This week I was reading Spurgeon, his Morning and Evening, and I don't do that regularly either, but I do suggest at times you pick it up and read it. There's an app, by the way, if you are interested, you can load it up and have it at your fingertips. but his September 15th morning one was on the matter of we should not be afraid of evil tidings. And as I read it, it struck me how this applied to the Doctrine of Revelation series, even though that wasn't what he was talking about. But as Christians, how do we live for God? How do we live not fearing the world and doing our duty? And the answer is in Psalm 112, and he had quoted a piece of that, and it fit right in with the intro I had already written. Psalm 112 verse 1 says, Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in his commandments. That's his revelation. Verse six, surely he will never be shaken. The righteous will be in everlasting remembrance. He will not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. His heart is established. He will not be afraid until he sees his desire upon his enemies. And I thought what a great way to start this morning and a great way to summarize this as far as What is the real necessity of revelation from God? It is to give us confidence in how we live as Christians in this world. Without the doctrine of revelation, we would never know our origin, our nature, our purpose, or our reconciliation to God. that we might fear and delight in him. And if you think about those things, and I chose those words over time and through different means, but those are things that are central to man's existence. Where did we come from? We spend billions of tax dollars sending rockets and probes, and I love rockets and probes, you know that, but they're going out for the wrong reason, when the reason is, so we might know where man came from. You're never going to find it out there. You're never going to find it in this scrap of dirt or that scrap of rock or whatever. Our origin is from God. What's our nature? What are we like? Why are we like that? I was reminded of again with the conference in Italy and the matter of man's wickedness, his violence in the land. We are blind if we think violence is because we have swords or guns. And that's of course what the world says. Oh, the problem gun violence. No, it's not gun violence. I have one or two guns at my house and none of them have ever been violent. They just sit there in the corner doing nothing. And I'm sorry, that's the way it is. I just read, just last night, I don't remember what state it was, but a sheriff walked into the judge's office in the courthouse, shot him dead. Came out with his hands up. That wasn't gun violence, that was sheriff violence. That was man violence. And so it is... You totally turn your world upside down and are confused and in the dark if you don't understand the nature of man. And that, in fact, the only solution to violence is when we are in heaven with God. And there will be no violence because all sin will be removed. What is the purpose of man? We all go through this. We all have times where we're not sure what's our purpose in life. And it may be when you're young and single. It may be when you're older and married. It may be at all different times at work, at home. But what's our purpose? Why are we doing this? Why is this? It's just a drudgery. Is there really any point to this? And the world would argue, although they then turn around and say they're not, that sometimes there's just no point to it all. Well, then suicide seems like a viable option, right? I've always used that argument on people that now it's gotten ridiculous. But, you know, we should be able to decide anything we want. Now we can decide that we're not boys and we're not girls. Okay, well then what's wrong with suicide? Because they're all anti-suicide too. I should be able to decide I'm dead. It's just sensible. It makes as much sense. but not if we understand our purpose. Our purpose is to serve God. How do we know that? The revelation of God, the doctrine of revelation. And of course, our reconciliation to God that we might fear and delight in him. We would never know that without God revealing how we might be reconciled to him. Matthew 10, 28 says, and do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Now, at least up to this point in our lives, not many of us has ever had to fear anyone who's going to kill our bodies. But we do fear people who make fun of us. We fear people who don't let us hang out with them because they don't like how we talk or the fact that we're always trying to steer things to some kind of religious conversation, or that we don't spend all weekend long doing the things they do. None of you, I assume, are able to go out and start partying at 10 o'clock with the guys watching football all day today. Why? Because we're here. And people don't like that. It kind of puts a little pressure on them that, well, maybe this isn't what my life should be about. And yet... We still fear those people. We still change the way we act, the way we talk, the way we express ourselves. And so we need to be careful that we follow the revelation of God and remind ourselves to fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. This is for Christians. This isn't, oh, well, I'm OK. I'm saved. I don't have to worry about hell. you still need to understand it is a fear of him who is able to do that. God, in his perfect