In his sermon, Scott Brown discusses the importance of the Scriptures, emphasizing their reliability and sufficiency for understanding God's will and the world. He highlights the necessity of memorizing and knowing the Scriptures to be ready to defend one's faith, illustrated by the story of the Guanabara confession where missionaries in Brazil produced a confession of faith under duress. Brown stresses the importance of translating the Bible accurately into all languages to spread the gospel and facilitate worship, comfort, and hope. Literal translations are preferred to ensure the purity and clarity of God's Word. The sermon also discusses the infallibility of Scripture as the ultimate authority in religious controversies and stresses the need to interpret Scripture with Scripture. Brown underscores the distinction between knowing and loving Scripture, advocating for a deep, heartfelt engagement with the Bible. He concludes by reflecting on historical figures like William Tyndale, whose dedication to Scripture translation exemplifies the ultimate sacrifice for the Word of God.

So here we are at this pivotal chapter and as we come to these last three chapters we find a further affirmation of the reliability of the Word of God. And it brings us to a realization that we need the knowledge of God. We need to have an understanding of the world through what God has said. And these paragraphs so far have made it so clear that only the Word of God is sufficient. And it gives us a sense of what we really believe.

Now if somebody burst into your house and hauled you off to prison for your faith and you were you're forced to confess him or deny him with a confession of faith. Would you be ready? What would you do? Would you be ready and able to confess your faith according to the doctrine that's contained in historic Christianity? Would you be able to testify of the Word of God?

This is one of the great values of memorizing the Word of God. You have it in your heart and you'll be able to refer to it more carefully and specifically in time when you may not have it at your fingertips like if you do end up in prison but do you understand your doctrine well enough do you understand your Bible well enough to declare what you really believe and so as we come to these final paragraphs of this confession in the first chapter on scripture. Let's remember the importance of understanding what you believe distinctively and really the importance of having a confession that you embrace. Let me tell you a story about the importance of knowing your Bible and understanding your confession. The very first Reformed confession that came to the Americas came to Brazil, and that confession actually came to a site very near where the 2016 Olympics took place in Rio and the confession came to be known as the 1558 confession of Guanabara and so in 1557 some missionaries left Calvin's Geneva to go to Brazil to spread the gospel there, and they were also being persecuted, you know, in France at that time.

They were French Huguenots, and they were, you know, encountering vicious persecution. They did, however, go to Brazil to spread the gospel. And they were conducted along their way by a wealthy businessman, a follower of Christ from Geneva. His name was Villaganian and he transported a few dozen of these missionaries. They landed in the Bay of Rio de Janeiro and unfortunately or fortunately, at least under the providence of God, Villaganian reversed his position.

He reverted the Roman Catholic faith. He had his comrades arrested and charged for treason and he worked out a plan to have them tried and punished by Catholic authorities according to Roman Catholic law. And so they were arrested, they were thrown into a room, and they were commanded to produce a confession that included a wide range of doctrinal tenets. They were required within four hours to speak to these very specific areas that they held as their confession. They had no Bibles.

All they had was what the Lord had implanted in their hearts, what they had memorized, what they had studied, what they had reviewed, you know, their life long. Thankfully they came out of a place, the church in Geneva, that had some level of Christian training and expertise in doctrine. And so within four hours They produced what was an 18 paragraph document, and the document was full of the word of God, and it was their confession that they maintained. And they began their confession in the document with 1 Peter 3, 15. Always be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within you this is why it's so critical that we saturate our minds with the Word of God so that we are ready we're always ready to give an answer to the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ now I'll read just the opening line of the confession it went like this according to the doctrine of Peter the Apostle in his first epistle, all Christians must be ready to give reason for the hope which is inside them, and this with all meekness and kindness.

So that was what they did. They produced this document and they submitted their confession and within 12 hours of its submission three of the authors were hanged. Their confession that they signed, that they wrote, was their death sentence and the rest of them were deported back to Geneva. Now how wonderful it is to know what you believe, to have it in your heart, to be able to recite it. This is one of the great values of this confession.

It gives us a sound tuning of our doctrine so that we understand how to explain it. And there are many segments of this confession that are really critical, and I think They're critical even to commit to memory. It's a wonderful thing to have the knowledge of God Implanted So that when that time comes, you know what to say You know what you believe and you're willing to even sign your own decents by it And this is what it means to be a Christian in a wicked and corrupt generation So with these paragraphs eight through ten are the final paragraphs the previous paragraphs of the confession They paint a beautiful picture of how God has loved us so much by bringing us the Word of God. For example, in paragraph 1, the authors declared the absolute necessity of Scripture. You must have it for life and godliness in the second paragraph.

