All Scripture Is Inspired By God and Profitable

As David mentioned, today is the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. To some of you, that may be a really, really important thing. You might be really excited. You might have been anticipating it for, say, the last five years when people started saying, we're only five years away from the Reformation. We're four years, we're three, and now we're here. And some of you might not know what the Reformation is. You're like, I don't know what this thing is you're talking about. Well, the Reformation just really, really simply was a return. to the Word of God by the church. The return to the teaching of Scripture. Now there were lots of other things that were going on in that time. There were lots of people that were involved in it. The reason that today is Reformation Sunday is because 500 years ago, a priest named Martin Luther, a priest in the Catholic Church, as he was studying Scripture, he went, I don't think that what we do and teach people,

is what the scripture teaches. And so in that time, what they would do is the church doors served as a bulletin board. And if you had something to announce, marriages, births, debates, whatever, you just put it up on the door. And people would read it as they were coming in and out of church. And you'd learn about what was going on in the city. So that's what Martin Luther did. He wrote down 95 statements or theses. And he took his theses and he went and he nailed them up on the castle church in Wittenberg. Germany. His intention was to reform the church, to call the church as it was at that time out of some of its sins and back to faithfulness to the word of God. His intention was not to split the church. That's what happened. But that was not his intention. The church at that time was unwilling to repent, to submit to the word of God. And so Martin Luther was prosecuted. He was in danger of being killed. He went into hiding for a period of years.

because he threatened the powers that be at the time. And the fruit of all of that was the Reformation. When people ask you what kind of church you go to, the first descriptor you should use is a Protestant church. Well, why do we call it a Protestant church? What is a Protestant church? It's the church that protested. And that's what Martin Luther did. He protested. He said, hey, that stuff's not right. We need to straighten this all out. They said, no, we're not going to straighten it out. And he says, well, then we're going to have to do our own thing, unfortunately. And they were labeled the protesters, the Protestant church. So we're a Protestant church, which is to say we're not a Catholic church. We're not Roman Catholic. We don't subscribe to their teaching or their doctrine. We protest it. We protest it by meeting apart from them. So we're a Protestant church. That's where it comes from is the Reformation, when Luther protested, when he nailed his 95 Theses on the doors of Castle Church in Wittenberg. And so our sermon text this morning is 2 Timothy chapter 3.

verses 16 through chapter 4, verse 4. Before we get to reading our scripture text, I want to ask you a question. And the question is this. How much scripture does someone need to know and understand to be saved? How much scripture does someone need to know and understand to be saved? Now some of you might say, none. Why would you say none? Well, because knowledge is not what saves us. Jesus saves us. So knowledge is unnecessary. And I'd say, you're right. But does that mean that someone who has no knowledge of Jesus Christ at all can be saved? And you'd say, no, I don't think so. So somewhere in there, there's some sort of knowledge, some sort of something that we have to have to be saved. And so all I did was ask, how much? How much scripture? Think of it in terms of normal circumstances. Not extraordinary circumstances, but normal circumstances. For instance, no one in the Old Testament knew Jesus' name.

And yet, were there saints saved in the Old Testament? Yes, there were. And they came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ without knowing him, without meeting him, without hearing specifically about him, other than in prophecies looking forward. So they had to know something about Jesus, even if they didn't know his name. They had to know something about God and about themselves and about what he required. So we have to know something to be saved. But how much? Are Jesus' red letters enough? Do you know any Bibles where you've got a red letter Bible and all of the words of Jesus are in red? Is that enough? Do we just need to know what Jesus said? What about Paul? Do you have to know what Jesus said and what Paul said? What he taught? Do you have to know the whole New Testament? Do you have to know the whole New Testament plus creation? Do you have to know Old Testament history? How much Old Testament history do you have to know, if any? What about the prophets? How much do we have to know for one to be saved? And it's a difficult question to answer.

