Sola Scriptura

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Book of Mark, chapter 7, and we’re going to be talking today about the role that the Bible plays in our lives as Christians as the sole authoritative standard for our faith and practice. It serves as the North Star. It serves as the objective standard.

And on October 31st, 1517, which Tuesday of next week, that’ll be 500 years ago to the day, There’s a man, there’s a German priest named Martin Luther who nailed a letter to the door of his castle church in his town where he served, which sort of served as the bulletin board of their day. Nowadays, well, today you wouldn’t even post it on a bulletin board. If you want to get everybody stirred up, you post an opinion on Facebook.

That’s what he did back then. He nailed this letter to the door, which was sort of the equivalent of his news feed. And it outlined, this letter outlined 95 specific areas of disagreement with the Roman Catholic Church based on his careful study of the Bible.

He was one of the privileged few who could read Latin and had access to a Bible. And as he studied it, he found that he disagreed with some of what the church taught and some of what he had been teaching. And he outlined these disagreements with a number of teachings and practices, particularly the sale of indulgences.

And if you’re not familiar with the story, what an indulgence was, was a certificate from the Pope, a piece of paper, that said you were absolved of sin or a certain amount of sins that would give you time off in purgatory or guarantee you just immediate travel to heaven when you die. And there are many problems with indulgences. One of those is that they were being sold to people, especially people who could not afford them.

And they were, some of those who sold them were apparently extorting money. Well, the whole thing is just an extortion racket, if you look at what the Bible teaches about salvation. But the idea that people could buy a piece of paper to deal with their sins and ensure that they went to heaven bothered Martin Luther.

As he studied his Bible, he realized that it was wrong to guarantee somebody forgiveness of sins and eternal life in heaven because they had bought a piece of paper. And honestly, if I remember the history correctly, these weren’t being sold to help the people. They were being sold to finance either the construction or the refurbishment of St.

Peter’s Basilica in Rome. When he posted this letter to the door, it caused such a stir. It was the spark that ignited the Protestant Reformation and led to some of the most important biblical doctrines being once again openly proclaimed in the Western world.

Now, when I’ve talked about this before, I’ve had people say, you know, usually very politely, what does it have to do with us? We’re Baptists. We’re not Lutherans.

I get that. There are Baptist historians, and maybe you’ve read a little book called The Trail of Blood. I have as well.

There are several books like it that talk about Baptist history that say there were always pockets of underground believers in the forests and in the mountains in Europe, and they were isolated. But they kept biblical doctrines alive from the time of the apostles to the present day. There’s some truth in that.

There are others who say, well, we’re Baptist. We came out of the Protestant Reformation. Well, there’s some truth in that too. Looking at both sides, I can see influence from both sides.

And whether you fall down on one side or the other, whether we are Protestant or not, I know we’re not Lutheran, whether we’re Protestant or not, we can look at this and say, before this, there were pockets that we know that. There were underground churches and underground believers on the European continent who kept the flame of truth alive, but had to hide it under a bushel at the cost of their lives. After this, what had been done in secret, the truth that had been held in secret, was now out in the open, and it set Europe on fire.

So whether you take the view that we were around before that or we came out of it, either way, what was done in secret was now out in the open. God’s word was being proclaimed out in the open. The truth about salvation was being proclaimed out in the open.

And I think whether we had anything to do with it or not, we can rejoice and give glory to God for the fact that the truth was out. And so over the next few weeks, we’re going to study some of these essential truths that were rediscovered 500 years ago in hopes that we’ll embrace them, that we’ll preach them, that we’ll defend them, and that we’ll pass them along to the next generation of Christians. And by the way, the series that we’re starting today is not all about Martin Luther.

It’s not about Luther doctrine, Lutheranism. And I wouldn’t even stand up here to you and say I affirm everything Martin Luther stood for. He said some horrible things about the Jews, and he had some wrong views on communion.

