He has this recurring nightmare of our dream of going to school naked. Well, with Sam not here this morning, I felt naked. I felt like you could hear all my mistakes. I usually masked them behind Sam's good guitar playing.
That wasn't to be. Let's turn to the Lord in prayer. Thank you Father for bringing us here this morning. We thank you that we do have these ancient words before us.
Ancient words but are for today. There is powerful and legitimate today as they were in the day that they were read because they come from the eternal God of heaven. Thank you for bringing us here. I pray that you would encourage us from your word.
I pray Father that you would help us as we look into these matters. That it may encourage our hearts for those of us who are believers. And Lord, if there is anyone here and I believe there probably is, who has never come to know the Lord Jesus as their Savior. Lord, may they come to Him today.
May they see Him, the only Savior of the world. The only Savior of their own soul. And see their great need and come and trust the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask it in His name.
Amen. I actually worked on this message and then I worked on another message because I wasn't going to do this one. And then last Saturday we had our men's study and we talked so much about the truth and lies and the stuff that goes on all around us. And I was convicted to go back to this because I think we need it.
I think we need to underline the role of the Bible in our lives, the Scriptures in our lives. And so therefore I'd like to have a look at 1 Timothy, or 2 Timothy, chapter 4, first 8 verses. I put it up here so you can see it. All my texts are in New King James, I believe.
There may be something else in it if it is, it's noted. So if you're following along, it is New King James. Let me just read the passage. I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and the dead and his appearing and his kingdom.
Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.
But according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers and will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. But you, be watchful in all things. Indoor afflictions. Do the work of an evangelist.
Fulfill your ministry. For I'm already being poured out as a drink offering. And the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight.
I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me. The crowd of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge will give me on that day.
And not to me only, but also to all who have loved his appearing. I was reading this morning, but our time kind of ran out. I had something I was looking to share. And the very last verses before the final benediction, the very last verse in the Bible, the final benediction, but the last verse says even so come, Lord Jesus.
So those who love his appearing. I hope that we are those who love his appearing. And we are longing and looking for that. I hope that he is appearing with us today.
I hope that we are looking to the Lord, that our hearts are open to hear his word. It's not what I say. Believe me, it's nothing to do with what I say. It is the very word of God that we need in our lives.
So last summer, I had my eyes checked around June. And I went in and the doctor put all this, you know, which one is better? This one? That one?
That one? How about this one? And you are so confused by the end of it, you say, yeah, yeah, they are all good. So in the end he said, well, your glasses, you need new glasses.
But they are weaker than the ones you had before. And I said, weaker. He said, yeah. Well, that's good.
And he says, not really. I said, what do you mean? I mean, he is my eyes are getting better. He says, no, it just means muscles in your eyes are changing because you are getting old.
But it's great. These are weaker than the ones I had before. I can almost, well, I can read without them and I can almost see you without them. So that part was good.
But I realized that over time my vision has, it started since about 30 when I got my first job sitting in front of a computer, that my vision started to change. And I needed glasses. And then as I got older, okay, you have a mistake, and then you need this. And then as you get older, I needed progressive lenses.
I needed all of these changes because as time goes on, my vision started to fade. It started to get hazy. Things were not clear anymore. I remember driving long thinking, I can't see the speedometer.
This is crazy. So I go to the doctor and they say, well, you need to have progressives. You need stuff at the bottom because the top is so strong, you need to bring in this pedometer. I thought, okay, well, this ever ends.
So now it's going back the other way. So you can bury me with glasses, I guess. This is probably where it's going to go. I don't know.
But over time, our spiritual vision can become hazy too. If we just kind of roll along and just let things go, the truths that sometimes seem so clear to us, then they start becoming hazy over time. That's a great danger to the Christian. But you have maybe you're a new believer and you're keen and you're in the word.
Your devotional life is awesome and you've got this 2020 spiritual vision. And then you go through life and circumstances happen. And life experience happens. You get really busy with kids.
