Well, what a joy it is for us to gather and
to focus upon the holiness of God in this conference. In the first session, Dr. Sproul walked us
through the primacy and the priority of the holiness of God in his life and ministry and
as it is found in the Word of God. And now in this second session what we want
to focus upon and to acknowledge is that the holiness of God has come under attack in every
generation. It has been this way from the very beginning. In every era and epoch of history, the holiness
of God has come under assault by His arch enemy, Satan. And so I want you to take your Bibles and
turn with me to the book of Genesis. Genesis, chapter 3, and I want to go back
to the very beginning, and I want us to see, I want to expose this avowed adversary, who
opposes the holiness of God. His name is Satan. The title of this message that has been assigned
to me is “The War on the Word.” And I want to begin by looking at the first
war on the Word that we find in revealed Scripture. Genesis, chapter 3, I want to begin by reading
this text and setting it before your eyes. God’s Word, which is inspired, which is
inerrant, which is infallible, reads: Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast
of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God
said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “From the
fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in
the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you
will die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “You surely
shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from
it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the tree was good
for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make
one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her,
and he ate. The fact is that our holy God has an unholy
opponent. His diabolical power is unleashed against
Him with great fury and force. Many today would deny the existence of Satan. Many try to reduce the devil to a mythological
character or to the mere figment of some fallen imagination, or assigning him the place of
an innocent cartoon character. But Satan is clearly set forth in the pages
of Scripture as a real enemy of God. The reality of the devil is taught in seven
Old Testament books, by every New Testament writer, and by our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ Himself. The devil is the real antagonist of God, and
he has arisen up against Him. In the Bible he is called Satan, the devil,
Lucifer, Beelzebub, Belial, the evil one, the tempter, the ruler of this world, the
god of this age, the prince of the power of the air, the accuser of the brethren, the
old serpent, the great dragon, a roaring lion, Apollyon. And each of these names reveals something
of the foul and fierce nature of the devil himself. He is identified as a murderer, a liar, a
sinner, a tempter, a perverter, a slanderer, a counterfeiter, and an oppressor. He is quite simply the evil one. Martin Luther wrote of him, “His craft and
power are great, and armed with cruel hate. On earth is not his equal.” To be sure, the principal attack of Satan
against the holiness of God is against the authority and the inerrancy and the infallibility
of the Word of God. Jesus said that Satan is a liar and a father
of all lies, and he is opposed to the truth wherever he finds it. To attack the holiness of God is to impugn
and to assault the very integrity of His character and being. And this is precisely what we find in the
opening pages of the Bible, and Satan has never changed his strategy, and it continues
to this very day. The war on the Word, that began in the garden
thousands of years ago, is an attack and an assault launched from the hellish fiend himself,
Satan, against the holiness of Almighty God. As we examine these opening pages, I want
us to observe a progression in Satan’s attack against the Word of God. It is a downward progression. It is a downward spiral. It is an intentional strategy against the
holiness of God. So I want us to begin in Genesis 3 and verse
1, and I want us to work our way through this text and through this passage today. And I want to draw to your attention five
stages in this unfolding assault against the holiness of God. I want you to note how Satan begins first
his attack with doubt. He begins by planting doubt in the mind of
Eve regarding the inerrancy and the infallibility of the Word of God. Notice verse 1, “Now the serpent was more
crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.” Satan here manifests himself through this
snake. Satan, a fallen angel, a supernatural spirit
actually possesses the body of this serpent in the garden. The serpent is the incarnation of Satan. And we read that he is more crafty than any
beast of the field, this referring to Satan himself. Satan is deceitful. He is unscrupulous. He is cunning, scheming, calculating, crooked,
tricky, sneaky. And we read in verse 1, “And he said to
