The reading of the Word comes from Proverbs, from Proverbs 26. I read 4 and 5. Proverbs 26, 4 and 5. May we ever be reminded that when someone reads the Bible or when we read the Bible, God is speaking to us. This is the Word of God. Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. That ends the reading of God's holy inspired word. Please be seated. The context of the Proverbs, as we know, is the comparison and the contrast between wise and foolish, between wisdom and foolishness. And Proverbs teaches us many, many things. Proverbs teaches us about wisdom and foolishness in all circumstances, it seems. In relationships, in our work ethic, in finances, in sexual relationships and in many other things. It seems as we read the news and as we look at things going on in our age, we see foolishness everywhere with regard to all of these things. I wish we lived in a generation that followed after Solomon's wisdom, Solomon's divine wisdom from the Proverbs. Proverbs nearly begins with this in 1 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. We must begin with the Lord. We must begin with his word, with his wisdom. The wise man begins with God. The fool rejects what God has to say. Wise men need direction in all things, including on how to deal with naysayers, with skeptics, and with haters. There is one in our time. or I should say there are two in a previous century, I would say, Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bonson, two people who have taught the church how to answer a fool according to his folly and how not to answer a fool according to his folly. We don't have time to go into it, but if you have not listened to the Bonson-Stein debate, you must listen to it. It's available all over the internet for free. There you learn how to answer a fool, an atheist, according to his folly, and how not to answer him according to his folly. That is what I would like to drive home to you today, though. There is a time to avoid answering the fool according to his folly, and there is a time to answer the fool. And while I'd be happy to mention, as I did, Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bonson, there is one who surpasses them all in practicing this proverb, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. It seems as you read the gospels and you read the interactions that Jesus has with almost everyone, he is practicing this proverb. People come to him with questions, and he does not dignify their questions, but he avoids them in such a way that he turns things back on themselves. I give you one of what could be many examples, Matthew 21, 23 through 26, And I simply summarize it. Some people come to him and they say, by what standard do you do these things? He does not answer them according to his folly, to their folly. He says, I have a question for you. John's baptism, was it from heaven or from man? And of course, they looked at what was going to happen if they answer either way. They did not like. what the consequences would be if they answer either way. So they said, well, we are not gonna answer that. And he said, well, I won't answer your question either. You see, this is Jesus, the master, the master of these Proverbs. We must not answer a fool, but we must answer a fool. We need to know when to do so one way and when to do so the other. So first answering, not answering a fool according to his folly, not answering a fool according to his folly. We have some very gifted open air preachers with us today. And I have the distinct pleasure and honor of going down with them as often as I am able. We go down into downtown Chicago and we preach the gospel. There was one time I was down there near the Bean. People need to know about the bean, this massive silver bean. You can see yourself in it. It's a major tourist attraction for Chicago. And I was down there, and I was proclaiming sin, and the need for Christ, and the need for repentance. And I was proclaiming the cross and the resurrection, and a man comes up to me and he says, I've got a question for you. How did kangaroos make it from Mount Ararat all the way to Australia? Now, I could have engaged this man and said, well, that's a good question. Let me explain that to you. But do you think he really wanted an answer? He was trying to deflect me. He was trying to take me a different direction. and the direction that I was on while I was preaching was sin, and cross, and resurrection, and the need for repentance. So I said, I've got a better question. How will you get to heaven? We must know when not to answer someone. When someone is personally attacking you, when you're having a discussion, or when you're having a debate or an argument, and someone begins to personally attack you, you know at that point, in a sense, you've won. But is it right to then engage in personal attacks with the other person in the same way that he has with you? No, you must never do that. But notice that when someone begins to attack you, if you continue to deal with his argument, then in a sense, that's ineffective as well. I think that Mark Twain, ironically, accidentally, summarized not answering a fool according to his folly. Mark Twain says this, don't wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it. That is what happens to us. when we answer someone according to his folly, so we must stand back and ask, what is the true motive of what this person is saying, what he is asking? So there is a time not to answer a fool according to his folly, but there is a time that we must answer a fool according to his folly. I have dealt in prison ministry for a good few years now, And one of my favorite aspects of the prison ministry was the opportunities that I had to go from cell to cell to cell. I would prioritize members of my church and students. Sometimes I would run into people who seemed to be strong evangelical Christians, and I would also run into people who were parts of all kinds of strange belief systems. And among my favorite, were when I would engage with Muslims. I remember a couple of times I would be talking to a Muslim and I would be encouraging him to see the need for his repentance and to come to Christ and to leave Islam. And of course, you understand that they will Inevitably, in my experience, they almost inevitably will, as you're showing them things in the Bible, they will say, well, the thing about you Christians, the thing about you Christians is you just don't have the original. See, we Muslims, we're not so dependent upon the English. We have the original. So he would pull out his Arabic Quran, and of