You guys are starting. But you get really busy with kids. And then you get really busy with work. And then maybe your work progresses to another level.
And then you get really busy trying to pay a mortgage. And then when you get your mortgage, you realize, oh, no, I've got to look after this half acre. I've got to cut the lawn. I've got to mow the grass.
I've got to shovel the snow, which never seems to end. I need to, oh, I'm on my dear. It needs a new roof. Oh, no, I need this.
I can't afford to do this. And all of these life experiences, all of these things come along. And then you realize, I'm at a point that I'm in a spiritual funk. It's hazy to me.
All those things that were so sharp to me at one time, what's taken it away? Perhaps it's another thing. Perhaps it's sin in your life. You've made choices in your life and you've gone down roads.
You know, Brother John said a couple of weeks ago, this is ringing in my head like a bell. And I've heard three people quote this in the past two weeks. And it was from his father. When you choose a road, you choose its destination.
And when you choose a road of sin, when you choose a road that is not legitimately following after God, your spiritual life will get hazy. Your vision, your eyesight will get bad. The other thing is if you just neglect your spiritual health, if I neglect going to the eye doctor every two years, I may find myself and go in and say, you know what, I really wish you came to me. You haven't been in for six years.
You've got to call my, but it's getting really bad. I can't reverse it. I can't help you. What?
If you came every two years, I would have picked it up. You see, the same thing is when we go to the Word of God, we're going to the doctor. We're going to the keeper of our souls. We're going to the one who gives us spiritual health.
And when we pick up the scriptures, when we spend our time in prayer, when we have time with the Lord, it keeps our vision acute. It helps us. 2 Peter, chapter 1, verses 5 to 9 says, but also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue to virtue knowledge, to knowledge, self-control, to self-control, perseverance, to perseverance, to godliness, to godliness, to brotherly kindness, to brotherly kindness, to love. For if these things are yours and abound, you'll neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Isn't that an awesome encouragement? 4. He who lacks these things is short-sighted, even to blindness and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. You see, sometimes our past can cause come back to haunt us, our old sins, either by getting back into them, getting into these old habits that we once head and hate it, or perhaps we dwell on the past, the forgiven past.
It's in the sea of God's forgetfulness, yet it's like on the front of your newspaper for you. You've got to deal with that. You've got to put it away. These things will make you spiritually blind.
Religious leaders in Jesus' day claimed that they had 20-20 spiritual vision, but they were blind because of their pride. Jesus said in John 9, verse 39 to 41, and Jesus said, for judgment I have come into this world that those who do not see may see, that those who see may be made blind. Then some of the Pharisees who were with him, who heard these words and said to him, are we blind also? And Jesus said to them, if you were blind you would have no sin.
But now you say, we see, therefore your sin remains. They were blinded by their own pride. Spiritual blindness in the scriptures is a metaphor for an unwillingness or inability to see spiritual truth. And our spiritual acuity belongs to those who come to the Lord Jesus, those who have been given spiritual vision, spiritual eyesight.
But you see, our culture is in a crisis right now. Cynical people are always questioning the truth. There's a lot of the spirit of Pontius Pilate in our world. What is truth?
Really? What is truth? Most people believe it's impossible to actually know what the truth is. So it's not much wonder with all the so-called expertise and the so-called science that's been floating around us in recent times that people are cynical.
People are questioning everything. It's not much wonder. Paul directed Timothy on how to combat apostasy, how to combat falling away from the truth. Mark Twain, not a believer, but an interesting guy, has some great quotes.
He said, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still lacing upper boots. Just look at the news in this past week. There's stuff coming out of Russia and Ukraine. Pictures of old wars as if there's happened this week.
Are you kidding me? That's news? I read something this week and I read the comments at the bottom and the guy said, you got to be kidding me. It wasn't, okay, good.
It was my granddaughter. Because if it was, she's a robot. But you see, here's the thing. I read this article this week and I thought, is this real?