the woman.” Please note that Satan initiates this attack
against her and against the Word of God. This is an ambush. And Satan now finds this moment where he has
Eve in his crosshairs, Eve by herself without the man standing there, and he begins to speak
through the snake. And perhaps Eve did not realize that the animal
could not speak, and so she is not alarmed. And notice what comes out of the mouth of
Satan first, “Indeed, has God said…?” a seemingly innocent question but was clearly
designed to establish a beachhead in Eve’s mind. This is the first question recorded in the
Bible. This is the first question recorded in human
history. Here is the very… Here are the very first words to proceed out
of the mouth of Satan in Scripture within time, “Has God said?” In effect, has God really said this? Can you be sure about this? Is there some mistake here? How certain are you about this? And he begins to draw a veil of doubt over
the mind of Eve regarding the Word of God. Please note that Satan’s target was Eve’s
mind. Satan began to raise doubts in Eve’s mind
regarding the truthfulness of God. Now he is wanting a crack in the door, and
he will drive a fleet of semi-trucks through this crack in the door in just a moment. But he is putting now his foot in the door
and beginning to pry open the mind of Eve, and where God has put a period, Satan is now
putting an exclamation… putting a question mark and calling into question the truthfulness
and the reliability and the certainty of the Word of God. How subtle of Satan. And in the very beginning this was his first…
his first wave of attack. And I want you to know it is the very same
today. One of the areas from which this attack is
coming, is coming from what is known as the emergent church, in which certainty is regarded
to be pride. To have certainty about the Word of God is
considered to be arrogance. And uncertainty is thought to be humility. In other words, a virtue to be pursued is
to be uncertain about the Word of God. Do you hear the hiss of the serpent in that
statement that we must not be certain about the Word of God? This is a long way from Martin Luther, who
said, “Take away assertions, and you take away Christianity.” “Christianity,” Luther said, “is a religion
of assertions.” All things that are in the Scripture are brought
forth into the clearest light. One of the leaders of the emergent church
has written this, (quote) “Certainty can be dangerous.” Has God said? He goes on to say, “I have gone out of my
way to be unclear, reflecting my belief that clarity is overrated and that obscurity and
intrigue often stimulate more thought than clarity. (close quote) Let me translate this for you. Let me put the cookies on the bottom shelf
where we can all get to this. Darkness is preferred to light. Lies are preferred to the truth. Questions are better than convictions. Doubt is better than faith. This blind leader of the blind goes on to
say, (quote) “If I seem to show too little respect for your opinions or thought, be assured
I have equal doubts about my own.” In other words, don’t follow me. I don’t know where I’m going. And then he writes, “Orthodoxy is not a
list of certain doctrines.” Do you hear the hiss of the serpent in those
statements? Here is what another leading figure in the
emergent church has to say, (quote) “What if, what if tomorrow someone digs up definitive
proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry? And archeologists find Larry’s tomb and
do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just
a bit of mythologizing the gospel writers threw in to appeal to religious cult followers.” Well, I’ll tell you what would happen if
archeologists were to dig and to say to us that Jesus’ father was named Larry. I’ll tell you the summary of that. The archeologists are wrong, and the Word
of God is true. [applause] Paul writes in Romans, chapter
3, verse 3 to follow that up, “…their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness
of God… let God be found true, though every man be found a liar.” (close quote) This so-called leader and his
book has shot to number one on the Christian bestselling list. You can walk into virtually any Christian
bookstore, and there will be a display of these books stacked up like pyramids for people
just to grab and to take home by the boatfuls. “What if…?” Do you hear the doubt being sprinkled into
the minds of today’s Christian readers? What if…? Has God said? “What if as you study the origin of the
word virgin, you discover the word virgin in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from
the book of Isaiah, and then find out that in the Hebrew language at the time, the word
virgin could mean several things?” Just planting the seeds and scattering the
seeds of doubt into the minds of people. “And what if you discover that in the first
century being born of a virgin also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant for
the first time she had intercourse? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best possible