course, I would say, oh, you mean this? And I'd pull out my Greek New Testament, and then for the rest of the time, I would be showing the man, my new friend, what the English said, but more so showing and comparing it with him in the Greek. I always loved the look on their faces when they would make an accusation like that, a foolish accusation. Oh, you Christians, you just have the English. Oh, you mean this? And to show him, no, no. We read Greek and Hebrew ministers ought to, I believe ministers ought to. I know some may not agree with that. That's my view. I think we ought to be ready for circumstances like that so that we might be prepared to answer our Muslim friends, answering them according to their folly, the folly of their argument. We can't let Muslims continue in their conceit like that. We're the ones who have the original language and the Christians don't. We cannot let that stand. And of course, let me make a plea. Reformed Christians, especially. We must be reading and rereading our Greek New Testaments, and we must be spending time in our Hebrew. This is not a day for messing around. This is not a day for forgetting our Greek and our Hebrew. We must be advancing in these things. I remember the time I went to the Orland Park Prayer Center. I live in Orland Park. The prayer center is actually the mosque. So I was hanging out there. Called into the office by the imam. Felt like being called in to the principal's office. Had a good time there. Enjoyed talking to him. So of course he's making the case. He's explaining how they have a school and they memorize the whole of the Quran. And I will say, I will admit, I am always impressed. I appreciate the diligence of them for that. Now, of course, this imam tells me we have young people and they memorize the Quran. And of course, Christians don't memorize the Bible. And he's making the argument that, well, therefore, Christianity is weak. or it is not as good. I really do enjoy when people say that, when Muslims say that, when my Muslim friends say that. Why, because I think that it is so unfair for them to say that. According to, depending on your word count, according to the word count, the Quran is one-tenth the size of the entire Bible, simply by word count. Well, if you memorize one-tenth of the Bible, that is still good. But this is comparing apples and oranges. And what of the New Testament alone? What if we were to say, well, let's just memorize the New Testament in Greek. I could not find, I had done a bunch of statistics and I wasn't finding my notes from a time ago. I think it was, by my counting, The Quran is 43%, strictly by words, of the Greek New Testament. Now again, if you memorize 43% of the Greek New Testament, that is still good. And that is to be commended. But understand, again, this is apples and bananas being compared here. We must answer things like that, lest they continue to say, we are so much better than Christians. You understand, Islam, it's all about pride. It's all about your own good works, your memorization of the Quran, et cetera. So I sought to answer him, lest he be continuing in his own conceit. According to his folly, I sought to answer him. the Westminster Confession of Faith, the high watermark of reformed Protestant orthodoxy in 1.8, and the London Baptist Confession follows it. It tells us that the Old Testament in Hebrew, which was the native language of the people of God of old, and the New Testament in Greek, which at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations, being immediately inspired by God and by his singular care and providence kept pure in ages. I just want to put this to you. Do you believe that? Do you really believe that? There are many in our day who believe that they believe that. but I'm not sure they believe it in the way that it was first intended to be read. How was it intended to be read? The meaning there, the meaning there is to be understood in the sense that there is a body of printed texts, the textus receptus, And there, you will find the Word of God. And most make no difference in translation. And the few differences that there are, are so very minor. You can read about this in Milne's book on the Westminster Confession 1.8. There's a whole book on it. And it is worth your time simply for the quotations from the 17th century. which clarify what they meant. They believed in the infallibility of the opigraphs. They believed in the infallibility of the texts which they could hold in their hands. But in our day, if you ask most people, what does 1.8 mean? They will tell you that it means that the autographs are inerrant. It's a minor difference, but it becomes a big difference. We must be very, very careful as Reformed Christians that we do not treat our Westminster standards like Marxists treat the Constitution as if it were a living document, and you may interpret it any way you want, even contrary or opposite to the original intent of the words. Have you read Francis Turretin, book one, especially questions 10, 11, and 12, where he covers this? I think many, in our day, when they read this, they kind of think, oh, well, we know better than that now. But I don't think we know better than that. The Westminster Confession is not a living document. We ought to interpret it in the light of its original meaning. Milne, Owen, Turreton, many others help us in that. But if you ask questions about the current paradigm, you will have a backlash, will you not? If you begin to ask questions about whole verses and whole sections that are in some Bibles and not in some Bibles, people will not take kindly to that. You've come to a place like John 1.18, John 118 says, no man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him. It is that word, or that portion, only begotten Son, that I want to focus on. Is the reading only begotten Son, or is it only begotten God? Many of the modern versions say, only begotten God, or the English equivalent of that. Is that not a strange reading to you? Are gods begotten in Christianity? It's quite strange, but if you ask this, it's going to be blowback. Now the ESV has it really interesting, 118 because they don't wanna use the word begotten or only begotten, so they say no one has ever seen God, the only God, referring to Jesus Christ, who is at the Father's side. He has made him known. Jesus Christ is the only God. This is a bit strange, especially when you read a little bit further in John's gospel, you come to chapter 17, And it says, 17.3, and this is eternal life, this is Jesus speaking, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. So