It was not something else. And at the end of it, the guy at the end says, I'm no journalist. But I just googled this. It's false.
And they're putting it in one of the major papers as if it's, in fact, this is why I'm speaking on this. We spoke about this in our men's study. There's so much confusion in this world. It's crazy right now.
And it's just being fed and fed and fed. We're going to log confusion in a second if I get these pages. Okay, there we go. Now we're in order.
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still lacing upper boots. It says Mark Twain. That's before the internet. Now a lie travels around the world and gets its own spin.
And has broadcast a thousand times before truth has laced upper boots. Satan is the one who is the father of lies. He traffics in lies. He's called by Jesus Christ himself, the father of lies in John E.
44. He has always used non-truth as a tactic. The very first introduction we have to Satan, Genesis 3, verse 1, and the serpent was more subtle than any other beast of the field. Has God really said?
No, no, no, no. Don't believe that. You choose to believe lies from the very start. Lies.
The thing is about lies, they work. Lies work. You know the story or the quote John gave us from his father? You choose a road.
You choose the end of it. You choose a road of believing lies. You choose hell. Because father of lies is Satan.
Satan wants to take every soul he can captive into hell with him. And if you choose to believe lies, you choose to believe him. Think of what the destination is for that. So let's look at, that's the intro.
The steps, three steps to see truth clearly, and I believe me, I will be going quicker. First, be concerned about knowing the truth, verses 1 to 2. Be cautious about neglecting the truth and be careful about nurturing the truth. First of all, being concerned about knowing the truth.
Paul calls Timothy to preach the word, to teach the word, which is sound doctrine, it says, in verse 3, and the truth, in verse 4. Be concerned about this. Be cautious. Be careful that what you are getting is the truth.
The context for this is in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 14, and I believe I put that up there for you. But you must continue in the things that you have learned and been assured of knowing from whom you have learned them. From childhood, you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Jesus Christ. You see, Timothy grew up with a believing mother and a believing grandmother.
And they taught the word of God to him as a child. They poured it into him. They drilled it into him. He knew the word of God.
I can say in my own life, I am thankful. I grew up with a grandmother, with family members who loved the word of God, who drilled it into me, rewarded me for memorizing it. Pronished me for not memorizing it. Not much.
But they drilled the word of God into me. There were many people that I looked to that gave me the word of God over and over again, so that when I was looking for an answer at the age of 21, I thought, what's the answer to life? The scriptures came back. The truth came back to me.
That's the importance of the truth, the holy scriptures. Paul mentions truth 11 times in 1 Timothy and 49 times in his writings. Christians, we are people of the truth. Why?
Because Christ is the way, the truth, the life. By taking the name Christian, Christ I, I am aligning myself with the truth, with Jesus Christ, the truth. The Bible is called the scripture of truth in Daniel chapter 10 verse 21. And truth is tied to doctrine, which in its simplest form means biblical teaching.
Now, doctrine is one of those words that people like say, yeah, can you use another word? No, that's a good word. It means teaching. It means instruction.
Paul uses the term 19 times in his writings. Christians look at it sometimes and say, it's boring, it's too technical. Just give me Jesus and love and I'll be good. Well, you know what?
Jesus is all about doctrine. That's what he was all about. You can't have Jesus and not have doctrine. You can't have Jesus and not have teaching.
You can't have Jesus of the New Testament without having Jesus of the Old Testament. You've got to have all of the scriptures imbalancing your life. Paul said I did not shrink back from revealing to you the whole council of God. What did Jesus do when he met the two disciples?
I was going to say dudes, I don't know if they were dudes, but it could have been a man or woman. He met them on the Emmaus road. Maybe it was two men. Does any proof that's two men?
No. Two people on the Emmaus road. He went to their home. He opened up the scriptures and all of the scriptures spoke of him.
You need the scriptures. You need doctrine. You need to understand these things. You see, a lot of people treat their Bibles like the owner's manual in the car.
