In Douglas Campbell's sermon titled 'The Scriptures', he introduces the concept of means of grace, emphasizing the role of scripture as a foundational element for growth and sanctification in Christian life. He references 2 Timothy 3:16-17 to illustrate that all scripture is divinely inspired and useful for teaching, correction, and training in righteousness. Campbell underscores the importance of viewing scripture as a gift from God, meant to guide believers towards holiness and unity. He distinguishes between mercy (not receiving what we deserve) and grace (receiving what we do not deserve), emphasizing that grace enables believers to become more like Christ. The sermon addresses the reliability of the New Testament, debunking myths about its authenticity by elaborating on the vast historical manuscripts available. Campbell encourages believers to engage deeply with the scripture through various reading approaches—ranging from broad overviews to detailed studies—and stresses the importance of obedience to the Word as a means of grace. He also critiques the modern Christian tendency to treat faith superficially, urging a return to the foundational practices of reading, prayer, and community involvement for true spiritual growth.

Morning, if you would turn with me to 2nd Timothy chapter 3. Last week as we had preached on the great deception or the great deceiver, the solution to not following for the great deceiver is to draw near to God by His means of grace. And so essentially it is the means of grace or the Christianity 101 or not Christianity, it would be sanctification 101 or growth 101. So for the next few weeks I would like to go over again what are these things in which God ordinarily grows us by, or what is the means of grace? And so this morning, as part one, I would like to look at the first means of grace and oftentimes, and rightly so, declared as the foundational means of grace.

This morning I'd like to look at the Scriptures. So 2 Timothy 3 verses 16 through 17. The word of God says, all scripture is breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day that you've given us.

Thank you for brothers and sisters in your design, gathering together to worship you together. Worship you not only in singing, but in praying, and reading your word, and hearing your Word expounded upon and exhorting one another and caring for one another and practicing all those one another's Father of which You set forth in your will at the foundation of the world as those things at which you would use to strengthen your people. Father, as we have come through a week where we have spent maybe more time than normal with family and with others, Father. I couldn't help be reminded of the blessing of my eternal family. My eternal family who will, we will love you and serve you for all of eternity together.

What a blessing that is. So Father, this morning We thank you. We look at your will and, Father, it is, it's unable to be grasped. It's unable to be comprehended at how wise, how great you are, and even caring for those whom by our declarations at one time declared ourselves to be your enemies. So Father this morning would you draw us?

Father this morning, would you continue in us what you have started as your word promises? Would you bring us to completion? But father we would be as much like you as we can on this earth and and one day that father we will be like you because you have delivered us once and for all from this flesh. Father, thinking of these things wells up within us to say how great Thou art, how great you have been to us, how great you continue to be to us. So father, this morning in your praises, we would pray that your will would be done, that you would bring us to completion, that you would bring us closer to you, that you would break us where we need broken, and you would mend us where we need mended, that your Word would be a two-edged sword that would cut to our hearts, that Father, you would give us understanding of your Word, and that Father, you would give us a will that desires above all to be like our King.

Father, help us today we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Well this morning, I don't tend to spend lots of time on topical studies, but when we come to an end of preaching through a book, sometimes I feel like this is a great place to put a topical study in that I believe would do the church well. And so this morning I would like to look in the next few weeks at the means of grace.

In the Reformed Church in Latin as Brother Jake gave us some Latin in Sunday school, This became known as Media Gratiae. And in fact, you've probably, as we've watched different video trainings, you'll see there's a company called Media Gratiae, and they put out really good stuff that really has a blessing to, I think everything they put out has been an immense blessing, and I would encourage you to go through their studies and do these things. But what does this mean? It essentially means the means of grace. The definition of that is, it's those means or gifts that the Lord Jesus Christ has given to the church for its ongoing sanctification or growth and sanctification or holiness.

It is that which makes the church become more like Christ. Now I would remind you, when we say means of grace, essentially There are lots of means of grace, but in the coming weeks, I'm going to look at the four main means of grace, the four prominent ones. This morning, the Scriptures. Next week, Lord willing, we'll look at prayer. And The week after, repentance and confession.

And finally, on the fourth week, we'll look at participation in the life and ministry of the local church. Now, for the flesh, these all seem like things that are checkbox things. But in fact, if you turn these into checkbox things, they are no longer the means of grace, they're the means of works based religion. And so this morning we have to come to them rightly. We have to first understand what does the word grace mean.