But this is more about the biblical doctrines that were rediscovered by that spark that set Europe on fire 500 years ago. Now, when Luther posted this letter outlining his disagreements, he was hoping to merely spark a discussion about the excesses of the medieval Roman Catholic Church. Instead, what happened, he found himself where the people in charge, the powers that be, didn’t really want to have a discussion.

They wanted to put him on trial. They gave him about four years of arguing back and forth, and then they called him to stand trial. So in 1521, he went to the city of Worms. It smelled like worms. And they held what’s called an imperial diet, kind of like a congress or parliament, but it sounds really weird to call it the Diet of Worms. But he was sent there, and he was commanded during this trial to recant his teachings. You know what? Well, all the trouble we’ve caused for you, we’ll make it all go away if you’ll just say one word, revoco, in Latin, meaning I recant.

I was wrong. I take it back. If you’ll just say that, everything goes away.

Instead, he stood there in front of all these religious leaders, all these political leaders. There were representatives of the Pope there, and even the Emperor himself, Emperor Charles V was there, and Martin Luther looked at the crowd and told them that he could not agree with church tradition if it meant disagreeing with the Bible. And I think we would take that as a given today.

Hey, if what the preacher says goes against the Bible, do I not tell you that at least a couple times a month? If what I say goes against the Bible, don’t listen to me. We take that as a given today.

Back then, it was revolutionary. And here’s what he said. I cannot submit my faith either to the Pope or to the council because it is as clear as noonday that they have fallen into error and even into glaring inconsistency with themselves.

So he says, not only do they contradict the Bible, they contradict themselves, and it’s as clear as the noonday sun. If, then, he says, I am not convinced by proof from holy scripture or cogent reasons, if I am not satisfied by the very text I have cited, and if my judgment is not in this way brought into subjection to God’s word, I neither can nor will retract anything, for it cannot be right for a Christian to speak against his country. I stand here and can say no more.

God help me. Amen. So his statement was, unless you can show me from the Bible where I’m wrong, I can’t go back on any of this.

Because I’m a citizen of a higher kingdom, and I can’t go against my Lord. He said God’s word calls the shots here. Not the opinion of the Pope, not the opinion of the councils, not the opinion of the emperor, not even my opinion.

It’s God’s word that determines what’s right. And they condemned him for it. For much of his life, from that point on until his death, he was a hunted man.

Fortunately, there were some political leaders who, either for religious reasons or the fact that they liked somebody sticking it to the Pope because it increased their power. He was lucky to find some people who said, sure, we’ll protect you. Just keep spitting out your sermons and pamphlets and we’ll give you a place to stay.

But he was a hunted man in large parts of Europe. This idea that scripture stands above tradition and above the pronouncements of church officials, above human ideas and above secular culture, above anything else in terms of its divine authority. is the doctrine of sola scriptura.

You see that written at the top of your notes this morning, sola scriptura. If you’ve wondered about that, that is a Latin term. It’s one of those fancy theological terms that just means scripture alone.

Scripture alone. So the doctrine of sola scriptura is the idea that divine authority is found within the word of God alone, within the Bible. And as evangelicals, we believe that we should be bound to the Bible alone as the sole authority for what is true and what is right when it comes to our faith.

Not because, hey, look, we have a book and it’s pretty and it’s got gold edges and leather cover. So we listen to this book because it’s the most special book. It’s a phenomenal book.

It’s not that. It’s because we believe, we stand firm on the conviction that this book is actually the word of God. That it is actually the inerrant, meaning it has no errors.

It is the infallible, which means it is impossible that it could even be wrong. God-breathed, inspired, authoritative word of God Almighty. If you don’t believe that, then I can understand why you would totally ignore what we say.

It doesn’t surprise me when the world outside thinks that we’re wrong about everything. If they don’t believe this book is the word of God, that makes perfect sense. But I am convicted by faith, by reason, by evidence that this is the word of God.

