Scott Brown, in this talk, speaks of the sufficiency of scripture and the preservation of the Gospel. He says that there are three place in which the Gospel is preserved, in the Church, in the family, and in the heart. It is crucial for the preservation of the Gospel that Christ be bold in speaking the truth because the devil is in constant attack against the Gospel, trying to distort it and water it down. He says the the foundation of the preservation of the gospel is the sufficiency of Scripture. The moment that you begin to doubt that Scripture is sufficient, you loose all ground for defending the Gospel.

I'd like to talk a little bit about preserving the gospel and the role of the church particularly in the preservation of the gospel. The way that God has it in the world is that there are three places that the Gospel is preserved. And that is in the Church, and that it's in the family, and it's also in the heart of a person. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth. And the human heart also contains the truth.

But the good man out of the good man's treasure of his heart brings forth what is good. And so the preservation of the gospel happens across those three ways. And I know that you're a church that wants to preserve the Gospel. And what a blessing it is to be in a church like that. And I had a really remarkable dinner late last year with a pretty well-known Christian leader.

And during our dinner, I asked him, I said what's your take on the family-integrated church movement? And What he said completely floored me. Because he said that he felt that these churches could be the places where the Gospel is preserved in the next generation. And I said why did you say that? And he said that because they're fiercely committed to the Word of God.

They actually believe that Scripture is sufficient. And they're actually willing to suffer for it. And he said, there's a seriousness about the things of God in these churches. There's not a lot of entertainment. And they're serious, they're serious about God.

And then he said that these churches have a unity in their families that's necessary for the perpetuation of the Gospel to communicate the gospel to the next generation. And I was absolutely stunned when he told me that. If I gave his name, everybody would know his name. I was really expecting a completely different answer. Because I know in the church that he goes to there are people that have really taken us to the woodshed over the years.

Not so much recently, but in years past. But when he said that, I thought, you know, there really are some hopeful characteristics of the churches that have embraced the sufficiency of Scripture and have gone so far as to actually completely change the discipleship methodology of the church and bring children into the mature teaching of the church, engage, you know, the whole, all the generations in discipleship, break up generational divisions, destroy youth culture, things like that. You know, we've done things that are hard, hard to do, hard on people in a lot of ways. But I wrote down a number of After that meeting, I wrote down a number of things that I really do think will help us preserve the gospel in the next generation, because that's really what we should do. We talked about this multi-generational vision of life.

It really is about casting forth from one generation to the next the beauty of the gospel and to call all men to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So I wrote down these things. I'd like to share them with you. Here's number one. We believe in a different gospel compared to what many advocate in America today.

We contend that the true gospel must be preached, that sinners are not saved by any work of man, including a prayer or an experience or a feeling or a making of a commitment, but rather that sinners must repent, believe, turn from their idols and bear fruit and that faith without works is dead. In the modern church today, It doesn't really matter if your life changes once you've prayed a prayer. But we don't believe in that gospel. We believe in a gospel that changes your life. That you're progressively sanctifying, that you're not the same person you were the day that you were saved.

But in today's evangelicalism, almost the greatest sin you can commit is to change. To change your view on something is somehow so dangerous, you know. But God actually has his people changing their lives and turning from their idols. But if you turn from one of your idols, it offends people in churches today. But I think that the gospel that we believe in understands that you must get the message right, but the right message hasn't been embraced until somebody's life changes.

So, I think that's a hopeful sign. Here's the second one. We believe that the church should be led by the Word of God alone. And that preaching in the church should be expository and uncompromising in order to bring the whole counsel of God to the church. So, You know, a lot of the guys that I know that are in family-integrated churches, they do preach expositionally.

And here's one thing they don't do. They don't jump over tough passages. They explain them. Even though they're offensive, even though they might actually cause a departure of a wealthy family in the Church. Because they don't care.

They just care that God's Word is preached. And when you have men who really don't care about the favor of man, and they do care about the proclamation of the word of God, then you have a formidable weapon against the works of the devil in the world. And you also have a place where the gospel can be preserved. Because the gospel is offensive. It is a great offense.

It's a stumbling block. And if you can't lay down a stumbling block, then you can't really have the true gospel. But. But we you know, we believe that the church should be led by the Word of God alone. And it's all true.