They declared that What the scripture includes in the Old Testament? Book by book and in the New Testament and There's a specific rejection of the Apocrypha in other words to separate scripture from the rest of literature. In the third paragraph, there's an establishment of the absolute superiority of the Bible over all things, and that the Bible is distinctly in a class of its own there's no other book like it that's ever been written and reproduced in the fourth paragraph We learned that we don't need man to tell us that the Bible is sufficient or Certain or infallible because the Bible makes it very clear itself. God has told us that it is that kind of a testimony. In the fifth paragraph we learn that loving every aspect of Scripture is different than just knowing Scripture.

In other words, it's quite different for one to know Scripture and one to love Scripture. This paragraph speaks of the majesty of the style. It's beautiful in language and in its content. And we read these words, the spirit bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts. That the spirit would make the word alive in our hearts because it's not really enough and it's really not all that nourishing to just know Scripture but to love it.

Now that is a completely different matter. And then in paragraph 6 we learned that all matters of life and godliness are either expressly set down or necessarily contained in Scripture. In other words that Scripture speaks to every area of life. So when the question comes up our best response is not, well, here's what I think. Rather, our response is, here's what the Bible says from Genesis to Revelation.

What you and I think is fairly inconsequential. I was going to use the word worthless, But what God thinks is consequential and it is eternally worthwhile. So in paragraph seven, it's admitted that all things in scripture are not a light plane. In other words, it can be a very challenging book. And thank God that it is.

It stretches us. It helps us to think thoughts we never could have on our own. It bends our minds. Sometimes if you're trying to preach it, it'll drive you near insane to try to somehow faithfully represent it because you desire to represent it carefully. So now as we come to chapters eight through ten, we find further affirmation of the reliability of the Word of God.

I'm going to read these paragraphs and then make some comments. The paragraph number eight speaks of the availability of Scripture in multiple languages and this is really an important matter. Paragraph eight, the Old Testament in Hebrew which was the native language of the people of God of old, and the New Testament in Greek, which at the time of writing of it was most generally known to the nations, being immediately inspired by God and by His singular care and providence, kept pure for all ages, are therefore authentic. So as in all controversies of religion, the Church is finally to appeal to them. But because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God who have a right unto and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded in the fear of God to read and to search them.

Therefore they are to be translated into the vulgar language of every nation unto which they came. That the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship Him in an acceptable manner, and through patience and comfort of the Scriptures may have hope." So this paragraph declares the universal need of Scripture in every language. And it emphasizes how the gospel is transferred and spread through the translation of scripture. Our church, even right now, is participating in a translation of the Bible in the Turkish language. We've dedicated several hundred dollars per month to Fikret Bocak in Turkey, who is translating a new version of the Bible the version that they have was produced by Wycliffe and some others and and the translation is so poor you can't even really preach from it because it wasn't a literal translation and So when Fickrit preaches he has to translate it first and print it for the people so they can actually read the words, because the translation that they have was worse than just a thought-for-thought translation.

And the people of God need a word-for-word translation so that they can, first of all, hear it preached faithfully, and secondly, so that they can understand it clearly when they read it. And this is why the authors of the confession speak about having the Bible translated into your vulgar tongue You know all these vulgar tongues that were created the Tower of Babel as you know The nation spread out throughout all the world they need to be translated and you know the languages are fascinating and very very different. This multi-year project, it will probably be a decade-long project. We don't know for sure. They just finished Genesis there in that Turkish translation.

They're now moving to Exodus, but think of what a blessing it is to have the book of Genesis and then not very long from now the book of Exodus translated in their own language. What a blessing it is So that a culture would be comforted and a culture would be corrected and sweetened and actually made happy, because that's really what the Word of God does to any person or nation. And so this phrase here is my favorite phrase in this paragraph that the singular care and providence kept pure in all ages. It acknowledges that all people need the Bible in their own language. And there are three reasons that are listed.

First of all, for worship, to teach them what it is to worship. Secondly, for comfort, for the comfort of the Scriptures. And third, so that they might have hope. Every person, every family, every church, every nation need to know how to worship. They need to be comforted, and they need to have a means of hope in this world.

Without the Word of God, I don't know how you could have hope. How many times has the comfort and the hope of Scripture rescued you from your pity party that you were having because something happened? If we counted them all up collectively, it would probably be thousands and thousands of times because God is so kind to give his word for our comfort and for our hope and to teach us how to worship. Now translation should be literal translations not paraphrases not thought-for-thought renderings of the original Hebrew and the Greek manuscripts. And we should attempt to maintain as much as we can a right philosophy of translation.