And if it’s that, then it has authority that no other book or no other resource in our world has. tradition when it runs up against scripture has no authority tradition has no authority unless it comes from God’s word now we’ll talk about this a little more in a little bit but tradition itself is not evil we have all kinds of traditions I know we like to think we don’t because we’re not Catholic or Anglican or anything like that but we have traditions brother Ken we normally sing about two or three songs then we have an offering the ushers come up the same point in the service every week. Brother Ken sings a song.

Then I come up. I mean, this follows a pretty standard format. And if we changed it up, if we did the sermon first and then sang after that, y’all would wonder what was wrong.

It’s heresy. It’s a tradition. And there’s nothing wrong with it unless it goes against the Bible or we elevate it to the same level.

Tradition has no authority unless it comes from God’s word. And any teaching that’s contrary to God’s word should be discarded. And that’s easy for me to say as the pastor, as the one giving most of the teachings that you hear in this church.

If what I say, if what I teach contradicts this book, it’s wrong, and you don’t have to listen to it. Matthew and Mark both recorded a time when Jesus dealt with the Pharisees because they were more concerned with their traditions than they were with obeying the Word of God. So Jesus confronted them about the relationship of the Word of God and their traditions.

If you haven’t already, turn with me to Mark chapter 7, and as we look at this, I’m just going to tell you about the first five verses. Go back and look it up for yourself. Make sure that I’m telling you the truth, but just for time’s sake, I’m going to tell you the story that Jesus was ministering to people in Galilee with his disciples when a group of Pharisees and scribes, they traveled up from Jerusalem to observe him.

These legalistic people came up to Galilee from Jerusalem because they wanted to watch Jesus, and they watched for a while, hoping that they were going to find something he did wrong. You ever had those people there just watching you for you to mess up? That’s what they were doing to Jesus.

We’re just waiting for him to do something wrong so we can nail him. And as they watched him, as they observed, lo and behold, they found no evidence of Jesus doing anything that violated the word of God. You know why?

Because he was perfect. Because he was the word of God made flesh. So he didn’t violate the word of God, and that frustrated them, But what they noticed was there were some violations of their traditions.

They noticed that the disciples didn’t always wash their hands before eating, which was a violation of their traditions. I’m glad my children are not in here because I don’t want to confuse them. Always wash your hands before you eat.

Always wash your hands when leaving the restroom. Benjamin and I, when we were on the road this weekend, we were both horrified as we’d go into gas stations and we’d see men in there walk out of the stall and walk out the door while we’re standing there washing our hands, and then we see them over at the drink dispensers and made me never want to drink anything in public again. We wash our hands, okay?

This is something we learned in kindergarten. It’s important. It’s a good idea.

Not really what they’re talking about. The disciples, I’m not saying that they were eating with nasty, filthy hands, but the Pharisees had this big ritual that you went through, this ritual purification, this ritual washing. I’m not necessarily saying they were eating with dirty hands.

They just weren’t going through all these motions to show outwardly how pure and how clean we are because we’re Jewish people. And by the way, the ritual that they’re talking about did not come from the word of God. It came from the tradition that the Pharisees built around it.

And they had these extensive traditions about how to wash their hands, when to wash their hands, how to wash their hands, the washing of the eating vessels and utensils and all of this. And so when they saw this, they were outraged, and they came to Jesus, and they demanded an explanation as to why he would let his disciples act in such a way. And that’s when we get to verse 6, and Jesus, it says, He answered and said unto them, Well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites?

That’s a soft answer, isn’t it? He starts out, Oh, Isaiah was right about you hypocrites, 700 years ago. As it is written, this people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men as the washing of pots and cups, and many other such like things ye do. So Isaiah had said in chapter 29, verse 13, that wherefore the Lord saith for as much as this people draw near me with their mouths and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.

So what Isaiah was saying and what Jesus seized on was that these people were hypocritical. They liked to act and sound religious. Outwardly, they wanted to be thought of as religious, but inwardly, their hearts could not have been further from God if they had tried. That’s a danger that we run into, following traditions and doing rituals.

