We're gonna start with a section of scripture we've read before. I guess we could say that about most of the New Testament, but we read this one more recently. But let's read from 2 Timothy 3, verses 10 through 17 again. You have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconia, at Lystra, which persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord did deliver me. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. May the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let's bow our heads in a word of prayer. Our Father, as we look into your word, we just ask tonight, Lord, that you would bless it, and Lord, that you'd encourage each one of us with the sufficiency of your word. We ask, Lord, that we would be renewed in the inner man, strengthened, and Lord, that we would hold fast to the truth of God's Word. We ask this in Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. I started in the ministry in kind of in 1993. That's when we joined the mission and started to be trained in the work of the ministry. And one of the things we did at the ministry is we looked around at many of the movements that were going on in America and we would talk about them before, after, and during classes, at lunch, in the evening, sometimes in the night at church. And the reason we would do this is we had missionaries throughout the world and throughout the churches in America, and they would call back and say, you know, hey, Paul, this just happened. What's going on with this movement? I came back from Africa after, you know, four years, after six years, and all of a sudden, this church has embraced this movement, for instance, church growth. or this program, the BUILD program, or this thing, or that thing. And this continued on through most of my life as a missionary, and to some degree as a pastor. And you say, well, what does that have to do with our lesson today? Well, our lesson today is on the sufficiency of Scripture. We started out, there's five big headings under Scripture. When you start thinking of the Scriptures, there's five big major points, and we've kind of gone through each one of them. It's inspired by God. That's the first one. We found that from Verse 16, all scripture is inspired by God. Because it's inspired by God, God himself is authoritative. Okay, we might not, you know, people might say, well, that's a circular argument that God is God and God wrote the scriptures, so the scriptures are of God and God is authoritative or some, you know, you can't use his own testimony. The problem is God has spoken and God will judge. And while you can try to make a logical argument and say, well, I need more evidence than that, you really don't. God has spoken. That's enough. The authority of the Scripture stands sufficient. And God has given other evidences in creation, in an inner testimony of right and wrong that we have within our conscience, of the very Word of God, of prophecy which has been fulfilled, all of it together, he says man is without excuse. So we have God who inspired the scriptures, and then we have the scriptures as the second point coming with the authority of God. They are not suggestions. You know, the 10 suggestions. That's not how it came. It's the commandments. God has spoken from heaven and men will be accountable. They will be held accountable in judgment for what they believe. Thirdly, God cannot lie. The scriptures are true. The scriptures are true. If you study church history back in the 1800s, there was a movement called higher criticism. And they said, well, you know, all these books came compiled by all these authors. It's pretty obvious. Now, this is false, but they said it's pretty obvious that different authors added to these books over time. And that's why we have fulfilled prophecy. Now the very basics of higher criticism is that all of these miracles and fulfilled prophecies had to be false. So the church should have thrown this all out right at the beginning. But because it coincided with evolution and the advent of science and the industrial age, Man bought into it. And because man bought into it, the church bought into it. And we, well, there might be some truth in that. And as soon as you gave any ground at all, we became the determiners of what was true in the scriptures. And we watched most of the mainline denominations just turn away from God. Once you make that choice that man is the ultimate authority of what is true and what is untrue from the scriptures, it's gone. So these have been our battles up until recently. And one of the battles we talked about last week was the clarity of scripture. Is it clear enough to understand? And we looked at Isaiah 55 where God said, I have sent my word out and it will not return unto me without accomplishing that which I have commanded it to do. Isaiah 55, nine and 10. And I'm not quoting that verse. You can read it if you want it. But he said, it's going to fulfill the purpose I sent it to do. And we come to today to the sufficiency of scripture. And if we have any battleground of scripture, that we see in our society, this is the one. I mean, there are plenty of examples of all the other ones, but this one in particular is just rampant. It's just rampant. And just, I was making a quick list of things that I have gone through in my life, the movements that I have watched. The first one is church growth. And church growth was the idea that we could use business principles in the church to grow the church. Music attracts