Sound Doctrine

Guest (Male): Pastor Jeff Johnson speaks of the power of God's Word.

Jeff Johnson: Everybody's got a Bible in their house. Every home's got a Bible. But His Word is holy. His Word is powerful. It’s powerful to judge, to analyze, to convict a man's heart. His Word is life. The words that I speak to you, Jesus said, they are spirit and they are life. The Word that changed my life was powerful to change my life, to change an entire heart. And in changing the heart, you change the man, or the woman, or the child. That's how powerful it is.

Guest (Male): Modern technology has allowed access to God's Word in ways we never dreamed of just a few decades ago. You can turn on the radio like this and hear the Word being taught. You can read the Bible online or through an app, or you can go old school and hear it being taught at church every week.

But with this great advantage comes great responsibility, as we'll discover today on Sound Doctrine. What kind of serious responsibilities has God given us as readers and sharers of His Word? Pastor Jeff Johnson pulls that out from Romans chapter three.

Jeff Johnson: We're starting a new chapter in the book of Romans, chapter three, as we continue to persevere through the darkness of it all. And there has been two chapters of a lot of darkness, and we're not done yet. Paul's doing a work here, and he's preparing for something really beautiful and light.

Let me start this morning's message by just quoting a scripture. Judgment begins in the house of the Lord. I don't know if you've watched the commercials lately, but there's one that sticks out. There's a huge campaign against smoking right now. And yet still, they are saying 20 percent of our nation smokes.

But there's one commercial where it shows the Grim Reaper. Have you seen this one? He is driving along and then walking into a room and takes off all the garb of the Grim Reaper. There's this beautiful girl there, and then she, of course, goes out giving free samples out to everybody. And people are turning into skeletons and they're falling off this cliff into a big pile of death.

The tobacco industry, of course, says that's not our findings. Our research doesn't show this. We don't think so. That's their reasoning on it. And of course, the great Surgeon General says it kills. Smoking kills. So these are excuses what the industry is putting out. These are smoke screens, they're called. And they don't work. Paul's going to hear a lot of excuses and smoke screens, and they never work.

Chapters one and two, of course, man is guilty. He knew God. He rejected God. He turned to idolatry and to humanism, trusting in self. So Paul continues to lay this black velvet cloth down. Of course, we know the black velvet cloth as sin. It's representative of sin, this darkness, this death. Man without God, there is no hope in this world. And the scripture says that he's hopeless.

So sin is permeating our whole society, our whole system. The psalm we read this morning, Psalm 51, "I was born in my mother's womb, I was born into sin. I have this sin nature. It just permeates everything." This pushing of evolution as a fact in our schools is ridiculous, and they continue to do it. Even though they know it's not fact, they push it on our kids. And that's all our kids are getting today in secular education.

Not only that, this New Age philosophy continues to go on and on and on. It seems other countries are more open to the gospel than we are. And here we are, a nation supposedly under God, and we know better. Those of you who say, and this was in chapter two of Romans, those of you who say that you're a Christian, he said don't judge.

You say, "Well, why not?" Well, you say you're a light to the heathen and yet you do the same things. Who are you to be pointing when three are coming back? You who say you're religious, you know His Word, and yet you fall short of God's Word. You who have all the outward rites and forms and you do this and you do that, you need to have an inward circumcision of your own heart.

So important. You need to be born again, born from on high of your Father. John chapter three, Nicodemus, don't marvel at this. Don't freak out when I tell you you must be born again. You must be. You need to be. Faith in Christ, born again. So God deals with reality. We've been looking at this. He deals with where you're at today. He deals with your lifestyle, how you're living now.

He looks at your life. He knows what's going on. This is why I started this whole thing with judgment begins in the house of the Lord because revival starts with each one of us today. Personally, individually, in our own hearts being stirred, being convicted, being busted, and repenting and getting it right and being changed by the power of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, so desiring to work through us. It's powerful.

So He doesn't look at the outward. Do you remember the situation in Samuel when he went to look for the king of Israel? It was all of David's brothers and they were all buff and they were all standing there. They were tall guys. Oh, certainly there's a king amongst them. And he went down the line of all of David's brothers. Not one of them did God choose.

"Jesse, do you have any other sons?" "Yeah, I got this little ruddy dude. He's out in the shepherd's fields watching over the sheep. Yeah, he's my son. I didn't think I'd bring him in. He's just a little dude." That's when they brought David forward and God said he's the man. You see, God doesn't look at the outward, does He? He looks at the heart.