Many of the translation organizations in the world have really rejected the whole idea of a literal translation. And the accommodations can be devastating and there there's some really remarkable things that are going on right now in our world that are examples of how devastating it is when you depart from a proper philosophy of translation. You know, the translation of the Bible has always been so important. Think of William Tyndale. You know, go back in history and William Tyndale, of course, was translating a Bible and he caused so much controversy he had to flee his home country and Stephen Vaughan wrote about Tyndale and he says I always find him singing one note Tyndale was only singing one note and And what was that note?

That note that he was always singing was this, will the King of England give an official endorsement to the vulgar English language version of this Bible. That was his one note. He wanted the Bible to be translated into English and his question to the King is, will you endorse it? If you will endorse it, I will come back to England and I won't write any more books. And that was the driving passion of his life, to see the Hebrew and the Greek original translated into ordinary English and make it available to every English speaking person.

And of course, Henry VIII was very angry at Tyndale for believing in and promoting the Reformation and particularly Martin Luther's teachings. And Tyndale said He would give himself up on one condition, that the king would authorize the English Bible translation in both Greek and Hebrew. The king refused. Tyndale never went back to his homeland. It cost him his life, five years after he was marked by the king.

But for the first time ever in history the Greek New Testament was translated into English and it was also for the very first time available in printed form and for a thousand years Tyndale's translation was the guide And there are so many of Tyndale's renderings that we've grown to love. Here are some of the ways that he rendered in English some of the Greek and Hebrew Translations. Let there be light. Genesis 1.3. That was Tyndale who rendered that Hebrew phrase that way.

Am I my brother's keeper? Genesis 4.9. The set of the Tyndale Bible. The Lord bless thee and keep thee the Lord make his face to shine upon me and be merciful unto thee The Lord lift up his countenance upon me and give thee peace numbers 624 through 26 in The beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God John 1 1 well I could go on Some of the most compelling and beautiful phrases that have ever been written were rendered first in English, the language with which we read our own Bibles go back to a man who died, he was finally martyred, for his work here with the Bible. Well, all this to say that it's critical that we know our Bibles, that we know what the Word of God says, that our confession is sound, that we can communicate what we believe in the same way that those who wrote the Guanabara confession did.

When Tyndale was executed, he was executed on these following doctrinal positions. First, he maintained that faith alone justifies. Second, he maintained that to believe in the forgiveness of sins and to embrace the mercy offered in the gospel was enough for salvation. Third, he averred that human traditions cannot bind the conscience except where their neglect might cause a scandal. Fourth, he denied the freedom of the will.

Fifth, he denied that there is any purgatory. Sixth, he affirmed that neither the virgin nor the saints pray for us in their own person. Seventh, he asserted that neither the Virgin nor the Saints should be invoked by us. Now it was a long long list. You can read it in Fox's book of martyrs.

It's all documented there. So it's so critical that we that we translate the Word of God and that's what this paragraph 8 is all about. And then paragraph 9 reads like this, the infallible rule of interpretation of scripture is the scripture itself. And therefore when there is a question about the true and full sense of any scripture, which is not manifold, but one, it must be searched by other places that speak more clearly." So this ninth paragraph speaks about the absolute finality and infallibility of Scripture. It answers the question, how do you solve problems, particularly when there are Phrases that appear maybe just one time or a subject that just appears one time How in the world are you supposed to?

Bring scripture to bear when there's no other corroborating scripture to be had so this paragraph addresses that problem And the answer is to search the scripture from Genesis to Revelation. And this is why the authors of the confession said quote, quote, the interpretation of Scripture is Scripture itself. So how do you interpret something in Scripture? You use Scripture to interpret Scripture. You know, you use psychology, you know, you use history.

You use Scripture, and you use Scripture alone. And this is perhaps one of the most fundamental rules of hermeneutics. In the whole science of biblical interpretation, you have to recognize that the way that you interpret scripture is by scripture. If you want to explain something, you've got to go to another scripture in order to do such a thing, because scripture interprets scripture. Scripture is the measuring stick that reveals error.

Science is not the interpreter of scripture, neither is history the interpreter of scripture, neither is archaeology the interpreter of scripture, neither is psychology the interpreter of scripture. You've got to get that straight or you'll always be jerked around by the latest whatever in psychology or history or archaeology The question is is the Bible true? Absolutely it is That doesn't tell everything but everything that it tells is true as as the previous section revealed to us. I like the way Sam Waldron states this in his commentary on the confession. He says this, clearly if given a choice between the statements of modern science or the assertions of the Bible, these authors would find favor of the Bible every time.