Every part of it's true and all of it's good. That makes all the difference in the world. I believe that churches like that have a real shot at preserving the Gospel in the next generation. Here's a third thing. We believe that Scripture is sufficient for everything, for life and godliness.

And that means that it should reform and inform every area. Everything in your life. Everything in your church life. Everything in every part of your life, including the civil government. We are a little bit like modern day Puritans in the sense that we want the word of God to govern everything.

Now, J.I. Packer said that the Puritans were the godliest generation since the New Testament church. That might be true. I don't I don't think we're the godliest generation since the New Testament church. I just want to say we're sort of like Puritans, you know.

We, you know, our brains have been so pickled in worldliness and entertainments and all kinds of stuff that We have a long way to go, but here's one thing. We at least believe that scripture is sufficient, and we think that we should apply it in the most intimate areas of our lives. And we also believe that we should give up things, traditions, that contradict the Scriptures. We really do believe that. Have we done that?

No, we haven't really done all that. I mean, God has it that that finally happens in Heaven. We're so blind to our sins. We're self-congratulating in so many ways it's hard for us to see our own sins. And God is merciful.

He gives us His word and He gives us His Spirit, and He convicts us of things along the way. And so we can be thankful for that. But at least, I think that the beginning of the preservation of the Gospel in any generation really begins with believing that Scripture is sufficient. Once you believe that, then things start to improve in your life. You heal.

You begin to heal from the maladies that have come upon you. And the maladies have come from the traditions of man, but Scripture tends to confront the traditions of man and then and you're washed and your practices and your thinking are cleansed. We have to start thinking a whole new way, thinking the way God thinks. And that begins when you say that Scripture is sufficient. You know, I'm familiar with lots of churches around the world who are embracing this doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture, and they're becoming family integrated churches as a result.

But you know, some of them are, I mean I've seen it in all kinds of different stripes. You know, Pentecostal, charismatic churches, prosperity, gospel churches. But here's what I found. If they really embraced that principle, that scripture is sufficient. I mean, if honestly in their heart, if they weren't just trying to do some new cool hip thing, if it wasn't that, but they really wanted, they really wanted scripture to guide their life, those churches changed.

You show up three years later and it's a different church. Because it's because of God. Because His Word transforms. And so you have, you know, like on the NCFIC website with all these churches, there are some churches that do stuff that I wouldn't approve of or want to do in our church at all. But you know what?

I know this though. If they really, in their heart of hearts, have embraced that principle, they'll never be the same. And they're going to keep on their heavenly journey. God's going to lead them. God's going to take them where He wants to take them at the speed that He wants to take them.

Number four, We believe in the centrality of the church for the equipping of the saints. We have a high view of the local church. We don't have a low view of the local church. We've made the church a big part of our lives. We practice hospitality, we come to the preaching, we try to we try to lead our families by the word of God that's being taught in the church.

We bring our children into the church and say, listen to that man. Let's sing together. Let's pray together. You know, we've made a big deal out of a local church because it is a big deal. Jesus Christ shed his blood for the church.

And so, you know, in our fellowship meals. In our fellowship meals, you can see it. Like you remember, remember when you used to go to church and when the clock struck 12, the parking lot was emptied by 1202, and it was almost like, the parking lot and the building was like if you turned The lights on at midnight and the rats just scattered like that You know You used to go to some people used to go to church like that where there really wasn't that much of a connection you kind Of wanted to get on with it. You know you want to get on with life. But in it, you know, in your church, it's not really like that.

People hang around. Sometimes they hang around forever. You know, you know, it's 3 43 right here, back here, back home. People are still still hanging around. You know, you have to shut the lights off.

You know the deacons you know start yawning over the microphone You know because they want to go home, too. You know but it's because people made a big deal out of church life and the relationships and It's like they love one another if something happens when you eat with people a lot, doesn't it? It's pretty neat. You know like that It gives you more time to talk about things. There's a lot more discipleship that happens and if you're a pastor it's really great because you can talk to a lot of guys on Sunday afternoon you can cover a lot of ground see how guys are doing it's really wonderful isn't it it's really neat but anyway you know we believe that Church the Church of Jesus Christ is a big, big deal.