And that's what God is seeing today. He looks at our hearts. So nationally, race, I was born to Christian parents. Well, hey, that's a blessing. But it could also be a curse. So you use it as an excuse that everything's fine? Well, I'm an American. Oh, that's really going to help you. You come up with a big goose egg when you start saying things like that. Zero, you're out of here. It's not going to get it.

But, and here's what I call this message this morning, but I'm a Christian. So what? So what? What does that say? So you're a Christian. What does that mean? Well, I mean, I've been baptized. I go to church every Sunday. Interesting. And there's going to be many saying in that day when everything's revealed, "Lord, Lord," they're going to start giving their excuses.

"What are you doing? I'm a Christian." No, you called yourself a Christian, but we never had a relationship. You never walked with Me. You never talked with Me. You never knew Me. Get out of here, you workers of iniquity. Enter into the hellfire and brimstone. I mean, it's going to be a rude awakening going on.

So none of these things save a person. I go to church, I read my Bible. They don't save you. They will not save you. Like going into McDonald's doesn't change you into a hamburger. Come on, just because you're here doesn't give you a special thing. It's ridiculous.

So the religious person, the Jew, which Paul was talking to, and okay, let's go ahead and throw Christian in there this morning. To those who call themselves Christians, to the moral Gentile, the good guy, or the pagan heathen, he just simply is saying across the board, you're all guilty. You're all guilty.

Now, we enter into chapter three of Romans. Paul's final argument before he brings out the diamond. Remember we've been talking about this. Always when you go into a diamond store, they lay out the black velvet first. The black velvet, of course, is not that great. It's speaking of sin. Black always speaks of sin. But then to put the diamond, the gospel, on that black velvet, man, it just comes out.

So he's kind of nailing everyone and everything so he can bring us into that glorious good news of the gospel. There's nothing better than the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a diamond. So he's dealing now with the abuse and the misuse of Christian privilege, religious privilege. Do you remember this, that Paul was a Pharisee? He knew what it was like to be all outward and no inward.

He had it on. He had it going for him. He had all the garb and he was righteous, self-righteous, and he killed Christians left and right. He just did his thing. So he knows about the facade, the mask we put on when God looks at the heart. So he's speaking here. God is moving upon him to write these things down. He knew the Jew. He knew there would be four objections to what he has been saying in chapters one and two.

Verse one of Romans chapter three, he says, "What advantage then has the Jew, or what profit is there of circumcision?" First objection. If all are guilty before God, then what's the big deal about being a Jew? He knew in the Jewish mind, in the religious mind, they'd be thinking this. And what good is it for circumcision? Because that was their big thing, and we already looked at that.

But let's look at the same question about being a Christian and I've been baptized. What advantage is that to me, to you? It's a good question. You go to church, you're raised in a Christian home, you went to cemetery, I mean seminary. You went to Calvary Chapel, you know, I mean, "I go to Calvary Chapel." So what does that mean? I don't understand that.

Remember, Paul said, "I count all of these things but dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ." That I might not go in my own righteousness, no, that I might, and this is in Philippians chapter three, verses one through three, that I might be in the righteousness of God which is in Christ Jesus. I want to be righteous in Him. I want to have Him in my life.

I count all my education, all the religious stuff that I did, but dung. You know what dung is? Doodoo. To put it frank. I mean, that's what he counted all these great things that people go to and excuse and smoke screen up the whole thing. "Lord, Lord." He says I count it all but nothing for the knowledge that I might know Him, the power of His resurrection in my life. That it might be real.

I don't want to play Christianity. I don't want to play religion, churchianity, or whatever. I want to be a child of God, period. I want to walk in His blessings. I want to know Him. Glory in that. So Paul answers in verse two his answer to that objection he knew he'd bring out. Much in every way. Hey, you guys, there's a lot of advantages, chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.

What is he saying? Well, you had great advantage. God gave you His Word. What more advantage do you need? They didn't keep the Word, but He gave them the Word and they did become guardians of the principles of life. We owe so much to the Jew today. So much. They were truly guardians of the principles of life, guardians of the prophecies of the Messiah and the Law.