And, well, we’ve always done this before, going through religious motions, And all the while our hearts are cold toward God. We have to be careful of that, even as believers who come from what we would say is a tradition without traditions. We have to be careful not to just go through the motions, but to actually make sure that our hearts are close to God and our desire is toward honoring him.

So Jesus identifies the Pharisees in their concern for their traditions with this statement from Isaiah. Now Isaiah was talking about another group, certainly, but it applied to the Pharisees as And a lot of times these prophecies could have an immediate fulfillment and a future fulfillment. And this would be the future fulfillment.

Now he says that they’re hypocrites because they outwardly, oh, we love God. We’re devoted to God. We do all this for God.

But really it was about their own traditions and looking like they wanted people to say, oh, those Pharisees, they’ve really got it together. They are the best. They are the most religiousest people. They are the holiest. They are just, they wanted the praise and the applause of men.

And he says that they’re incapable of truly worshiping God. Notice this in verse 7. How be it in vain do they worship me?

They were not really capable of worshiping God, at least not the way he deserved, because they were trying to come to him on their own terms rather than in humble obedience. We’ve got to be careful of that as well. God says there are ways I want you to worship me.

I want you to worship me with clean hands. I want you to worship me with your whole heart. I want you to worship me alone.

By the way, clean hands doesn’t mean going through that ritual washing either. It means we’ve behaved ourselves and that we’ve honored him with our hands. That God is not content for just whatever time we have left over for him.

God has certain criteria, certain ways he wants us to worship him. You see it in the Old Testament. They had all these rules that they did have to go through.

In the New Testament, we’re not under those ceremonial rules, but still there are things that we’re supposed to worship him in spirit and in truth. There are ways that God wants us to worship him, and it becomes a real problem when we try to come to God on our own terms and say, God, I don’t care what you want, this is how I want to worship you, and so that’s what I’m going to do. It’s really a rebellious attitude toward God.

So rather than humbling themselves and obeying him, they wanted to come to him on their own terms, and God will not accept false worship. God will not accept half-hearted worship. God will not accept self-centered worship.

And so Jesus chastised them for teaching human commandments rather than God’s commandments. They could have spent their time warning Israel to follow God’s commandments, but instead they were focused on trying to get everybody to follow their commandments. So we look at verse 9, and he said unto them, full well you reject the commandment of God.

Full well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honor thy father and thy mother, and whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited of me, he shall be free.

And ye suffer him no more to do aught for his father or his mother. So Jesus says in verse 9 that their traditions had led them to totally disregard God’s word. A moment ago I said there’s nothing wrong with traditions, but they had come to a point where they had elevated tradition to a point where it was equal to God’s word or even above God’s word.

And so by doing that, they had completely taken God’s word out of the place that it appropriately would have held in their lives. They had taken their allegiance away from God’s word and had given it to their traditions. And he gives them some examples.

He says, and Jesus really doesn’t answer them about the washing. We talked about this Wednesday night some, but it seems a lot of times like Jesus is sidestepping the question that was asked of him, when really what he’s doing is zeroing in on the question that needs to be answered. Jesus is not a politician avoiding the question.

He’s saying your question doesn’t matter sometimes. That question doesn’t matter. let’s come back around to what really does.

He says, you want to talk about commands. You want to talk about something that you’re supposed to do. He says, I’ll give you one example, your treatment of your parents.

And he pulls out Exodus 20, 12, where it says, honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. That is the fifth commandment. That’s one of the 10 commandments.

All of God’s laws were important to them, but these were some of the 10, the top 10 that he carved into stone. And then in Exodus 21, 17, he had said, He that curseth his father or mother shall surely be put to death. And that term curse means to revile.

We think of curse as being I’m going to say something ugly to you or I’m going to wish ill on you. It really had a broader meaning than that just to treat them like they were garbage. And so Jesus says, here’s what God’s Word tells you to do.