righteousness, will condemn any who are not reconciled to him. And that should be, for the Christian, a source of amazing joy and rejoicing. And for the unbeliever, it should be a source of fear and trembling. So what I want to look at this morning is five things. These are all pulled from the lessons. If you have a photographic memory, you'll remember them pretty much the way they are. But just five things I want to cover, and I'm going to go through them rather quickly, because we've touched on them before. But I think these are the five things that as we looked at the Doctrine of Revelation, we should understand and focus on. First of all, the importance of this doctrine. And I've hinted at this already, but there is no saving knowledge outside of God's word. We can know God. We do, in fact, the scriptures tell us, know that there is a God who exists, but we do not know how to be reconciled to him outside of God's revelation. Luke 2, verse 29, Simeon says, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace. according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. Romans 16, 25, now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began, but now made manifest and by the prophetic scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God. for obedience to the faith, to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. Now, I could stop there this morning, but I won't. But I think that is probably the keystone of all this that we've studied, the importance of the doctrine of revelation. Without God's revelation to us, we would not know how to be reconciled to God. The second thing we looked at, and I think this is important to just remind ourselves of in this very rationalistic science conscious time in which we live, and in which Christians are generally made to feel inferior, like somehow we're the blind dummy dummies running around with no clue what really is going on, when the truth is, it is exactly the opposite. We cannot study science without acknowledging the God of science. So the revelation of God is addressed to the reason and conscience. We do not blindly walk in the dark. In fact, those who don't have the scriptures and God are the ones that are in darkness. And so they come up with the most insane and crazy ideas that change literally from day to day, from hour to hour. and make fools of themselves, as the Scriptures say. But the Scriptures were given to a man who of a nature created by God. We are made in his image, and we reason and are aware. And keep in mind, God the Spirit made us in his image. It is our spirits in particular that are a reflection of God. But what is our spirit? It's our thinking. It's as you sit there, and I remember as a younger guy just thinking how amazing this is, you can stop and think about yourself. And like, it's like there's somebody in there and it's me. And I can see you and I can get to know you as you reveal yourselves to me. But the only person that I really can know what's going on all the time is myself. And so it is that reasoning, that awareness that God has made us that's part of being created in his image. And so prophecies and miracles are given to the end that we believe, and the revelation continues in the scriptures. Acts 2.22 says, men of Israel, Hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves also know. And so how was Christ attested? By the things that he did. He was a prophet. He did the things that he said. He was shown to be a man of truth. And he did those things as part of that proof. And then in John 20 and verse 30, it says, and truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written, not for your curiosity, not to satisfy your need to understand, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. Now, do you see, without the revelation of God, without John writing that in the Gospel of John, we would not know that. We would not know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by faith and believing in his name, we have life. So you see the importance of the revelation of God, and you see the place of reason and conscience in that. We can read these things and see the way these arguments are put together by God and revealed, especially over time through the Old Testament. and we see that. And then the third place, man's need for revelation. God exists and man was created a rational and moral creature capable of knowing and obeying God, but only capable of acceptably worshiping him if he had it revealed how God is to be served. So we can have all that comes before us, but we don't know how to serve God unless God tells us. And so there was two ways, if you remember, that we can see the need of man. First of all, for direction, and I'll give you the second just for reference, for direction, and then secondly, for a guide. And you might say, well, that's very similar. And yes, it's very similar, but I think there's a little difference. But first, for direction. Man's inner act, let me try that again. Man's interaction with God must be based on what is acceptable to God. What's wrong with false religion? There are thousands of false religions. And again, he already made reference to the Pope, but everybody teaches, oh, it doesn't matter how you get there. We're all going to get to the same place. I kid you not, I read something yesterday that basically was, I think, the mayor of Springfield, in a state that should not be named, saying The Haitians are good, and