Now, apart from me, stick your hand up if you read the owner's manual and you've got a car. I thought so. Nobody. In fact, David Hanson bought a vehicle that I once used to, not the same vehicle, but the same model of something I used to own.
He was wondering how do I do this? I thought, I remember reading that in the owner's manual. I found the old owner's manual that I had and I took a shot of it and sent it off to him. He was able to do what he had to do.
That's the way most of us live our lives. That's not criticism of David. That's everybody. Okay, this has gone funky.
What am I going to do now? I better get the owner's manual. Then you go through it and you find out what should I have done. By that time, sometimes it's too late.
It's come up on my dash. Engine lie on. 1-6-8-7-4. What's that mean?
Oh-oh. But the owner's manual told me I should have got the oil changed every 5,000 kilometers, but I ignored it because I didn't read the manual. Now I'm in trouble. And see, we can live our lives like that.
Oh, you know what? I don't know what to do with my life. It's a mess. Maybe I'll read my Bible now.
But you know what? You probably wouldn't have been in the mess if you had read your Bible before. That's how important the scriptures are for us. It's like the owner's manual of life totally lost in my place.
So today, many believe that preaching is about what you feel rather than what is actually true. What I feel doesn't really matter. You don't know what. You don't want to know how I felt this morning after I got up and started getting around and coming in here.
I said to him, he may have said, you got to pray for me, man. This is why it's really good to sing before you speak because it really helps your heart. You see, if I were to stand up here and talk to you about what I feel and how I feel and how I think you should feel, oh my. Like, you know what?
Stay home. Surf you to. Do something else. It's useless to you.
It's useless information. What you need is information that comes from the owner's manual. What you need is to know the voice of God speaking to your heart. You need this in your life.
And you will only get that through good, solid Bible teaching and doctrine. The Bible emphasizes how important sound doctrine is. Good, solid teaching of the Scriptures. Here's some verses for you.
Hosea chapter 4 verse 6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. If you lack biblical knowledge, it will destroy you ultimately. It will wreck your life.
You will wreck your life because of that. Acts chapter 2 verse 42. People ask me sometimes, what kind of church is Northbrook? I don't know, it's church.
No, I mean, you know, you're an old brother in church. You know, Plymouth brethren. No, we're not in Halifax. Dartmouth actually.
Okay. Here's what we do. The church continued steadfastly with apostles doctrine. I got rid of the...
Oh, yeah, here we go. I got it up here. Apostles doctrine and fellowship and breaking of bread and in prayers. That's what we do.
If you come to Northbrook, we will teach apostles doctrine. We'll teach the doctrines of the Scriptures. That's what we do. We fellowship.
Like I'll tell you, it's so good to see this place this morning. It is so good that we fellowship together. If I were to decide this morning, like, I'm in a funk, I think I'm going to stay home alone. Do you know what that island would get smaller and smaller and smaller?
And I would say, okay, I'm in big trouble. If you're not fellowshifting in the church, if you're not finding fellowshifting in the church, if you are not finding fellowship with other believers, you're in serious trouble. You're not participating as part of the church. It's a dangerous place to find yourself.
The other thing we do, we just did, little plug for it, if you're a believer, we were breaking bread. We come and we remember one thing only. One thing. The Lord Jesus Christ.
We remember Him and His death for us on the cross. It's refreshing. It changes your view on your life, on your day, on everything else. And we come for prayer meeting on Thursday night.
And we have a prayer chain. And we pray together. We pray apart. That's what we do.
So that defines what Northbrook Bible Chapel does as a church. That's what we should do. But you notice apostles doctrine is there. Very, very important.
It's core. You wouldn't do those other things if you didn't know the doctrine of scripture. You wouldn't break bread if you didn't know the doctrine of scripture. Titus, chapter two.
I said I was going to go quicker. I'm slowing down here. Titus chapter two. But as for you, speak these things which were proper for sound doctrine.