If you’re really concerned about God’s Word, it says to honor your parents and not treat them like garbage. But he said, instead of taking care of your parents, you’ve developed this whole scheme of things. And it talks about the Corban offering.

So what they would do is instead of taking care of their parents as God had commanded them, the Pharisees were giving their money toward this Corban scheme and the way they’ve set it up in their tradition. What they would do is they would designate their resources as Corban, meaning dedicated to God or dedicated to the temple. And so they would say, oh, this money that I have set aside, this property, this livestock, whatever it is, that I have set aside because I’m supposed to take care of my parents.

You know, that is important, taking care of your parents, but really isn’t it more important that we give stuff to God? And so they would say, well, this is reserved for God’s use. And they would sort of put this blanket of protection over it.

It’s Corbin. It’s dedicated to God. And they would put their resources toward God’s use, supposedly, so that they wouldn’t have to use it to help their families because it was a major transgression.

It was a major no-no to take something that was dedicated toward God’s use and use it on your parents. And so by designating their resources as Corban, they didn’t have to give it away to their parents anymore. Now there’s some confusion.

I did a lot of study on this the early part of this week trying to understand what’s in it for them. Is it greed? Do they get to keep it and it just passes to the temple when they die?

Does it go to the temple and because they’re so affiliated with the temple, are they skimming off the top? Is it rather than give to support my parents, I’ll give it to the temple and then I’ll look more religious? And the answer I’ve come up with is yes.

It could have been any of those things at any given time. The whole system was corrupt, as Jesus points out, and it was just an avoidance scheme. It was a scheme that they’d set up in their tradition that said you can do this and you can completely turn your back on the people that gave you life and that God has commanded you to honor.

And you can look super religious and super good while you’re doing it. Now the New Testament tells us if we fail to provide for our family, we’re worse than an infidel. That doesn’t mean people who struggle.

That means people who just say, yeah, I’m not taking care of you anymore. But if they don’t provide for their household, they’re worse than an infidel. So we apply that teaching.

These people were trying to keep their own stuff, to turn their backs on their parents, to act worse than the pagans around them and try to look as religious as possible while doing it. Jesus said, this whole system is nasty and it’s corrupt. And you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

And you know why they were able to do this? Because they said, God’s word over here says this about taking care of your parents. Our tradition over here says you can do this and be okay.

Bye-bye, God’s word. We’re going to do what our tradition says. They were able to do it because they’d elevated tradition over God’s word.

And we look at verse 13. He says, making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered, and many such like things do ye. He says, when you’ve done this, your tradition has meant that God’s word means nothing to you.

You don’t even get to pretend that you have allegiance to God’s word over here because you’re so married to your tradition. It comes first, which is wrong. And he points out, too, that this was not an isolated incident.

I mean, this is shady enough dealing as it is, even if it was the only thing they were doing wrong. But he says, many such like things do ye. He says, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

You’re doing stuff like this all the time. They were using their traditions to get around what God’s word said and to get around doing what was right. And so he told them that by emphasizing and obeying tradition over the word of God, they were treating the word of God like it didn’t matter at all.

And as believers, I think we’d all say the word of God matters. If it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t be here. And I know we’ve got some people out this morning, I’m not saying that they’re not here because the word of God doesn’t matter.

I’m just saying you’ve got better things to be doing on Sunday morning, I’m sure, if you didn’t care what God’s word said. And yet sometimes we’re willing to elevate traditions over what God’s word says. And we’ve got to avoid that.

We’ve got to fight it wherever we find it. When I say fight it, I mean I’ve got to fight it in my own life wherever I find it. Well, I’ve always done it this way.

God’s word says something else. I’ll give you an example. This isn’t church related, but it’s tradition as far as I’m concerned.

When I was a teenager, I used to listen to country music all the time. And I don’t mean the pop music that they play on the radio now. I mean country music.