We're sure that there's some minimum threshold of knowledge that's necessary for salvation, and yet none of us know where to draw it and say, this is how much. Let me ask you the question another way. What parts of Scripture are most necessary to someone being saved? If I could take your Bible, every book has been divided into verses, chapters and verses. If I could divide it down into chapters, from Genesis 1 on through to the end of Revelation, Each chapter. And I could put a big pile of them right here, each book. Each chapter being its own little book. And I said, okay, you're going to go out and you're going to evangelize someone. This is what's available to you. What would you take? How much would you take? How much is necessary? My guess is that we wouldn't take a whole lot of it with us. Five, maybe ten percent. We'd leave the rest behind, but that doesn't seem right, does it?

You're going to go make disciples of all the nations and you're going to do it with 5-10% of the scripture. That doesn't seem right. You're like, well, I should take the whole thing. And I say, okay, well, which part are you going to use? The reason that it seems wrong to us or strange to us is that we often think about making disciples inappropriately. We think of getting them saved. What does it take to get them saved? What does it take to get them into heaven? But when Peter in Acts 2 was asked, brethren, what must we do to be saved? The question was not, a minimalist question. They were not asking, what is the least that I have to do to get to heaven? And so Peter replies to them, repent and be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will be given the gift of the Holy Spirit. So to be saved means to become a lifelong disciple of Jesus Christ. It means that each day you're becoming more and more like him. So how much scripture do you need for that task?

Well, now the answer seems clear. You say, I need all of it. Every Christian's growth and holiness will take a different path because of their particular sins and the holiness that God intends to work out in their lives. When you think of growth and holiness, I like to think of a mountain, like a 3D mountain. You know, it's three-dimensional. And perfect holiness is at the pinnacle. It's at the apex. And yet God hasn't decided, I'm only going to save people on the north side of the mountain. I'm only going to save people on the south side of the mountain. He saves people from all around the mountain.

So what's required of the people on the north side of the mountain? Are they supposed to walk around to the south side and go up the south path? No. They're supposed to go up the mountain. Is their path going to be different than the people on the south path? Yeah. Are they all doing the same work? They're all growing in holiness. They're all growing into conformity with the image of God that they bear. But they're taking different paths to do it, and so they look different. Because their cultures are different, their times are different, their sins are different, their ages are different. There's all these differences.

And so growth in holiness takes a different shape with different people. Because some of the sins that I struggle with would be completely foreign to you. And vice versa would be true. Some of the things that you struggle with, they're not a temptation to me. And that could be said of any one of us if we compared ourselves. And so as each one of us walks up this path toward holiness, we take different paths. And so scripture addresses all of these different paths and these different temptations and these different sins. And so we need all of Scripture to grow in holiness. So what does this have to do with the Reformation? Well, the Reformation was a time when God poured out His Spirit on His church, and she, the church, went through a major change, a Reformation. There are many ways that we could describe the Reformation, but for our purposes this morning, we're going to be studying the centrality of Scripture to true and lasting Reformation in our own, and in the hearts of those who haven't started up the mountain yet. That's our purpose this morning. The role of all of Scripture.

in personal, cultural, societal reformation. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word from 2 Timothy 3, 16 through chapter 4, verse 4. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. As we jump into this text, I want you to consider this scenario. If you walked up to a perfect stranger on the street, and you don't know anything about them, other than their race and their sex, because you can observe those things. You don't know if they're married. You don't know if they have children.

kids. You don't know anything. What they do for a living. You don't know if they went to college. You don't know anything. But you just walked up to them. You say, hey, I got a question for you. And your question was this. Should people do good things and strive to become better people? What would the answer come back? The answer would come back yes. I mean, you might get some weirdo who's like, no. And you look at them and you say, weirdo. Because who would say that? You know, it's like, yeah, you're supposed to become a better person. Like, everybody knows that. You don't have to know anything about them. If you walked up and said, Ian, do we need to become better people and do more good things? Ian wholeheartedly says, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And if you walked up to someone who had never set foot in a church, they'd say the same thing. We need to become better people. So what does that answer teach us? It's so obvious. It's an obvious question. It's an obvious answer. What's it teach us? Well, it teaches us that everyone inherently knows that they're not as good as they could be. Everyone knows that.