It's not a sideline of your life. It's like the center of your whole life. Number five, we're trying to bring our families up by using the explicit instruction of the Bible and trying to use scripture alone to guide us in all the different parts of family life, you know, the instruction of family life, the discipline of family life, the church life of family life, you know, the age integrated, family integrated church life, you know, integrated economic life, walking beside your children, the use of the various forms of discipline that God gives parents, the content of the instruction that parents are commanded to be giving to their children. So We're trying to have a different kind of family. We've looked around and we saw how the family is being destroyed everywhere.

Where it's almost impossible to find biblical family life in churches today. It really is. Like in most churches, it's almost impossible to find a man who's leading family worship regularly. It's almost impossible. Well, one reason it's almost impossible is because everybody's so over-scheduled, you can't.

There's just no time for it. But, you know, we're trying to look to the Bible to train up our families. And, You know, the family is like a. The Puritan said that the family was like a fountain into all of society. That it.

It's a fountain that's, you know, purified and then it flows out into the community. And we're trying to have families. That fulfill the basic biblical pictures of a family. I mean, family is a big deal in the Bible. You know, History starts with a family in heaven.

God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And then God puts a family in the earth and then He replicates families. And then He makes His people a family, the household of Israel. And then it's the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, the family of God. And then He takes you to heaven and He puts you in His house where all the families of God are there in heaven.

So, family is a big deal. You have your little family, but God gives you a bigger family. He gives you more than just your biological family. Another thing about this family life is that, you know, we recognize that our families are not enough. We need a big family.

We need the church family. We need more brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers and grandmothers and grandfathers in the faith to help us along the way. You know, we need the Titus 2 women. We need the 8 year old boy who's full of wonder. We need the whole family to be together.

Number 6. We have a multi-generational objective of the proclamation of the progress of the gospel and that governs our church life and our family agendas. And passing on the faith to the next generation concerns us greatly. And so we worship together and we work together because it matters greatly that we pass on the faith and that we do it personally by walking beside our children. I think things like that really work for the preservation of the gospel the next generation here's the number seven we're not outsourcing our children into our children's education to pick two pagans we're not willing to corrupt the next generation by giving them eight hours a day of pagan philosophy.

We're done with that. We're not going to do that anymore. You know, most of the old people in this room did that and they understand what happened to them as a result. They're not doing that with their children. That's a really good thing.

But we're convinced that home discipleship is a biblical norm and that the public education system is not just a poor alternative, but that it actually violates almost every biblical command and principle for the education of children. Instead of the training and the admonition of the Lord, It's the doctrines of demons. Instead of purity, let me show you how to find your sexual preference. So, we're done with that. We're not doing that anymore.

It's a good thing. It's a really good thing. And you know what? It's a force to preserve the gospel because the gospel is hated in those schools. So 1 John says, what's the spirit of Antichrist?

The spirit of the Antichrist is any spirit that does not say that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. It's the spirit of the Antichrist that rules and reigns those schools right now. You know, it hadn't always been that way, I don't think. A long time ago, it was different. But today, as a result, we have quit outsourcing our education to pagans.

And that's going to work for the good, for the preservation of the Gospel. Number eight, we're contradicting and we're actually destroying youth culture Because of our understanding of discipleship methodology in the Bible, where you have the older teaching the younger, where all the generations are together. We've rejected the idea that the church should be divided by age, but rather that it should be a picture of unity of all ages, integration of all stations of life, mixing all life stages, mixing all economic status, mixing everybody up together to make a family. Because why? Because the church is one body.

It's not a bunch of different bodies. It's one diverse body and as a result you end up destroying the fragmentation of the church by age or life stage or economic status or interest or something like that. And we then we've weighed in and we've said we're not going to build youth culture around here. We've weighed in and said we're not going to build senior citizen culture around here. Yeah, we've weighed in and said we're going to build a culture of heaven.

Which is every tongue, tribe and nation, age, person, everything you can imagine, one polyglot of humanity together in the church. Because we realize that the older need the younger, the younger need the older, the poor need the rich, the rich need the poor, the wise need the foolish, the brilliant need those who aren't so brilliant. We need each other. We're, you know, the hand can't say to the foot, I don't need you. We're one body, you know, and, you know, I mean, look around this room.

