How To Establish Religious Authority #5

A. As we strive to be New Testament Christians, How do we determine what we will believe, and what we will practice as we offer worship to God? Do we follow the instructions of God’s Holy Spirit inspired word, or do we make those decisions and determinations by taking a vote of the membership? That is an important question that must be asked by every person who wants to worship God in Spirit and in Truth.
1. You don’t vote on matters of belief, practice or doctrine. God has never given, to those who are His
people, that right. It was always spelled out for them. Always, with out exception. In the Old
Testament, Exod. 23:2, “Thou shalt not follow a multitude (That’s the majority) to do that which is
evil...” Jer. 9:3, spoke of those in his day who had, “...grown strong in the land, but not for truth.
That’s the populist, the majority. But they did not stand for right and were leading God’s people into
sin. Not matter what the majority wants, or says they like religiously, the fact still remains that the
only thing that matters is, “What does God say.”
a. Secondly, there is another philosophy about religion called the “Rationalism.” It has to do with the
use of the mind. We humans like to be rational. That’s the sophisticated way, that how
intellectuals think. God forbid that we be irrational and unsophisticated. “Rational” means to
have the proper, correct use of your mind. Nothing wrong with that—We all want to be rational—without rationality you end up with chaos and anarchy. It’s ok to be open minded, but you don’t have to be so open minded that your brains fall out on the ground.
(A) The philosophy of rationalism makes this statement: “Religious truth is not to be found inside
the pages of an old dead book.” God has given you a mind and the power to rationally
discover truth. Therefore, you do not find truth in an old dead book. Instead you discover
truth in your mind and thus you learn how God wants you to serve and worship Him.
A rationalistic theologian, Rudolph Bookman, pronounced, “We need to demythologize the Bible.” Remove the myths from the truth. How do you do that? How do you determine what part is Myth and what part is truth? Mr. Bookman said, “You remove all of those things that are of a miraculous nature.”
What are the myths? “Look around you. You don’t see miracles being performed today. See people walking on water. See anyone getting ear cut off and someone picking it up and instantly restoring it miraculously? See anyone turning water to wine? Raising the dead? Cleansing lepers? These things don’t happen?”
Rational thinking tells you these things don’t happen. If they don’t happen now, they did not happen then. “Thumb through your Bible and find these things that are contrary to reason and you extract them. Keep the good moral truths and principles that are left.”
The rational method says, “You approach the Word of God and decide that you can take everything that makes sense TO ME, things I think are reasonable and I will reject everything else.” You use logic and rationalize your way through the Bible. What is not rational you dismiss. That means everybody can use their mind, brain to rationalize and determine what is acceptable and what is not. Every body is right and nobody is wrong. Each man and woman becomes a law unto himself or herself. Each person becomes God.
(a) Denominations do that all the time. We’ll take that part of God’s Word that makes
sense to us, or makes us feel comfortable and we’ll reject the rest.
Here’s how that translates. Say, “Does it stand to reason that you can take a person who has committed evil and just immerse them into some water and bring them out and somehow their sins are removed?

You subject that water to every chemical analysis known to man and you won’t find any sin in there. Take a bath in that water and it will be full of dirt, soap and dead skin. But you won’t find any sin in there. Does it stand to reason to think that a person would be required to be Immersed at the North Pole where it’s frozen over most of the year? NO.
(1) Therefore you cannot say baptism is a requirement for obtaining the remission of sins.
How do I come to that conclusion? Not because the scripture does not say that-----
Because it does say that. I arrive at that conclusion because I subject passages like
Acts 2:38, to my own mental processes and it doesn’t seem reasonable, therefore I
reject it.
What about people who are on their way to be baptized and they are killed in a car wreck. Does it seem reasonable that people in far away, distant places who have never heard the Gospel should die lost. “They die having never heard the gospel, and you tell me they’re lost. That doesn’t make sense to me.”
Then they begin to argue, “Perhaps God has another plan, perhaps there is a way God will save them.” They begin to reason in their own minds that they can ignore what God has already stated and come up with some plan of their own that will be acceptable to God.
(2) What have they done? Substituted their emotionalism, reasoning for what the Word of God explicitly states. They replace God’s Word with their own man-made traditions. God has never allowed that----Not even in the Old Testament. Mic. 6:16. Mark 7:8?13, “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men....You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!...Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that." In the New Testament people began to do the same thing and were condemned in no uncertain words. Gal. 1:8-9. 2 Thess. 1:7?9. “When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power...”
(1) There are a lot of things I don’t understand. But I don’t circumvent and subordinate plain Gospel truth to my lack of understanding. I don’t have a right to go in and alter what the text of the Bible says, just because it does not meet the criteria of my finite, limited reasoning ability.
(2) We have to trust what the Word says, Preach what the Word says, Believe what the Word says, Obey what the Word says, and not be substituting our own reasoning and philosophy. It is arrogant, It is the height of subordination, and when we ignore God’s Word, We are no different than Satan, when he told Eve she could ignore the Word of God and eat the forbidden fruit.
(3) As Forrest Gump said, “That’s all I got to say about that.” The only thing I can honestly say is, “I commend you to God and to the Word of His grace which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” Acts 20:32.

Spur - 03/09/03 am