Because you have to know that to answer the question with, yes, we should become better people. So another way of saying it, a more helpful way of saying it is, we're bad people when we do bad things. And even if you ask someone, the perfect stranger on the street, have you done bad things in your life? They say, yep. Are there things in your past you wish you hadn't done? They say, do you hope never to do those things again? Why? Well, because I want to become a better person. Good people don't do that kind of stuff. If in that conversation we would call it badness or bad decisions or mistakes or lack of education, there'd be some sort of description of what caused the problem. We're going to come back to that idea later. But I want you to see that the purpose that God's Word was given to us was so that we would be equipped for every good work, so that we would become better people. The Scripture tells us we're not a good person. It tells us we're sinful.

that we have sinful desires and sinful lusts, and we do wicked things, things we shouldn't do, and we don't do it in ignorance always. We do it with perfect knowledge that what we're about to do or are doing is wicked. This is what the Scripture teaches us about ourselves. And here we read, All Scripture is inspired of God for all of these reasons, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. The man of God, you and me, need to be equipped to do good work. Everyone wants to do good work. The Scripture was given to us to equip us to do it. So the Bible contains instructions about how to become a better person. Now I want you to look at just those top two verses. All Scripture, all that, on down through the end of 17 for every good work. What are the three most offensive words in those two verses? I'll tell you, they're three right next to each other. No, not every good work. You're getting there.

inspired by God. Those are the offensive words. You say, they're not offensive. And I say, well, they're only not offensive to you because you know that you're supposed to say they're not offensive to you. But what those indicate to you is that there is a definition of good and bad. And that definition is provided to us by God through his scriptures. All the scriptures which teach us how to be good and bad are inspired by God. Now, if you were in Sunday school, we talked about this a little bit. We talked about how God's law He demonstrates to us, reveals to us, manifests to us His glory, His holiness, His character. That's what the Word does for us. When we read in the law that we're to do this and we're not to do that, what we're learning about is the character of God. And we're learning that we should do things or shouldn't do things based on the fact that we bear His image. And because we bear His image, we're supposed to be like Him. That's what the Scripture teaches us. And so the Bible is...

God's word to us to teach us about who he is and what we ought to become. The only reason that there are good works is because God is good. If God didn't exist, we could call the things that are most wicked and most heinous to our sensibilities and we could say, well, what makes it good or bad? What makes murder wrong? Why is it okay to kill a deer and eat it but not a person? Because man bears the image of God and a deer doesn't. And one was given to us for food and one was given to us to rule over all of creation. So these three words, inspired by God, are offensive to us because they manifest God's perfect and holy character. And if we went out into that same conversation with that same stranger that you don't know anything about, who just admitted that they need to become a better person because they're a bad person, they will go along with you, they will agree, and they will not be offended. Because we haven't defined what a better person is yet.

And we haven't defined what good is yet, or what evil is yet, or what they do that's right, or what they do that's wrong. So there's no conflict yet. And we can continue to have that conversation as long as the question of goodness and badness is subjective. Do what's good for you. and I'll do what's good for me, even then we can get along, even if we disagree about what good is. But as soon as an objective truth about what is good and what is right comes into the situation, and both of us are measured according to that standard, we have offense. Because who is someone else to tell me what good is? If we're honest, isn't good in our own minds really what makes us happy?

There's a direct correlation between what's good and what we want. We think, well, it's good because I want it. It's good for me to have a third dessert because I want it. As a silly example, is it good for me to have a third dessert? No, it's not good for me to have a third dessert. It's not good for any of you either. But it's good to me because I want it. Now, it's a silly example, but I use it so that you can understand that, yeah, we do kind of define good and bad according to our desires. And unless you're some sort of weirdo who's not made out of the same stuff as all the other people who don't claim to be Christians, how do they define good? They define it according to their lusts. What's good? Oh, it feels good? Go ahead and do it. You don't want to do it? No, you don't have to. And it's fine if you don't do it. They define good and evil right and wrong according to their own desires. And we are not different than them in our temptations and in our inner processes about how we process life. I want...

the things that I desire to be good things, because I don't want to give them up. I don't want to be told, no, you can't have that or do that, think that or say that. And so as soon as we realize that goodness is not defined by what I want, but rather by God in his holy scripture, we find offense. Because all of a sudden the thing I want, the scripture says, no, that's not good. That's an abomination. That is wicked. You may not do it. So then you have to ask, okay, well, the scriptures are a manifestation or a communication to us of God's character, and they're good. They equip us to do good work. The question is, well, how? How do the scriptures equip us? Well, we're told. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for what? For teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. These things.