We're indebted to the Jews for what? For their perseverance and for their preservation of the Word of God, its accuracy, its credibility. We are indebted to them by bringing it to us. In 1947, there was an incredible, 20th century, top of the list of the greatest finds in all the world. In 1947 it took place. They found the Dead Sea Scrolls and they were magnificent, totally restored, hidden in a cave in clay jars, sealed up against a wall in this cave.

Incredible find. Why, you say? Well, the oldest manuscript that we've been able to have and to look at has been 900 AD. These manuscripts were 200 BC. Do you see that? It's 1,100 years older than anything we ever found. 1,100 years. And yet they are word for word, letter for letter, the whole book of Isaiah in Hebrew, exactly like our King James or whatever version you have in your Isaiah.

Now, think about this. You know the phone game, where you play the phone game and you just start, you pass one little story and you whisper it to the next guy and the next guy and the next guy and the next guy. When it comes around, it's totally different, right? And a lot of the arguments today are, "Well, the Bible is not that... come on, it's been hundreds, thousands of years it's been written. Come on, it's not correct. It's not, you know, it didn't really get handed down from God to Moses all the way down to us today."

Oh, well, hey, hey, hey. We have proof that not one jot nor tittle moved because it's word for word. There is no loss in translation, guys, when they picked apart the book of Isaiah. This is why this find is so incredible. It's what we have today. God made it that way, giving it to holy men, moved on them to bring forth His Word and to bring forth His Word totally translated correctly from when He gave it to Moses all the way down. I love it. Exact duplicate.

Now, there were many other Old Testament books also found in the Dead Sea Scrolls that were incredible. I mean, the whole book of I think three chapters of Habakkuk and just many other of the Old Testament books were found, fragments of them, in this find. And all correct in just incredible find. But over in Second Peter, this is what Second Peter says. Peter mentions in verse 19, just jot it down.

"We also have a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto you do well to take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved on by the Holy Ghost."

So God made sure that He did this work through His Holy Spirit to bring His Word to us today. Now, the translators were not allowed to make mistakes. I mean, this was a very, very, very serious and holy job, and they took it very, very painstakingly that they would be very careful. If they made a mistake, they couldn't erase it. There was no White-Out back then. They couldn't White it out.

They had to start over again. And to start over again means that they had to, first of all, they had to change their clothes, they had to change the pen, they took a bath. I mean, it was a whole thing. And when they came to the name of God, they really, you know, said, "That's it. Shut it down. We got to clean up and get the new pen and let's put down His name."

And His name was YHWH. And you can't even pronounce it, right? Because they weren't allowed to put it in where you could pronounce the word or His name. You could only say, and this is what they did, they only said "The Name." So they would just put consonants and no vowels. Now, if you put the vowels in, you get Yahweh, right? But it was just consonants. That's how holy it was to them.

They had an awesome fear and reverence for the Word of God. I wish we did today. We just don't have that fear and reverence. We take it so lightly, so casually. We take it for granted, don't we? Everybody's got a Bible in their house, every home's got a Bible. But His Word is holy. His Word is powerful. It’s powerful to judge, to analyze, to convict a man's heart.

His Word is life. The words that I speak to you, Jesus said, they are spirit and they are life. The Word that changed my life was powerful to change my life, to change an entire heart. And in changing the heart, you change the man, or the woman, or the child. That's how powerful it is.

So the Bible says we are to desire His Word, we are to ingest it, to devour it, that means take it in. Why? Why are we here this morning? Why are we feeding upon the Word of God? Why? Because what you feed on, so will you give. And so I want you to take it in so you can give it out. And that's why we're here. That's what God's desire is for all of us.

So God's Word has great benefits now to the Jew especially. Now he's saying, what advantage has God's Word got to you? Historically, when you look back for the Jews during the Black Plague over there in Europe, it was horrible. One out of every three died. The Jews were completely protected, and they actually started blaming the Jews for the Black Plague because they didn't get touched by it.

Now, the reason why was not that they planted it and they tried to wipe everybody out, no. But they followed biblical principles of hygiene and diet. They followed God's Word and so biblically they were blessed and protected physically. Why? Because they simply obeyed the Word of God for their hygiene and for their diet.

There is a book out that's called, it's by Dr. McMillen. You can probably find it online, "None of These Diseases." And it goes through the Old Testament and shows the benefits of the dietary law back in the Old Testament and historically and just how it benefited people. And even today, if we take heed, it'll benefit us. The Jews also followed biblical principles of finances. And this is important. Why? Because they were blessed financially.