition as the authority that you have appointed over yourself? All of these things are happening. They're happening everywhere. Like right now, most people that call themselves Christian, if you were to say to them like what Hebrews said last week, that you're supposed to obey those that rule over you, They would say, "I do. I rule over me." They wouldn't say it, but that's their life. They are self-pastors, self-teachers, self-authorities. "I have the right as an—" Don't you Baptists believe in individual soul liberty, that we're all priests? So I can interpret by myself. Yeah, but if your interpretation disagrees with the solid, sound, historical, theological, traditional interpretation of all Christians of all time, you are not just a priest. You're a false priest. You're a priest of a false religion.

So we're supposed to be in line with what all people have believed in Scripture. That's the beautiful thing. That's one thing I love when people talk about the differences in denominations and traditions. Yes, a lot of the times that is discouraging and it's sad and that there isn't more unity out there in the faith, but it's also telling that God allows that to happen to let us know that no one person has it all figured out. You have to stay humble and study and pay close attention and And be on guard, right? Instead of just picking the flavor of the month that makes you happy, you say, okay, wait, you're telling me all theologians don't agree on eschatology? Then how about I show some humility with eschatology? You're telling me that all theologians don't agree on limited atonement? Then I'm going to show some humility. Even though I believe it, I'm going to be careful with my brother who might not agree with it, right? The idea of charity and care when you engage in such things.

Well, you've got to be careful because when you become your own authority, you start doing things based on feelings. And Moses tells the people of Israel when they were wayward in Deuteronomy, the second giving of the law, you shall not do as we are doing here today, every man doing what is right in his own eyes. We are not our own authority. We have to be careful when we are the loudest voice in our head. That doesn't mean your favorite teacher on YouTube or even Pastor Jonny are the loudest voice. It means that you get good at digging into Scripture and letting Scripture inform you. And teach you where you handle Scripture correctly. And incidentally, there is a correct way to handle Scripture, the proper methodology and hermeneutics. So instead of— finish this for me— if you confess the blank Jesus, you'll be saved. What's the word that goes in the blank? Well, our culture, and now even conservative churches, is if you confess the blesser Jesus or the friend Jesus. Or your companion Jesus. Him being a Lord, Him being a Master who has spoken and expects obedience is long gone. It's not the Lordship of Jesus, it's the lordship of feelings. And you just assume that the Lord agrees with your feelings.

And this is happening. Like in that conversation I told you I've had, I've had it now twice, and I'll talk about that when I get to that subject in 3 weeks. I've had it now twice where to hear people say, that they really believe that God wants them happy. To have them actually say, even argue with me, that I can't go against and do what other people are doing just because it's right or wrong. I believe God wants me happy. Even though it goes directly against scripture. I've heard it more and more and more. Where people think that the ultimate goal is their happiness. That means they have become their own authority. That means they have become autonomous. They are a law unto themselves. And this is not out there. I didn't have that conversation in San Francisco. I had that conversation in this building with someone who goes to this church. And that has now happened twice. And I can add a third one if you talk about somebody calling me who used to go to our church. And this is all— all three of those dealt with the subject of homosexuality and this move of the church moving to be favorable to the practice of homosexuality, and right now the more conservative groups with the attractions associated with it. With it. So I've had 3 conversations of members and former members of the church where you go that are all feeling the pressure and saying, I can't do what you say the Bible says to do because I believe God wants me happy. So yes, I feel the pressure. Very much do I feel the pressure to fight for these things and to make sure we're clear. And we'll define those things more clearly later.

So with the decline of biblical literacy comes the decline of biblical doctrine. And this is a weird one. This one is hard to communicate. I already know that I've written it and I've rewritten it and I've tried to figure out the way to communicate what I'm about to say to you. So if you'll indulge me and let me be overly simplistic first and then unpack it, maybe that's the way I could do it where I'll just like say that I'll give you the punchline first. I'll let the cat out of the bag. Like the thing I'm trying to say in most basic terms is that a thing that has happened in the conservative church, when I say conservative, I mean all conservative churches, people that have historically said the Bible is their authority, who have been separate, who have been either Baptist or even the solid Presbyterian churches who've held to the doctrines of sola scriptura over the centuries. Those people, even in those churches, there has been this divide, a wedge that is being brought in the churches, which is the difference or a division between saying. I'll give you the two thoughts, and I'm going to say them as two separate thoughts, and then I'll explain what I mean later. The two thoughts would be this. That you either choose a loving companion relational connection with God, or you choose doctrine and theology.