If you, we oftentimes, when we talk about salvation, we talk about that God is merciful. And if you children and adults, if you remember, what is the definition of mercy? It's not getting what you deserve. That you deserve the wrath of God to be poured out upon you for your rebellion and sin against the God who has given you everything that you have. You deserve His punishment.

In fact, our world doesn't like to hear this very much because they like to be a positive world and they care more about making themselves feel good than the truth oftentimes. And this would be very offensive to them, but you and I deserve hell. And when you've heard descriptions of hell that have caused you to think this is a really bad place, let me—maybe this isn't a reassurance—but let me tell you rightly, you have way weakened it down. You can't comprehend what hell will be like. In your worst nightmares, it will be infinitely times And friends, I and you deserve it.

We deserve it. We deserve it. But God, because He's the God of mercy, He doesn't give us what we deserve. In His will and the way that He has chosen to glorify Himself to the world, He has made a way of salvation for all of those who turn from their sin and trust in the work of Christ, who trust that Christ took the punishment on the cross for their sin, who trust that Christ rose on the third day and defeated death and proved to the world once and for all, not just religiously, but scientifically with eyes, eyewitnesses. He proved to the world that He was who He said He was.

And He reassured the world that if you turn from your sin and trust in Christ alone for your salvation, you will find mercy. You won't get what you deserve, because the one who loves you more than you can comprehend took that punishment on himself. That is immense mercy. That's a mercy you and I can't comprehend, but in fact it is because who God is. He's merciful.

Now on the other side of that is, we receive His mercy and at the same time, at the same instant, we receive His grace. And the definition of grace is this. The definition of mercy is not getting what you deserve. The definition of grace is getting what you don't deserve. So what do you get?

Christ takes the punishment on himself, giving you mercy, but then all of the works that Christ did upon the earth, all of those things of which he worked righteousness unto God, he thereby gives you grace and places them into your account before God. And friends, that's a grace you can't comprehend. Because when you stand before God and He sees good works, Such good works that you deserve rewarded for all of eternity to be in his presence, to be in heaven where the tears will be wiped away, where health problems will be no more, where fighting will be no more, selfishness will be no more. All of these things at which we suffer in this world will be no more. And on top of that, we get to live with the God who gave us everything and rescued us for all of eternity.

We get to be with our King. We get to be with Christ. This is a grace you can't comprehend. Now with that in mind, we come to these means of grace, And they are getting what you don't deserve. Apply this to the means of grace.

You're getting what you don't deserve. Friends, this thing of which most American Christians let sit and gather dust on their table at home is getting what you don't deserve. You don't deserve this. It is a gift of God. It's in spite of your sin.

He reveals Himself to you in spite of it. And in fact, as we sang those hymns that we traditionally sing at Christmas, and as he sings out, Oh come let us adore him. Oh come let us adore him. And we think of the wise men and we think of the nativity story, but friends, brothers, sisters, It's still for today. And you say, well, what do you mean?

Do we come and do we look at a nativity and do we adore Him? No, that's idolatry. Oh, come, let us adore Him. Christ is the Word. Today we can come and adore Him.

And in fact, if we don't read it, We don't adore him. We despise his gift. We let it gather dust. Continuing on, How does God sanctify you? And I use that word a lot and I realize it's a theological word.

What it means is, how does God grow you in holiness? How does God in this life, before he takes you to the kingdom that's to come, how does he make you more holy? How does He make you more holy? How does He make you more like Him? How does He choose to do that?

Now we understand, and we went through this in the past, that salvation is monergistic. It is God Himself intervening, and it's God alone who saves you. Yet growing in grace or sanctification, growing in holiness is synergistic. That in fact the Reformers and theologians would today would would even add another word to media gradia and I can't remember I will Badly butcher it so I won't even tell it to you, but the English word for that is ordinary It is the ordinary means of grace That this is how God ordinarily makes synergistically working, you working together with Him. This is how He makes you more like Him.

How He makes you more holy. How He makes you grow in the faith. This is how He normally operates. Now look at Galatians chapter 3 verses 1 through 9, and we find that in modern Christianity we find that this to be at play. It says, oh, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?

It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this, did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish, having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith, just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Know then that it is those who are the sons of Abraham and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached by the gospel before him to Abraham, saying, and you shall all the nations be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. What do I mean by this? What do I mean this is the folly or the downfall of American Christian religion It's that American Christian religion takes this approach It's it's they say that God has saved me now I will grow more like Christ because I'll try harder. For instance, what do I mean by that?

I will be nicer to my wife because I will try really, really hard to be nice to my wife. I will disciple my children. I will read the Bible to them at night, because I'm going to try really, really hard to disciple my children. And friends, as we get into prayer, I've been studying that some too, these things are great works. In fact, I can't remember who said it, but prayer is one of the hardest of these things.