James Montgomery Boyce, I've always liked his quotes. I didn't know much about him. But then I realized that he also passed through the same church for like 32 years, 33 years where Donald Gray Barnhouse was. And Donald Gray Barnhouse is one of my favorite writers.
I really like him. So I actually went on and listened to a messenger to this week. From the church, the 10th Avenue church in Philadelphia Presbyterian church. And here's what he says.
We do not have a strong church. Now this is written years ago. He died in 2000, I think it was. We do not have a strong church today.
Nor do we have many strong Christians. And we can trace the cause to an acute lack of sound spiritual knowledge. Ask an average Christian to talk about God. And after getting past the expected answers, you will find that his God is a little God of vacillating sentiments.
That's a sad statement. And I hope that's not true of you. And I hope that's not true of me. I hope that we are into the Word and we're getting a deep knowledge of the God of Heaven.
That will keep you in this life. Parents, if you're sending your kids off to school and you are not filling them with this, I can assure you with a very high 90% age that your kids will be in grave danger. And I'm not here proclaiming the evils of public school. I'm saying even if you're sending them off to Christian school and you are not filling them with the knowledge of this, your children will be in trouble.
And you need to do it now. It's too late when they're teenagers. It's too late when they're 10 years old. It's too late when they're 8 years old.
You need to do it now when they're little. And if you haven't been doing it, do it with your teenagers. You need to teach them these truths because they are going to get filled with so many lies from this world, from teachers, from professors, from billboards, from ads, from YouTube. I was talking to somebody this week and he was telling me about somebody close to them, watching so much YouTube stuff, and their head is so filled with junk that they're totally off track with the Lord.
Sad. Make sure you fill your kids. Parents, make sure you fill your kids with the right thing. Students, if you are not feeding on the Word of God, I pray that you are.
If you're a student or a young adult, if you are not feeding on the Word of God, you will be in grave danger. And I'm going to tell you, for students who go to university and do not have a grounding on the Word of God and some take a philosophy class, your faith, if you have any, if it's real, will be dismantled in 5 minutes because the guy who's paid the salary to stand in front of that class and teach you is slick with his words. I've listened to some of these guys. I've listened to messages that take excerpts from guys like Bart Ehrman and some of these other professors that stand up and teach these lies.
And they're so convincing. There's sugar on their tongue. And there's a lot of this and a lot of that. It doesn't really mean this.
You can't believe that. And this guy, I mean, he's a social professor. I mean, come on. Look at his credentials.
He's got more doctors than anybody. But you see the problem with it is, it's lies. If it does not line up with this, you're in trouble. So students, be in the scriptures.
I can't stress that enough. It's your only defense. We need to be concerned about knowing the truth or will be swept away by lies. Be cautious about neglecting the truth.
In our culture, it has largely rejected truth. Sensationalism right now is more important than facts. It's gone mainstream. It used to be you go in and you laugh at the sensationalism at the check out.
You know, a woman born with three heads on Mars, right? You know, Jesus Cross has been found on the moon. You know, things like that. Just bizarre, weird stuff.
You know, the thing is, the mainstream papers now, or the mainstream news, is just as bizarre. You don't have to find sensationalism in a tabloid anymore. You can find it anywhere you want. I'll give a plug for CNN.
You'll find it on there. If you're looking for sensationalism, go to CBC. It's not news anymore. It's always got a spin or something politicized about it.
Somebody wants to call it fake news. I think he ran for office. But there's so much of it around us. You need to know what's fake news and what's good news, what's real news, what's true.
The second issue that we run into these days is people consider truth as something personal. There's my truth. And your truth. You've never heard that on the street, John.
They paid you for that. You would retire. It's my truth. There's your truth.
I mean, there's no, you know, here's some statistics very quickly. Twenty-four percent, you can only get American statistics because it's worse in Canada. Twenty-four percent of Americans believe the Bible is the word of God. That's an all-time law.
That was in 2020. An all-time law. Only 24 percent. People say there's no absolute truth.