people, so let's bring in a band. People like a big church, so let's build bigger facilities. They like activities, so we're gonna put a gym in. And we make an investment, we get a loan out. And we do all these things, and we will grow the church. They don't like long messages, so we'll shorten the message. And they don't like direct preaching, so we'll give a lot of illustrations and drama, and we'll just tone it down, and we'll call it seeker-sensitive, because we're being sensitive to those lost people that are coming in. And many people could survive this because they grew up in sound churches. They knew sound doctrine. Their kids were raised under biblical principles, but their children, even though raised under traditional biblical principles, did not have the foundation of knowing what those principles were built on. And you see within about 10 to 15 years, the church just starting to go broad. They can't take any stand on any doctrinal issue. They do a lot of self-help talk, how to have a better marriage, how to have a better life, how to live at work, how to deal with a hard relationship, how to pray and get answers from God. It's all based on what I need, what I need, and felt needs is the word. And this is all from the doctrine, or from the teaching, or from the belief. And this is a core belief, even though it will never be stated out loud, that the Bible is insufficient in and of itself. that the Word of God is insufficient for the needs of modern man. And you can look back at this movement, not just in America, but look back in history and you see Spurgeon in the 1800s fighting against and standing against the same, pretty much the same movement called modernism. Modernism. and they said that modern man had advanced and so the church had to change how it interacted with man and advance as well. And so they brought in plays and they brought in dramas and they brought in orchestras and they tried to do all these things to spice up church and to make it appropriate for the modern educated man. And they watched their churches crash and burn while Spurgeons grew from a congregation of 20 to 20,000. And he preached the word of God. And at the time, by the end of his life, he was marginalized, even though he had one of the largest churches in England, with one of the greatest international followings, he was mocked and put aside and ridiculed. And he said, time will tell. And out of all the authors, if I could look back, I studied this at one point, out of all the authors of modernism, you wouldn't recognize one of their names. Because they've all, you know, their works have proved to be unenlightened, uninspired, untenable. They don't work. And Spurgeon's sermons are still sold today by the thousands. By the thousands. So this is just one of the movements. Other ideas that have come in. People say we need more people. So we need emotion in the services. We need better music. We need dramas. We need big names, celebrities. We need more unity. I have one friend who claims to know the Lord and I don't know enough about him to know if he's truly a Christian or just a Christian in name only, but his thought, and he articulated this to me the first time we met, is that Satan's biggest victory is the denominations. He has split the church into different denominations. And after all, we're only one people of God, we should all be together. And so as long as we hold ourselves out, we are doing Satan's work for him. And at the time I wasn't able to answer, but I just wanted to scream at him and say, and what do you do with doctrine? What do you do with the truth? What do you do when one church says Christ was not born of a virgin, and another church says that there are certain sacraments and works you have to do to get to salvation, and another church says salvation comes through baptism, and a fourth church says that you can only worship on the seventh day, and a fifth You know, these are all different routes, different beliefs about the core value of the Bible. What is salvation? You can't have agreement if you have differences on this. There is no agreement. You cannot compromise what God's word is said. And so even though that made sense from a worldly perspective, you know, he would look at his, think of how much power we would have if we could unite the whole church It fails to understand that the whole visible church is not saved. In fact, the vast majority of the visible church is lost. The vast majority. 50% of all Christians are charismatics. Something like 45% or 35% are Catholics of all Christians. Neither one of those have a firm grasp of salvation and of discipleship and of following God. So if you're thinking that is, you know, we can unite with them and we can get all together and if we could just unite, it's rubbish, just rubbish. Going a little bit to the course Charismatics, we can see as well a clear lack in the sufficiency of Scripture. You can meet people in the Charismatic Church all over the world and they tell you the same thing. I don't know what you can do without hearing from God yourself. You need the Holy Spirit to give you a personal message every day. In dreams, in visions, in impressions. And you go, okay, well, what was your message? One of them said, well, I had a dream and your whole family was covered in purple and you were fixing the car and you were wearing a different color shirt. So you're outside of the grace of God. And I'm thinking, where is this coming from? I'm fixing a car. Did