As we go to our passage of scripture tonight, I will confess that I left the notes for the sermon that I had prepared for tonight on my desk at home last week, Monday, and I know exactly where it is. But every good missionary comes with extra sermons that he takes along with him, and so we will not be using the passage that you have in your bulletin. I apologize for that. It's one of those coming up seniors moments, I suppose, where I had left it behind. But we'll be looking at the topic of the scriptures, the study of the scriptures and the importance of the scriptures, as it comes to us through the Belgian Confession in Article 3 and 4. And I want to read those articles for you. If you turn to page 70 in your Psalters and look together with me at Articles 3 and 4 of the Belgian Confession, and that will serve as a takeoff point for the message that we have for this evening. In Article 3, the confession reads as follows, to writing. And he himself wrote with his own two fingers the two tables of the law. Therefore we call such writings holy and divine scriptures. And I ask you to turn to the second epistle of Peter chapter 1. And the title of the message is A Light Shining in the Darkness. 2 Peter chapter 1, we're going to read from verses 12 to 21. Familiar verses, really, as we have no doubt looked at the importance of the Scriptures from the perspective of this particular passage of Scripture. But we're going to be looking at that particularly from the perspective of how this impacts missions and the world around us, even as we have that impacted here in our own communities, too. 2 Peter 1, beginning our reading at verse 12 through to verse 21. Peter writes these words as he's inspired by God's Spirit, saying, So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth, you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, As our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me and I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things. We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the majestic glory saying this is my son whom I love. With him I am well pleased. We heard ourselves this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain. And we have the word of the prophets made more certain and you will do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Let's ask God, first of all, for a blessing on the proclamation of his word. Father, we thank you for your word written to us, and we pray that now as we hear your word being proclaimed, that you would give clarity to your servant in the proclamation of that gospel, and that you would open the minds and the hearts of those who hear this word in this evening hour as well. if there be any obstacles that would prevent us from hearing your word, Father, we pray that through your Holy Spirit you would remove those obstacles so that we may indeed hear you speaking to us in this evening hour. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We love it in our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you ever wonder what makes the Bible the number one bestseller year after year? If you go to the number one bestseller's list on the internet and go through it, every year the Bible continues to be the number one bestseller around the world. What is it about the Bible that draws people to it? Wycliffe Bible translators tell us that the Bible has written over 300 languages, More than 800 languages have an adequate New Testament. Over 1,000 have at least one book of the Bible written in their language, many of them indigenous tribal languages. The Bible has different portions written in 947 languages in 60 countries throughout our world. Indeed, the Bible is the single most popular book in our world today. Now, when we hear those statistics, we give thanks to God for the popularity of the scriptures around our world today. But take another look at how it is that our world is living its daily existence. You wouldn't think, you wouldn't figure that at what's going on in our society right here in Escondido, in California, and in the United States, and in North America, and around the world today, there certainly doesn't seem to be very much of a glimpse of the fact that the Bible is the number one popular bestseller, I suspect, than most of the Bibles that are sold in the world are collecting dust on the bookshelves rather than being read on a daily basis and applied by those who have purchased these same Bibles. As a matter of fact, the Bible is under attack. Around every corner, we see attacks taking place on the Scriptures. During the conference that I attended this week at the New Life Presbyterian Church, the Quip Conference, Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, it was overwhelming to hear about the different influences of neo-paganism as it comes to be entering into our world today, but guess what? It's coming into the churches too. And it makes us wonder and think about what impact the Bible is actually having in our society. During the time of the Reformation, the Scriptures were under attack. We know that Martin Luther and those who were working towards the Reformation of the Church using the Scriptures as its only ground of teaching had to point out different things that were going on in the church. The interesting thing is that during the time of the Reformation, it was quite obvious where the attacks were coming. It was open and it was blatant attacks on the scriptures and on the teachings of the scriptures in the church of that time. But today, we are living in a time in which false teachings are coming and creeping into the church under deceitful ways and many of the Christian community, many of the church community are sleeping on the job and not recognizing and discerning the various false teachings that are creeping in to our own circles. When I think about what happened in the time of the Reformation and when I reflect on the ministry that God has called me to in teaching and training leaders in Latin America, in my particular case, my specific responsibility is in the area of