way? Or does the whole thing fall apart? If the whole faith falls apart, when we reexamine
and rethink it, then it wasn’t that strong in the first place.” Let me tell you, you can take that kind of
thinking to hell with you. And the hottest part of hell is reserved for
those who have tried to bring down in the minds of people the inerrancy and the authority
of the Word of God. [applause] God has not stuttered. God has not muttered. God has edited His own Word. God has spoken. The grass withers. The flower fades away. But the Word of our God abides forever. [applause] So this is where it begins. It begins with doubt, just to put your foot
into the door and try to begin to open it so that he can come into the minds of people. No, there is this war on the Word. Now second, after doubt comes distortion. I want you to notice in verse 1, after the
devil says, “Indeed, has God says?” Notice now how the devil now distorts the
Word of God, how he twists the Word of God, how he corrupts the Word of God intentionally. Notice what the devil says next, “Has God
said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” Has God said that? And the answer is, God has not said that. What Satan is doing here is putting words
into the mind of God, intentionally and purposely in order to further bring his attack upon
the Word of God. What God did say is found in Genesis 2, verse
16 and 17, and what God did say is, “From any tree of the garden, you may eat.” The exception will then come in verse 17. But what Satan has said that God said is that
you shall not eat from any tree of the garden. God said the total opposite. God said, “You may eat from every tree of
the garden,” with one qualifier, except one tree. Satan is so shrewd. He is so manipulative. He is such a deceiver. He seeks to corrupt the minds of the people
regarding the Word of God. So in verse 17 of Genesis, chapter 2, God
said, “But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in
the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die.” And so Satan in Genesis 3, verse 1, he is
purposely changing the Word of God. Is that not what he did with our Lord in His
temptation in Luke, chapter 4, verse 10? When Satan quotes the Word of God from Psalm
91, he intentionally misquotes the Scripture. And that is what he is doing here with Eve. What he is saying is, “Well, I thought God
loved you. I thought God is good. God’s holding out on you. You know, if God was good, He would provide
for you. If God loves you, He wouldn’t be slapping
your hand and keeping you from eating of the tree.” So notice verse 2, the woman now is drawn
into dialog with the devil. She has no idea that she’s talking to the
devil himself, as he is speaking through this snake. And in verse 2, we read, “The woman said
to the serpent,” and by her response we conclude that she’s not surprised that the
serpent is speaking to her, which is perhaps an indication of how early this temptation
came. And she is receiving him as a credible messenger,
perhaps from heaven, with true understanding. This should… This should be a warning to all of us that
not everyone who claims to speak for God, speaks for God. And many who claim to speak for God, speak
for Satan. But Eve does not know this, and so the woman
said to the serpent, and now Eve begins to quote Genesis 2:16 and 17. And it’s almost as if she has come under
the spell of the devil herself, because Satan has misquoted this text, and now Eve goes
yet even further, and as she quotes the passage, she misquotes it in three different places. Notice what she says in verse 2 and 3. The woman said to the serpent, “From the
fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in
the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you
will die.’” There are three serious flaws in her mishandling
of the Word of God at this point. Number one, she diminished God’s Word. God said in Genesis 2:16, “From any tree
of the garden you may eat.” And Eve now leaves out the word any. She’s playing a little fast and loose with
the Word of God now, as she is somewhat on a slippery slope with the devil. She is minimizing God’s provision, and she
is discounting God’s goodness by omitting the word any. And then second, she adds to the Word of God. She minimizes what is there and takes out
of the Word of God, and now she adds to the Word of God. Please note this. She takes out any, and she adds, or touch
it. God never said, “You shall not touch it.” God said, “You shall not eat from it.” So Eve is magnifying God’s strictness, and
Eve is now putting words into God’s mouth and exaggerating His command. And then third, Eve is softening God’s Word
as well, because in Genesis 2, verse 17, God said, “You shall surely die,” underscoring
the certainty of judgment, divine judgment if she violates the Word of God. But Eve now drops the word surely, and in
Genesis 3, verse 3, simply says, “You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die,”