And left to you trying, you will fail. Left to you trying. And men, you would agree with me, I pound on you pretty hard. You got to be a man. Start discipling your family.

Do these things. But left to your effort, you won't. Left to your effort, you're just like me. And you'll start to say well you know we had this going on and that going on and before long you're only doing it once once a week and then before long well it's been a few weeks and before long you're not doing it at all and you say well I just need to try harder again I need to try harder at not smoking I need to try harder at eating less I need to try harder. This is, it's a bewitchment.

Why? Because you can't. You can't. The solution isn't to try harder. The solution is to focus on the means of grace.

The solution has always been that. That God doesn't... I could pray over and over and over again. That God, deliver me from... When I get overwhelmed with a hundred brush fires going on at once, deliver me from snapping at my kids when they come to bug me when I'm in the middle of something stressful.

Now that's a good thing to pray, but left to itself is probably going to fail. God would like to deliver, if God, God would deliver me of it, But my problem isn't that I need to be better at it. The problem is I need to be more like God. I need to be more like Him. And to do that, I revert to the means of grace.

Now praying is a means of grace. And so I'm not saying don't pray for that. You should pray for that. But are we bewitched? Do we think that we can raise our children just by trying really hard to be good parents.

The best parents in the world lose their children. Are you hearing me? I see very worldly, very good parents. I've seen a lot of them. I've befriended parents whom their children academically at third grade probably know more than all of my kids put together.

And sometimes brother Jim and I were discussing this, sometimes the homeschool movement can produce this. We can find our faith in homeschooling. And friends, I am number one advocate for homeschooling. I think you should homeschool your children because the Bible says so. I think that's where parents are to train their children.

But that's not what life is about. Your children could be able to do calculus a hundred times over all dressed and matching each other and we joke about this and I'm not in any way suggesting you don't go to homeschool conventions because they are a blessing but you see the perfect family there and they're all dressed the same and they all can do calculus upside down standing on their heads and play 13 instruments at one time and and I love those people but that's not what life is about and if you have smart kids go for it but if they don't know Christ if they aren't practicing the means of grace, you're not winning, you're losing. And it will bite you, it will hurt. Continuing on Philippians 2 12 through 13, therefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed so now not only as in my presence but much more in my absence. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure." See in our modern Christianity today it's all about making some sort of a commitment, doing the right thing, going to church, checking boxes, doing all these things.

And yet, they typically, what is normal, is they never grow in the means of grace. They are never never Attracted by the scripture. They never spend time in prayer They never spend time repenting towards their brothers and confessing their sins to one another They barely can make time for even one hour or two hours on Sunday morning for the life of the local church and the life of ministry. And why is that? Because they have their own life to live.

They say, well, Christianity, I'm forgiven, so what do I have to worry about? I've prayed the prayer, I'm on my way to heaven. I'm not as bad as the guy down the road. I'm not as bad as that Samaritan dog on the other side of town. I have nothing to worry about.

And the world and many of their proclaimed pastors reassure them that this is the Christian faith. They say there's nothing to fear and tremble about. You don't need to worry about growing in your faith. And they, we even begin to, because theology is so bad in this, we have to start making crazy things up. Like, well, I know the guy beat his dog every day and yelled at the neighbors and spread the manure spreader all over their house and hated the pastor and punched him in the face and did all these things.

But by God's glory, he prayed a prayer in VBS when he was 12 years old. So at his funeral, we'll be able to tell the world he's in heaven today. Friends, that's blasphemy. That's blasphemy. What does the text say?

To work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Salvation is a serious issue. Now, we don't save ourselves. But if God has changed your heart, He becomes all things. We begin to worship Him more and more as we should.

We begin to make Him our Lord. We call Him our Lord. We begin to make Him our Lord. We call Him our Lord. We begin to make Him our Lord.

We begin to worship Him in heart, mind, soul, and strength. We begin to love our neighbor as ourselves. The word of God becomes important. And the day that we genuinely come to know Christ, the war against our flesh begins. And we begin to hate it more and more.

And we begin to love God more and more. Until we begin to, we read of people like Martin Luther, who would agonize. He would spend much time in, and I'm not, obviously this is a different time, different, we understand things, I won't clarify, continuing on, He'd spend much time in confession, so much so that it was annoying to people. And he would come out of confession and he would start to walk across the room and he'd turn back around because in that distance he already was overburdened with things that he needed to confess. This is what happens when your heart is regenerate.