These are the means that God intends to use to bring about salvation or personal reformation or becoming better people. Teaching, reproof, correction, and training. These are the things God uses to bring about, equip us to do good works. We have to be taught the scripture. Do you notice that? That it's wrong, it's inappropriate to say, I have a Bible. and it has God's truth in it, and I will therefore take it, and I will learn about how to be a good person. No, you won't. You need to be taught. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching so that you will become adequate. You have to be taught the Word. Those who refuse to be taught the Word, they're not saved. Those who will not submit to the yoke of being taught by sinful men that God has appointed to that work are not saved. They're not saved. And it's a sad thing that their pride prevents them.

They're not saved. So we're to be taught the Scripture. But teaching is not the worst of it. It's not as offensive as being reproved. What does it mean to be reproved? It means being reprimanded for something that you did. It means you did something, someone else notices it, they view what you did in light of Scripture, and they say, that is not right. You did wrong. The Scripture says you may not do that, and here you are and you did it. That's what it is to be reproved. To hear reproof. God's word says A and you did B. What does it mean to be corrected? Well, it's similar. It goes along with being reproved, but corrected says go back and do A. Go back and fix it. You didn't do right. You did wrong. I'm correcting you. Don't do that. Go back and do it again. Do it the right way. You didn't wash the dishes properly, son. They're dirty. They're greasy. They're still nasty. Reproved. Wash them again. Correction. Training.

They're still dirty. They're still greasy. Wash them again. Tomorrow, they're still dirty again. And again, we're trained. And when it comes to anything but righteousness, these sorts of things make sense to us. You go to school. You write a paper. Teacher marks it all up with red pen. Hands it back to you. Do over. I'm not accepting it. Work on this. You need to go read about proper sentence structure and subject-verb agreement. Go do it again. So you go and you write it again and you turn it back in and they say, still not good enough. Go do it again. Okay, you got that paper done. Here, we're going to write another paper. And you go through the whole process again. You're taught, you're approved, you're corrected, you're trained over and over again. Until when? Until you understand how to write a paper. Until you understand how to bake the bread. Until you understand how to change the oil. Until you understand how to write the program. Until you understand how to fight your sin and obey God. That's the purpose of the scripture.

to teach us, to reprove us, to correct us, and to train us until we get it. I was grading one of my son's, well, I wasn't grading one of my son's papers. He had a spelling test that he had done at school, and he got to grade it himself. And there was like 15 words on it, and he had marked like five of them wrong. That's just a practice test. The real test was coming up a few days later. So I go through and I'm helping with his vocabulary. You know, here, spell this word. We're going through it. But you know, as I'm reading it, 15 words, he'd marked five of them wrong. How many were actually wrong? More than five. More than five. Eight to be exact. Three words that he messed up and didn't know he'd messed up. And this is the danger of trying to teach, reprove, correct, and train yourself. It doesn't work.

It doesn't work. You are blind to your own failures. That's why you need other people to come and bring the Scriptures to you, to teach you the Scripture, and to reprove you according to Scripture, and correct you and train you according to the Scripture. That's how you become adequate. You can't do it in a closed circuit where you do all this, well, I did this thing, okay, well now I'm going to come and edit this thing, and now I'm going to come and try to do what I think I should have done. And when it's all a closed circuit like that, it's a dog chasing his tail. It doesn't produce success.

Good works, it doesn't produce righteousness. You never become adequate. It's living in an echo chamber. Because you remember at the beginning I said, you want to define according to your own lusts and your own sensibilities what's right and what's wrong. Now if I hand you scripture, which is inspired by the word of God and it's true and it's right and there's no fault in it, but I hand it to a sinner, what is a sinner going to do with it? Twist it? Ignore parts of it? and emphasize other parts of it, they're going to do weird things with it that aren't appropriate. And I'll tell you, when I do that sort of thing, all of the twists and turns that I make in Scripture correlate with my own lusts and my own desires. You can't do it yourself. You have to have other people do it. They have to know you and they have to say, you have to say, I think this, and they have to say, well, you're wrong. I love you, dear brother. I love you, dear sister. I love you, son, but you are wrong.