no mention of surely. And so her revisionist approach to God’s
Word is placing her squarely in God’s harm. Now, let me ask you, do you think we’re
free to alter the Word of God? Or do you think we’re free to take out certain
words that we don’t like or think are not culturally relevant? Or are we free to load up the Bible and add
words of our own just to help the reader out, to help people out in order to get the medicine
down? Or is not the Word of God sufficient and contains
its own intrinsic power under the power of the Holy Spirit able to bring about all of
God’s purposes here upon the earth? No, there is this deception going on in this
very hour, and it is the deception that began in the Garden of Eden by subtracting from
and adding to the Word of God, and let me remind us all it is all a frontal attack on
the holiness of God. We see this today in various modern translations
of the Bible, as people feel very free to alter the Word of God. You know, we see this, for example, in the
TNIV translation, which alters masculine pronouns for God to neuter God. John MacArthur comments, (quote) “We live
in a day when culture is telling the church what the Bible will be allowed to say. A great illustration of this is the publication
of the TNIV, Zondervan Publishing Company Bible. The TNIV is disguised by its deference to
the feminist movement.” And by the way the feminist movement began
in the Garden of Eden. It was Satan’s fib about women’s lib. MacArthur goes on to say, “It has altered
the Word of God, changed the Word of God to make it compatible to the contemporary, feminist,
egalitarian movement.” And that is not the only one that has done
it. There are other Bible translations that do
this. MacArthur says, “You do not take the Word
of God, twist the Word of God, alter the Word of God, change the Word of God, embellish
the Word of God, diminish the Word of God in order to achieve something that accommodates
cultural expectations.” But that is being done, and it is being done
at the very core when it is being done with Bible translation. When you translate a Bible, you have one responsibility. You take the Word of God in the original Hebrew
or Aramaic in the few places in the Old Testament where the Aramaic occurs, you take the word
in the Greek in the New Testament, and you translate it. You find the closest possible translation
in the language into which you’re translating the Bible. That’s what you do. You do not change the Word because you think
the culture would like it to be said another way. Listen, we are simply the messengers. We are not the editors of the Word of God. The emergent church naturally has come up
with their own translation of the Bible. It’s called The Voice, and this translation
was inspired by a recent comment by one of the Rolling Stone guitarists. If this were not so serious, it would be funny. He said, “I read the Bible sometimes, but
I find it deadly boring.” So wanting now to come in and save the day,
let’s spruce up the Bible. Let’s spray perfume on the Bible. Let’s alter the wording of the Bible, so
that we can appeal to a carnal mind. So the creator of this translation called
The Voice said, “What we’re trying to say is we understand.” Understand what? Oh, we understand how boring the Bible is. Well, it is to those who are dead in trespasses
and sin. “Bringing people to the Bible,” he says,
“requires a new way of presenting Scripture.” In other words, you can no longer say, “Thus
says the Lord.” It requires a translation that speaks to modern
sensibilities, to modern ways of processing information, and to modern ignorance of many
Biblical examples. And so, for example, in John 1, verse 1, “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Now it reads, “Before time was manifested,
the voice was speaking.” Well, I want to tell you, there’s a lot
more involved in the Logos, the Word, than simply, “the voice speaking.” And time does not permit to open up the richness
and the fullness of Genesis 1, verse 1, [sic] “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among
us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth.” You know, we’re not free to alter the Word
of God, yet that’s what Satan did in the garden, and that’s what Eve was pulled into,
and that is what we are seeing around us in various translations. Proverbs 30, verse 5 says, “Every word of
God is tested. Do not add to His words, or He will reprove
you, and you will be proved a liar.” Deuteronomy 4, verse 2, “You shall not add
to the Word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it. Genesis 22, verse 18, “I testify to everyone
who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to them, God will add to him
the plagues which are written in this book.” God is serious about His own Word. And there are other translations that delete
references to God’s holy name, that distort the relationship between God the Father and
God the Son with alternate language, who distort the nature of God, who delete references to