So there's this thing happening where if you talk about doctrine and theology, there's an assumption that you probably aren't close in relationship to the Lord. So the idea that the more open you are and free you are and less hung up on details and doctrine and theology, The less of that you are, the closer you will be to God relationally. And then on the other side of that is these people are saying, yeah, but you're not close to the true God. You're not close to Jesus accurately, who you're not close to, but we are because we are doctrinal. And what happens there is now we on the conservative side, and here's the danger, are more concerned with promoting a worldview than we are a relationship with Jesus Christ. A personal, familial, family relationship to Jesus Christ. Meaning, for people to have God as their Father and to be in a love relationship. It has become now the main mark of truth in the doctrinal world, in the conservative world, that you have your theology right. But that's why in your notes it says there is a disconnection of theology and theos. And theos is the Greek word for God.

When Paul preached at the Areopagus, one of the things he said there was that the people should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from one of us. Anybody can find him. But what we are telling people to find instead is theological astuteness, doctrine. So there is a wedge between a relationship with the Lord and the theology that teaches the Lord. And what I'm suggesting to you is that that is dangerous. It's dangerous to think that you're okay if all you are is doctrinal. And it is also dangerous to think that you're okay if all you are is relational.

I am not going to name names, but one of the founding members of this church who is integral to the beginning of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church one time told me at lunch, he's not here anymore, told me at lunch, he said, the church I left to become a part of that is more theological He was a part of a church for years that was super theological to the point where everybody had to go to seminary that was in leadership. Okay? They were very doctrinal. And he meets with me and he's planning to leave that church. I knew it before they did. And he tells me, "I realize that I was so caught up with all that doctrine that I really didn't have any Jesus. And I need to leave that because I need to go find more Jesus." And I told him, You're going to lose both. That's what I told him. You're going to lose both of those because you can't have Jesus without theology, and you cannot have theology correctly without Jesus. So if you see that leaving a doctrinal environment where the theology is solid and the doctrinal accuracy is solid— that doesn't mean that that church did it right. I'm just saying they were theological, very doctrinal, to the point where if you were to ask somebody in the church, what is traducianism or or what's the Greek word for election? They would know it. But he thought that because they weren't, I don't know, evangelistic, they weren't more open, they weren't more relational, that he was missing out on something. So he was abandoning the one for the other.

There's a doctrine called imminence, not eminence. Eminence is different, okay? Not like prestige. But imminence is the idea that Jesus could come at any time. That's the idea, is that at any point Jesus could come. And I wonder sometimes if we would get caught teaching theology or praising a person. So what doctrine is supposed to do, it's supposed to inform your worship and service. It's supposed to inform who you are as a Christian, not a theologian. Now, we're all theologians. Everybody's a theologian. You're either a good one or a bad one. There are no non-theologians. Even atheists are theologians. They're just terrible ones. Everybody has a belief about God. That's their theology. So don't see that line as you are either doctrinal. Don't think that those people, when you see any videos of missionaries, for example, in Africa, and you see the whole church all clapping and going crazy, you better not have it in your heart that says they're probably not very doctrinal. You're supposed to say, we probably need a little more of what they got, and praising the Lord and talking about him like he's our friend and telling people about how how wonderful our King is as a person. And not only saying, hey, do you know the understanding of the perseverance of the saints and the idea of the doctrines of grace properly understood?