That is not it. It's this thing instead. That's what we need. So you go on into chapter 4, and that's what we see. Paul writes to Timothy, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in the kingdom, what's he to do? Preach the word. You, Timothy, your work is to go to those people, those sinners. You have the word of God, and your job is to preach it to them. You're to teach them. You're to instruct them. You're to reprove and correct and train them. Until they're adequate. What does Ephesians 2 tell me? That my work is to do. That I'm to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. This is how it's done. A lot of this work. Preaching. This is one of the reasons it's important for you to be at church every Sunday. One of the things preaching does is it stirs up the pot. That's what it's supposed to do. It's supposed to get in your head, get in your heart, shine light in the corners that you've kept dark. And say,

That's not all right. It's meant to stir you up. It's meant to make you think about yourself first, before you think about other people. Oh, I know who should hear this sermon. I'm going to email it to them. That's fine, but you first. I had the joy last week of being, we were down in Bloomington. We never get to be down there on a Sunday because I'm here. And I would rather be here actually, but I do actually love being down there on Sundays. And so one of the men, Alex McNeely, the college pastor that we support, was preaching. And he preached from Romans 3. And Romans 3 is one of these very intense passages about how wicked you are. But it doesn't say you, it says we. It's like, there is none righteous, no, not one. There's none who seeks after God. But all this bad, bad, people are bad is the message. People are really bad.

And he says, and what Alex did, and stupid me, I'd never thought of it this way before. He says, I just read to you Romans 3. Now let me preach it to you. And all he did was change the pronouns. And it went from being, there is none righteous, no, not one, to him saying, you are not righteous. There is none who seeks after God. You do not seek after God. All have turned aside. You have turned aside. The poison of asps is under your tongue. And all of a sudden, I was like, it's completely different. Completely different. I've read that scripture, I don't know how many times. I've taught on the doctrine of justification plenty. But never in a way that I thought, that he is talking to me, about me, to me. And until I heard it preached, I wasn't stirred up. And it wasn't an unfamiliar passage to me. Because it was finally true. It was like, oh.

There's a problem here. He's talking about me. So we need to sit under the preaching of God's word. Faithful preaching. So many of you guys like to listen to podcasts and teaching and all this stuff. But not as entertainment. Not as entertainment. The preaching of God's word is not meant to entertain you. It's not meant to stroke your ego. It's not meant to simply increase your knowledge. It's not meant to be white noise while you do something else. It's meant to convict your heart. of your own sinfulness before God and call you to repentance. That's what preaching is supposed to do. And it's most effectively done when you have to look in the person's eyes and they have to look in yours. Don't listen to preaching as though it's entertainment in white noise. You won't be prepared to come here on Sunday if that's what you do. So Paul tells Timothy, all of scripture is inspired by God and profitable for all of these things. You preach the word.

I command you. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God. He's here now. He hears what I'm saying to you. You do it in his presence. You preach the word. It's very sober. It's very serious. Be ready in season and out of season. What's in season and out of season? Does the word of God go out of season? Is it ever out of season? Is it ever the wrong time to plant the word of God? So what's it mean to be out of season? It means the ground's frozen. That's what it means. The hearers, the receivers, they're not going to listen. They're not going to hear. They're not going to receive. They're going to be the hard ground where Satan comes and snatches away the seed. They're going to be the shallow ground where it puts down a root, but then it's burned by the pressure of life. That's what it means to be out of season. What does it mean to be in season? It means the reformation. The word of God was in season at that time. God poured out his spirit and it was in season. The same could be said of the first great awakening.