Central America where my wife and my family and kids lived for about 10 years in Costa Rica and in Honduras. I am amazed at how the church, the Christian church in Latin America is beginning to take on some of the false teachings that are going on. There's a very real sense in which the Evangelical Church of Latin America is turning back to the time of the Reformation with the issues that were being dealt with at that time. I'm going to point out several of those in my message today. I'm going to point out one right now. And that is the prosperity gospel that seems to be creeping into the churches in Latin America. The prosperity gospel in which, in one case, I have a student who spoke to me about that and he said, you know, there was a time when I was a part of a mega church out over here and he mentioned the name of the church and he said, I was thankful to be part of that church and I was telling people, you should see how my pastor is living. We are a successful church. My pastor is driving a Mercedes-Benz. Each of his children have cars. We don't even have that. Do you see how successful we are as a church? And I give every day because I want people to see how well our church leader is living. Wow! Does that remind you of the indulgences that were being paid as a sacrifice for sins of some kind, as a way of paying for their sins, and how that was being used in the churches and in the lining, the pockets of those who were leaders of the church and the churches themselves? That's the gospel to which we need to be applying the scripture today. The church needs to wake up when it sees these different things happening. And as we look at this passage of Scripture here this morning, I want to, for us, as the guideline of the Belt of Confession does that for us, to be looking, first of all, at the fact that the Bible is inspired by God. And secondly, that it is written by man. And then I want to have a look at this morning star that is spoken about in this passage of Scripture that we have here before us by Peter. In the first paragraph of the Belgic Confession, we read this. We confess that this word of God was not sent nor delivered by the will of man, but that men spake from God being moved by the Holy Spirit as the Apostle Peter says. How easy it is to forget the importance of the scriptures in our lives. We take for granted so much the presence of the scriptures in our lives. But when Peter is writing in these words here, in verse 15, he said, I want you to make every effort to see that after my departure, you will always be able to remember these things. These, what things, these things? These things, says Peter, that I have taught you. The teachings of the scriptures that I have laid out before you as I was inspired by God's Holy Spirit. I want you to remember these things. And when he's talking about remembering these things, people of God, he's not talking about just remembering and having them all memorized and being able to recite them. He's talking about remembering them in a way of being, living these things on a day-by-day basis. That's what he's talking about when he's talking about remembering these things. The basic message of the Bible is what he's talking about. The history of salvation. It is amazing to me that when I do my teaching in Latin America, my students already know the routine. With every conference that I give, with every teaching that I give, the first thing I do is I go to the board, the white board or the black board, and I draw a line across the top of that. And that they know already, those who have heard me giving conferences, they know that that's the line of the history of salvation. And I often now will have students go up there and explain to me how the history of salvation works, starting from creation, looking at the fall, going through the Old Testament, putting the cross from the middle, and going to the new creation at the other end of that line. But you know that's a very new concept for many of those who are in evangelical churches in Latin America. They are so used to looking at one small piece of scripture and trying to find some moral teaching that they can find out of that that they forget to look at the whole of the scriptures. Very few sermons in the Old Testament. What's the Old Testament? Dry and dusty stuff back there. Let's talk about what Paul has to say and what Jesus Christ was doing. And when they begin to unpack and see some of this stuff, then they begin to understand the very centrality of the teachings of the Scriptures that we find here also in the Belgian Confession. That is, that points, every part of it points towards Jesus Christ. One thing is clear about the Bible, and that is that it has a transforming power. When we look at the Scriptures, we recognize and know, and from this passage of Scripture that we have here before us as well, that the Holy Spirit and the Word of God go hand in hand together. You cannot separate those two. When we read from this in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18, for instance, we read this about the Spirit of God. And we who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. The Holy Spirit and the Word of God are... You can't separate those two. The Word declares Christ. The Holy Spirit enables us to accept Christ. The Word declares the promises of Christ and of God. But the Holy Spirit allows us to be able to claim these promises. The Word shows the way, it gives us the teachings. But it is the Holy Spirit that allows us to be able to walk in this way. We cannot do that of our own effort. You see the close interconnectedness of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. This leads me to think about another aspect of what's going on in the churches in Latin America today, in which there is a distinct separation taking place between the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. There is very much the situation in which pastors of the churches, leaders of some of these churches are saying to their congregants, the people that are coming to their