You begin to agonize over your sin. You don't dismiss it. You begin to work out your salvation. It's established, but you begin to work it out with fear and trembling. Become more and more aware that you are not like the one whom you aspire to be like.

You cling to him and you chase after him and you desire him above all. This is biblical Christianity. Paul Washer reminds us, he says, our desire for the extraordinary should never lead us to neglect the ordinary means that God has given us to grow. In fact, in God's economy, he usually does not perform the extraordinary until his people have exhausted the ordinary means that he has provided. And in fact, when you read of the Great Awakening, you read of these times where God would bring his church back, God would turn a nation's eyes back upon him.

It wasn't... So I, when I was younger, I was trained Pentecostally. And in the Pentecostal world, we are consumed with, or I was consumed with, thoughts of revival. And to me, revival meant if someone was driving down the street and God has chosen to bring on revival, that they would slam on their brakes when they came by our church and they would swing in, not knowing why, just that they had to come to church. And throughout even the Great Awakening in America, we read of something, obviously they're not driving their cars past the road, But pastors would say that men would come in off the street, and they would say, Pastor, I am just overwhelmed with my sinfulness, and I need help.

Can you help me? And I remember, I can't remember who it was, He said, you haven't been to church in a long time. He's like, and the reply was, it's in the streets, it's everywhere. Like, we are overwhelmed with our sin. Help us.

We read of these things. But these things aren't how God normally does things. How does God normally bring revival? And friends, I am praying. And friends, I am praying.

I went through a long time of not being able to comprehend that God would... I feel like, I felt like for a while that we're we're standing outside the ark and we watch God shut the door That's where our nation is going No nation murders off what brother Jake said no nation murders 4, 000 babies a day it expects God to have mercy on them But God has been changing my prayers. Because throughout history, many times in the church, we have said, obviously it's never been as bad as it is now. God will never have mercy upon us. And God has.

But how does God normally do it? When God brings a great awakening, first, He awakens the pulpits, and secondly, or secondly, not secondarily, secondly, God awakens those in the congregations to go back to the means of grace, to go back to reading the Bible, go back to praying, go back to repentance and confession, go back to participating in the life and ministry of the local church. The life and ministry of the local church at one time, maybe even in some of your lives, was the center point of everything in a town. Today it's something maybe we can squeeze in. The London Baptist 1689 Confession says, the Holy Scriptures are the only sufficient, certain, and infallible standard of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience to preserve and propagate the truth better and to establish and comfort the church with greater certainty against the corruption of the flesh and of the malice of Satan in the world.

The Lord put this revelation completely in writing. Therefore the Holy Scriptures are absolutely necessary because God's former ways of revealing His will to His people have now ceased." And this confession is 100% correct. If you want to know God's will, you're only going to find it in Scripture. Now coming back to 2 Timothy 3, 16-17, again it says, "...all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Now in our generation, and in fact, all the way back to Genesis, when the first challenge for man to consider from Satan was, did God really say, Remember the snake in the garden?

And Eve said, we can't eat of this fruit because God said we will die. And what does Satan's response? Did God really say that? In fact, we have lived in a generation that has screamed this loudly. And so this morning I'm going to look briefly at the reliability of the New Testament.

If you see, I have a chart, I hope that it's come over. You see a chart there? Oh it is there. Is the New Testament really the Word of God? What does our culture say?

If you've ever talked to people on the streets or shared the gospel very much, you'll run into this over and over and over. People will say, well, the Bible is just writings that people have shared, and it was passed down over and over and over again, and translated into different languages, and then translated again. Therefore, it's not the word of God, it's just something man has made. Is that true? See, when people make that argument, it is an argument from 100% ignorance.

It is an argument that is not researched. It's an argument that is simply repeated by people who have done no research. They don't know what even, I don't put my faith in science, but they don't even do the science. They don't even look at it. They just heard this from somebody, and it makes sense in their mind, therefore they repeat it.

Yet those same people, they don't question the Iliad written by Homer. The Iliad was copied. It was written, and it was copied about, so The earliest copy was 400 BC. That was about 500 years after the original was actually written. So 500 years is a substantial time for the telephone game, right?

Everybody likes the telephone game, right? Everybody's played it. 500 years is a long time. If you could say, yes, this was passed down for 500 years before it was actually copied and put into writings that we have today, I would say, yeah, it might have been changed. That's a long time.

Yet nobody questions the authenticity of it. They say, well obviously this is the Iliad. This was written by Homer. You go on to go farther up the writings of Plato. The time gap is 1, 200 years and we have seven copies of it.