Did those preachers in those times do something completely and entirely different than they had done the five years previous? The answer is no, they didn't. They faithfully preached the word. In season and out of season, the difference was God softened the ground and it received the word. And it produced holiness and revival. That's what happened during the Reformation. You know, often... The Reformation is attributed to Martin Luther because he's the one who nailed the 95 theses up on the door at Wittenberg. But there were men that preceded him that were doing this work. John Wycliffe, John Huss. There were men who were doing this work and seeing the fruit of Reformation. The fruit of returning to the Word of God before Martin Luther. And then, after him, there were more men. So we're to be ready. Timothy is to preach the Word in season and out of season.

And here comes the list again. Reprove, rebuke, correct, I'm sorry, exhort, with great patience and instruction. Isn't that just about exactly what he told them the scriptures were for earlier? Reprove, reprove. Got it. Rebuke. That's kind of like correcting. Okay, exhorting. Yeah, I get that. And what happens when you sow out of season? You get frustrated. I do. You got kids? Don't you get frustrated that they don't listen? A 4-year-old doesn't act and think and behave like a 10-year-old. A 10-year-old doesn't act and think and behave like a 16-year-old. A 20-year-old doesn't act and behave like a 20-year-old, but rather it kind of goes the other way. It's out of season. What are you supposed to do? Throw up your hands, double down, and get intense and get nasty? No, with great patience and instruction. Why with instruction? Well, because when you get frustrated and people aren't listening, you give up instruction in favor of rebukes and reproofs and corrections, and you should have known better.

I've told you this a thousand times. It's not instruction. It has its place, but it's not instruction. Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. The word of God is the seed, and it's not seed that we wait to plant until we determine that the conditions are right. The conditions weren't right when Luther went to the Wittenberg church. They weren't right. The opposition that he met indicated it wasn't Everyone wasn't ready. There was lots of opposition. Threats on his life. It wasn't right yet. Time wasn't right. And so if you have an idea that the word of God is to be proclaimed without shame, and without nuances, and without making it palatable, if you're waiting for that time, I'm telling you, it ain't coming. It's not coming. The scripture tells us it's not coming.

The time will come when they'll love to hear what you have to say, no. When they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside from it. The season's not coming where gospel preaching and gospel ministry is easy. Where everyone goes, oh, I never knew. Thank you so much for telling me. I love Jesus now. The gospel always goes forth in the midst of conflict because of men's sinful hearts. Our time is a time that's rightly described as the time when they will not endure sound doctrine, but they'll want to have their ears tickled. They will accumulate for themselves those teachers who teach in accordance with their own desires. You remember I started out by saying, how do we determine what's good and what's bad? And here Paul comes to it and says, they're going to get people who tell them that what they want is good. Isn't that what you want? If you're just honest.

Not what you should, but if you're just honest. Don't you want someone who's just your cheerleader and thinks that you, everything you do, is great and good and wonderful. And is just there to say, good job. And a little more, please. I want to be just like you. Because you're so wonderful. That's what our hearts want. That's what my heart wants. I want every one of you to think I'm the best preacher in the world. I'm better than John Piper, and I'm better than John MacArthur, and I'm better than R.C. Sproul, and I'm better than whoever it is that you think is great. I want you to think I'm better.

Am I different than you? Well, thank you for being honest. That's the honest truth. So can we admit it? That's the complexion of our wickedness. And God hasn't left us in it. Praise be to God. He hasn't left us to think that we really deserve it. We live in some level of tension that goes, that's not good. It is what I want and it's not good. And that's God's grace and kindness to us to point out to us, through teaching and reproof and correction and training, that our desires are not inherently good because they're ours. That's God's kindness to us. To say that you want something, His answer is, no, you can't have that. In the same way that it's God's kindness to children when their parents say, no, don't touch that. That's a kindness. 1 John 5 said, His commandments aren't burdensome. What's every kid who's told you can't have that thing?