It's neat because everywhere I look, you've got some old guy and a little girl and an older woman and a and a you know it's it's really fantastic it really it is a picture of heaven I love it just looking out on this crowd is such a blessing to me um as for me personally I think it's actually sinful to cultivate youth culture anywhere, especially in a church, because you just multiply foolishness. You take immature people and you put them with other immature people. And though, you know, some of them may have wonderful motivations and things like that. But what you get is devolution when you put youth together. You know what?

You get devolution when you put senior citizens together. You get devolution when you put single people together all by themselves. You know, I'll never forget a few years ago, it was like about eight years ago, a singles pastor in our community, He had the biggest singles ministry in the whole community. And he called me up and he said, could I meet with you? And I said, yeah, sure.

So sort of under the cover of night, you know, with dark sunglasses, he met with me. It was very funny. You know, he kind of pulled his hat down over his head, so nobody would know it was him meeting with me. And he said, he said, I'm concerned. He said, I don't think that putting all these singles together is maturing them.

They're not maturing. That's what he said. Well, yeah, I said because, you know, that's not how God has it. You know, he puts single people and married people together and and you know divorce people and little people and big people and people who have fine clothes and those who don't even know what fine clothes are. You know, it puts them all together.

It's good, it's really good for them. You know, it keeps them from being, you know, so hip. And it makes them humble and holy. It's a good thing, it's a good thing. But anyway, so we're counteracting and actually destroying youth culture.

Why? Because of the Bible. It's really only because of the Bible. It's what you see in the Bible number nine we're not we're not antinomian in our understanding of Scripture. We've been there, done that, and we've gladly embraced the idea that the governor of the world has given laws to direct us.

We believe that our hearts are wicked and will lead us astray. We believe that we need an outside voice. And in our understanding of the harmony of the Old and the New Testaments and our convictions regarding the use of the law and the gospel are founded really in historic Christianity. And they've been set aside in modern times. And so we've hearkened back to the great confessions of faith.

The Westminster Confession, the Baptist Confession of 1689, which really defined these matters. But they've been despised and abandoned, you know, over the last hundred years. Now, The churches that genuinely embrace that Scripture is sufficient, that are dedicated to the centrality of the Word of God, who preach the Gospel, who are fiercely desirous of obedience, who are reviving biblical family life, those will be the churches that will preserve the gospel in the next generation. Now God, God can preserve his gospel any way he wants. By the way, he is going to preserve his gospel.

Whether these churches, whether you're here or I'm here, he is going to do that, absolutely. He does not need us. He will do it. He's preserving his church. There's a remnant.

You can't stop out the church. People have tried to stop out the church, you know, many, many times in history. It isn't going to happen. Jesus is going to build his church. At the same time, he's given us directions.

And let's be humble people to follow the directions. Let's preserve the gospel for the next generation. So that was all. That was what I wanted to say. So is it time for questions?

Okay, yeah. Brother Brown, I just wanted to add, you were part of a the Christ centered marriage conference is that correct yeah we put on a conference called gospel centered marriage gospel centered marriage for a glorious church yeah and I listened to that and You were powerful in your message there, and you were so incredibly precise. How you presented your portion of that conference was excellent. And I think the compilation of all the messages in there is an excellent resource to get families, men, and husbands and wives to begin to really start to think deeply about all the aspects of that which is like Right around the corner for a lot of us in this in this church. Yeah, we're coming up fast So I just wanted to for the whole body we do carry that that wasn't in library and it's an excellent resource Yeah, I thanks for bringing that up.

We did that conference. Two-thirds of the people, there were, you know, there were way over 2, 000 people. Two-thirds of them were young people. It was really neat. That's why we did the conference.

There's a lot, There's a lot in that conference for marriages. But also, my messages were expositional messages on Ephesians 5. I would encourage you young people to listen to those. I also just published a book I didn't write. I edited it.

It was written by an English Puritan by the name of William Gouge, and The second volume is on marriage. We just released that. And I'd encourage you to read that. I'd really encourage husbands to read that. Marriage is really important.

And, you know, most of these family-integrated churches that started six, eight, ten years ago had a bunch of little kids in them and now guess what? It's not like that. Our deacon, we got together with our deacons, the elders got together with the deacons last year and we said, hey, is there anything going on that we're not seeing that you think we need to do something about? And one of them said, do you realize that in, I can't remember how many years he said, they're going to be, he said like 60 or 100 of these children that are going to be ready for marriage in this church. You know that?