churches, they're saying, listen, you know what? No need to read your Bible. Don't you worry about reading the Bible. We will teach you what you need to be taught. You don't need to think for yourself anymore. When we are up here, up in the front, doing all of our teaching and so on, you can depend on the fact that what we are teaching is true. And so you don't need to take your Bible to church. Don't worry about it. When they're counseling them, they're not counseling them to read their Bibles. They're counseling them in some psychological different things and so on. It's teaching ex cathedra. It's a teaching in which the pastors themselves are sensing and saying to those who are following them in their churches, listen, the Word of God is one thing, but I have heard the Word of the Holy Spirit in my life. And I'm telling you, this is what needs to be happening in your life. Never mind what the Bible says. They won't say it in those words, never mind what the Bible says, but they will say to the people, don't you worry about the teachings of the Scripture, we will teach you what the Scriptures say. Doesn't that sound like what was going on in the time of the Reformation? It's like deja vu in Latin America going back to the time of the Reformation and seeing what's happening there. Where the priests were doing their services in a language that the people didn't even understand in the first place, And the people were not encouraged at all to read the scriptures because the priests would be given the teachings of the church. The official teachings of the church stood at a higher plane than what the scriptures was. And that's what's happening in much of Latin America in the evangelical circles today. Oh, we have much work to do in training and teaching our people there. When we look at that, then we begin to understand and to know what it is that the Scriptures are as they are the inspired Word of God. The Scriptures and the Holy Spirit were working together in the formulation of the Scriptures. The Scripture and God's Holy Spirit is working together in the application of the Scriptures and in the teaching of the Scriptures today as well. Always has been the two intertwined and interconnected working together. And we need to be sure about this as we go about our own activities and read different things that are going on in popular theology today as well. The Scriptures is God's inspired word. But it is written by man. Now, some would look at this and say that something doesn't seem quite right. It seems almost contradictory that the Scriptures are inspired by God. God's Holy Spirit, you could say, is the editor of the Scriptures. And that it was written by man. And how does that square? Well, what we have here in the Belgic Confession, once again, is that the Apostle Peter says, and that afterwards God, from a special care which he has for us and our salvation, commanded his servants, the prophets and the apostles, to commit his revealed word to writing. And he himself wrote with his own finger the two tables of the law. People of God, here we see how important the words of the scriptures are. Moses, having written the first five books of the Bible, writes these words, or speaks these words, and of course then writes them down to the people of God at that time, Deuteronomy chapter 32, And this is his farewell message, you might say, just before he's taken up to Mount Nebel. Moses says to the people, Take to heart all the words that I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you. They are your life. Now, he's referring specifically to the words of the Ten Commandments. But as a part of that, he's also referring to all that he has written. The only scriptures that the people of the Old Testament had at that time were the words that he had written to them. And when we see this, then we begin to understand and to know that Moses himself is saying, what I have written to you is not something that I have written. This is what God is speaking to you through me. And each one of those who were a part of writing the scriptures understood and knew that. And so Moses was the first author of those who wrote the 66 books of the Bible. As they are cited in Article 4 of the Belgic Confession. I didn't read through that because it is a recitation of the books of the Bible, which we well know. Written over a period of 1,500 years. About 30 authors. And as we see this work being done together with God's Holy Spirit, we see it being done through those faithful men who are writing these scriptures on behalf of God. They're not writing their own opinions. And they knew that. When we read through the prophets, for example, we see how many times in the prophets that the prophets will pen these words, This is the word of the Lord. Time and time again, that refrain comes through in the prophets and in other parts of the scriptures. The authors, the authors of the scriptures were guided by God's hand, not in some kind of a mechanical way that the Holy Spirit gave them word for word exactly what needed, but He guided their thoughts and their expressions. And each one of them expressed the inspiration of God in a way that was characteristic of his own character, of his own profession. If you read through the book of Amos, those of you who are farmers will identify with some of the expressions that Amos uses in expressing the word of God. He uses agricultural terminology. He was a farmer. When we go through the Gospels, we see that Luke, when he expresses some of the different details about the miracles and details about the birth of Christ, we will see more about the medical details of both the miracles and of the birth of Christ than in any of the others. Why? He was a doctor. He expressed what God had inspired him to write using his own profession and his own character. Jeremiah, we know him as what? The weeping prophet. It was a part of his own expression. We know that in the book of Lamentation, in the book of Jeremiah, there is a kind of sense of, when we read through that, We too weep with Him. He was able to