The Remedy for Error

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This is a message that was preached by Pastor Les on August 28, 2016 and it is based on Matthew 22:29.

Written Excerpts:

Matthew 22:29 (KJV) Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.

Introduction:

In the text we have read this morning Jesus highlighted the fact that the Sadducees had made a serious error, and He lays the blame squarely on them.

Errors have consequences.

US News & World Report, “Our Medical Error Crisis” By Leslie Michelson, May 31, 2016.

This month the British Medical Journal published a report by Johns Hopkins researchers showing that preventable medical error is the third leading cause of death in the United States, claiming almost 250,000 lives annually. That's 700 lives lost every day. These are frank medical errors, not the inevitable side effects of medically needed interventions….

More shocking is that the human toll is actually much worse than these findings suggest…. those figures only count inpatient hospital deaths. A 2013 Journal of Patient Safety study found that about 400,000 Americans die every year from inpatient and outpatient preventable errors.

It is staggering to think of 400k deaths per year because of preventable medical errors. This statistic alone shows us how costly an error can be. It truly can be a matter of life and death.

The president of Hobe Sound Bible College when I was a student there I remember, Dr. Steve Herron, told us in class one day, “A medical doctor buries his mistakes, but when a preacher makes an error it could mean a soul is lost for eternity.”

While that is certainly true, I also believe that no soul who stands before God at the judgment will ever be excused by saying, “My preacher told me…” Yes, it is my solemn responsibility to “rightly divide the word of truth.” But even though I may or may not effectively avoid error in my preaching and teaching, each one of us have the personal responsibility to search the Scriptures to learn the truth and avoid error.

For our time together today I trust the Holy Spirit will help us explore some important principles for avoiding error. (I probably should point out that I am specifically speaking about errors that are of a spiritual nature. I’m not all that interested right at this moment in helping you avoid errors on your income tax return, or errors on your crossword puzzle!)

I.    Many errors are actually based on Scripture.

You might be thinking, “Wait a minute. How can error be based on the Word of God that is described in John 17:17 as God’s truth?” Well, this is how I believe it can happen. When you read some of the principles and concepts that are taught in the Bible, they seem to contradict other concepts that you read in other places.

Sometimes we say that both principles exist in tension with each other. Error is created when one of the principles is emphasized and the opposing principle is neglected or completely excluded. The truth exists in the perfect balance between both principles.

A lot of the false cults and religions of our day exist because of over emphasis on one nugget of truth with the omission of the opposing truth.

There are many ways to illustrate this fact, but first let me share this story.

A professor and theologian by the name of Klyne Snodgrass wrote a book titled, Between Two Truths - Living with Biblical Tensions. In the book he gives this hypothetical account:

Once the Devil was walking along with one of his cohorts. They saw a man ahead of them pick up something shiny. "What did he find?" asked the cohort. 

"A piece of the truth," the Devil replied. 

"Doesn't it bother you that he found a piece of the truth?" asked the cohort. 

"No," said the Devil, "I will see to it that he makes a religion out of it."  (http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/t/truth.htm)

A.  God’s love (mercy) vs. God’s wrath (judgment)

Romans 5:8 (NKJV) ⁸ But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Ephesians 2:4-5 (NKJV) ⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

Hebrews 10:31 (NKJV) ³¹ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Proverbs 29:1 (NKJV) ¹ He who is often rebuked, and hardens his neck, Will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.

Revelation 6:16-17 (NKJV) ¹⁶ and said to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! ¹⁷ For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"

Justice without love is harsh, and condemning.

When we emphasize the wrath and judgment of God to the exclusion of His love and mercy, we view Him as always condemning and judging us and never approving. We also will demonstrate this to others. We will view Him as the eternal “Ogre” who is standing over us with a great big club just waiting for us to make a misstep so He can beat us down and teach us a lesson.

Love without justice is “wishy-washy” and unprincipled.

When we emphasize the mercy and love of God to the exclusion of His judgment and wrath, He becomes nothing more than a condoning “old grandfather” in the sky that tolerates all kinds of behavior and attitudes with a casual wink and a “boys will be boys” kind of attitude. Then we become permissive and tolerant of sin and ungodly conduct in our own lives as well as in the culture.

The real truth is a healthy tension and balance between the two opposing facts.

B.  Legalism vs. antinomianism

Legalism - A slavish focus on the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law, and a desire to line everyone else up who is missing the mark.

It is so important for us to learn that a performance mentality regarding the letter of the law never has and never will save anyone, nor gain them favor with God.  So much is said by Jesus and the Apostle Paul regarding the truth that the law has a purpose, but it is limited in its power.  Some of Jesus’ most harsh statements of condemnation were directed to the Pharisees and other “experts” of the law. The people of His day, as well as dogmatic legalists of today are repulsive, disgusting and always turn people away from God rather than to God. Paul’s entire epistle to the Galatians is a clear presentation of the fact that law cannot provide acceptance with God. It is the grace of God through faith alone that brings salvation.

Antinomianism - Totally disregard the commandments of God. “I’m not under law but under grace.”

Having stated the case against legalism, it is important to balance the “equation” by addressing the tendency to antinomianism. Some Christians today have completely bought into the idea that nothing is required for Christian behavior except whatever I want to do.