So there's a disconnect, and we should get it right. So I say it all the time, the people who should be the most doctrinally rounded people are people who are living the Christian faith in a close relationship to the Lord. Their doctrine should be just saturating their lives. That's the next point, which is doctrine is and in life. I love that Paul does this in a pastoral epistle. He does this with Titus in a pastoral epistle, right? He says, "But as for you," that's you, Titus, a pastor, a leader, a church planter, right? A missionary. "You, Titus, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine," he says in chapter 2, verse 1, right? And everybody thinks, "Oh, yeah, we're going to dig into it here. We're going to get into some heavy theology. I wonder what he's going to teach here." Is he going to teach theonoustas as inspiration? Is he going to break down the nature of God? Maybe Molinism. Maybe when Paul tells Titus, "Speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine." Theology. That's the word teaching, didaskalei. It's the word for teaching. It's the word for theology. Then what does Paul say next? He says, "That older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in the faith, in love, and in patience."

Wait, what? You skipped the doctrine, Paul. You can't say, speak sound doctrine things and then talk about our lives and sobriety and reverence, love. What does love have to do with doctrine? Well, do you know the answer, folks? Everything. Everything. The older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things. So what does doctrine look like? You understand the theology and then you live the theology of the one that you love. Your doctrine means that you know the one that you serve. Your theology, the thing you understand about God, the thing you understand about the faith, about Jesus, means that you love him more. You've gotten to know him more. You understand him better. And so you go out and you act like good old men and women. That's the first ones. The younger ones are mentioned there too.

But I want you to see that when we separate our theology from our lives, it's not only unattractive and probably could be a turnoff or cold to anybody who knows us or comes into the church. It's also dangerous. Because if you make everything only about doctrine and only about us, and even if it's sound doctrine, the good theology, we're talking here about bad theology ultimately, that bad theology is creeping into the church in favor of relational, right? In favor of warm and fuzzy experiential love. Come in here and be whoever you want to be, it doesn't matter. But it's also true of even churches that have sound doctrine that we can fall to that. So if I understand redemption correctly, reconciliation correctly, if I understand propitiation, I'll be talking about that from John in chapter 2. If I understand those things correctly, what that's supposed to turn into is a life of reverence and worship for the one who saved me. And that's supposed to find its way into my life. It's supposed to find its way into my habits, into my family, and into my neighbors. I'm supposed to be out there telling people about it. But you can't, if you separate doctrine and scripture, then the doctrines you're gonna be sharing are watered-down, fluffy, no-substance doctrine. So if we buck against Scripture and now we have false doctrine, all we will be seeking is pleasure and happiness, and God will get left out in the cold. So we have come up empty in Scripture when we do that.

So just to sort of reiterate, when the Bible loses its proper place in a church, then that church will replace that Bible with something else. There will never be an empty hole. People will never leave that hole empty. That's why Calvin was right when he said that our heart is a factory of idols. If we don't worship the true God, we will make a false god to worship, right? We haven't seen Moses in a while. What do we do? Make a golden calf. We will make something to worship, and that thing that we make has its own theology and doctrine and scripture associated with it, and It's either manipulated actual Scripture or it's something outside of Scripture altogether, favorite authors, those kind of things. And so now we're listening to our favorites and eventually we realize, hey, wait, I get to decide if I agree with the favorite so that we become self-governing, autonomous, self-expositors of our own new Bible. We invented our own new Bible and we are the best expositors of it. This is definitely happening even in conservative churches, even in conservative churches.

So when we deny the authority of Scripture, we replace it with something else. When we replace it with something else, we need new interpreters for it that aren't of the old school that actually believe Scripture is the authority. That authority becomes us. Then we begin to teach it and preach it the way we want it, the message that we want from it. We get to change the meaning of words. We get to define things in our own terms. We not only become the expositor, we also become essentially the translator. I saw a list of like 10 or 12 verses that were pro-homosexual, that you thought this word meant this, but it can mean this, and this word meant this in another context, so now that word doesn't have to mean what you thought it meant in Romans. So just manipulation of individual words to try to tear down the historic understanding of this very simple thing like homosexuality. And so now you just, all you need to do is find the person that says what you want them to say. If they have a degree, it's even better, right? Because my, the one who teaches me has 3 letters after his name. That means I should listen to him. And when you do that, over time, there's this disconnect.