you have too much pizza last night? Did the pepperoni sit? I mean, this is not from God. You know, we have the contemplative prayer movement as well. We have the searching of scripture just by taking a couple of words and twisting them to make them say whatever you want it to mean. Beyond that, we have the spiritual warfare movement. This originated from Peter Wagner in the 50s. Peter Wagner is a Pentecostal. He started with power evangelism, teaching that God, that to reach the modern world, we needed the power of the apostles in doing signs and wonders. And so we should be able to heal the sick, and if we couldn't heal the sick, we would never see God going forward. And again, at the very basics of that is a belief that the Word of God is not sufficient. That's what it is. The Word of God is not sufficient. After that, in the 60s, he got into the spiritual warfare movement and he said, the reason we're losing America is we're not fighting Satan in the correct model. So we're supposed to walk around towns and pray, claiming them in the name of Jesus. We're supposed to bind demons wherever we go. We're supposed to anoint our houses with oil. Everything that he said is outside of God's Word. You don't find one bit of it taught in God's Word. You know, if we could bind Satan from Eager River and he was gone and we could see Eager River won for the Lord, Eager River would have been won. But it doesn't work. And yet they continue to look for new ways, new wonders, new signs that are outside of the Bible. Besides this, I don't know if you're aware, but we are getting into the broader Christian church, especially some of the Oh, different forms of emergent and different things are into some visualizations. You know, just imagine what you could be and then God will fill your mind. Chance, self-help. Even, I can't remember his name. He did 40 Days Purpose-Driven Life. Rick Warren, thank you, Rick Warren. When he came out with the Daniel plan, He had an Eastern guru who was teaching Eastern Hindu meditation. How to empty yourself. To be filled and to get filling from outside. All of these are just, and then let's not even forget the psychiatry movement, psychiatry, psychology movement, you know, that we have the 12-step program, we have this program, we have that program, we have Alcoholics Anonymous, we have all these things that the worldly wisdom has put together. I was reading something by John MacArthur, and this was back in the, probably in the 90s, 80s or 90s. 7,000 of the top psychiatrists and psychologists got together in the United States to have a huge meeting, week-long meeting, and they were gonna set down all of the tenets and everything, and kind of set out some foundations. Week-long meeting, and they decided there's nothing they agree on. 40 years of study and there's not one thing that these great names can agree on to set down as a foundational principle for everybody else, not one. but we're gonna bring them into the church, and we're gonna piggyback on them, and we're gonna say, you know, these will work for you as a family. These will work with you with your troubled relationship, with your troubled kids, with your problems with your neighbor, with your problems at work, you know, with your problem with your spouse. These are what you gotta put your mind, no, absolutely not. All of this is coming from a lack of belief in the centrality and the sufficiency of God's Word. And I take you back, we're gonna look at a lot of verses, but let me just read what Paul said. Again, with that in mind, he said, but, verse 13, evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. That's what's going on. That is nothing new. It's been going on since the Apostle Paul. Evil men and imposters invade the church, both coming from the inside and from the outside, deceiving and being deceived. And he says this, but, verse 14, you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them. And that from childhood, you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Jesus Christ. 2 Timothy 3, that was 13 and 14 and 15. And that's it. Paul's answer to all of this outside deception is what? Stay with what you know. Stay with what has worked. Stay with the Scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation. It's not a hard answer, is it? Stay in God's Word. You know what happens when the belief in the sufficiency of Scripture goes down? and we start looking elsewhere. Obviously, you come to a church, and instead of actually studying a passage from God's word, you get a lot of stories and a lot of articles and a lot of support from others, and scientists have said, and this poll has said, and that has said, and all of this. But I want you to know something else. Listen to this. This was, again, from a message I came across. Preaching grows hazy. There's no concrete things to stand on. There's no foundation stones. There's nothing. Knowledge and trust go down. I remember being at Jackson Hole Bible College and I was talking with the professors. They have the distinction of having the most PhD professors. They're a very small college. They're kind of tied in with Answers and Genesis. So they have a lot of geologists and astronomers and just incredibly gifted men that have agreed to be a part of this college and come in and teach for a two-week course every year. So in this one to two year course that you go to do, you are taught by some of the biggest names in creation research. And it's just, it's an incredible program. And