express Himself in that way. It's who He was. It's how He wrote. It's what He was writing about. And as we look at this, then we begin to understand and to know how important it is for our people here in North America, as well as in Latin America, as well as around the world, how important it is for us to learn and to know how to discern the Scriptures. That's what the work of teaching of the Scriptures is all about and the work of missions. That's what the work of leadership development is all about so that those who are proclaiming the Word of God are proclaiming faithfully the Word of God and understanding and knowing and discerning. When I talk to those who are part of the leadership of those who I'm doing conferences for and teaching courses for throughout Central America in my situation, I often talk to them about the Berean principle. What's the Berean principle? If you look back in Acts chapter 17, you will see that Paul is dealing with this very thing amongst the people whom he is traveling with in his missionary journeys. Paul in chapter 10, having just come out of Thessalonica, actually having been evicted from Thessalonica because they would not receive the word that he was preaching there. And we read that after he comes out of Thessalonica, then he comes to, let me just switch over to Acts chapter 17. Acts chapter 17, in verse 10, after he comes out of Thessalonica and they say, it reads here, As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away, that is from Thessalonica, to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. That's where he got into trouble everywhere he went, but he continued to go to the synagogue because that was where the teaching was taking place. So he was not afraid to continue to step into the synagogues and do his teaching. And here we have it. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians. That would be to say that they were more open to hearing what Paul had to say. For they received the message with great eagerness, and here is the Berean principle and examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. They examined the scriptures. They tested the scriptures. They read through the scriptures and studied the scriptures to see what this new teaching that Paul was bringing to them, which was different from what they had been used to, was indeed the word of God. People of God, that's what we need to be doing. This is what the people in the churches of Latin America in which I have a responsibility to do some teaching with. That's what they need to be doing because of the false gospel that is creeping in to the churches that are going on in there as well. And what happens when the scriptures are being discerned in the way they ought to be? We read in verse 12, And many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. You want the church to grow? Provide faithful teaching in which they can be confident. If they have a teaching in which they say, well, I'm not really sure if this is true or not, you will soon be sure that they will be leaving the church because they don't have any confidence in what they're being taught. They don't have any confidence even in what they believe. We, through the Scriptures, need to be teaching them to be confident within that in their own lives. When we look at that, then we begin to understand and know what the impact in particularly in latin america but it's here too another aspect of of that which i would say is a regression of the church back to the time of the reformation and that is the impact of the third wave of pentecostalism that is creeping into particularly into central america and latin america and it's creeping in around the world the first wave of pentecostal we know from in 1905 when the Pentecostalism began to have its impact on Azusa Street. The second wave of Pentecostalism, which was during the time in the 70s when the neo-Pentecostal movement was sweeping through, yes, even the Reformed churches at that time. And now the third wave of Pentecostalism in which there are teachings going on in which they are saying that there are now apostles that are appointed by the church. And not only are there 12 apostles in different regions, There are now each country in Central America, for instance. I know that in each country of Central America, there are 12 now, 12 prophets in each of these countries. We're talking hierarchy, folks. We're talking about what has been happening in the Roman Catholic Church back 500 years ago, in which we are talking about a level of, there are the disciples, there are the apostles, and there are the prophets. I predict that there will be caribenes sometime, not too far in the future. I have had an opportunity to run into some of these apostles. In one particular instance, just last December, I was ministering, I was starting up a mince study center in the Mesquita region of Honduras, of Honduras. And as I was there, we had people from various denominations, some from the Moravian Church, some from the Assemblies of God, from the different churches to which I was teaching a conference, and they wanted to start up a mince center. And as we were looking at that, we said, okay, then what we need to do is we need to form a board of directors here so that we can give direction to this new center that's forming. So we provided for one representative from each of the churches that was represented amongst the students that were there, the listeners that are there at the conference, and they had one rep from each one of them. There were six different groupings there. After we had just formed that particular group, a young man came forward and he said to me, said, I would also like to be a part of the board of directors. And I said, what church are you a part of? He said, well, I'm not really a part of any church. Jesus Christ is commissioned to be as an apostle. And as commissioned by Jesus Christ, I have the right and the privilege to be forming a part of your board of directors. Can you imagine that? I said to him, I said, if you're an apostle, where's