So what do we do? What's the danger on our part? Is instead of fighting for the truth, we fight for our favorite doctrines. We hole up in the group of the huddle of the frozen chosen. And we make it all about our worldview. And we forget that Jesus is a real person. And all that scripture was supposed to point us to a real person and a real Savior. And over time, we lose the connection with God and we, in favor of, we call ourselves that we're okay, we're better because we're theologians. Conservative, but we're not actually sharing the gospel of Jesus. We say, we're not doing what those people are doing with Scripture, we're doing it better. So we swing that pendulum from the relational people, and the compassion people, and the generosity people, and the people that God just always loves no matter what, and we go over here and say, nope, it's theology only. Don't ask me to hug you. Don't ask me to talk about family. Don't ask me to talk about my love for the Lord and his love for me, because that sounds mushy like those liberals over there. There. And all we are is doctrine machines. And our theology doesn't find its way into our life. And we need our theology to get into our life. We need to be doctrinal and to have sound doctrine and to not abandon the authority of Scripture. To put Scripture where it belongs at the forefront and teach it and then love it and love its author and live it out there in the world and not compromise that.

So these things I'm telling you, when I hear people talk, I hear people that don't— not only do they not know Scripture, but they don't act like they care about what it says when you share it with them. It becomes a real problem. Like, there's a major issue where half of the discussion is you trying to convince somebody they should be listening to the Bible. So before you can even get to the point where you say, this is what the Bible says on that subject, you have to first say, just so you know, science, opinion, editorials, comments, those are not the authority. The Bible is the authority. So you have to— half of your discussion these days in biblical concepts is trying to show Christian people, people in conservative churches, that the Bible is authoritative. Like, did you know what they say about this subject out here in the world? And I keep doing the same thing. What does that have to do with us? So what about what they say in the world? So what about science, what the DSM says? So what about those things? So what about— well, you hear that there's a whole denomination accepting this now, but that's not scripture, that's a denomination. Well, you hear the doctors are now saying this, That's not Scripture, it's a doctor.

And we have to go back to putting Scripture on display and saying, we believe the Bible. The Bible's authoritative, it tells the truth. Properly understood with sound historical, redemptive, grammatical, historical hermeneutics, properly dividing the word so that when we preach it and teach it, it's accurate to what God intended when he authored it and inspired it. And then we now get that doctrine into our lives so that when I learn about the sovereignty of God, When I learned about the realities of hell, that's another thing. I mentioned a few weeks ago with Kirk Cameron that people are denying a pretty fundamental doctrine like the eternality of hell. One person asked if I— they essentially asked, "Why did you say he doesn't believe in hell? It looks like he believes in hell." Yeah, he believes in hell, but he believes it's temporal. He doesn't believe it's eternal anymore. He changed that. And he's a famous guy. We've watched videos with Ray Comfort in here where Kirk Cameron was in those videos. Well, now he's denied the eternality of hell. And he's finding lots of followers. He's got a huge YouTube presence. So now Christians are thinking, "Oh, it's okay for me to believe that hell is temporary? Because, I mean, they are saying it. These guys have degrees after their name. I like that idea, so I'm going to go along with them." Even though we would call that a fundamental doctrine. Something you have to believe. Not one of the Five Fundamentals, but a doctrine that's clearly taught in Scripture.

So, I hope that's helpful to you. Next week we'll get into more of what the autonomy of people does to a church, to the actual complexion of churches, like the effect of these things when you deny the authority of Scripture, what it does in a more church ecclesiastical context, what happens to churches when they get rid of the authority and people become the focal point. And then the week after that, we'll get into some of the impact that the culture has leaking into the church. Those are the kind of things that are coming in the coming weeks. So let's dismiss in prayer. Oh, we have to sing first. I forgot about that part. You can be ready, Doug. Let's pray.

Father, we're thankful that in all these things, when there's lots of questions and lots of voices, it's becoming more and more confusing. The noise is almost unbearable. Just everybody has opinions, and the internet makes it such that you can hear everybody's opinion. Just ask, Father, that we, your people, would stay anchored in the Word. That our feet would be firmly planted on what your word says and not what the world says and even what churches who are compromising say. Help us be a church that stands for truth as a church and as individuals and give us the courage to say those things when people are denying the word that we might stand for it and say, "Thus says the Lord, this is what the Lord says." So help us do that, please, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.