I remember going there to talk and they said, you know, every year we get kids from Bill Heibel's church, which is church growth. And he says, every year we start with what is salvation? And they go, no, it can't be that. We go, yes, that's what salvation is. No, no, salvation is just, and I was there watching one of these discussions, and afterwards I'm having this talk with him, and he says, this is, and I mean, just think about this in context, preaching grows hazy. Knowledge and trust goes down. When you buy into the fact that scripture is not sufficient on its own, you stop teaching it, you stop proclaiming it as truth. You start to try to broaden things and they become vague and hazy. God wants everybody to be saved. If you can just believe for a moment, you'll make it in. We were reading this morning, and again in Luke 1, Luke 9, 23, and then in Luke, what was it, 13, that we were reading today, if a man doesn't love father and mother more, if a man doesn't hate his father and mother and his wife and his children, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. This is not a second stage of growth, this is just saying that on the top level of who do I love in my life with a priority, there's only one. It's not my wife, it's God. Everything else comes down on a completely separate level. If there were ever a question between God and my marriage, or God and my father, or God and somebody else, I must choose God. There should be no questions in our heart. And God says, if you don't do that, if you don't have that kind of a love for me, you cannot be my disciple. He shows us that the road to following him can be difficult and it can be hard. He tells us to count the cost. And it's not that he wants to be mean. He's open and clear in stating what is the cost of salvation. It's following Him. It's following Him. So we watch all of this start to happen, and we see churches stumbling and falling. And I just wanna take you to a couple of verses tonight. Let's go to 2 Corinthians. You can leave a bookmark there in Timothy, you don't have to, but we're gonna go to 2 Corinthians now. Chapter three will be the first one, verse five. And just in the time left, let's read a couple of verses and challenge us to think because God's word is not silent on this issue. All too often, we hear the opposite side of the story that men have changed and they're not interested in church. And look, hey, our church has got fewer people this year than last year. And so we need to change what we're doing in the church. And people just like sheep, we follow along being led by our noses going, yes, that's true, I see it, it's true. It's not God's Word. Let's go back to God's Word. 2 Corinthians 3, 5. Paul is talking. Now remember, who is Paul? Paul is the apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ called on the road to Damascus. He has been given the charge of taking the gospel to the Gentiles. He has been abused every place he's gone. You saw that list in Timothy, my persecutions in Antioch and Iconia and Lystria. The list was endless. Verse five, not that we think we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves. Here he has been taught at the feet of Gamaliel, being taught by the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, I don't think I'm sufficient in my own, in anything, nothing. He says this, but our sufficiency is of God. Who gives you the strength to stand? Who gives you the wisdom? Who gives you the answer to the tongue? God does. And so Paul could look at his life and he would state very clearly, I know the power is not in me. It's not in anything, even when he came to Corinth, he said, I didn't come in words of wisdom and power and man's. He said, I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Why? Because that's the power of God unto salvation. If that is the only thing that will change men. So he came to them in weakness with a message they didn't really want that was ridiculed because that was the message that had the sufficiency of God's power behind it. And the result of it was, as he watched this pagan town, he watched a church called out of it. And yes, the church is probably the most worldly church that we know of in scripture. And yet when Paul wrote them and rebuked them, what happened? They obeyed. Isn't that amazing? I mean, if you rebuke someone in our church today, you got your name in the paper. You know, it becomes a big issue. You might even get a court case against you. How dare you tell me I'm right or wrong? You know, and Paul would make no two ways about it. In 1 Corinthians 14, he says, if anyone has a problem with what I'm writing, let him acknowledge that the things I'm writing is the commands of the Lord. What I'm writing is scripture. You must obey. There's no options here. Go forward a little bit more, talking about sufficiency of scripture. Let's go to chapter nine, 2 Corinthians chapter nine. This is one of my dad's favorite verses, and mine. 2 Corinthians chapter nine, starting in verse eight, and just notice the superlatives. And God is able. There's the first thing. Where's our faith at? It's only in God, isn't it? It's not in what man can do. It's not in what I can do. It's not in our wisdom of coming together. Jesus Christ said, I will build my church. I have to wait for him. I have to depend on him. I have to call on him. I am not the one who's been given the job to build the church. My job is to preach the word of God. And this is what it says. God