things like submission to authority. They distort truth with a contemporary bias,
etc., etc. Now the Word of God is being altered before
our very eyes and being sold in Christian booksellers, and it is our money that is underwriting
it. Doubt, distortion, – third, denial. If you would, look at verse 4 now, as Satan
now accelerates and escalates his attack on the Word of God. He is after the Word of God because it is
his attack on the holiness of God. So notice verse 4. He goes now further. He thrusts the sword yet deeper into the soul
of Eve. The serpent said to the woman, “You surely
shall not lie… shall not die.” The father of lies is so saturated with lying,
that he even attempts to make now God out to be a liar. The devil now unloads all of the artillery
of hell on Eve and blatantly denies the authority and the integrity and the fidelity of the
Word of God. The devil fires at her across her broadside
and makes a direct hit. “You surely shall not die.” In the original Hebrew, the word not – do
you see it, “you surely shall not die – in order to emphasize the word, a word is put
in what is called the emphatic position, meaning it’s moved to the front of the sentence. And that is how it is written here. Literally this reads, “Not you surely shall
die.” The emphasis is upon the word not. This is an all out, in your face, no holds
barred, emphatic repudiation of the Word of God. And please note the first doctrine to come
under attack by Satan is the truth of divine judgment. Satan is already air-conditioning hell. Satan is becoming a universalist. He is saying we’re all saved in the end. The Bible will go on to say, “The wages
of sin is death.” The Bible will go on to say, “The soul that
sins, it shall surely die.” But Satan is saying there is no penalty for
sin. There is no death for disobedience. Now this blatant denial of God’s Word and
the outright denial of a final judgment is still being propagated today in the war on
the Word. Now the same author, one of the same authors
that I quoted from earlier, whose book has skyrocketed to the very height of the publishing
world, writes this, -- now you tell me if you hear or do not hear the hiss of the serpent
in this? This is as current as it gets on what is going
on in Christendom today. “A staggering number of people,” this
author writes, “have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in
a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment
and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better.” It sounds like enter through the narrow gate. “For the gate is wide and way is broad that
leads to destruction, and many are those who find it. For the gate is narrow and way is small that
leads to life, and few are those who find it. Truly, truly, I say unto you, he who hears
these words of Mine and acts upon them is like a very wise man who built his house upon
the rock. And when the rains came and the winds blew
and beat against the house, it did not fall because it was built upon the rock. He who hears these words of Mine and does
not act upon them,… He who hears these words of Mine and does
not act upon them, is like a very foolish man who built his house upon the sand. And when the rains came and the winds blew
and beat against the house, great was its fall because it was built upon the sand.” This man claims that you’re wrong to say
there’s a heaven, and there’s a hell, and few are going to heaven, and many are
going to hell. He goes on to say about this view, “This
is misguided, toxic, and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message.” And in the process, he changes Jesus’ message
into that of the Dalai Lama, into that of Deepak Chopra, just some global universalist. And he goes on to say millions and millions
of people were taught that the center of the gospel is Jesus. He’s saying, “You’ve got to get that
out of your mind right now.” And let me just remind you people are flooding
into Christian bookstores and just gobbling this up. And that God is going to send you to hell
unless you believe in Jesus – he’s saying don’t you believe that. How could that God ever be good? And how could that ever be good news? Well, I want to tell you there is no good
news without bad news. And it is the bad news that makes the good
news so amazing and so glorious. That all we like sheep have gone astray, each
one of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has laid the iniquity of us all upon
Him. It is the bad news which is like a black velvet
backdrop that causes the good news, which is like a diamond to be placed on that black
velvet backdrop, that makes the diamond of God’s grace and saving mercy burst forth
brighter than 10,000 suns. [applause] But you remove that black velvet backdrop, you
remove the message of God’s divine wrath, you remove the reality of eternity in hell,
and the message of the gospel is something to yawn at. He goes on to write, – just listen to this