Clearly, there is no justification for the idea that either the London or the Westminster Confessions tolerate deviations from unlimited inerrancy. So it's a statement about inerrancy and the Scriptures interpretability by Scripture alone. And then in paragraph 10, we read this. The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest can be no other but the Holy Scripture delivered by the Spirit into which the scripture so delivered our faith is finally resolved. And so the tenth paragraph speaks to the issue of the onslaught of ideas, the onslaught of personalities, the onslaught of groups gathering together and making decisions and councils, and all kinds of things like that.

Why do you interpret what they are saying? What should you do? The idea here is that just because a council says something doesn't mean that it's right. Just because an individual had a private revelation, or just because a group of people say one thing, it doesn't matter. Scripture matters.

Everything must be tested. This is the beauty of the Berean Church. They examined to see if the things that the Apostle Paul said were true. It's right to do that. But here you find the Scripture being the final measurement of all things.

Scripture solves all controversies. I like the way that the confession reads here, all spirits, all ancient writers, all of them need to be examined. You know the Lord Jesus Christ dealt with this kind of thing in his own earthly ministry in Matthew chapter 22 verse 29 Jesus answered and said to them you are mistaken not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God well that's the essence of this paragraph here that the scriptures do speak. And so the Word of God as we've been saying all along is sufficient, it is infallible, it is the rule of faith, it is the judge of every man, every government, every church, every family, every individual. It always comes down on the right side of every single issue and we can trust it.

You know we grow up in this world and our thinking is corrupt. We don't really have a right sense of justice. We don't really know what love is because we learned it from the world. We don't know what righteousness is. We don't really know what truth is except by this, that we have the Word of Truth.

That's why David said, oh, oh how I love thy law. It's my meditation all the day. It makes me wiser than my teachers. This is the beauty of the Word of God. And it's for us to saturate our hearts with it from the rising of the Sun and to the time that it goes down.

It's the responsibility that God gives to fathers to teach their children when they sit in the house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, and when they rise up. And it is something that lives in their hearts, and because it lives in their hearts and they love it, then it comes out. And as we think about our lives together as a church, there are few things as important as families having the word of God in the center of their whole family life. That it's the chief gravitational force. It's the thing that captures the most time.

It's the thing that thrills the heart the most. Here's a reality about the way we're wired. If you thrill your heart on all kinds of other stuff than the Word of God, you won't have much thrill in the Word of God. God has made us in such a way that the things that we look at, the sounds that we hear, we fall in love with them. That's the way we're wired.

The more you see the Word of God and ponder it in your heart, the more you study it, the more you love it, and the more you're attracted to it. But that's true about everything in this world, and God has wired us in that way. So it's such a worthy thing to stand for the Word of God. In the book of Revelation, there's this scene where there are saints who have been martyred for the word of God. They actually were killed because of the word of God.

And they're crying out under the throne of God and they're saying, how long, how long, oh Lord, will it be until you vindicate us? And the Lord says, not yet. The number of the martyrs must be filled up first because it is to the people of God to die for the Word of God And you may lose your job because of the Word of God. You may lose your friends because of the Word of God. But it's for us to be willing to go the entire length for the Word of God.

You know, when you think about William Tyndale, it was October 1536 where Tyndale was led out of the castle and the sun was just coming up and he looked out over the crowd and there were the stakes in place for his execution. And there was a big pile of wood in the form of a cross. And there was a chain that was hung from the top. And a noose of rope was threaded through a hole in that structure and he was brought out and he was urged to recant and Tyndale stood there like a stone his eyes looking at the people the people the common people, for which he translated the Bible. And with a final prayer, he said, Lord, open the king of England's eyes.

And then his feet were bound to the stake and a chain was wrapped around his neck and the rope was placed at his throat and the brush and the logs were heaped up around him and he went down and a great force snapped around the noose and Tyndale was strangled and then he was burned to death. Tyndale you know risked his life really to fulfill what this confession has called for us to do, to translate the Word of God and spread the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. The glory of God is so communicated in the Word of God. And, you know, it's right for us to be involved in translating the Bible in different parts of the world. Let's pray.

Lord, We thank you for giving us your word, such comfort, such consolation, such hope that you've given to us, such a revelation of your Son. Oh Lord, we pray that you would give us such a heart within us to love it and obey it and to declare it from sea to sea amen