is able, what? To make all grace abound. Okay, toward you. Not just a little grace, but all grace. And that grace is not gonna just be poured out in a dripper. You know, we're not, no little drip marks here going drip, drip, drip. Oh, Mary's squeaking, drip. Jim's squeaking, drip. It's got nothing to do with that. He said, it's gonna be poured out on you abundantly that you and this is what it's gonna produce in us, always, isn't that a wonderful word? You go, but I don't feel like that's true in my life. God says it is, always having all sufficiency in all things may have an abundance for every good work. You know, when God gives you a good work to do, do you know that he's already provided all you need to do that work? But all too often we look at the work and we go, oh, not me, I can't do that. But God has given all things to us, all grace. I mean, there is, all too often, He doesn't empower until you take a step and say, yes, Lord. You know, He calls a man to preach and the man maybe doesn't know how to preach at the beginning. But as he says, yes, Lord, I'm willing to follow you, God gifts him and works with him and people start to notice it and to say, yes, you have been called to this position. As you obey, he enables. Drop down also to verse 10. Now may he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food supply and multiply the seed you have sown. Who is he talking about? God, right? This is not hard. Paul is praying and he says, Now may he who supplies seed to the sower, the one who creates seed, And from that seed gives us the provision of bread and supplies and multiplies the seed that you have sown when you cast it out and He gives you a harvest and a farm. May He increase the fruits of your righteousness. You can really see where Paul's looking for his sufficiency, can't you? He's got no hope in himself. His hope is only in the Lord. And that's where he's going to put all of his trust, And this is, you know, my, I don't know if life verse, but my ministry verse would be Romans 1.16. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Why? It is the power of who? God unto salvation. It is the power of God. You know, one of the blessings about having the Bible here is when you preach the word of God, you are not using your own wisdom and your own power. You are touching His powers. As long as you do it accurately, you are touching the very power of God. The very voice of God goes out through the Word of God. And you can feel it. You know this. In a biblical church, you sit there when the message goes out and the Holy Spirit comes in and goes, and you go, ooh, that one burned. That one got right into my heart. That was good. I needed that. You know, and you go out and you go, that was what we needed to hear tonight. The Spirit of God was there. And you know it, because the Word of God comes. Now, there's two parts of this sufficiency, and I just touched on one, the Spirit of God and the Word of God. The Spirit of God works through the Word of God. That's how He works. We're not listening for some voice outside, you know, sitting outside and going, well, I listened for God all night long. No, you open your Bibles and you read and you study and you seek, what did he say? Because he's already taught you. He's given you everything you need in the word already. It's already there. Paul would not, you know, most of the New Testament wasn't even written when he was writing to Timothy. And he would say, stay in the scriptures. Just talking about the Old Testament. Why? They will bring you to faith in Christ. Why? They had the law that taught us about sin, and they had the sacrifice system that taught us about the need of the atonement. And Timothy knew about Jesus Christ and salvation by grace through faith alone. He had everything he needed. Stay in the Word. John 17, 17. Sanctify them by thy truth, thy word is truth. You go, well, what about when I'm addicted to sin? What about when I have this addiction to something? What about when I'm weak and I fall down all the time? What's Christ pray? Sanctify them through some pop psychology. Sanctify them through 12-step theology. Sanctify them through Freud, through Nietzsche. He says, sanctify them through thy truth, thy Word. Thy Word is truth. It is the Word that washes us. It purifies our conscience, it cleanses us. John MacArthur gives the example of a man who came to him and he was a homosexual and he had come to know the Lord and he said, you know, my lifestyle has been so filled with sin, he says, he asked John if he could sit down and talk to him and he said, I have just been filled with sin since I was a teenager. And he says, I walk downtown and I sin with my mind All the time. He said, I just can't keep it clean. And John says, do you really want victory over this sin? The man said, yes. He said, will you do anything it takes? He said, yes. John went in his desk drawer, pulled out a notebook. He said, I want you to write down, when you walk down the street, you carry this notebook with you 24-7. And every time you have an impure thought, you write it down. And you bring it back to me, and we're going to talk about it at the church. You're going to confess it to me. We're going to pray over it together. He came back and there was only maybe one or two instances on it instead of pages and pages. He says, what happened? And they had talked about it. He says, now what happened? Why was there only a few? He says, I knew you were gonna check. He says, I didn't wanna write, I didn't wanna sin. He says, that's right. This is the body, we're helping. He says, now you come back, you're gonna do this again next week. Next week the book was blank. A week after that it was blank. He gave him some studies to work through in the morning and verses to memorize. He got his mind on the things of God and he made the sin so abhorrent that the man was embarrassed to sin. and he saw deliverance over his sin. Sanctify them through thy word, through thy truth. Thy word is truth. There is nothing else. Psalms 119, 105, don't look it up. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path. That word is sufficient. It will guide us in the direction of our life and it will show us where we need to step in the next step. It will point out the errors, you know, the traps, the pitfalls, the stumbling blocks. It has done everything to give us a clear vision. You understand what that is? It gives us a clear vision of this world. That's what God's Word does. You can take it, you can learn it, and you can start to apply it, and you have that vision. How do I live with my wife? I love my wife as Christ loved the church. It's sacrificial. I lay down my life for the wife. I sanctify my wife. I lead her in paths of righteousness. How do I live with my kids? I discipline my kids and I train them in the fear of the Lord and admonition of the Lord and I teach them God's Word and I talk about the law of God and I talk about church and I talk about this when we sit down, when we stand up, when we walk by the way. It tells me what I have to do. And when I do it, I walk on His path. Listen to Mark 12, 24. This one I didn't write out. Mark 12, 24. This comes from Jesus, and he says it in the negative. He's talking to the Sadducees from verse 18. Sadducees who said there is no resurrection. And there's a verse here in 24 that's really good. He says, Jesus answered and said to them, They had just done this seven brothers and the bride, the wife went from one brother to the next and in the heaven, whose wife will she be? He said, are you not mistaken? Okay. In other words, you are mistaken. Okay. Are you not mistaken because you do not know the scriptures? Just stop there. Isn't that beautiful? If you knew the scriptures, you wouldn't be mistaken. But you don't know the scriptures. And I mean, this is his argument that he starts with. Are you not mistaken because you do not know the scriptures? And they would only say they believed in the first five books of Moses, nothing else. Nothing that the Psalms, the prophets, the writings of the rabbis, none of that. Only the first five books of Moses. Why? Because there's no afterlife and there were certain things that they thought they could force from that. So they were willing to follow the law to a certain degree, but you know, the blessings of God were those that made money. That was how God blessed you. And so if you were rich, you were obviously following God pretty well. And that was why the Sadducees were pretty wealthy. And you know, Christ just pins them right back. He says, are you not mistaken? Why? Because you do not know the scriptures. And notice the last part of it. It says, you do not know the scriptures, nor the power of God. If you do not know the Scriptures, you will never experience the power of God. We have all these people, Peter Wagner and the Charismatic Movement, that are saying, you know, we need power evangelism, we need power encounters with the Spirit, we need powerful spiritual warfare, we need powerful prayer warriors, we need all these things, and to get that, you need to do these secret things. No. Are you not mistaken? Because you do not know the scriptures nor the power of God. When you know the scriptures, you know the power of God and you will know the path you are to go. And you will be blessed of God. You look at who changed the world, it was the Apostle Paul with the foolish message of a man who died on a cross and was executed. who was the son of God, and he died as an atonement for sin. And as he preached that in clear language, he watched the world be converted. He watched churches spring up. I mean, do you ever feel bad? I mean, think about this. One man who just traveled from city to city to city, and everywhere he went, he preached and a church started. Wouldn't that be awesome? I'd love to see that just happen in Eagle River. You know, that the church would grow, that it would take root, that it would start to spread, that people would be excited, there'd be talk about the Word of God, to the point that it would cause distraction within the town. I know God has called us. I know He's the same God. I don't know what His plans are for Eagle River, but I know that our only hope of ever seeing that happen is to preach the whole Word of God. Let's think of one more. This is in 1 Corinthians 2. This is, again, a passage that I read often. 1 Corinthians 2, 9 through the end of the chapter. 