Unless: Sufficiency
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In the year A.D. 303, the Roman Emperor Diocletian issued a decree which he hoped would extinguish the spreading flames of Christianity. One of his primary objectives was the seizure and destruction of the Christian Scriptures. Later that year, officials enforced the decree in North Africa. One of the targets was Felix, Bishop of Tibjuca, a village near Carthage. The mayor of the town ordered Felix to hand over his Scriptures. Though some judges were willing to accept scraps of parchment, Felix refused to surrender the Word of God at the insistence of mere men. Resolutely, he resisted compromise. Roman authorities finally shipped Felix to Italy where he paid for his stubbornness with his life. On August 30, as the record puts it, "with pious obstinacy," he laid down his life rather than surrender his Gospels.
How sufficient is the Bible? Enough, so much so, that many in church history gave up their lives for it. Many in church history died for the Bible. Are we willing to do this today? Does not seem like it, because there is a clear trend today of professing Christians who are losing confidence in the scriptures. The cultural research center at Arizona Christian University is showing signs of a free fall in Christian core beliefs and church attendance. The church has not bounced back from the pandemic like we all hoped according to Barna research. One of the key factors was the decline of Bible reading, which many thought would have increased in the pandemic, but it decreased. 90 percent of American at least claimed some kind of Christian identity … now its down to under 70 percent. Only 55 percent of evangelicals believe that we are born sinners and that salvation is found in Christ only. Barna claims that 33 percent of the people sitting in churches today probably don’t qualify as one who would be truly converted. And only a third of evangelicals still believe that when they die they go to heaven only because the have faith in Christ. This decline has been going on for the last 25 years now, but it got sped up exponentially with COVID. Only 40 percent will say today that life is sacred. The number one reason for this says barna… we are losing our theological distinctives… one Christian church is no different than another… we don’t know who we are anymore. There are less and less people who are able to defend and articulate theological distinctives and even less who are willing to be in the market place.
Much of this will stem from they way have come to see the Bible. We don’t see it as absolutely necessary, we don’t see it absolutely clear, we don’t see it as completely authoritative, and today, we don’t see it as sufficient. Professing Christians that the Bible is just a book written by gifted men. But just men. Nothing divine or supernatural about it. Its nice that we have it but its not detrimental to our faith in Christ. Many today might say that the Bible is the very word of God, but don’t feel that it is sufficient for our life with Christ. We need more than just the Bible. So we go searching for other things. We go looking for other stuff. Tarot cards, horoscopes, psychics, science, philosophy of men, media, celebrity, social media, money and pop culture. Opportunities for loss of confidence in the Bible and more opportunities to be deceived and manipulated by the ways of the world and have the seeds of the world stolen from you by the enemy.
There is still time today… we can still help the situation. We can still do somthing. And vital to this… the declaration of the sufficiency of Scripture. The Bible is enough. And if it is enough, then enough is enough.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever.
What It Means
Why It Matters
The first thing we will look at today is what we means when we say that the scriptures are sufficient. Second, we will see why it is important and we will understand why the scriptures are sufficient namely because Christ is sufficient.
Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world cause us to find the word of God as insufficient for our life today, it is the power of God and the truth of the scriptures that will illuminate the sufficiency of Christ and His Word.
I. What it means
- All the Words God intended to give His people.
A. 1689 LBC - The Holy Scriptures are the only sufficient, certain, and infallible standard of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. The light of nature and the works of creation and providence so clearly demonstrate the goodness, wisdom, and power of God that people are left without excuse; however, these demonstrations are not sufficient to give the knowledge of God and his will that is necessary for salvation. Therefore, the Lord was pleased at different times and in various ways to reveal himself and to declare his will to his church. To preserve and propagate the truth better and to establish and comfort the church with greater certainty against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and the world, the Lord put this revelation completely in writing. Therefore, the Holy Scriptures are absolutely necessary, because God’s former ways of revealing his will to his people have now ceased.
Dr. Wayne Grudem - The sufficiency of Scripture means that Scripture contained all the words of God he intended his people to have at each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains everything we need God to tell us for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly.
C. First of all… what it does not mean. It is not what is called “omni-sufficient.” Sufficiency must always be defined according to its purpose. The question is… sufficient for what? Some may assert that the Bible is sufficient for everything. But its not necessarily accurate to say that. It is not sufficient for teaching us Calculus, Spanish, or fixing a computer. Though it is the basis for all of it.
D. Let me make it a bit more definite… what we need to know about Christ. But lets flush it out a bit more… Though it is not “omni-sufficient,”not specific to everything, it is the basis of everything.
- The Scriptures are not a textbook of biology, but they sufficiently provide those ethical and religious perspectives basic to any proper science of biology.
- The Bible is not sufficient for all that we do, but it does speak to all we do sufficiently as to the glory of God, the way of salvation and the path of duty.
Samuel Waldron - We may take by way of illustration a typical Tuesday in the life of Chris College, a university student majoring in engineering. His Bible is insufficient as a textbook for his classes in calculus, biology and French; but it does show him the path of duty throughout such a typical Tuesday. It teaches him to pray and read his Bible in the morning, to be diligent and discerning in his studies, and to avert his eyes when the college temptress walks through the library when he is studying. It does provide him with an infallible record of creation and redemptive history. This record does set certain boundaries or limits which guide him in his study of biology and history. Any theory of history or biology which contradicts the historical statements of the Bible he will properly reject. Thus, while the ethicoreligious sphere of human knowledge is distinct from other spheres, it is basic to them all.
E. Everything we need for Life and everything we need for Godliness. If all we have is the Bible then we have all we need to do all the good works we are ordained by God to do.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
F. The scriptures make it clear.
You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus.
He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.
For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.
G. So if your goal is to be a child of God and to live your whole life in a way that is worthy of the Lord or worthy of the calling then if all you have is the scriptures then you have enough already… Unless that is not what you want in life then the scriptures won’t be enough. Maybe we don’t find the scriptures helpful and enough because we want what the Lord has not provided for.
H. The problem with this… the church is becoming more and more influenced by culture and society and even how we see church and how we do church is so influenced by the culture that pastors today study books by those relevant to the culture today instead of the scriptures. When it comes to life as a christian if you can’t find what you need in the scriptures then you probably don’t need it. And you don’t want it. But that might be the problem… maybe we do want it.
II. Why It Matters
- It is by grace you have been saved.
A. And we do want it because of that pesky thing we call sin. Sin nature… the flesh. That thing that so easily besets us. The wages of it is death. And all of us have done it all of us have fallen short of the glory of God. There is no one on earth who always does good and never sins. We all like sheep have gone astray each of us to his own way. We all by nature do what is right in our own eyes.
B. And the fear of sin is the consequence of sin. Why this is horrible and why it is terrible. Sin brings the wrath of God. The wrath of God being poured out. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of God.
“Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
C. It is the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is the place of outer darkness and eternal fire. The place of torment. The place reserved for the devil and his angels. It is condemnation of the worst kind. And we are all born into this.
D. But can we be saved. Yes we can through the scriptures sufficiently know that we can be saved. We can be certain that we have complete knowledge of this wonderful thing called the gospel. The awesome and great gospel of Jesus the greatest message ever told.
E. Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners. Jesus came into this world to seek and to save that which was lost. He became sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
F. And the news gets even better… If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved. All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. All of this is written so that you will believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God and that by believing you will have life in His name.
G. The message is clear and complete and all that is needed for salvation and how we can live perfectly with the Lord and with each other. It is enough and if it is enough than enough is enough.