Seven copies of the original that were copied 700 or what was that or 1, 200 years later. Do you think there could be? Do you think it may not be exactly the way it was written? Maybe. Probably.

Twelve hundred years is a long time. It was passed down for a long time before it was put in writing. But specifically when we come to the New Testament, we have the original text. If you remember the God moved on men, the Holy Spirit moved upon them to write. God is actually the one whom writes the text.

It is God-breathed. As we just read, all scripture is breathed out by God. It is profitable for teaching. Doesn't mean that everything that that person, whether it be Paul or any other apostle, doesn't mean everything they wrote was Scripture, but it does mean that there are certain things that God moved to where they had the pencil or the pen in hand, and they were doing the writing, but God was moving through them to record who God is, to record the Scriptures. Now as soon as those were recorded, or almost immediately after, what did the church do?

They started to copy it. God, in His will, already had a plan at the foundation of the world, already had this plan set forth of how He would preserve His Word, that He wouldn't let it fall away. So the church begins to copy it, to send it to this church and that church. They don't have telephones and video screens and one preacher to show everybody. Therefore, they need to start copying things.

And these copies were made within a hundred years. Today we have 5, 686 copies of the original Greek manuscript. Of the errors that they find within them, that we see that there's a 99.5% accuracy. Within that, that .5% is nothing that would affect theology. It sometimes is a comma, it sometimes is a word the has gone, and we have overwhelming copies and so when let's say 5, 000 of them all have a the right here and six hundred and eighty six of them forget this the we obviously know the the the text had the word the there.

Josh McDowell writes of just the known five thousand eight hundred Greek New Testament manuscripts, there are more than 2.6 million pages. That equates to one mile of the New Testament manuscripts and 2.5 miles for the entire Bible. Compared with an average four feet of manuscript by the average classical writer. Containing both the Old and New Testaments, we have more than 66, 000 manuscripts and scrolls. God preserved His word.

God cut out the telephone game. When people say that this was passed down and passed, especially the New Testament, we know that the early books, there was a time period here, and Moses summarizes these or records these for us but specifically the New Testament which is very clear about how we come to know and be reconciled with God there is no telephone game We can go back to the original text today. We can study the original text today without question. Scientifically impossible that something was changed through history. Do people that say that we can't trust it because it was passed down, do they say this based off a fact?

Or is it just the snake in the garden saying, did God really say? Again all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. Psalms 119.97 through 105 says, Oh how I love your law, it is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.

I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. I hold back my feet from every evil way in order to keep your word. I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through your precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." Friends, I'm to an age where because of my age and because of the profession God has called me in, I have had much experience and much insight in the path of the result of not living according to God's ways. I have grieved for families. I have grieved for people. In fact, this week I had a conversation with one of my children And I said, I want you to see this because this hurts, but I really want you to see this. These people behave this way.

They have hurt you because of this. They don't know God. They think what they are doing is the best. You're experiencing the devastation of it. You're experiencing the after-effects of it.

And I said, listen, you see it, you see what it's done, you see how it's destroyed immensely. It's tearing this family apart. You see it happening. Don't neglect God's word. Don't do this to your family.

Don't treat it cheaply. Don't pick and choose what you'll obey. This is the result. I said, you know, part of it, I don't sleep good because I just don't sleep good, but a part of it is I hurt for people. I wish they would listen and I wish they would come to Christ.

I wish they could experience what it is to have a family who worships God together. To know what it is to have a family who genuinely loves you, not just what you have to offer, not just what they could fulfill what they want, but they love you. Don't neglect the Word of God. Don't neglect prayer. Don't neglect the means of grace, because this will tear your family apart too.

That's what the enemy does. It's what our flesh does. It always cries out before us, did God really say, he really, you really have to do that? Hasn't God watched the news? People aren't like this anymore.

You're right, they're not. We're You're right, they're not. We're surrounded by devastation. Friends, again, the means of grace aren't the means of a religious checkbox system. They are a gift.

The Scriptures are a gift. The flesh wants you to treat it as a penalty, a delay to your day, a delay to things that are more important, but friends, it is a gift. And if you'll embrace it as a gift from God, you will find lots more gifts. You will agree with the solemnness. You'll say, my life is sweet because of your word, because of your precepts, because God I have obeyed you.

Now next up, the second part of this, and I didn't go tons into this verse because I'm trying to focus more on the means of grace. The 2nd Timothy 3.17, it says, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. This word, this Greek word for complete, is translated into English as fitted out, but the definition of it is it's furnished or equipped with every necessary component. What this means is that the Word of God is everything that you need for life. It's everything.

