I'm
Dennis Finnan, host and speaker on the World, the Word & You! Broadcast and in
a moment we'll talk about our duty to remember this time set aside to honor
our war dead heroes in my message: “REMEMBER, LEST WE FORGET…”
…How
important it is to remember the past! Not only that we might avoid its
mistakes, but also to remember the important principles of our forefathers,
that brought them the rich blessings history records. So today, in honor of
those who have bravely gone before us, I want to take you down memory lane,
that we might remember the greatest history of all - the legacy of the
historic Christian faith, and God's call for every generation to remember this
great heritage of grace.
In
researching the Bible, I wanted to find out how often, through the ages, God
called His people to remember the past. Ironically, I
discovered that God had many calls to His people. But it appears that His
greatest call to remember has been along the lines of one's personal faith.
For instance Jude, the New Testament writer, under the inspiration of God,
declares in,
Jude 1:17
(NASB) But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken
beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,
In the
second to the last book in the Bible, God speaks through Jude to tell us it is
important to remember, the "words spoken beforehand by the apostles of
the Lord Jesus Christ." Why is this so important? The answer is the
"words spoken" are the entire basis of our New Testament faith! The words
spoken are the actual beliefs that have founded Christianity, and exist to
this day that bring men and women, boys and girls into the full and forever
blessings of God.
Moreover, in the last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, we find that
the resurrected and living Lord Jesus Christ, speaks from Heaven to His
churches, and says this,
Revelation 3:3 Remember , therefore, what you have received and
heard; and be sure to obey it..."
You see,
God knows that fallen sinning humanity has a capacity to forget where its
greatest blessings come from. So God reminded the apostles and prophets of the
New Testament, to keep before the saints, the "necessity and duty to
remember!" Yes, and to especially remember what Jude calls,
"the faith once delivered to the saints." In so doing, every
generation that followed would have the same truths carefully and clearly
intact for their knowledge and blessing as well.
Therefore, this Memorial Day weekend, I want to encourage you to think again
upon these great truths, that we might be diligent and faithful to pass them
on to our children and the peoples of the next generation. But before we
embark on this journey of remembrance, let's pause once again and listen to
this…
… Now
for starters, God said through Jude, we are to "remember the words of
the Apostles." Now notice God did not say remember
the thoughts, concepts, or sayings. God said "the WORDS." You see,
this is very important, for God has clearly given us "His Words" in what is
today called the Judeo-Christian Bible. Without a doubt, today the reliability
and authority of the Bible is in question with the multi-million dollar
presentations of Hollywood fiction, paraded as fact in such things as the
DaVinci Code, along with the anti-Christian movement of National Geographic’s
promotion of the newly found “Gospel of Judas,” – both teaching ancient
fantasies and heresies as historical truth to be accepted and believed. As a
result, many gullible people are coming to the conclusion that the Bible is
unreliable and not what it has professed to be, a document of inerrancy and
infallible truth. Yet, how wrong they are!
You see,
The God who created all things and gave us His revelatory Word, the Bible,
demands of those who claim His Name that they are to have only one viewpoint
of God's Word. That is, believe it as true, 100%! To do this, means you have
to maintain certain beliefs about God's Word. It all begins in the idea of
believing in what is called, the absolute inerrancy of the Bible. What we mean
by this is, Bible inerrancy is the belief that the Bible has no error (not
even in history or science), ascribed to the original documents.
Therefore, from cover to cover it
simply
tells the truth. Now this does not mean everything declared in the Bible is
true. For what determines what is true, depends upon “who” is speaking.
The Bible is full of words spoken by God, but also of angels, Satan, and men.
In some cases. Satan is quoted as speaking. When He speaks, he always speaks a
lie, but the Bible clearly and truthfully reports what was said, and does so
through an accurate record.
But this
also applies to God Himself. When God is speaking, either personally or
through His spokespeople - His words are always true, and an accurate record,
without error! Thus, God says we are to "remember" that the Word of God,
spoken by God, is the fully inerrant Word of the Lord to be believed and
accepted by all men.
Now the
second thing we are to remember about the "words of the apostles" is that it
is the written words they penned are inspired, not the bible writers, nor
their thoughts only. Listen to God's personal assessment of this in,
Deu 18:18
(NLT) I will raise up a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites.
I will tell that prophet what to say, and he will tell the people everything I
command him.
You see,
what is written in the Bible, and attributable to God, are the very "words”
spoken by the Father God above. Thus, to be an authentic Christian today, one
must remember that it is necessary to believe in what is called the fully
inspired, absolutely inerrant Word of God. But in addition to all this every
Christian must remember “lest we forget,” that the Bible is also verbally
inspired. This is where many professing Christians even Christian
denominations depart from the historic Christian faith. Yes, they no longer
believe in the "verbal" and full inspiration of God's Word. Listen to what God
has written through the apostle Paul to Timothy concerning this,
2 Tim
3:16 (NLT) All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is
true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out
and teaches us to do what is right.
Notice
what God's Word said - "all Scripture is inspired by God"
that means the very words chosen to deliver God's messages, are expressly and
carefully chosen by God Himself. This means the very words of the original
texts are divinely placed there. Thus, we have no right to say "the thoughts"
alone, not the words are at times inspired. Therefore, we must study the
words of the text, as well as the message of the text, to find out the
fullness of God's communication to us. This is called biblical exposition.
Now,
true Bible believing churches teach and preach God's Word best through Bible
expositions, that cover every book, and every word to glean the meanings and
interpretations of it. God says “remember the words that were spoken
beforehand by the apostles” (Jude 1:17). As such, we see all
throughout the Bible, that God reminds His people of this truth. We read in,
2 Sam
23:2 (NLT) "The Spirit of the LORD speaks through me; his words are upon
my tongue.