The problem with that is, and he can use this the next time somebody says that to you, that's actually an absolute statement. It's self-contradictory and it's a self-defeating declaration. To go and say, there's no absolute truth, you're making an absolute statement. Makes no sense.
You can't say that because you don't believe that you can do that. Many have said this. That's your truth. I have my truth.
And this passage here in Timothy is a warning. Not for unbelievers, but for believers. And there are Christians today who are very mixed up in what they believe. In the US, 45 percent of American evangelicals, who claim they're evangelicals, 45 percent, believe that many religions can lead to eternal life.
What? What happened to I am the wade's odd truth, the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. A Barnard Research, which is a Christian organization, says 51 percent of American, only 51 percent of American Protestant pastors have a biblical worldview.
That's the day we're in. That's how far lies have spread and swept. That's a departure from the truth. The so-called progressive Christianity, it's growing.
There's nothing Christian about it. I think I put it up here with a small C in Christianity because it is a small C Christianity. There are people who have professed to be believers, but they're not. They're teaching lies and they're sweeping believers in it by the truckload.
The soft, peddled gospel. Oh, just you need Jesus. But here's, okay, so Jesus died from being on the cross. Well, no, don't get lost in that.
Well, Jesus arose from the dead. No, he didn't really. This is the kind of stuff they peddled. There's a book in the library here by Alyssa Childers called Another Gospel, if my daughter ever returned it.
But it's called Another Gospel. I would recommend that every person who can get their hands on it, read that book. It's so slick that you can get swept into these lies. And when you're there, it's such a dangerous place.
Now, the problem is, and I'm not going to go into some of this other stuff I have here, but it's the itching ears that you read in verse three here. People have brought in for themselves and they like these teachers that have satisfied their itching ears. I don't like hearing that judgment stuff anymore. I don't like hearing about, you know, there's only one way.
So we got to get somebody softer to come and lead our church. I was in a church one time with my family. We walked in this old ancient church by the oldest one in the province and we were standing in there and I said, wow, this is really, really neat. And the guy comes over and he goes, hi.
Have you been in church before? I said, yeah, I've been in church a lot. This is pretty neat. It's pretty cool.
He goes, yeah, we have a really good pastor. And like, has that just soft and tender way with us? I did. It's just so good.
I'm thinking, uh-huh. Now your church is a tourist attraction. That's it. Just to come and see the old building.
That's what we become. It would be dead. This church is dead. Itching ears.
Now, this is only the second time ever. I've quoted from the message up here. I don't usually like to do that paraphrase. It's not my favorite, but it does have something good.
It says people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food, catchy opinions, the tickle or fancy. That's what it is. That's the appeal for reaching ears. When Paul visited Athens in Acts 17, he found that everyone wanted to hear some new thing.
The old truth was no good anymore. I just want to hear something new. Bring me something new. Preachers feed on the desire for novelty over the need for truth.
This would be a good time for an illustration. It was a farmer. This is probably the first firm illustration you heard since now. It was a farmer.
He raised donkeys. He had a number of donkeys in his stall. He was feeding them oats. The price of oats was getting the price of groceries here.
It was going up and up and up and up and up. He said, ah, I can't afford this. What I'm going to do, it looks the same. It will make a go a lot further.
Let me put some sawdust in with the oats. They will be satisfied. He takes the big mix of the guy, mixes the sawdust, mixes it in with the oats. He says, that looks pretty good.
They won't even be those donkeys. They won't even know the difference. He puts it all over. It's actually mules in the story.
Mules donkeys are the same. He puts it all for them and they start feeding and they're going, good, I'm full. As they ate more and more and more, here's what he got. They're donkeys because they weren't getting nutrition that they needed.
And you see, if we fill ourselves with the stuff that just satisfies itching ears and it's not the truth of the scripture, if it's not from God's word, eventually we'll find ourselves spiritually dead. We need the nutrition that comes from the scripture. So finally we need to be careful about nurturing the truth. Paul says to him, to Timothy here, he says, but you, but you.