And they said, what are you going to do about it? And it's a fair question. Thank you, Brother Brown. I appreciate all your messages. I'm not trying to shift gears here.

But Just a quick question from your first sermon. And when you're talking about the differing, the three types of laws, ceremonial, judicial, and moral, and you made the comment that the judicial law was suspended when Israel was conquered. I was just wondering if you could explain that a little bit more. Yeah, I mean, I was actually quoting verbatim the language of the Baptist confession. So I'd encourage you to read that.

But yeah, that's the Reformed view, that the laws were specifically for Israel, but yet they should be referred to principally. And their, see, what's the language? Their, the word that they use is fail, is escaping me. But yeah, I would encourage you to read that section and look up the passages of that. I did a, Our elders did a video series called Family Foundations and Sound Doctrine, where we did a video on all the different chapters of the confession.

And what we did, we wanted to just sort of talk to families eyeball to eyeball, like, hey, how do you apply this confession in your family? And so That video, we have a video on that too. But it's designed for families to look at. Hi. Thanks for coming here.

I appreciate your sermon. It was very, very well done. Amen. I'm also, I know Dan Horne is one of your elders, and I'm a fan of his Lord's Day sermons. My question, or To answer your previous question, I think the term you were looking for was general equity.

Is that correct? Yeah, thanks. You're welcome. My question for you is, I think you were asked this question once before, but they didn't give you enough time to answer. I think it was on a TV show with Charlie Rose.

He asked about, and I know how I would answer it, but he said, what about microphones? Like, we're using microphones now. They're not in scripture, and I know I would answer that. I was wondering how, because I don't think they gave you time to answer that question. So, right.

I have an article about that. If you go to the divided website, divided.com, I have a whole article on that question. And so there are, you know, There are things like chairs and lights and air conditioning and microphones. Those are different categories than discipleship and the Word of God. They're completely different categories.

Like this floor we're standing on. I mean, is it lawful to stand on a floor like this when you're in church? Well, that's not the same category as the discipleship of the next generation, which the Bible actually does say something about. And our argument, see, in that interview, they actually made an argument that we don't make and attributed to us. They said what they proposed was what they said I was saying is because youth groups aren't in Scripture, well, neither are microphones.

That's what they said. But that's not my argument at all. My argument is the only thing in Scripture explicitly is a generational discipleship methodology. That's the only thing you see in Scripture. It is true that you don't see the other thing.

But that's not the art. It's not an argument from silence. It's an argument from the presence of something that's there, but microphones and air conditioners ain't on the same level as discipleship Amen, thank you I was just wondering because you talked about the law and probably gonna listen to message again, but just basically my question is, can you pinpoint some motive, because most of us here I would assume we want to live according to the Bible. But could you pinpoint some motivations for us and encourage us to guard our hearts against legalism? You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. Let's define legalism. Yeah, let's define legalism. Legalism is the idea that you can be justified before God by obedience. So that's what the legalist does.

The legalist also says, if I obey in this area, I'm actually better than that other person. So a legalist exalts his works to puff himself up before God and man. So, when you do what you do to puff yourself up, to make yourself acceptable to God or man. If you do it for that reason, you're a legalist. If you do it because you love God, and you delight in His ways, and you recognize that even your greatest obedience is like filthy rags, then you're probably thinking right.

The legalist wants to kind of shine himself up for himself. You know, you can have this nice, well-washed, ordered family. And everybody says, yes, sir, no, sir, no, ma'am, yes, ma'am. But sometimes that happens just because you got a prideful parent who just wants to put on airs. And They're not doing it for the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

They're doing it to make themselves look good. They want a nice family because they want a nice family for themselves to please themselves and everybody else so that they can puff up their chest in front of everybody. That's the legalist. The legalist exalts outward appearance. The Christian begins on the inside.

You know, legalisms and false religions start from the outside in. Christianity is from the inside out. One of the verses that, because I want to guard my heart, but when you scripture to guard my heart, not just to do it, just to do it. But the number one verse for me that helps me is 2 Corinthians 5, I think probably like 14 or something like that, where it says, We should no longer live for ourselves, but live for the one who died for us and rose in the grave. So because he died for me, I want to live for him.