The Word instructs us in true unity. Do you know why churches are not unified? Because there is no unity outside of God's Word. You know, there are whole denominations that cry, and unfortunately this is called Campbellism. I have nothing to do with it, but you can look it up if you want something boring to look at for a while.

Campbellism teaches it's unity at all costs. It doesn't matter what you believe. We just need to get along as churches, and we just need to work together to make this world more moral. But in reality, there is no unity apart from Scripture. Unity is only given to us by Christ.

We're only unified when our eyes are on Christ. And we can try all the psychological tools that we can get along better. It won't work. There is no unity apart from truth. If you want to be unified in your church, the whole church needs to put their eyes upon Christ.

If you want to be unified in your church, the whole church needs to put their eyes upon Christ. If you want to be unified in your marriage, the husband and wife must put their eyes upon Christ. The Word instructs us in true unity. The Word instructs us in how to live our lives in every aspect they're in. If you're going through a hard time in your life, you don't need Dr.

Phil. You need the Scriptures. And you, some of you, you don't think that the scriptures are enough because you don't read them. And you don't know what they say. The Word instructs us in how we are to relate to one another.

The Word instructs us in how we are to raise our children. The Word instructs us in how we are to raise our children. The Word instructs us in how we are to worship God. The Word instructs us in everything that we need. The answer to any problem is never the word plus.

It's the word. In fact, in our culture, those and many hopefully growing church leaders are terrified at the thought of counseling someone. And therefore they send them off to the experts who will go to men like Sigmund Freud who hated God. And they will try to apply the principles of the one who hates God upon their people, or send them to those people to fix them so they can come back and be more like the world. The elders of this church, if you have problems, they're the ones you should go to.

They're the ones that should have the answers. Why? Because the elders are to be able to teach. And then we come back to the qualifications of elders there to be able to teach. The answers are here.

The elder is supposed to know it well enough to know where they're at. And if he doesn't, he goes to the other elders and says, hey, can you help me? And we, as often times we do, we go to the text together and we wrestle with it. And you wouldn't believe it, but we... One of the reasons I love, and I told Rusty this lots of times, one of the reasons I love these elders and I love Rusty is they don't just go along with what the pastor says.

Oftentimes we're fighting positions that we don't even believe in. Why? Because we want to understand it rightly. We want to see it from all angles. And Rusty oftentimes would say, I hope you don't think I'm just a pain.

Absolutely not. I want to hear the other side, because David might not believe this, but I've been wrong before. And the pastor that's never admitting he's wrong is full of pride, and he's not a pastor. And if I think that I'm always right, I'm not equipped to be a pastor. Pastors cry as we say over and over as elders, we just want to know the truth.

We just want the truth. We just want to dig in and know the truth and we will do what the Word of God says. The answer to any problem is never the word plus. And I'm not a doctor. I'm not.

I don't tell you what medicines you should take or not take but I would tell you before you start taking a pill because of anxiety and stress and what what seems like 95% of our world is doing you should go talk to your elders. And if you talk to us and it doesn't work out and you go to your doctor and he says to take this anyway, I'm not gonna look down upon you or nothing like that, But your first reaction should be to go to the elders. Why? The answer to every problem is in Scripture. Continuing on as we have looked at in the past many times, as we've already alluded to today in John 1, 1 through 5.

It says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

If you want the darkness to not overcome you, you must be in the Word, you must be in Christ. So finally this morning I want to give you some application. How might, I almost didn't think there was another page there, How might you equip yourself with the Word of God? How might you participate in God's means of grace? How might you participate in the way He normally grows Christians?

The first is you must study the Word. In Psalm 119, 130 it says, The unfolding of your words gives light. It imparts understanding to the simple. There are none who can say that I am so simple that I can't understand the Word of God. In fact, in theology, we have this big word that we hopefully don't just use to make ourselves look smart, but it's called the perspicuity of Scripture.

And that essentially means that whether you have an IQ of 10 bajillion or an IQ of 1, you can read the scripture and you can know God. You can know the way of salvation. It imparts understanding to the simple. Today, it's not that we have low IQs, that we don't know theology well in America. It's that we don't trust the Word.

We don't believe it's complete. We don't believe it gives us everything we need to know in all areas of light. So we need to study the Word. To study the Word, you need three different views. I said three, but I added some to it.