1 Corinthians 2, 9 through the end of the chapter. But as it is written, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. You can't know because it's never come near you. But God has revealed them to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of a man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. Here it is. God has given us the Word and He's given us the Spirit to interpret that Word and to teach us. 1 John 2.20, I believe it says, that you have no need of anyone teaching because you have an anointing of God and the Spirit teaches you. And this is, most of us that know Jesus Christ as our personal Savior have been sealed by the Spirit know this is true. You read your Bible in the morning. And does it convict you sometimes? It does me. I'm a pastor and it still does me, right? And you're studying and I can study something all week long and I'll pick it up Sunday morning and I'll be preaching and all of a sudden, now it happened. Oh, there's another word in there. There's something I missed. You think, how did you miss it all week long? Sometimes it's just God working through His Spirit, bringing stuff out, and opening the Word up right there as you're preaching, and saying, this is what the Word is saying. Teach my Word. And that's exactly what He does to each one of us when we read the Word. It's not just pastors. Skip down, we're running out of time, so skip down to the last sentence of verse 16. Or let's read all of 16, the last verse there. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have what? The mind of Christ. The Spirit is working in us with the Word of God, renewing our minds so that our minds have the very mind of God. And then we look and we go, oh, but I need the wisdom of man. No, you don't. You would trade the riches of God for the foolishness of men. And you watch the people who do this literally crash and burn. James, let me just give you a couple more real quick here. I'll just read them out. James 1.25 says, continue in the perfect law of liberty. The man who does that will be blessed in what he does, in all that he does. Why will he be blessed in all that he does? Just think about it. Because he continues in the law of God. You know, does it get any more simple than that? You don't need to get something from outside. Acts 17, 11, why were the Bereans more excellent than the Thessalonians? Because they searched the Word. They searched the Scriptures daily to see if the things were so. Therefore, many believed. You know, what's the key to evangelism? Getting them thinking about the Word. Letting them hear the Word. That's the key. Over time, with love, with prayer, Secret to a happy life? This one was another, I thought that was an interesting question. Secret to a happy life? Let the word of God dwell in you richly, teaching one another, admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. There it is. When God's word and God's spirit dwells in you richly, you will have songs in your heart. Probably one of the best verses, 2 Peter. 1, 2, and 3, 2 Peter 1, 2, and 3 says this, as His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness. How? Through the knowledge of Him who called us. He has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, how we are to live and how we are to be godly. All of that is given through what? The knowledge of Jesus Christ, by which have been given unto us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these we may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. We don't have to look for a further revelation. We don't have to look for sources outside of the word of God. We just need to come back to God's word and say this is the answer, it's got the answer, it's sufficient. It will provide all the help I need. And as we put our trust in it and our obedience in it and following it through, you will start to see in your life that God's word is sufficient. You know, if you had one more verse, Hebrews 4.12, for the word of God is sharp. Piercing to the dividing is, let me think about it, I've not quite got it right there. For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. You want to talk about powerful? That's the Word of God with the Spirit of God behind it. That's why Paul would tell Timothy, continue in what you've learned, knowing from whom you've learned them, that the Holy Scriptures will make you wise unto salvation. Then he'd go on in the next chapter and say, preach the Word. I charge thee before God and man, preach the Word. because only this word has the power to save. We have gone through these because this is a battle that is only growing. It's only growing. I keep running into more and more people talking about contemplative prayer, listening. Prayer is a two-way street. You pray and then you listen to God as he answers. And that's not necessarily wrong. Sometimes he answers by bringing scripture to your mind. But it also fits this idea that we are sitting there waiting for a voice to come out of the blue to say, Sue, you need to go visit your neighbor. You know, or something else. And this is not the word of God. And we have to be so careful. Because we have been given such a rich gift in the word of God. If we turn from God himself and the power of his word, what have we got left? The tales of men, the lies and deception of men. 7,000 psychiatrists together to find out what the foundations were of what they decided that was true. And they couldn't find a single thing. That's the world for you. And God's Word has stood for 4,000 years, unchanged, unchanging, true in every word and detail. Let's close in a word of prayer. Our Father, we ask you tonight, Lord, even as we look at your Word, that you would encourage us to stay in your Word. May the sufficiency of your Word guide us. May we be enlivened by knowing that the word comes from a living God. May we put our trust in you. Father, we ask for your blessing tonight on everyone who hears these words. Open our hearts to your word. Father, we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.