INTRODUCTION : WHY TAKE UP A STUDY
LIKE THIS
I think again it is important to remind ourselves why we would take up a
study like this. There are many among us who have questions and we hear these
questions from time to time. Certainly the young people are growing up. We're
glad for the young people and they're getting to the age where they're asking
very penetrating questions that deserve good answers from the Bible. We have
college students, new families, visitors, and others, and many have questions
as to why we meet as we do; and these questions need good answers.
Now I want to say right at the beginning that we're not here to defend the
position of West Woods Bible Chapel, or any other chapel or church. We're here
to open the Word of God and see what God has to say. And all of us, including
the work here, need to stand corrected, where necessary, by the Word of God.
Nor are we undertaking a series like this to tell you what to believe. Our
sincere desire is to see conviction - a personal heartfelt conviction; and we
know that PERSONAL conviction arises from a PERSONAL study of God's Word.
So, if possible then, we desire just to lay out the various scriptures and
suggest the interpretation and explanation of them. But we certainly do pray
that each one of you would be in the Word of God and satisfying your OWN selves
as to whether these things are so, like the Christians of Berea as we read
about in Acts who did that.
Now I also want to say that during the series, any question would be
appreciated. You can write them down or talk to me afterwards or call me up or
write me a letter or put them in the box at the back, however you want to do
it. I'm always glad for questions or comments or suggestions - always
appreciated.
I also want to take a moment at the beginning of this series and acknowledge
my great debt not only to the Lord for His goodness that I could be here, but
also to the many books and writers and tapes and other things that God has used
to teach me in this matter. I also want to say that a real delight in my life
has been working with the young assemblies. You know there were things I used
to believe and teach that I don't anymore, because I found that they were okay
in theory but they're not okay in practice. In other words, when you go to
apply them, they're faulty, and then you go back to the Word of God and find
that you didn't understand what was written. So, it's been a real joy to be
involved in planting our younger assemblies and that really brings the minds
and the wisdom of many, many other Christians to bear on what the Scriptures say,
and causes us to change and shows us what God meant when He said things in the
Scripture that seem hard to understand.
I'd like to share with you something that needs to be said at the outset of
a series like this and that is - I'd like to share with you 3 reasons why I
believe the whole matter of New Testament church principles are binding upon
us. In other words, why this is such an important theme - why it is important
to God and should be important to us. It's a doctrine that has a great deal of misunderstanding
today and I think that it is one of the most important things we could ever
study in God's Word. And so I'd liked to give at least 3 reasons. There are
more but I've selected just 3.
First of all, we need to remind ourselves of the eternal character of the
church. Now I've always been impressed by the care that God took when He gave
the instructions for the building of the Tabernacle in the Old Testament. God
took care and gave details that sometimes, as you read through them in Exodus,
are almost to the point of burdensome. God was very, very concerned with the
construction of that place of meeting between Himself and His people. Moses was
an educated man. He was educated in the best university, we might say, in
Egypt, because he was the son of the Pharaoh. And God could have said : 'Now
Moses you're an intelligent man. You build something that you think is worthy
of Me, and I'll come down and look it over. And if I like it, we'll keep it.'
But God told Moses : 'Take care Moses that you build it EXACTLY as I instruct
you.' And indeed in the New Testament Moses' commendation is never given
because of his creativity. Moses is commended because of His ability to be
faithful to the exact details that God has given.
I want to ask you this morning - if God would be that concerned about a
building made of skins and wood and so forth, that has long ago molded away and
perished away in dust, would He not have some concern for the eternal Bride of
His Son - the Church? I think He would; and therefore I think we need to
realize that the New Testament has some very important and vital things to say
on such a great theme as this.
And then secondly, of course, not only the eternal character of the church
but also the clear and abundant record that God has given. Have you ever
considered, in your reading, what a large part of the New Testament is devoted
to matters that pertain to the church? You think of the many hours in the
Apostle Paul's life that he must have spent making tents. He was a tent-maker
by trade, and that trade must have been very important to him. It must have
taken a large part of some period of his life. Yet how much have you read in
the New Testament about how to make a tent? Not a thing! So, God has then given
us details about a building that is very important to Him - His church! I
remember years ago hearing Dr. Lewis Johnson from Dallas make a statement, and
I want to repeat it here this morning. He said "There is no doctrine in
the New Testament that is clearer than the doctrine of the church." Now
some students challenged that, but Dr. Johnson has a way of putting all those
objections to rest, because he just calls forth the difficulties in those
so-called clear doctrines, e.g. the doctrine of salvation. Now, we know that
we're saved, and we know how we're saved but there are some verses that are
really difficult to understand. And so, his point I think is well-taken that
there is no doctrine in the New Testament that is clearer than the doctrine of
the church.
And of course that brings us to another thought which is sad to say, often
or sometimes it seems as if the real problem is not a lack of information that
people have but a lack of commitment to the authority of God's word. I suggest
that's something we need to deal with this morning. Perhaps there are some here
who need to resolve that question personally for themselves, before we can go
on to a study such as this, and really any study of a doctrine in Scripture. We
need to settle the question : "What shall be our authority?" And I
think we know that the authority must be the Word of God.
We think of the Apostle Paul again and again appealing ... e.g. in his
letter to the Corinthians, he says: "What I'm teaching to you I teach to
all the churches. As I appoint you, so I appoint in all churches." And as
someone has said, here we see a universal practice being started or based upon
universal principles. Paul is not going to one place teaching one thing, and
then to another place teaching another thing. He says "What I teach to
you, I teach everywhere I go." In I Cor 14:37, at the close of a long
section on the New Testament church, Paul says :"If any man thinks himself
to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write
unto you are the commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ." Here we have all
the authority of Moses at Mount Sinai - "Thus saith the Lord!" And as
A.P. Gibbs used to say, we have no more right to alter the pattern of the New
Testament fellowship than we have to alter God's plan of salvation. Now there
are those who would be aghast at the very thought that we would tamper with
God's appointed way of salvation, who think nothing of switching and swapping
the teachings of God's church around.
So then we have a very important theme to consider. We have a clear and
abundant record - the Word of God and then finally, the proof of history. And I
just don't have the time here this morning or the resources to tell you all the
ways that history has authenticated God's plan and proved it to be the only
workable option. Missionaries have told us again and again: 'We know some who
have labored to set up various systems - human systems - and churches and
things and in the end these things are always a source of disappointment
because what is made by man does not endure; and God's church does endure.'
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