You need different views, And what I mean by that is, so when someone comes to me as a new Christian, I'm going to very quickly say, hey, you need to get on a Bible reading plan, and I will give them a plan, or I'm hoping here before long We've ordered some table talks, which has a read through the year plan within those. Every Christian should be reading through the Bible every year. That's just an ordinary thing that Christians do. If they're regenerate. In America, I don't think it's ordinary.

But if you're regenerate, you should be reading the Bible every year. But as we read the Bible, we need different views. The first is we need an airplane view. How many of you have ever been in an airplane? I love being in an airplane because you can see forever.

Right? You can see all over. To get this airplane view of Scripture, you need to read large chunks at a time. Right? I would recommend, and this is going to be contrary to our culture, I would recommend doing the 90-day, read the Bible in 90 days plan.

I'd recommend you do that, I don't know, every five years. You're just flying through it. You're devoting lots of time, and you're not really stopping to study. You're just flying. You're going through it fast.

What does this do? It helps you to connect it all together, because to understand Scripture rightly, everything is connected. Genesis is connected to Revelation. Every book is connected. And for us to interpret rightly, we have to see the big picture, right?

In the military, Oftentimes the privates get really upset and frustrated because they're told to do things that don't make sense. But to the Colonel, it makes complete sense. Why? He has the big picture. You need the big picture.

Secondly, we need a car view. We're still moving along at a pretty good pace. And I would say the car view is probably, I also put bicycle view because we slow down a little bit. The car view and bicycle view is the normal read through the Bible in a year view. It's where we're getting through this, we're going on a fairly good rate, but we're still slowing down enough to start to notice some details.

And if you ever noticed in an airplane, you can fly by lots of things and you never you never notice lots of details, right? The same is in a car. If you've ever, I think, a bicycle, But if you've ever rode in a car, maybe you went from Elveston to Carthage on the blacktop in your car You'll notice certain things But you know if you walk it You notice lots more right you start noticing the nails that are on the road and the frogs that are in the ditch, and you notice lots of these things. So it's slower, but it's not less mentally. It's I'm going slower to notice more, to ponder my trip more.

And then we think of the walk view. The walk view is typically where I'm trying to be as I preach through a book. That we're, as a church, we're walking through this book together. Notice it's not fast. Oftentimes when I'm reading as a maybe a bicycle view, I'm only reading like the little subheadings they added in there.

I'll only read like one little subheading and I'll just ponder that for a while. But as we preach through it, we want to take a walk. We want to walk together and notice things and dig in. And then finally, sometimes we need the crawl view, where we're really looking at words. We're really trying to understand.

There are things in Scripture that, but this is also by God's grace, that we need to slow down, and Whether it's as an individual or as elders we need to look exactly at how all this fits Into the Bible how this fits together so that we could understand it rightly So as I think of these views this morning Here's the trap Or here's what happens to every Christian that I've ever known, including myself. We start getting good at the Bible and the Year Plan, and at some point we start to say, This is becoming monotonous. This isn't speaking to me like it was. And again, this is just the minimum, I would say. You should be reading much more than this.

What becomes monotonous is our view. Sometimes we need to go fast. Sometimes we need to read one or two verses. A lot of times in my private devotion time, I'll read through a book, but I want to read through it in a crawl. And what I mean by this is I might read one or two verses and I just take 10, 15, 20 minutes, just ponder it.

Just ponder all the implications, all the connections, all the things that go on with this. And then as I ponder it, then spend time and pray, and pray over this, and pray that God would give me more understanding and reveal who He is. Let me see you in this, God. What is it about this detail that I can know you better? Change your speed.

If we need to be changing our speed a lot, we need to be We need to be taking car rides and airplane rides and crawls and all these things in our Christian walk. But if things start to become monotonous, change your speed. Secondly, we need to meditate upon the word. In Psalms 119.15 it says, I will meditate upon your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. Now this word, because of a ditch, tends to cause Christians to start to go, Oh, why?

Because Eastern meditation is something we don't believe in, right? Let me tell you the difference between Eastern meditation and biblical meditation. Eastern meditation is the practice of emptying your mind so that demons can talk to you and I don't know emptying your mind so that what does the Bible say I say this because I'm making connections. What does it say about the house that's all clean and swept? Lots more demons come in, right?

What does the Bible say for us to do with our minds? To fill it, fill it with the word of God. Eastern meditation is to empty it, Christian meditation is to fill it. I will meditate, I will fill my mind on your precepts and I will fix my eyes upon your ways." It is to ponder the Word of God, to think about it, and to just spend time, sometimes even in quiet, sometimes even in just taking it in. And Philippians were even told to think on what is good, to fill it with good things.