I was probably the only person in my high school who knew who Merle Haggard was. And I could go through and list names. I used to listen to the old country music.

And yet I would gripe at my sister for the pop music she’d listen to. That secular garbage rotting her mind and all this. And my dad said, secular, unlike the stuff you listen to?

Well, that’s old-timey stuff. That’s okay. My grandparents listened to that.

It was okay. And then I got to listen to some of the lyrics on some of the stuff. I said, this is nasty.

I mean, there’s some of the songs that are fun and clean. But some of it was just nasty. And I remember one morning driving to Moore High School, listening to the country station, and this song came on, and I could tell you which one it was, but I’d be ashamed to admit I was listening to it.

And I thought, this is gross. I knew what the lyrics were. I’d sung along with the song in the past, but I really heard it for the first time.

And it had bothered me before. I thought, okay. And I was preaching at the time.

I thought, singing along with these country songs. And I believe what the Bible says about having no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. That’s just one verse that convicted me and should have.

But this one particular morning, I haven’t wanted to turn it off because I like the music. I like the, you know, and it’s my grandparents listened to this. It was kind of a tradition.

It’s okay because of what it was. It wasn’t the new hip hop nonsense. But I listened to the lyrics of that song.

I thought, this is just gross. you can’t listen to this anymore. I said, okay, God, your word says I shouldn’t be listening to something that’s filling my mind with garbage like this.

And I turned it off and I left it off. And now a lot of times if I’m driving somewhere and that’s the only thing I can listen to, actually nowadays I listen to the news on podcasts on my phone, but there’ve been times where there’s nothing but a country station. I’ll listen to it a couple songs and then one will come on.

It’s just gross. And you know what? I turn it off.

I don’t miss it anymore. That’s just one example where I thought, okay, I’ve got this tradition thing. I’ve always listened to it.

My grandparents listened to it, and it’s fun, but God’s Word, and by the way, I’m not saying every country song is evil. Some of you think I’m meddling now this morning because I’m talking about country music. I’m talking about my own conviction.

I was, some of it’s just nasty, okay? Not every country song is evil, and you’re not going to hell if you listen to country music when you leave here, but I just got to listen to some of the lyrics of some of the songs, and I thought, I can’t do this anymore because God’s word says that you’re supposed to think on whatsoever things are good and pure and decent and says to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness and so for for my own conviction I looked at that and I said it’s tradition or God’s word tradition’s got to go and that’s that’s where it was for me that’s just one example but anywhere where we find it in our lives that that tradition contradicts God’s word you can’t do both and you’ve got to make a decision, and we’ve got to make sure that we’re following God’s Word and not just our traditions.

Because sola scriptura means, here we get to the points that are in your bulletin, we’re almost finished this morning. Sola scriptura means that Scripture alone is our authoritative standard for faith and practice. Jesus didn’t tell them, oh, well, your Pharisee rules and God’s Word, you know, you should at least put them on equal footing.

No, no, no. He said, you’ve taken your Pharisee rules and your traditions and you’ve made God’s word completely ineffective in your lives. You’ve made God’s word as though it does not count at all. And that’s what we do when we take tradition and elevate it to the point of scripture.

We treat scripture like it doesn’t matter at all. I say this all the time, but God is not content with half of your heart or half of your devotion. It means that scripture alone is the authoritative standard.

If you want to know if it’s right, If you want to know if it’s true, you search the scriptures. If you want to know about what God says about something or what the right thing is to do, or there’s a hot button issue, you know, it’s nice to get advice from a friend. You might find something helpful in a self-help book.

God forbid that you listen to some of the talk shows on TV that talk about the hot button issues of our day. Let me tell you this. What Oprah says, what the ladies on The View say, what Hollywood says, what Nashville says, does not determine what’s true or what’s right.

God’s Word does. It doesn’t determine what we ought to do. God’s Word does.

And Scripture has this authority, as I said at the very beginning of this. Scripture has this authority not just because, oh, it’s a fancy book, and because we