00:01And back to the Apostles' Doctrine, which brings us to the next point.
00:05They continue steadfastly in the Apostles' Doctrine and in fellowship and prayers and breaking of bread.
00:11And the call to the Church is to continue in these things, not to deviate them, not to change them.
00:18By the time of the death of the last Apostle, who was the Apostle John,
00:22the last book of the Bible was written, the book of Revelation.
00:26And once the book of the Bible is written, that is the summation, it's the fullness of all the teaching
00:32of God,
00:32which is going to be given to us.
00:33He's not going to give any fresh revelations.
00:35He may give fresh understanding of things which are written in the Bible, but he won't give any new revelations.
00:41There'll be no Book of Mormon, there'll be no Koran, there'll be no things added to what is written in
00:46the Bible.
00:47Very important that we understand that.
00:50And in the New Testament, you'll find all the doctrines of the Church are fixed.
00:56They're not to be changed.
00:57They may not be changed.
00:59And as we've already heard when Chris was praying as well, and as we've read,
01:05all Scripture is inspired by God, and given by God for inspiration,
01:10for training in righteousness, for teaching.
01:13It's inspired by God.
01:15It means it's God-breathed.
01:16It means God put His Word into the Scriptures literally,
01:19through the writings of various writings in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.
01:26The Old Testament is as much the Word of God as the New Testament.
01:30The Tanakh, the Hebrew prophets, they point forward to the New Testament,
01:35but they reveal the human origins, problem of sin,
01:41God's dealing with His chosen people, the ups and downs, and the good and the bad,
01:44but in all these things, God is shaping His people in the purposes which He wants to give to us.
01:49And He reveals to us things about how God relates to people through these stories in the Old Testament.
01:55He also gives an answer to the issues of sin and salvation,
02:01pointing to the commandments of the Torah,
02:04Levitical sacrifices,
02:06which, as Chris has already told to us,
02:07look forward to the coming of the Messiah,
02:10Yeshua, as the final sacrifice for sin,
02:12and the coming of the New Covenant.
02:15When we come to the New Testament,
02:16we have clear revelation that there is one God
02:19and one mediator between God and humanity,
02:21Jesus Christ.
02:22Read through the New Testament,
02:24you have the Gospels,
02:24which give you the life and teaching of the Lord Jesus,
02:27His death and resurrection.
02:29Read through the book of Acts,
02:30how the message spread,
02:31how the church was born,
02:32through the preaching of the apostles,
02:34through the work of the Holy Spirit.
02:36Read through the epistles,
02:37they tell you how to apply the message
02:38to our personal lives and to the church life.
02:41You read the book of Revelation,
02:43it gives the revelation of the Lord Jesus in glory
02:46and details of the second coming.
02:49All of this is profitable for teaching.
02:51It's all inspired by God.
02:53It's not to be added to,
02:55not to be taken away from.
02:58Islam, Book of Mormon,
03:00Jehovah's Witnesses, Watchtower magazine,
03:02all add or take away from the Bible.
03:05All are of the spirit of Antichrist
03:08and are not profitable for teaching.
03:13As is liberal theology,
03:14and one of the big reasons
03:16why the church accepts all these things
03:18which are wrong
03:19is because of the influence of liberal theology,
03:21which denies the inspiration of the Word of God,
03:24denies the miraculous elements,
03:25denies the creation of God,
03:27denies, even sometimes denies,
03:29the resurrection of Jesus.
03:31Once you get that into the church,
03:32then it means that it's kind of a death warrant
03:34for authentic Christianity,
03:36because it has to be based upon the fact
03:38that the Bible is the Word of God.
03:40Now, there are difficulties interpreting the Bible.
03:42I don't doubt that.
03:44There are things which we don't understand,
03:46things which are difficult to understand.
03:48But as the American author Mark Twain once said,
03:51it's not the things in the Bible I don't understand
03:52that bother me,
03:53it's the things that I do understand.
03:56Because the things that we do understand
03:58are pretty clear.
03:59Tell us that if we don't repent,
04:02if we don't go God's way,
04:03then we're ending up in a place
04:05which is lost for eternity,
04:06which we call hell,
04:07and nobody wants to go there.
04:08Well, if they're in their right mind,
04:11they don't want to go there.
04:12So there are all sorts of things
04:13which people don't want to know,
04:14but they're very clear,
04:16and they can be understood quite clearly.
04:18You can debate about
04:19what Daniel 9's prophecy means,
04:22which is difficult to understand,
04:23which I'll be talking about tonight.
04:26And it is difficult to understand,
04:27but it's not impossible to understand.
04:29And there are things which are difficult,
04:31which people have to struggle with.
04:32There are answers to all of them,
04:34if you dig deep enough.
04:36But the bottom line is that
04:37the Bible is the Word of God.
04:38It's not to be changed.
04:40Not to be changed by the church, certainly.
04:42And it is true.
04:45And when you come to this
04:46last chapter of Revelation,
04:48which it says,
04:48don't add to the book,
04:50don't take away from it,
04:52does apply to the book of Revelation,
04:54but it also applies to the whole of the Bible.
04:57Believe it and act upon it.
04:59Worship the one true God,
05:00a maker of heaven and earth,
05:01the Redeemer,
05:03Jesus Christ,
05:04who brings us to God
05:04through his unique sacrifice for our sins.
05:07He loves us and offers us
05:09forgiveness of sin,
05:10a relationship with God,
05:11and eternal life.
Comments