Thirdly, we must memorize the word. In Psalms 119, verse 11, it says, I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. This comes into play, I was really blessed this morning. You will find no bigger smile inside of me than when one of these young people recite lots of scripture. So what a blessing this morning to hear Audrey recite John 1 1 through 7 was it?

And what amazing scriptures to memorize. But the Bible, when we think of prayer, the Bible says to pray without ceasing. And I would tell you to meditate, to ponder God's Word without ceasing. And how do you do that? Sometimes it's that, a lot of times, not lately because my wife makes sure I go to my doctor's appointments, not really, but she has been coming with me.

But if I was to go to the doctor's appointment or even take someone to a doctor's appointment, I almost always have my Kindle and I'm not huge on electronic devices, but I have a whole library in my hand. I don't have to waste my time. I can ponder the Word of God, or I can study the Word of God. But there are times where we can't have books. There are times where we can't have our Bibles.

It's those times of which hiding His Word in our heart becomes ever-graceful, ever-useful. That if I have 20 minutes to wait on a slow doctor, or actually that would be a fast doctor, if I have an hour to wait on a slow doctor, I don't even need my Bible. I can choose to not waste my time and just ponder the word of God. Just remember it. Just think about it.

We need regular times of meditating on the Word of God. Thirdly, or sorry, we need to memorize the Word of God. It shouldn't shock us when people have large chunks memorized. I shouldn't brag on certain people, but when certain people, I remember when, I think it's brother Jamie, that has the entire book of Romans memorized. Right?

And then I, and he's a pastor and he works hard at that, but even for you and I to, I as a pastor, that's very convicting, but to look at Audrey and to memorize seven verses in a row, that should be convicting to many of you. We need to memorize the Word of God. And fourthly, we need to obey the Word. James 1 verse 22, James says, Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourself. If you know the Word of God and you choose not to obey it, what does the Word of God say?

It says you deceive yourself. You're deceived. We need to obey the Word. It's our means of grace. If you want to be like Christ, dig into the Scripture.

Spend time there. Know it. Most of people's problems today, again as we looked at last week, they go to the scripture. They either don't know what it says at all, they either discount it and they say it's just passed down and you know it's just the fundamentals that care what that says they either don't know what it says or they know what it says but they say well that was for a different time period they say well that's you know I'm forgiven so I have nothing to worry about. The Bible says you're deceived.

Our salvation isn't by works. Our salvation is a free gift of God. But yet, as God saves us, He changes our hearts. He causes us to desire to obey. Now it's easy and I'm actually sorry to take so long.

It's easy in your mind to hear the enemy whisper to God really say, and is this really right? And to ignore it. It's much harder for you to grow old and look at the devastation that disobedience has brought to so many. It causes you to want to cry out to the young. Don't do this.

Don't buy into this false religion the world puts out no Christ Know the scriptures It's all it's it's it's what it's it's I say this so often but it's not it's not just it's not just what we have it's all we've got Christ is all we have everything else is smoke and mirrors Everything else is a bewitchment. Everything that appears to be more valuable than Christ, more valuable than His word, is just deception. Amen. Let's pray. Amen.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for your Word. Father, would you press it upon people? Would you press it upon brothers?

Would you even press it upon those whom think they are brothers? Would you press it upon those who wouldn't even claim to be a brother? Would you press it upon them to dig into your word? Father, for the brothers that you might make them more like you, that Father, your name might be glorified. Glorify yourself in making us like you.

And for those whom have some sort of assurance, but it's not they've deceived themselves, Father would you drive them to your word that they might see you in truth, that they might see the error of their ways, and that God you might bring them to repentance, that they might come to genuinely know you. And Father, for those whom don't claim to know You, would You drive them to Your Word so they might see what it actually says and not just what they are told it says? Would You give them the ambition to at least reject the God that they know and not the God that they don't know? Father, for Your church, would you bring this renewal again? Father, so often in history we see that this renewal comes with extreme hardship and Father if that's what it would take for your church, would you break us?

Would you bring us to hard times? That we might glorify you, that we might turn back again to your word, that we might again hide it in our hearts, that we might again rejoice in obeying it, rejoice in your precepts, rejoice in you, would you change us, Father? Would you draw us near? Would you have mercy upon this wicked nation? Would you have mercy upon.

This Gnosticism that's masquerading as Christianity. And Father, for your remnant, would you rise them up? Would you bring them to their knees? Would they cry out, Father, take everything, but leave us our Bible, leave us your Word? Father, we might know you.

Father, would you bring us back to doing the ordinary things well? That your name might be glorified, we pray. In Christ's name.