So that's the scripture I focus on. Yeah, no, that's wonderful. Thank you. Yeah, that's helpful. Brother Scott, thank you for coming to Arizona.

There you are. Okay. And I appreciate your words, appreciate the time you spend in scripture. I'd like to go back to the whole courtship thing on there. How do we as a family integrated church create an atmosphere where prior to courtship a young man can be in the company of a young woman and a young woman can be in the company of a young man, where their hearts do not get entangled, where we are protecting that, and yet to give both an opportunity to see character and to see, okay, is this a potential person that God would have me go into a courtship or whatever you want to call it?

Great question. I think I have a message on that on that same set on Gospel Center marriages, I think. If not, it's on sermon audio, but how young people relate to each other in the church. But here are a few thoughts. It's important that there's a culture in the church that is consistent with the biblical culture.

And what that means is that the relational atmosphere of the church is consistent with scripture. It's obedient to scripture. So that means that the young people treat one another the way that God would have them treat one another. I've seen cultures and churches where like it's illegal for the young people to ever talk to each other. It's just, I mean, if they do, if they ever do, everybody starts yapping.

Oh, did you see them? They're talking. Did you see they they were sitting next to each other and they're yapping? You know, they're gossiping about it. And young people can't even talk to each other.

You know, but why is that wrong? It's wrong because it completely overthrows the biblical sociology of a church where they're brothers and sisters. You know, they have to be brothers. They're required to be brothers and sisters, and that means that they should talk to each other. And it shouldn't be a scandal And it shouldn't be a rumor of a courtship or whatever you want to call it every time two young people talk to each other So you have to guard that in your church?

You know the ladies especially in the church need to shut their mouths when they see a couple of young people talking to each other. It's none of their business at all, right? I didn't get an amen. OK, all right. What's that?

OK. So you have to guard a relational atmosphere that's biblical. You know, the young men should treat the young women like sisters. You know, that doesn't mean that they pull their hair and chase them around. That's not what that means.

But they treat them like sisters. And it should be... And if you know what, if they're not doing that, then you parents need to start talking to your children about it. If they're not doing it. If they're so uptight, if they're so worried and uptight, why?

Did they not believe in God? Did they not believe that God put them in this church? Did they not believe that they have responsibilities above and beyond their own feelings and fears about what might happen? That they might, they might, you know, have affection for somebody. Ah, well, you know, that is going to happen.

You know, so we should, we should create an atmosphere of a biblical church life That scripture defines. Hey, so look at the one another's in Scripture You know, the only one you don't want to do is greet one another with a holy kiss. That's the only one other you want to do. So there has to be that kind of atmosphere. Pastor Brown, I believe what you just upper mentioned, what you just mentioned, quote unquote, in due course to the young people, it also applies to husband and wife.

Aren't they regarded as brothers and sisters too? I believe that is true. And it should be enclosed within the environment of we just aforementioned the church culture. And I believe that is true. This is my wife, I say, sister, it always should be regarded either mentally and wherever we go.

Consider your wife as your sister. I believe that's so. Is that true? Well, she's two things. You know, she is your sister, but she is your wife.

And, so, yeah, one doesn't obliterate the other. She's not just your sister. Hey, let's do that every Sunday. Huh? I can't have Scott here every Sunday though, but we do have the word of God every Sunday and that's a blessing.

Those are some good stuff that you want, good stuff. Cultivate that biblical culture, not going to the right or the left. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time that we had to look into your word and think biblically, think deep, think wide about truth and its application, love, and all these things. We do ask that you bless our children, that we would not be overprotective or underprotective, but we would truly love, and that You create that biblical culture, the applications of honor and love and respect, and that marriages would flow from your church, biblical marriages.

We ask that in Jesus' name, knowing that only you can do this. We cry out to you for that kind of a wisdom. Help us to humble ourselves and recognize our own sin in this and our own lack of ability to speak the truth in love and fear and things that prohibit moving forward according to your truth. We need wisdom. We need discernment.

Teach us not to lie to each other, but teach us to speak with kindness and grace in these most sensitive matters and in all these matters. That we would truly love one another because You