Education
Doctrine For Dudes | Part 5 | 10.07.25 | Justin Hillhouse
In this episode of Men's Bible Study, Justin Hillhouse continues the series 'Doctrine for Dudes' by exploring bibliology, the study of the Bible. He emphasizes the importance of underst...
Doctrine For Dudes | Part 5 | 10.07.25 | Justin Hillhouse
Education •
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Interactive Transcript
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Welcome to another episode of Men's Bible Study. If you're listening online and want to join us in person,
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be sure to be here every Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. at Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen, Texas.
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If you have a question that you want answered, please text study to 77978. That's STUDI to 77978.
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Whether it be scripture, family, or life, no topic is off limits to have your question answered. Now, let's hear today's message.
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Today we're going to start in Isaiah chapter 40. If you're just joining us for the first time, I want to encourage you to go back and listen to our podcast,
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a simply called Men's Bible Study, pretty simple to find and find it on Spotify, Apple, wherever. But we've been going through this series called Doctrine for Dudes.
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And we've been talking about the different doctrines that every guy should know about. One of the doctrines we talked about was just simply an introduction to what doctrine is.
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And doctrine just simply means good teaching. And then John Mark with through over the past couple of weeks, just the deity of Christ. And we talked about how Christ is 100% God. And also 100% human is called the hypostatic union. And so we talked about that. And then we talked about the Trinity.
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And John Mark tried to explain the Trinity and all that stuff. And while we cannot understand fully comprehend the Trinity, it is in scripture. And so we do understand and know that God is three in one, three separate, distinct persons, yet one single God. And so he walked us through that.
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And then last week we talked about ecclesiology, not eschatology, but ecclesiology. And that is the study of the church and understanding the role and the function of the church and how important it is for all of us as dudes to be involved in community, to be involved in going to a place where you can learn about God, where we can serve together, where we can simply do stuff together.
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And that is what this group is for some of you here. This is your church because you have to work on Sunday morning or you have to work on Saturday night for some of you churches on Wednesday night. Why? Because you work either on Tuesday morning or over the weekend. And so find a place, get involved and be somewhere to learn God's word to fellowship with other, with other Christians to be able to serve with a community.
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And so we're going to spend the next two weeks here. So we have two more weeks in this series. And this week we're going to talk simply about bibliology, everybody say, bibliology.
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And that is simply the doctrine or the study of the Bible. Now I'm going to be real honest with you. I have a very forgetful memory. How many of you are like that? Okay, like you'll tell me something and then you'll be like, you'll be like, hey, do you remember what I told you? I don't remember.
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Okay, that's just the way I am. And that's just the way God built me. It's also because I have ADHD and I use that excuse a lot in my life. Okay, and I'm just being honest. But there's a verse in scripture that is my life verse.
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And it's very simple. It's about 13 words. And it's this Isaiah 40 verse 8, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God stands forever. I learned that verse when I was in 10th grade. I learned that verse when I was sitting in church board out of my door listening to Jack Graham preaching. I don't know what he was preaching about. Okay, I'm calling out names now.
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I don't know what he was preaching about, but I remember him mentioning this very verse and I was like, oh, dude, that's a simple verse. Well, low on behold, just 30 minutes later, I'm in Sunday school, right? And as I'm sitting there, we're in a little group here and it's just us guys. And the teacher goes, hey, do y'all have a favorite verse? And of course, somebody took everybody's verse. It was like, man, it's John 316 and we're like, you nerd, you took our verse. So now we had to come up with something else, right?
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And so I didn't want to look on spiritual. And so I remembered for some reason this verse and I was like, oh, the pastor preached about my verse today. It's Isaiah 48 total lie. I didn't even know that verse existed in scripture until that day. All right.
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And so I said, yeah, it's the grass weather is the flower phase with the word of God stands forever. And I didn't really understand the implications of that verse until later on in life. I like this verse because it is very simple. It simply states that, hey, everything is temporary. The grass weather is in the flower phase. But then there is that conjunction there. And what's that conjunction? Y'all remember conjunction, junction, right?
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conjunction, junction, what's your function? Yeah, if you're under 30, you have no clue what I'm talking about, right? But there's conjunction junction right there. And there's that word, but I'm going to tell you what it's a big but in the fascinating thing about this conjunction, the word, but is it negates everything that was stated before.
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Let me give you an example. You've been going out with a girl. Okay. She comes to you and she says, you're a really great guy. But where do you focus? You focus on the second half of that sentence. It doesn't matter how great of a guy you are, right? Because she's going to tell you really and truly how bad you are.
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Or what she finds disgusting about you. Okay. It may not be that you wash your hands or whatever. I don't know what it is. But it negates everything. See what I just did there. But it negates everything that was just previously stated. And so the grass weather is the flower phase. But let's negate that and let's focus on what's really important.
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Because here on this earth, there's a lot of stuff that's temporary or you don't with me on that. This body is temporary. All right. No matter how much you work out, you're still going to grow old and flabby. Amen.
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There's still going to a lot of you old flabby guys are like, yeah, right here. I'll let you determine who's old and clabby. All right. I'm not going to point anybody out. But it just it is what it is.
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Man, that's the stuff this building everything you go over to the Middle East and their stuff, you know, they don't even call stuff old till it's like a thousand years old, right?
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But even that stuff is beginning to break down even all of that old stuff is beginning to decay. It will not last forever. There are a few things on this earth that will last forever.