Which contrasts Timothy from all those who turn away. First he talks about those who turn away and he says, but you, Timothy. Look after yourself spiritually. Make sure you're feeding yourself on the word of God.
Paul was a prime example to Timothy. And Paul's now at the end of his life. He's supposed to be taken out and executed by Nero any day. He's fulfilled his ministry.
He's kept the faith. He's run the race and he's ready for his reward, which is a crown of righteousness. He's finished strong. There's our favorite book, isn't it?
For men's study. Been through it about five times. You know that the, I put this up today. Strange coincidence.
The memorial service for the author of that book is this afternoon. Steve for our past away last weekend. And his memorial service is today. And you know what?
He finished strong. Amen to that. I've been through that study five times here. Some have been through it for some have been through it once.
But it's made an impact on our men. And may we finish strong. May we have these words of Paul when we get to the end. That we've run the race.
We fought the fight and finished the course. And we finished strong. Paul directed him to teach the word, to preach the word. There was a term for preach.
It meant to publicly proclaim. It often referred to like the imperial messenger who would come for Caesar and make a proclamation with the authority on behalf of Rome. And in Timothy's town, Ephesus, there were many orators who could come and skillfully stand on a street corner and make these great proclamations on behalf of Rome. But they would sometimes add their own little twist to the truth.
And people loved it. People would come along and they'd listen to it. They're truth twisters. They were leading people astray.
But Paul says to him, preach the word. Preach the word. In that you will never lead people astray. You will lead people to the author of the word.
Listen to the right voices. Listen to the word of God. Timothy's message was to preach the truth of the one true king, not the king Caesar, but king Jesus. May we hear that.
So we're not here to preach our own opinions, our own politics, our own culture. John read some very difficult word verses a couple of weeks ago from the Scriptures. And if it was John's opinion, if it was the opinion of the board of trustees of this church, if it was the opinion of the elders, and that's all it was, it's worthless to you. It is the word of God.
The word of God reveals the heart of God to you. That's what we need. Be careful to nurture that in your life. This illustration that comes from D.
Al-Moody, he said, the best way to show a stick is crooked, is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside it. If you have the word of God, you've got the straight stick. And when you hear something that doesn't quite sound quite right, or, hey, here's a new thought for you. All right.
Let's get this out. Let's get the straight stick out and see if your stick is straight. And if it's not, you need to reject it. Throw it away.
The Bible is the straight stick. It will always guide you in truth. It will always show you the truth. We need the straight stick of the word of God.
The scripture of truth, so you don't get led away by fables. John said, wrote what Jesus said, then Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him, if you abide in my word, if you live in my word, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. I pray that you know the truth, that you're listening to the truth. You're not led astray by lies.
John chapter 14 verse 6, Jesus said to him, this is the Thomas, this is the disciple, I am the way the truth in the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. That's a great claim in all of the scriptures, one of the greatest claims ever. And if you're here this morning and you don't know him, that little tract, do you know him? Thousands and thousands and thousands of those gone out into hands.
And ask the most important question, do you know him? Him, who is the truth? The way, the truth, the life. For there is no other way to get to the Father.
There is no other way to heaven except through Jesus Christ. If you don't know him, may you come today. Father, thank you this morning that we can come with full assurance that your word is truth. With full assurance knowing that we have stuck and staked our whole lives in Jesus Christ the Lord, the one who is the way, the truth, and the life.
And the one who ultimately will lead us to an eternity with you. I pray, Father, if there's one soul here who is struggling and battling with these things and they don't know you, may they come to know Jesus Christ. I pray for the parents here, Lord, that you would help them to teach the word of truth to their children. Teach it every day and teach it often so that when they encounter the lies in this world, that they may be led to life and choose life.
I pray for all of us, Lord, when we get into a funk, Lord, keep us from doing so. But when we get there, help us to come back to the word of truth that we may be strengthened and encouraged. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.