– “The most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert
people. The church must stop thinking about everybody
in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or unbeliever.” He says, “This is offensive.” This is a long way from, “Except you repent,
you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” This is a long way from, “Repent and escape
from the wrath to come,” that came out of the very lips of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. He goes on to say, “Sometimes people use
Jesus’ name. Other times they don’t. Some people have so much baggage with regard
to the name Jesus that when they encounter it, the last thing they are inclined to name
is Jesus. So just when you share the message, just take
out the name Jesus because people have a lot of hang-ups with that name, and just use any
name other than the name for Jesus.” This is the long way from Acts 4, verse 12,
“There is salvation in no other name, for there is no other name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be saved.” [applause] “There is one God and one Mediator
between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, the testimony
born at the proper time.” He goes on to say, “If your God is loving
one second and cruel the next, if your God will punish people for all eternity for sins
committed in just a few years, no amount of clever marketing,” – yeah, he ought to
know about that – “or compelling language or good music or great coffee will be able
to disguise that one glaring, unacceptable, awful reality,” which is that God meant
what He said. No, in the day that you eat of this fruit,
you will surely die. Now, there is so much more that could be said,
but I think we’ve established the point, the denial of the Word of God. And of course, it’s been going on all around
us in liberal seminaries and among liberal theologians, this outright denial of the Word
of God, their attacks upon the inerrancy and the inspiration of the Word of God. There’s been the attack of natural inspiration,
that the Biblical writers simply were writing out of their sheer genius. And they were no more inspired than Homer
with the Odyssey or Shakespeare with his tragedies. Listen smart men do not write books that condemn
themselves. And smart men do not write books that say
they cannot save themselves. Now the Bible is the Word of God. There is the attack of partial inspiration,
that some parts of the Bible are more inspired than other parts. In other words, Jesus was inspired but not
Paul. And you’ll hear, “Yeah, but that was Paul.” Well, Paul was writing under the inspiration
and the direction of the Holy Spirit of God. And then there is the attack on concept…
the attack of concept inspiration, stating that only the ideas are inspired but not the
words. But did not Jesus say, “Man shall not live
by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Listen, you cannot have concepts without words,
anymore than you can have mathematics without numbers, anymore than you can have music without
notes, or art without color. And there is the attack of the existential
inspiration, which says that the only part of the Bible that is inspired is that part
that speaks to you. It’s amazing what part people want to speak
to them and what part they don’t want to hear. And then others claim fallacies throughout
the entirety of Scripture. We must understand that this is as old as
the garden. It is the first temptation that came slithering
onto the page of redemptive history, this frontal, outright, blatant attack on the Word
of God as an attempt to bring down the holiness of God. But notice now next from denial to defamation,
look at verse 5, in Genesis 3 and verse 5 – just an outright defamation of God Himself. In verse 5, “For God knows that in the day
you eat from it, your eyes will be opened.” Satan went after God Himself by attacking
His goodness here, casting doubt not only upon the Word but putting God in bad light. According to Satan the threat of death was
nothing more than a scare tactic to keep Adam and Eve in their place, kind of like the Wizard
of Oz behind the screen, and God was obviously selfish and jealous that they might know too
much and ascend too high. Every attack on the Word of God is an attack
upon the holiness of God. And then finally, deification. Notice at the end of verse 5, this final step
down on this slippery slope, descending down deeper and deeper from doubt to distortion
to denial to defamation, and now deification, meaning the deification of man. You remove the authority of God. You bring God down. You raise up man. It’s like the teeter-totter effect. One goes down and the other goes up. God comes down, and man goes up. So at the end of verse 5, “Then you will
be like God, knowing good and evil.” It’s the promise of divinity. By taking the fruit, she was promised she
would be equal with God. She would be able to decide for herself the