Listen to these verses:

Gal. 5:13 “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another... 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these.... they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

1 Pet. 2:16 “As free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.”

Rom. 6:1 “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? ²God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”

God help us to understand and believe that our salvation is by God’s grace alone and by faith alone, but also help us remember that His grace will transform us from living like the devil into living like Jesus.

C.  God’s imminence (nearness) vs. His transcendence

God is near and Jesus is “one of us”. 

The Bible tells us that He identifies with our humanity. He knows sorrow, pain, temptation and disappointment.

When we emphasis the transcendence of God to the exclusion of this nearness, we lose sight of the fact that He knows and cares about what we are going through today. We lose the message of His ability to feel what we feel.

God is also infinitely beyond us in His nature.

His awesomeness and majesty cannot be comprehended. We err when we “create” God in our own image.  See Ps. 50:21 ...”You thought I was altogether such an one as yourself.”  God is above and beyond anything and everything we can ever imagine Him to be.

It is disturbing to me when I hear people talking about God as if He is just one of us; just “the man upstairs;” or attributing to Him the same weaknesses and passions that we have. God is infinitely greater and infinitely apart from who we are. His nature is incomprehensible in perfection and majesty and glory. God told Moses that man could not “look on His face” (i.e. see His full glory) and live.

The actual truth is the perfect balance of both emphases.

Henri Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881) – An error is the more dangerous, the more truth it contains. Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian World.

Sydney Smith (1771-1845) – Errors to be dangerous must have a great deal of truth mingled with them. It is only from this alliance that they can ever obtain an extensive circulation. Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian World.

These examples I’ve just shared help us see that error can be caused by only emphasizing only one part of the truth. It is only a faithful and ongoing study of Scripture that can help us know the whole truth.

II.  The Devil uses Scripture for deception purposes.

The classic passage of Scripture in the Bible for this fact is the account of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. You remember that in one of the temptations Satan actually quoted a passage from Psalms 91 and used it in an attempt to get Jesus to follow his suggestion.

If you didn’t know this already, you need to learn it now. The Devil will use a nugget of truth to lead you astray more quickly than an outright lie would. The Devil comes up with many suggestions that sound really good and reasonable and scriptural. If we’re not aware of his devises and schemes we will likely be led astray into grievous error.

2 Corinthians 11: 14 (NKJV) ¹⁴ And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.

III. There is a foolproof antidote for error.

Thankfully, Jesus gives us the assurance that there is an antidote for error. There is a solution or remedy so that we need not be deceived or mistaken on any important principle regarding our faith, our salvation or the nature of God. Going back to the text in Matthew 22, we read that Jesus gave the reason why the Pharisees had erred. They did not “know the Scripture nor the power of God.”

The remedy is a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures that produces an accurate understanding of God’s nature.

This knowledge that Jesus is talking about is not just a surface knowledge or a casual knowledge. It is a knowledge that digs deeper and deeper until it finally grasps the full implications of the truth.

(R.T. France, Tyndale Commentaries) - Of course the Sadducees did know the scriptures… in a superficial sense, but they had not penetrated through to their real meaning and thereby discovered the power of God; so there are not here two separate causes of error, but a failure to understand Scripture which leads to an inability to appreciate what God can do. Their outlook was essentially that of secular man, who cannot accept a God whose work goes beyond present human experience; a knowledge of Scripture (even only of the Pentateuch, from which Jesus will argue in vv. 31-32) should have taken them beyond that.

(Lenski New Testament Commentary) - This is… by no means… excusable ignorance on the part of the Sadducees. Their Old Testament plainly teaches the resurrection of the dead, and in spite of it… they "have not known," what they teach. In this way they came to abuse Moses' word. The Sadducees introduce a false premise, one that is absolutely foreign to Moses, namely that in the other world the same conditions prevail [as] in this world. Where does the Old Testament teach anything of this sort?

"Nor the power of God" have they known, i.e., from the Scriptures. This is not God's power to raise the dead but his power in regard to the dead bodies as he raises them, as though the only possible way in which he could raise them would be to make them exactly as they were in this earthly life.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) – It is easier to perceive error than truth, for error lies on the surface and is easily seen, truth lies in the depth where few are willing to search for it. Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian World.

When Jesus goes on to explain the truth to the Sadducees, He quotes the passage where God reveals His identity to Moses. He tells Moses “I am who I am,” and “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” not “I was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

Jesus implies that if they had truly searched the Scriptures and studied them intently, they would have learned that there is a resurrection and that the nature of resurrected life is distinctly different than earthly life.

Conclusion:

The unattended garden will soon be overrun with weeds; the heart that fails to cultivate truth and root out error will shortly be a theological wilderness. – A.W. Tozer. http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/t/truth.htm

How well do you know the Scriptures?

How much have you learned about God through the Scriptures?

How committed are you to knowing the Lord through His Word?

The greater our knowledge of God’s Word, the less our chances of being deceived and led astray into error. The less we know about God’s Word, the greater our chances of being deceived and led into error. I want to challenge you today to dig into His Word, but not just so you may learn so many facts about God, but so that you can truly deepen your relationship with Him through the Holy Spirit.

Hymn: Thanks to God Whose Word Was Spoken