Articles
THE PURE WORD OF GOD
I believe very strongly in the restoration principle and plea. God’s word is divinely true
and all-sufficient. We must speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent.
This is true, because the Bible teaches it, because Jesus practiced it, and because the apostolic
church honored it.
Then came the Gnostics who arrogantly believed they knew things that went beyond the
doctrine of Christ.
Then came hierarchies and councils who decided they could make rules for God. Then
came all kinds of myths and legends manufactured and believed by leaders who made
themselves the authority of truth and grace and silenced those who taught the Bible.
Then came men who sacrificed themselves to translate the Bible so the common man
could understand it. Many groups sprang up opposing the old authority but creating their own
creeds and practices. The multitude of beliefs (many of which were foreign to the Scriptures) left
many people confused and willing to devalue truth and the teaching of the Lord in Scripture.
In more recent years, people began to put what an individual thinks and what culture
desires as more authoritative than the Scriptures. They believe truth is not attainable, denying the
promise of the Lord (John 8:32; 16:13). They believe in religious pluralism, which denies the
singular authority of what the Lord teaches, the once for all time faith found in the New
Testament.
We do not want a faith built on sand but a faith built on the Rock, a solid foundation
found in the words of Jesus. Nothing else will stand at the end — that’s the Lord Jesus talking
(Matthew 7:21-27). We are to observe all things He commanded (Matthew 28:20), things
revealed at the beginning through the Holy Spirit to the apostles.
Let us return to the pure fount of God’s Word and stop flirting with man-made religion,
cultural demands, and postmodern deceptions. Cosmetics do not build Christians, only the pure
gospel can do that.
“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).