your Bible? Do you not carry it? Everyone here is carrying a Bible. I don't need to carry the Bible. I know the Bible backwards and forwards and God's Spirit guides me. God's Spirit teaches me what I need to be teaching the people because I've been commissioned by Christ. Can you believe that? So we, of course, as a part of the grouping there that I used that as an opportunity to teach those pastors that were there and tried to be as diplomatic as I could about it to exclude him from being a part of the membership of the board of directors. He was not happy. We announced where the board was going to be meeting that following morning. And when we were meeting together, yes, who shows up? The same young man who was going to be the apostle. Comes, doesn't ask, excuse me, comes into the meeting as we're in the middle of our meeting. He simply comes in, sits down on a chair. I was leading the meeting. What was I going to do? I simply asked him to leave the room. And he said, no, he said, you know, you can't ask me to leave the room because I have been commissioned by Christ to be here. God's Spirit told me last night that I had to be here in this meeting. And this is the kind of things that we are facing with. I ushered him out of the room and asked him to leave. He was not happy to be stood up to in that way. But that's what's happening in the churches. You talk about a separation between the Spirit and the Word. It was happening right there. And it's happening in Latin America and many communities like that where these prophets, I was in San Pedro Sula of Honduras and the helicopter was going over and I was wondering, I asked some of the pastors that I was with, what's with this helicopter? Oh, that was a newly appointed prophet anointing the city of San Pedro Sula with oil. Right? As a sign of coming up to this level of being a prophet. And this is a mark of a lack of discernment of understanding and knowing the scriptures in the churches in Latin America. And don't kid yourself, it's coming into our circles here too, these kinds of things. It comes to us through the Christian bookstores. I have nothing against Christian bookstores, but much of these teachings are coming in through books that are being sold in the Christian bookstores, over the Christian radio, over the Christian television. And unless we are rooted deeply in being able to discern right from wrong from the pulpits of our churches as to what it is that God's Word actually says about these things, we too will be carried away by every wind of doctrine that comes through. God's Word to us is that we need to take seriously what Jesus Christ is proclaiming to us as Peter himself identifies him as the morning star. The morning star which is at the center of all of everything in our lives. For ourselves, it's a symbol. This morning star was already prophesied in Numbers 24, verse 7, where we read, A star will come out of Jacob, and a scepter will rise out of Israel. That is a star that reflects and points towards the person of Jesus Christ. Let no one tell you that Jesus Christ isn't presented in the Old Testament. That morning star is Jesus Christ who is at the center of all of our living, who ought to be at the center of all of our thoughts. And unless we continue to focus on that, we too will drift away from that in our lives. I was reading with regards to the importance and the centrality of the scriptures in the Christian life in our society today, the situation in Canada. I'm from Toronto, Ontario, but I don't think this is far-fetched from what we have here in the United States of America, too, where the Canadian Bible Society said that 78% of Canadians consider themselves to be Christians, yet only 20% read their Bibles even once a week. 85% have never read through the entire Bible, and they list all kinds of reasons. 48% say, well, it's just simply a lack of discipline, laziness, you might say. 44% will say, well, it's just a lack of time. 6% will say that it's because they find difficult what they are reading, and 2% because of poor eyesight or poor reading skills. But the majority are not reading their Bibles out of pure laziness the spiritual discipline of the reading of the scriptures is waning is we're losing that in our societies today and it is not until we begin to understand and to know what the scriptures is and how it is that we need to be applying that in our lives that we will get back on track in north america and in around the world today the bible god's word inspired by god god's holy spirit and written by those whom god had appointed to write these things are things are words that you and I need to be paying attention to, following the Berean principle of studying the scriptures, coming to the services of worship in the Bible studies that are often faithfully from this pulpit and through the teachings of this church. We need to continue to be on that road of understanding and learning and discerning between right and wrong because there are many, many attacks coming into the church itself. May God give you as a congregation, the leaders of this congregation, you as members of this congregation, the wisdom to discern, to take the time to study the scriptures and to discern what is right and wrong and to follow what God calls for you in your life here and around the world. Let's pray. Father, you indeed are the one who provides for us the scriptures and encourages us to stand up for what is right and to understand and to know. We pray that you would help us not to be spiritually lazy in the reading of the scriptures, but help us to take advantage of the freedoms that we have to come to services of worship, come to the catechism classes, Sunday school classes, the various Bible group activities that are going on in this faithful congregation. We pray, Father, for your word to go out from this congregation and that men and women, young people and children may be a part of standing up for what is right and for what they know is the word of God in our lives today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.