here is the New Testament, here is a modern Bible telling you that Jesus is the only God, and then Jesus is telling the Father that he is the only God. What is going on here? I hope you know enough, I hope you've been introduced to Lutheran satire. But as I read this, I just want to say, that seems like modalism, Patrick. This is so strange. You either have a begotten God or, I think you get the point. When you ask questions like this though, There will be blowback, as I said, and what form will it come? In what form will it come? You will be asked things like, are you a King James only-ist? Are you a Textus Receptus only-ist? Or, some will not even ask, they'll just declare it. You are a King James only-ist. You are a textus receptus onliest. Do you think that that sort of argument would work with a man like Owen or Turretin or the Westminster Assembly of theologians? Men who were absolutely brilliant. We live in a day and age of brilliant scholars, intelligent people, but I will declare to you, if you understand the context of those times, they have no living peer today. But some will say, well, the confessional text position, which is my preference, some would say the ecclesiastical text, traditional text, other names, confessional bibliology. Call it what you want, in this day, call it what you want, call yourself what you want, I suppose. But the idea of the confessional text has been called up-market King James-only-ism. Up-market King James-only-ism. In other words, this is just King James-only-ism, but these guys know how to read Greek, so it's just a little bit better. That's the kind of condescension which is slung at you and thrown at you. But let me just say that anyone who would say such a thing, upmarket King James Onlyism, or compare the confessional text position at all to the Rockman, Ripplinger, fundamentalist sort of strange things that come out of those sorts of camp This is simple laziness. What the people who would use such a term as that, who would try to put these two together, King James-onlyism, TR-onlyism, and we'll just put these together, or confessional text position, we'll just put these together. In other words, all of our arguments work on Ruckman and Ripplinger, so we don't even need to do the homework, we'll just use the same arguments against the confessional text position. That is why I say this is laziness. They're two different positions. Anyone who even would use such a term, or who would seek to apply arguments made against the confessional text position that they have used against so-called King James Onlius. They are simply seeking to win today's baseball games with yesterday's home runs. It is laziness and it is folly. Do you cringe when you hear that word, King James Onlius? Textus, receptus, onlius, I have cringed for a very long time when I even hear those words. And I think it's right that we would all cringe. Maybe you're so accustomed to that. You're used to it, you don't cringe anymore. Here's where, here's why I cringe when I even hear that. Because it's barbaric English. It's terrible English. You see, the ending or the suffix IST and ISM, these are endings to nouns. Dictionary.com, I went looking for my examples. These are Dictionary.com examples. First one. Dramatist, machinist, novelist, realist, socialist, Thomistism, criticism, barbarism, Darwinism, despotism, plagiarism, realism, witticism, intellectualism. These are nouns. And you put IST on the back of a noun. You put ISM on the back of a noun. You do not put it on the word only because it's not a noun. Onlyism is not even a word. It is a fake word. And anyone who uses a fake word like onlyism does not care about accuracy and does not care about English. Such a person is seeking to sideline you rather than to hear you. So how shall we answer some who would ask or who would accuse in that way? It may be time that we just say, why are you speaking such barbarisms? When someone insists on calling the framers of the confession that we believe Textus Receptus only-ism, then we realize we are not dealing with someone who cares about accuracy. And I think we are dealing with people who are ahistorical oftentimes. You ever notice, though, with this fake word, onlyism, it is only applied to one group of people. This barbarism is only committed with reference to one group of people. Could you imagine someone talking with a Romanist, someone from the Church of Rome, and say, ah, You are a transubstantiation onlyest. Could you imagine someone talking to his Anglican or Episcopal friend and saying, oh you, you are a book of common prayer onlyest. This is absurd. To speak of a watchtower person, you are a watchtower onlyest. If there's any use or any merit in the word, the fake word onlyest, you'd think you could talk about the Jehovah's Witnesses, but no one ever says, ah, you're a New World translation onlyest. It's only if you are in favor of the Reformation text, the Reformation Bibles. It's very strange, the days in which we live. Up is down, and down is up. Therefore, I would call upon anyone who calls the confessional text position or the ecclesiastical text position any form of onlyism, KJV, cringe, onlyism, did you hear? Nails on a chalkboard. TR-onlyism to turn from such barbarism. And anyone who calls it in a form of onlyism is simply being inaccurate. And we must ask ourselves, do we answer them? Is it wise to answer them at this time? Or is it wise not to answer them at this time? And let me just say this. I think anyone who hears this and then doubles down, insisting on using such horrible English only-ism, I think we know what we're dealing with then. May God give us strength to love all men, wise and foolish, and may God give us discernment to know when to answer and when not to answer. Let us pray. Our God and Heavenly Father, we are weak and we are poor and oftentimes so foolish. We need wisdom from on high. We need grace from on high. We need your blessing. And so we ask this day that you would pour forth your word and your spirit onto the church like never before. And we pray that there would be a reformation, that there would be revival according to your word and according to your spirit. And we pray that you would give us wisdom, for we lack wisdom in so many ways. And we delight to follow after Christ, who is wise in all things. and the one in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found. May we be identified with him. May he have the glory. And we pray that we would have great enjoyment of him through that. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.