The mean parents won't give me what I want. But they're stupid. They're wrong. They're foolish. They're young. Their brains are not fully formed yet. They don't get it. And they need someone to love them enough to say no. Even when they don't want to be told no, they need someone who loves them enough to say no. So what are we to do in times such as ours? Times where the word's not popular. Where the most offensive three words in this whole passage are inspired by God because it asserts his authority and dominion and lordship over you and me and everyone else, whether they like it or not. He gets to tell us what's good. He gets to tell us what's right. He gets to tell us what's wrong and what we ought to do instead. What are we to do in such times? Go have planning meetings about how to reach the... Maybe we need a theater ministry.

maybe the pastor needs to lose some weight and shave his beard off so he's more attractive to the people, whatever. They're new. I got them for John and Kim's dress rehearsal. They're from Walmart. Well, I was left to buy them on my own. And so, I'm trying. My wife did talk to me about it. So what are we to do? We're to go whole up and have these meetings about... How best to reach the lost and how to not be more offensive than is absolutely necessary? In a word, no. That's not what we're supposed to do. That's not what Luther did. He didn't go, oh, they're going to kill me if I say that. I'll have to do it some other way. I'll have to wait until they won't kill me for it. What Luther did is the same thing that Timothy is told to do. Here are the scriptures in their entirety, and they're all necessary for salvation. Every bit of it's profitable.

Not just certain little parts, not just little chapters and verses that we like to pluck off the table as we go to evangelize the nations. No, all of it's profitable. All of it's good. All of it's necessary for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for good works. You need all of it. So take all of it. And do what with it? Hide it under a bushel? No. Preach the Word. Live the Word. Proclaim the Word. Don't be ashamed of what God has said. He defines what's good and what's right and what's holy and what will save us from the fires of hell. So listen to Him. But it's not popular. This isn't the first time in the history of the world that the Word of God hasn't been popular. Most of the history of the world has been filled with it being unpopular, it not being the right season, it not being the time where it will go down easily.

Our time is not unique. It's not unique. So many of us Americans don't want to think, oh, we live in the most wicked, awful, worst time in the world. And yet our sins are described in the pages of Scripture. How did they know? How did they know that 2,000, 5,000 years later there was going to be these really wicked people in this really bad culture where they were really proud and really did nasty things? We'll put this in there for them. Or, what's that? Yeah. There's nothing new under the sun. The sins that we deal with, the sins that our culture is given to, aren't new, and they're not fancy, and they're just reheated leftovers. That's all they are. People have done it before. People will continue to do it until Jesus and His Father determine that they've had enough of it. Then it'll be over, and then it'll be over forever, and it'll be glorious for those who love Jesus Christ. It'll be awful for those who don't. So what should we do in such times?

Continue to preach the Word. For you who don't preach, how about your call is to not be ashamed of it. Your call is, if you think that I say something that's unbiblical, your responsibility is to tell me. But if you determine that after looking at the Scriptures that what I said was right, your job is to love it. That's your job. To not be ashamed of it. To not squirm when you bring a friend or a visitor comes and you're like, oh, they're going to not like that thing. I hope he doesn't, you know... None of that. Preach the Word. Love the Word. Continue to grow in your love for the Word and your knowledge of it. All of Scripture is inspired by God and profitable. So you ought to be a student of God's Word. You ought to know what it says. You ought to be able to tear down every lofty argument that comes against the knowledge of God with the Word of God. That's your work. That's your place. Memes aren't going to cut it, guys. You have to be students of the Word.

You have to be able to make an argument and have an understanding of what God has said and why. And you can't be afraid to make the case in the face of opposition with love, with great patience. What else do you have to do? You have to continue to be taught, to submit to being taught, to being reproved by the Word, to being corrected by the Word, and being trained in righteousness according to the Word. If your heart's like mine, you want a time when you don't have to go through that anymore because it's kind of humiliating. Every one of you who's older than me, They've felt it. If I've ever said anything to you, it's like, oh, the young guy is telling the old guy. But isn't the old guy supposed to be the one who tells the young guy? Well, not always. Haven't I been told this before? Probably. Will you need to be told it again? Sure, pal, absolutely. Continue to submit to being taught, to being reproved, to being corrected, to being trained. No, that was better than this. We've come this far.