their religion is a good religion, and you need to understand this will help broaden our culture. Really? Whether they eat cats or not, I don't really care. They're basically voodoo worshipers who sacrifice chickens for sure, and I think ducks will work as an acceptable substitute, and their religion is one of magic and witchcraft. And the guy writing the article questioned that perhaps the mayor had come to power and was such a Haitian fan because of magic and witchcraft. A little tongue-in-cheek, but his point was valid. But the point is, that's where you end up. you end up in the silliness of thinking that by sacrificing a chicken and chanting the right words, you can influence someone else magically and things will happen and you will overcome them. If you read Caleb and Melissa's recent blog, actually, I don't know if it's the last one, because I was a little behind, but where they were flying out and they were praying for clear weather, because scheduling the plane, the cost of the plane, it's all very involved and the weather was, Typical PNG it was gorgeous the day before the plane was coming and the day the plane was coming it looked like yesterday evening for us Just buckets of water coming down and they prayed about it and someone in the village told them there's a group of people in the village that don't want you to go in and out and And so they think they've worked their magic to keep the plane from coming. And so there was some effort on Caleb's part to say, we're going to trust God. We're going to get in, I think, the boat. We're going to go to the other airstrip. Theirs isn't open yet. It has to be inspected. Even in P&G, there's bureaucrats. And we're going to get down there, and we're going to wait. And they waited overnight. And it wasn't a fun wait. If you think waiting in a thatched hut with rats running around is fun, Maybe you should go visit PNG as a little missionary effort at some point. It might be good for you. And they waited. And the plane got called back for a medical emergency. And then they got waited. And they got finally where they were like, this is it. We either got to go or go back. And I think it was like a half hour window. And the plane landed. They got in. They got back out through the clouds. The pilot said, Never see anything like that. Crazy. Why? Why did God do that? Maybe it is a small reminder and a sign to those that are there that their magic is worthless in the face of God. So I know I've gotten way off track, but I don't care. We need to understand what is acceptable to God. You don't get to make up religion. You don't get to make up your Christianity. You don't get to make up your flavor of Christianity. You need to read the Word of God and take the Word of God and apply it like a template, like a mold to yourself and say, am I conforming to the things of God? Because if I'm not, I need to change. Not God. Not the church I go to, not the confession that I confess. I need to change. I need to conform to the word of God. Genesis 2.15, and I just love this, the way this presents us so clearly, so very early in the revelation of God. Genesis 2.15, then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. This is Adam before the fall. And the Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die." Now think about that for a minute. Adam, no sin, and yet God had to tell him what he could and couldn't do. How would man have known that if God hadn't revealed it to him? Adam would have wandered around the garden and he would have thought all the trees look good. And once he tasted one, he'd go, ooh, that's a good one. Let me try another one. Let me try another one. And it was only God's revelation to him that set the boundaries. You may, you may not. and hemmed Adam in with how it was acceptable to worship God. That was Adam's worship. It was the basis of Adam's fellowship with God. How do you know that? Because when he sinned and ate the tree that he wasn't supposed to, he broke fellowship with God. And he didn't walk with him in the cool of the day. He hid himself in the bushes. Do you see? His worship was broken because he didn't obey God's way of worshiping him. And so we aren't left to stumble around in the dark. From the very beginning, man was made, as Pink said, made dependent upon his creator for a knowledge of his will. If man needed this in his pristine, unfallen state, how much more after he departed from that state by disobedience? Sin has made us blind and foolish. And we certainly don't need to look any further than our current day and the events of it to see that man, left to himself, descends to the level of the beast. And that is not new with our age. It is over and over and over. Romans 1 verse 20. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Let me stop for just a second. We were talking Wednesday night. Andy was teaching. He was talking, we were listening. We were talking about God and sin. And God is not the author of sin. We sin. But God is providentially controlling all those things. And as he was talking, it didn't dawn on me. I was reminded of we always see God is light. Sin is darkness. What is darkness? Your physics study, that's right, it's the absence of light. It doesn't exist in and of itself. It's just when light isn't there, darkness is there. So as light withdraws, some of you that have flashlights that go high and low, right? As you turn them down to lower, what happens? The darkness advances. Well, there's no thing that's dark that pushes forward. It's not like water pushing forward. It's just there's no light. As you turn the light back up brighter and brighter and brighter, the darkness recedes. Why? Because the light is there. It's that same idea, and it's the picture that's given to us that we have in Scripture. And so as men turn away from God, their foolish hearts are darkened. Those that make fun of you, you have no reason to fear them. They're the ones living in darkness. They're the ones stumbling around with no idea how to live and what to do and how to anything, how to raise their children, how to have a marriage that's glorifying to God, how to live with the relatives, how to live with the community, how to live with those in the church. All of those things are given to us by God, revealing how we might do those things. And when we don't have that, we just send into foolishness. And so Romans goes on to say, professing to be wise. See? Told you. We are so smart. We're the science people, you silly people. Or we're the medical people, you silly people. Professing to be wise, they became fools. and change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. That is what man is apart from God. How can sacrificing a chicken do anything for you? I don't know. But when you make things up, it can. And so we've turned the image of God into the image of silliness. So how is this to be explained apart from God's revelation or rejection of it? So it's a part of the witness of the word of God as to its truthfulness. And then not only is it good for direction, but it is a guide. And I think for me, the guide part is more a matter of how we live. How do we live? Direction is a general concept of this is how we see the world that we live in. But how do I live? What's the way that I determine what I'm doing? So for a guide, if this is the observable condition of man, how are we to live? How are we to worship our Creator and live with one another? And if you stop and think about it, what else is there in life? That is life. I know, we accumulate a lot of things. The boys were over yesterday, they saw Papa's stuff, and I was looking for something in the stuff. And it's all stuff that I've at one point or another felt was very valuable and needed to have my money spent on to buy and use, and it's great, and it's there. And I promised them they can have it someday. And they had it all divided up already, just for the record. That concerns me. But why do we do that? Because what is it that we think about when we talk to people, especially our kids? One of my kids did this the other day. And we talk about things that we remember. In fact, Will and Sam did it just last night. What is it that they remember? They don't remember things. They remember things we did. They remember actions. They remember interactions, people things. Well, that's what we're talking about here. How do we worship God? How do we live with one another? That is all that really matters. You can do any of those things, you can do either of those things in any condition, whether you're a hobo living on the side of the train track or whether you're a millionaire living in a mansion. It still comes down to how do you worship God and how do you live with others? And so we observe the inherent desire to worship and know God. But how do we worship and know God? Ephesians 4 verse 17 says, this I say therefore, and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, the unsaved, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened. Again, you see that reference to thinking being darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling, have given themselves over to what? Lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. Doesn't that describe the world and what it's pursuing after? That's unsaved man. He's lewd, he's unclean, he's greedy. Why? Because they've forsaken God. Why don't we pursue those things? Because God has saved us. God has mercifully reached out and saved us from that by shining his light into our hearts. So what is true and proper worship unless God tells us? If we break the law of nature, we suffer the inevitable consequences. You remember, you drop something on your toe, it hurts. If you break the laws of God with regard to man, you will suffer the inevitable consequences. And the proper way to worship God is as he said. Phrase, I'm not sure where it came from. Ignorance is no excuse, and penitence is no remedy. So what happens as we live in life where we live apart from God, or even Christians, as we forget how we are saved by faith in Christ alone? We excuse ourselves. I didn't know that. I'm sorry, officer, I thought the speed limit was 65. Yeah, well, it wasn't. Here's your ticket. So no excuse to be ignorant. And penitence, what do we do when we get caught? We feel bad. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that. And that's one of the true examples of repentance. Is it repentance because you're repenting or is it repentance because you got pressure and you got caught? But it's still no remedy. Penitence is no remedy. There's only one way to overcome and to be forgiven of the sin that we've committed against God, and that is God's way through Jesus Christ. And so then that leads us to the, oh, no, I lost count. Okay, I'm in trouble. The fourth one, I thought it was number five. Let me do this one. The Word of God declares that it comes from God himself. God has given us a clear revelation of himself in creation in the makeup of man, physical, mental, and moral. in ruling the world in history and in the advent of Christ to earth and in the scriptures. Clear revelation of those things that we would never put those pieces together otherwise. And in particular, and I only pulled one piece out and it's good because that's what I've got time for in particular, hear Christ on the scriptures. There is, in general, there is never a doubt with Christ about the validity or the authenticity of the scripture. You read the New Testament, you read what is said about Christ, what is said by Christ, and never does Christ call into question and say, well, you know, I know that's written in the Old Testament, but that's not really what's going on. He clarifies. He says, this is how we apply it. but the Old Testament revelation was valid and authentic." And he gives then positive affirmation. When he is assaulted and assailed, he turned to the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, Luke 16, 31. But he said to him, "'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded the one rise from the dead.'" The most supernatural unusual thing that can happen. Someone who is dead comes back to life. And Christ said, no, that won't persuade anyone if they don't listen to Moses and the prophets. If they don't hear the revelation God has already given them, then the most incredible sign ever given will still not change their hard hearts. And Matthew 4.10, then Jesus said to him, away with you, Satan. This is Christ in direct conflict with Satan. There could be no more greater battle than between Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and Satan, the leader of a rebellion against God. And how does Christ rebuke Satan? For it is written. Not, I'm the Son of God, you hear me or else. For it is written. You shall worship the Lord your God and him only you shall serve. So we should therefore hear God in his word with reverence, acknowledging its authority and its finality. Christ argued that with Satan and said, that's it, the discussion's over, we're done. And Satan left and turned away from Christ until another time when he would tempt him. And so then finally, and I've already hit on this some, so I won't feel as bad by going through it a little quicker. But finally, the doctrine of revelation teaches the way of salvation. Without God's revelation, we do not know how to be reconciled to God. We continue to look at the uniqueness of the Bible in its most apparent difference. from all other Christian, I'm sorry, all other religious materials. How are sinful fallen men reconciled to a holy God? The difference, as Pink says, in obtaining holiness and reconciliation between the Bible and all other religions is like, when you say light and darkness, same analogy. There is the beautiful gospel. It is unknowable by natural light and by its very content. It is of divine origin and nature. It far surpasses anything that the human mind could have conceived. What is the human, I'm sorry, apparently I'm on a kick this morning with chickens. What's the human mind conceive of? Sacrificing chickens. What could that possibly do for us? Other than maybe chicken dinner, right? We like chicken. But how can that help us with regards to our spiritual problems, with our nature, with our being separated from God? It can't. And yet, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only righteous and holy man, that can reconcile us to God. Do you see the difference between those two things? It is far surpassing anything the human mind comes up with. And the object of the gospel is the light of the world, John 8, 12. Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. That was predicted. I'm going to skip Malachi, Psalms. You just you can go on and on and on. In Romans, it talks about the general knowledge of God that obligates man to seek him out through revelation. So unless we have the revelation of God, we have no idea how to be saved and how to be brought to God. Ephesians 5 verse 8 says, for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. Verse 13, but all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore, he says, awake you who sleep. Arise from the dead and Christ will give you light So there are many proofs that went on from there that we looked at to ground our faith on they're all good I think they're all useful Look through them in the book as you have time, but ultimately cling to Christ Because Christ is the revelation of the Word of God and without the doctrine of revelation. We have no salvation We have no means to come to God Let's close with a word of prayer Dear Heavenly Father, we do come and give great thanks to you for your mercies to us in the revelation of your word. Father, bless us as we read it, as we use it. May your spirit guide and direct us in all that we read and that we know and that we apply to ourselves and to our families and to our friends and loved ones. Father, help us to rejoice in what you give us. and to gather together in this place centered around the worship of you through your revelation in the word of God. We pray this for our services as we continue this day and just ask for your mercies upon us and any others who come and gather and visit with us and hear the word of God, whether for the first time or for the millionth. May it be a blessing to each of us, we pray. Amen.