difference between right and wrong. She will be able to make up her own rules. She can draw the line in the sand. She can define how she wants her life to be. She can run her own life. She can set her own course. She can do her own thing. She will not need the Word of God now. Now she will be like God, and she will see
what God sees. She will know what God knows. She will be able to distinguish between good
and evil, and she will not need the Word of God any longer. It’s not a temptation to fall down. It’s a temptation to fall up, to be like
God. You say, who in the world is dumb enough to
believe that – that you would be like God? Well, first of all, the Mormons, they say
as a man now is, God once was, and as God now is, man may be. The founder of Trinity Broadcasting Network
says, (quote) “I am a little god. I have His name. I am one with Him. I am in covenant relation. I am a little god.” Well, go look in the mirror. One great leader of… great… One notorious leader of the Word-Faith movement
writes, “You don’t have a god in you. You are one.” This is blasphemous. The same is true for the New Age movement. But worst of all the Roman Catholic Church
says the same. Article 3, paragraph 460 of the catechism
of the Catholic Church reads, (quote) “For the Son of God became man so that we might
become God.” (capital “G”) “The only begotten Son
of God, wanting to make us sharers in His divinity, assumed our nature, so that He made
man might make men gods.” (close quote) This is the deification of man when the Word
of God is brought down from its lofty place of holiness. So what is the result? I conclude. Look at verse 6. What is the result of buying into the devil’s
lies, of coming under the assault of this war on the Word, in giving in and yielding
to it? Look at verse 6. It is the word death. All of these previous words lead to death. “When the woman saw that the tree was good
for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make
one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband with her,
and he ate.” And we know from Romans 5, verse 12, that
the sin of one man became the sin of the entire world, and death entered the world through
the sin of this one man. And the entire human race has come tumbling
down due this one act of disobedience. It led to death, and it leads to death. Disobedience to the Word of God always leads
to death, death on every level and death of every kind – the death of the individual
physically, emotionally, spiritually, eternally, but also the death of any ministry and any
Christian institution. Any departure from the Scripture always and
inevitably leads to the death of the denomination. It leads to the death of the seminary. It leads to the death of missions. It leads to the death of evangelism. It leads to death of true preaching. It leads to the death of holiness and godliness. Any departure from the Scripture is a departure
from God Himself and is, in fact, an attack upon and an assault upon the holiness of God. This is the war on the Word, and the consequences
and the ramifications of this war are eternal and they are staggering. I conclude, Al Martin… excuse me, Al Mohler
has correctly written, “The most contentious debates among Christians are at their most
fundamental level arguments over Biblical inerrancy and authority.” Mohler writes, “The issues of greatest debate
in our time fall along the fault line of Biblical inerrancy and authority. In many ways, church history is nothing more
than a battle for the Bible. The accuracy, trustworthiness, and authority
of Scripture have existed at the heart of most major Christian controversies. The frontline battle in the church between
heresy and orthodoxy will always be the inspiration, the inerrancy, and the authority of Scripture.” I want you to know that this book is a lamp
unto our feet, and it is a light unto our path. This book is seed that is sown into our hearts. It brings forth life, eternal life. That this book is milk for our souls, it is
sweeter than honey and more precious than gold. This book is a fire in our bones. It is a hammer that breaks the rocks to pieces. This book is rain that comes down from heaven
and will not return to God void. This book is water that washes and cleanses
and renews us. This book is a sharp two-edged sword. It is living and active, and it cuts as far
as the division of soul and spirit, and that apart from this book there is no salvation
in God, and apart from this book there is no growth in godliness and no sanctification. The need of the hour is for us to advance
to the frontlines in this hour of history as we find ourselves in this generation, to
hold the battle line secure for the next generation, and to be those who are engaged in the war
on the Word, and for us to uphold the standard of sound words and for us to earnestly contend
for the faith, once and for all delivered to the saints. May God give us, His people, renewed confidence
in the authority and in the infallibility of this pure and perfect book, the written
Word of God. [applause]
