PH 5-minute Bible teaching

“Scripture is sufficient”

When Paul warned Timothy that there was coming a day when men would not put up with sound doctrine, he may not have had American culture or the 21st century in mind, but God clearly did, and it sure does apply. That was on my heart in this portion of a recent message I preached. I hope it’s a blessing to you. As always, you can download the audio-only version right here, or read the transcript below the video clip.

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Transcript: Scripture is sufficient

Wed, Dec 7, 2022 : Peter Heck

NOTE: This is an automated transcription, please overlook typographical and grammatical errors.

(Begin transcript)

What do we know about Satan? Will he win his battles against us through the caustic atheist? Like Richard Dawkins? I just picked Dawkins because he's kind of the pop culture atheist right now that everybody knows. Is Satan going to win his battles against you through the caustic remarks of Richard Dawkins?

If Satan desires to corrupt and mislead you, and I think that we all understand he does, if he is clever and cunning beyond that which we are, then is he honestly going to expect you to fall for the lies that are spewed from a person that you don't trust to begin with? An arrogant and an abrasive atheist? That is not how Satan is going to attack us.

You know how Satan is going to corrupt us and defeat us? He's going to advance his ideas through someone like me. That's how he's going to do it. He's going to, you know what Decon is? Kills your little mice, your little rat problem. Decon is 99% really good stuff. That's why the rat wants it. And it is 1% really bad stuff that will kill it. So if Satan is wise and cunning, and he wants to corrupt you, he's not going to go through a channel that we all understand is 100% bad. He's going to use somebody that has the best of intentions, that is speaking 99% truth, but has this 1% that's going to drag us away.

Your guard is down when you come in here. You trust me, you know, I'm quoting scripture, I have the best of intentions. Bingo, that is exactly what Satan is going to do. And it's exactly what he does. Which is exactly why I have to be so cautious to make sure that what it is that I teach is reliable according to the Word of God. It's why Scripture tells us that those who preach and those who teach are what? They are held to a higher standard, because this is exactly what Satan wants to accomplish.

So if I'm a little paranoid about this stuff, there's a reason I'm paranoid about it. Anybody in church leadership has to be paranoid about it. That's why everything that you hear must be tested against the word of God. Everything that I say, test it against the word of God, everything Jason says, everything Dave says, or Jonathan says, or Ashley says, any of the elders say, there is no one here who has a corner on truth, who is not fallible and capable of making mistakes.

There is one thing that is not capable of mistake. And that's it right here. So test all things against the authority of God's word, against the scriptures. We do experience God, and I understand that's what the mystics promote. And there's a reason why. Because we do experience God. The problem is that mystical voices will elevate the experiential, okay, and the experiences we have. And they promote that myths, the mystery and the mysterious elements that exist in our faith, they'll teach that mysterious practices is where you're really going to find spiritual growth.

You can only go so far. But then if you meditate, or you engage in contemplative prayer, or you recite these things in a quiet room, or you go out into the woods and have candles, and all of those things, that your spirit can commune with God in a more powerful way. But believers know we have been told, we grow spiritually through knowing God in His Word, through communion, and through prayer. That's what we were told to do. Now, are Christians engaged in spiritual things? Of course, we just read Ephesians six not long ago. It's all about the spiritual realities of our faith.

But intimacy with God is available to all Christians, every single one of us and it's not shielded by a bunch of mysterious practices that you have to go out and engage in, in order to connect with God. And man, this is important. If you're fading, wake it up. Because this is big. Our experiences with God, those experiences, spiritual experiences you have, those things do not help you determine theological truth. The experiences you have with God will never help you figure out theological truth. No, the experiences you have with God come as a result of you knowing theological truth, do you see which one comes before the other?

We don't have to go out and meditate in order to learn theological truth. We have theological truth, and that is what we meditate upon. We don't learn the truth through mystical, contemplative prayer. That's not where we learn it, where we empty ourselves and simply wait for the voice of God to come down and speak to us Christians.

God has spoken to us and it is once for all entrusted to the saints. Jude says it's right here. God is not going to be giving you new messages that somehow contradict or add on to what he has already provided to you. There is no New Testament teaching – none – that you will find that support any idea that contemplative prayer, or meditating all the all of these mysterious ideas, that that is somehow going to lead you in the direction you should go.

We get our theological truth from the Word of God. Scripture is sufficient, period.

(End transcript)