We've got this much further to go. Press on, sister. Press on, brother. Satan will have you believe that you've arrived. I'm saved. I've escaped the fires of hell, and my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and I'm already in the heavenlies. For some of us, that's true. My prayer is that it will be true for all of us. But it's not presently fulfilled yet. The dross, the sin, the corruption that's in our hearts is still being eradicated. Still being worked out. I forget where it's at where Paul's talking about this very thing. And he goes, not as though we've already attained it. Not as though we're done yet. If you're the roast and you're in the oven, you aren't edible yet. You're not done. Even for those who like rare meat, you aren't ready. You've got to get all the way done. So continue to submit to the teaching and correction and reproof of the Word.

One of the guys that Martin Luther argued with, last name of Erasmus, had this quote. He said, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Okay, so we live in a land where we can't, our cultures literally, they seriously can't figure out who should use what bathroom. This is our society, okay? We can't figure out whether to call boys boys or girls girls or what, like, How does that all work? We can't figure it out as a culture. We're stumped. We live in the land of the blind. And that means that any knucklehead who has an opinion, people will follow. You're not to be that knucklehead. You're not only to have one eye. You have the Word of God in its entirety. You are to be able to see clearly with 20-20 vision everything that there is to see. And to call this...

These people and this society that's blind to sight, to faith in Jesus Christ, and to obedience to his word. That's our place. That's our work right now. Another way to say it is we live in a season of blindness. We live in a season that's in great need of the word of God. In times gone by in America, in ages that have been passed, our society reflected much more closely the truths of God's word. That's all eroded away and deteriorating and there's barely any residue left. We need that back. We need the Word of God. The need for the Scriptures is great. Everyone wants to become a better person, remember? But they have no clue how to do it. But God has told us. They've turned away from the truth. We must repent and return to the Word and be equipped for every good work. This is the work of reformation.

This is how reformation happens. It doesn't happen through not offending people. It doesn't happen through making everything palatable. It doesn't happen from finding the right way to just thread the needle just in there just perfectly. That is not how reformation happens. It never has in history happened from timid men who are unwilling to engage in conflict because they love God and they love their neighbor. Reformation has never come about that way and it never will. Reformation will happen. When God's people return to his word and live in accordance with its commands. Our place today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your lives is not to celebrate the victories of our fathers in the faith. That's all well and good. But Jesus condemns the Pharisees for it. Do you remember? You lay garlands on the tombs of the prophets. And yet what did they do to Jesus? One greater than the prophets come to them. What did they do to him? Kill them. They wouldn't abide his teaching.

And so if you want to rejoice in the goodness of God in raising up men in times gone by to restore his word to its proper place in creation, praise God and amen, then follow in their train and do the same work. That's our work. That's our place. And God promises to meet with us in that work and to bless his people, to increase his people through it. That's what we're to do. We're not to be ashamed of the word of God. There's nothing shameful about loving the one who made you and saved you. Nothing shameful about it. The world will tell you there's shame involved, but there's no shame in it. It's your glory that God saved you. So tell people his truth by your life and by your word that he is Lord of heaven and earth. There is no other. And happiness and joy and contentment are found in obedience to his word and nowhere else. That's what we're here for. That's why I get up on Sundays to come stand up here.

what my hope and my intention is, is to stir you up to do this work. In some way or another, it's like as you live your life and you see something going on and you're like, wait a minute. That's going to end in destruction. I don't want you to end in destruction. I got something to tell you. That's what I want. That's what I want you to want. Let's pray that God will help us to do it. Oh, Father in heaven, we love you. We thank you for not leaving us in our sins and also not leaving us with... wicked, false teaching about who you are and what you require of us and how a man can be saved. We thank you for raising up men to go before us and prepare a way that we might follow after them in their train. Help us not to just follow after them in their victories, but to continue on taking the baton that they've advanced. Help us to press on further than they have, seeing more of your work than they were able to. We ask, Father, that you would cut us to the quick with your word.

that you would increase in our hearts faith and love and fear of you. We pray, Father, that you would give us zeal and lips that speak with great patience and who instruct the unbeliever in your ways. We pray, Father, that you would bless the preaching of your word in this church and in other faithful churches. Father, would you restore your word to its proper place in our hearts and our minds and in this world. Father, we desire to be fruitful branches in your kingdom. We ask that you would bless us with this grace, that we might bear much fruit for your glory. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.