The Heart of The Battlefield
In our society today, there are numerous battles which need to be fought. Issues in the moral realm need the attention of the church. Certainly, many erroneous political agendas need to be pushed back against. Even in the church, there are various issues which we could discuss which need to be dealt with by men who are faithful to the Lord. However, it is my contention that each one of these is only a symptom of a deeper issue. I in no way want to undermine the importance of any battles being fought in these realms. What I want to do is to examine a battle that goes deeper than any of these. I want to spend time looking at the driving force behind each of these other battles.
The battle for truth is the ultimate war in our day . . . and in every day for that matter. I do not just mean truth about one or two aspects of life, I mean truth about all of reality. You can be correct on a political issue, but if you do not have a robust foundation of truth, then you will fail to rightly examine the rest of the battlefield. In your life, you might be great at seeing the frailties in the mainstream narrative driven by the media, but if you lack a stable foundation of truth, you will not be able to see the total picture. What then is the stable foundation?
The Only Stable Foundation
There is only one solid foundation upon which you can base your life, and it is the Bible. God’s Word has been under attack ever since Creation. The Serpent said to Eve, “Did God actually say (Genesis 3:1)?” Throughout the history of the church, Satan has continued to launch assault after assault upon what God has said. In the early days of the church, he used the gnostic heresy, whereby certain people claimed to have special revelation, thus negating the sufficiency of Scripture. During the dominant days of the Roman Catholic Church prior to the Reformation, the religious elites added to the Bible and undercut its sufficiency. The onslaught of liberalism over the last few centuries has sought to destroy the inerrancy, infallibility, inspiration, authority, and sufficiency of Scripture. The demonic forces of hell have continued their assault and will undoubtedly press forward in that agenda.
Yet, the Bible still stands today. G.K. Chesterton once said the church is an anvil that has worn out many hammers, so also is the Bible. The attacks keep coming, but it is the only foundation for truth. The biblical worldview is the only one which can give us truth, make sense of reality, and provide the revelation of God. If you jettison Sola Scriptura, that is, if you toss out the authority, inspiration, inerrancy, infallibility, and sufficiency of Scripture you have just lost any solid ground upon which to stand. It is the Bible that is breathed out by God and able to equip the man of God for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17). If a person gives up this ground, they have ceased to think in a way that honors the Lord. They have lost the battle, given up the fight, and backed out of the war zone at the hottest point of contention. Biblical authority is the truth. The Word of God is breathed out by God, and we must hold fast to this truth.
An Example To Prove My Point
Let us now turn our attention to an example to prove the point. My contention is that whenever someone rejects biblical authority, they have repudiated the only solid authority for truth. The reason is that God has specifically revealed Himself in the Scripture. To reject God’s revelation is to seek to live in God’s world while rejecting His rules. Like an individual drowning in the ocean, this person will flounder for something afloat to save them, but they have cast aside the only solid object there is for truth.
Take a secular conservative who is not a Christian as an illustration of this concept. This individual may very well reject the LGBTQ movement and believe that homosexuality is wrong. My question to them would be, why is it wrong in the end? If they say it is because homosexuality goes against traditional values and societal norms, then they are pointing to popularity and tradition as their ultimate standards. I know homosexuality is a sin and wrong because God has clearly revealed that fact in His Word. The Christless conservative is merely going off opinion and will shift his views as opinions change. If they point to societal beliefs as the standard, well, that is certainly a fluctuating foundation for a worldview. However, while we can learn much from history, pointing to mere tradition is just as faulty. We must ask the question, “who’s tradition will we honor as the standard?” Eastern tradition or Western? American or British? Northern or Southern? I believe you get my point.
Stand on The Rock
There is only one foundation which makes sense of reality. Only one worldview gives you the truth, and it is the biblical one. It is imperative that we as Christians ground ourselves in the inerrant, inspired, sufficient, and infallible Scripture. It is authoritative for all that we need to follow our Lord. God has spoken and has revealed Himself plainly to us in the Bible. The Scripture is the foundation for truth, and we must be willing to go to the mat for this point. We must not yield one single inch to the onslaught to the attacks on the Word of God. I will leave the final word with Dr. Steve Lawson:
“Every denomination that goes astray goes astray at this point. Every seminary that goes astray, goes astray at this point. Every church that goes astray goes astray at this point. Every denomination, every seminary, and every church that is strong in the grace of God is strong in being anchored upon sola scriptura. It is non-negotiable. We’re not just dogmatic about this, we’ll bulldog-matic about this. The Word of God is not up for debate.”1
Sources
1 https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/TM13-12/the-puritan-commitment-to-sola-scriptura-steve-lawson
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