Jer 1:9 (NLT)
Then the LORD touched my mouth and said, "See, I have put my words in your
mouth!
The
prophets of old, were consciously used by God to pen God's very words He
wanted declared to mankind. Thus, if one claims today to be a Christian, there
is an absolute necessity to believe in God's Word as the apostles did, and of
course as the Lord Jesus Christ did too. Listen to what Jesus had to say about
the full verbal inspiration of the Word of God,
Mat 5:18
(NLT) I assure you, until heaven and earth disappear, even the smallest
detail of God's law will remain until its purpose is achieved.
Here
Jesus affirms that He believed in the full plenary, verbally infallible,
inspired Word of God! Further on Jesus said again concerning the inspiration
and inerrancy of Scripture,
John
10:35 (NLT) And you know that the Scriptures cannot be altered ...”
Yes
friends, Jesus Himself declared His steadfast faith in the Bible as the
absolutely inerrant and verbally inspired Word of God
¾
to be believed fully and completely. So likewise, Jude and John the apostle
call God's people “ought
to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of
our Lord Jesus Christ,” (Jude 1:17).
So then,
in this Memorial Day weekend, our nation has dedicated a special day and time
to remember our war dead and the great price they paid to bring us the
freedoms we so richly enjoy. We must never forget them and the reason why they
died! Well, in like manner, God calls every Christian to remember the
greatest event in history to have ever occurred - the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ, as a payment for the sins of the world, and His glorious resurrection
unto life!
Yes, we
are to remember that, for that is the central massage of the Bible we call
the "words" of Scripture. Paul the apostle says to us,
2 Tim 2:8
(NLT) Never forget that Jesus Christ was a man born into King David's
family and that he was raised from the dead. This is the Good News I preach.
If one
cannot believe the Bible as we have shared, they cannot believe in its
greatest message - the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ! Paul the apostle writes to the Corinthian church,
1 Cor
15:1-4 (NLT) Now let me remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the Good
News I preached to you before. You welcomed it then and still do now, for your
faith is built on this wonderful message. 2 And it is this Good News that
saves you if you firmly believe it--unless, of course, you believed something
that was never true in the first place. 3 I passed on to you what was most
important and what had also been passed on to me--that Christ died for our
sins, just as the Scriptures said. 4 He was buried, and he was raised from the
dead on the third day, as the Scriptures said.
If we
forget this important and vital truth, we have lost all. Moreover, to
depreciate this truth, is to also lose all. How sad today millions and upon
millions of people around the world are being led to religion, but not the
Christ of the Bible.
Millions
of people are led to believe in the Bible as a source book of maxims and to
take it or leave it, or as a place to pick and choose cafeteria style, one’s
philosophy for life - but only to their eternal peril and destruction. Oh,
how important it is for us to look again at what we believe. Have we stayed
true to the faith once delivered to the saints? Have we believed God's Word
fully and completely??
Now
let's ask - just what is the faith once delivered to the saints? Well in
capsule form here it is. To be a Christian today, to know God's blessing of
salvation, and to receive God's gift of eternal life, everyone regardless of
denominational ties, must believe the following,
#1 To be a Christian --
one must believe that the Holy Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments are
the fully inerrant and inspired Word of God
and altogether sufficient for one's faith and practice.
#2 To be a Christian
-- one must believe that there is but, one true God revealed to us in three
persons,
individually and together an intelligent, sovereign, spiritual and personal
Being revealed to us through the Bible as God the Father, God the Son and God
the Holy Spirit.
#3 To be a Christian --
we must believe that Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Triune God, who
born of humanity was the infinite God/Man.
That He was born by miracle of the virgin birth, that God the Son became a
man, to continue forever as both true God and true man; That this eternal
Being, Jesus Christ lived a sinless perfect life, died a real death and was
raised from the dead in a glorified body, and ascended to heaven to rule and
reign forever and ever.
#4 To be a Christian --
we must also believe that all men are by nature and choice sinful and
eternally lost.
This lostness is seen in our separation from God, and being under the
righteous judgment and wrath of God; Man cannot in his own power change this
state, except by the divine intervention of God to rescue us.
#5 To be a Christian --
we must believe that we can be saved from our sins, reconciled to God, and
granted His gift of eternal life
¾
but only by and through faith alone. We affirm that by no merit in part or
whole or by any virtue or work, can we earn heaven or eternal life. It is a
free gift of God given to all who surrender their lives to Him through faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
#6 To be a Christian --
we must believe that Christ is coming again to gather unto Himself His saints,
and to punish all unbelieving sinners of all ages, and to bring upon them
eternal judgment in a place called Hell.
Friend,
these are the essentials of the “faith once delivered to the saints,” the
faith God calls us to remember, again and again!
I
wonder, do you need to remember these things in faith, or do you need to first
believe them? Whatever the case, this Memorial Day weekend is a wonderful time
to give thanks for those who have given their lives to purchase for us our
national freedoms, but more let us also take time to remember the greatest
death in the war again sin - a death on a cross that purchased for us our
greatest freedom of all.
May we
pay tribute to Jesus Christ, our hero, our conqueror, who single handedly gave
His life in a full and forever payment for our sins. Hallelujah what a Savior!
Say
friend, do you know Him personally? Have you believed the essentials of the
historic Christian message? Are the words of the apostles here, the faith
written upon your heart? Are you living in obedience to the Word of the
apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ?
This is our duty to remember, LEST WE FORGET!