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And one of those things, one of those very, very, very few things is the word of God. And so for us as men, it's important for us to know and to understand how important the word of God is. This is what we believe at Cottonwood Creek Church about the Bible. It says the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God's revelation of Himself to man.
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It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end and truth without any mixture of error for its matter.
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And then you say, Justin, how do you back that up? Well, here are a bunch of verses that are listed right here. I like what Brady Randall said. He said this, if the Bible is true, then it must be, then it must become a normative standard by which to judge every part of the Bible.
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You know what I like about this statement that Brady says is he says, hey, listen, if the Bible is truly what it says, it should be, it should be a standard for whose life? My life.
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Is it a standard for the guy down the street? Yeah, but what does Brady say? He says, hey, listen, it points to me. It points to me. And it points to every single individual.
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It applies to them. The Bible is a collection of 66 books written by over 40 authors written over the time span of over 1500 years.
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And yet written on three different continents and three different languages, Hermic, Hebrew and Greek.
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And yet when you son this book up, it has the common thread. And that common thread is men and women or sinners. And they need a savior. And his name is Jesus Christ.
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I like what John Stott said. He said the Bible is a portrait of Jesus Christ. That's what the Bible is. It is simply a portrait is a picture of who Jesus Christ is and salvation.
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And what's so fascinating about the Bible is that the Bible answers its own questions.
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You have questions. The Bible can defend itself. And this is like this is unlike any other book in history. The Bible defends itself. You know why? Because God knew people were going to ask questions. God knew people were going to sit there, sit around and go, huh, I wonder if the Bible is really true.
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I wonder if the Bible addresses this or addresses that. Hey, I wonder if the Bible when we read it, if it has a unified story. And so real quick, I just want to simply go through five reasons to trust the Bible as God's holy word.
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So here's the first one is that God reveals. God reveals. There is revelation. There is the question. How do we know that there is a God? Right? There are questions like that all the time you can get on YouTube. And I like to scroll through YouTube, you know, just to, you know, click it on stuff and watch and stuff. And ever once in a while come across some debates or something like that. And there's always that one guy that's like, man, does God exist?
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And it's always that atheist right there. And it is through scripture that God reveals himself scripture even states that God reveals himself through different means in some one in some 19 verse one. It says that the heavens declare God's glory space.
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The sky declares God's glory to heaven declare the glory of God the skies proclaim the work of his hands. If you ever looked up at the stars when you're out in the country, when you can actually see the stars, it's pretty awesome. Isn't it? You sit there and you just go, wow.
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Where you see the the Aurora Borealis, that's pretty cool. I've never seen that's one of those things I want to see. I mean, that's pretty cool. If you look in Romans chapter one verses 19 through 20, it says that God's invisible qualities are seen in creation since that we may know about God is playing to them because God has made it playing to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities has eternal power and to bind nature.
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Have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse. Have you ever looked at the ocean and God, man, that's beautiful. And then also said, man, that's powerful.
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I don't know about you, but on Netflix, they have a a documentary on Katrina. Y'all seeing that. You just see the raw power of nature. And it's awesome. Have you ever stood on a mountain? God, man, this is awesome. Which by the way, speaking of the mountains, we're getting ready to start announcing ski trip, men's tree, coming up here in a few months. Registration is going to begin here soon. But we're going to the mountains. Do you know what?
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I love driving up through the mountains and seeing the mountains and standing there on top of the mountain. It's awesome.
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We'll be right back with men's Bible study after some announcements from our ministries and more.
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Well, it's up other day, gentlemen. My name is Graham Golding and I'm the teaching pastor here at Cuttonwood Creek. And I'm excited to share with you another weekly podcast called, Set It A At The Creek.
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Here you will find more great messages to listen to right here on SoundCloud. So check it out. The link is in the description below.
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Hey, do you need help building your men's ministry or your church? Here at Cuttonwood Creek, we believe that men's ministry is the linchpin to having a dynamic and healthy church.
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So if you're interested in building your men's ministry at your church, simply reach out to me and I'd be more than happy to help you grow your church.
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Simply text J Hill House. That's the letter J H-I-L-L-H-O-U-S-E to 77978. That will give you all of my contact information and I'll be more than happy to talk with you about building your men's ministry at your church.
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Have you been enjoying this podcast? Are you looking for more Scripture-based content material? Look no further than our Leab Pastor's website, JohnMartKaton.com. There you will find devotionals, small group leader guides, a free one-year subscription to pra.com and more. Visit JohnMartKaton.com. Link in the description below.
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Thanks for listening to men's Bible Study. Now we return to today's message.
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This weekend we were at a college visit for my son and while we were there, we went to the football game because he was doing the athletic tour and so they gave us free tickets and we were like, yeah, let's go check out this team that's potentially talking to him that he could potentially play for.
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Before the game starts, they have all the stuff that all the pomp and circumstance and stuff like that. One of the things that they do, one of the things that this particular college does, is before the game they have a guide that's on the horse.
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We're there 30 minutes before the game and I look across the stadium and I look across the field and there's this guy just sitting on a horse. That's all he's doing. He's just sitting on a horse. This dude, he just looks cool.
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He's just big old dude and he's sitting on a horse and you're like, dude, that guy's cool. I wonder if that horse is going to do anything. It'd be awesome if that horse would kick or something, kick somebody. I don't know why. I just thought that would be funny.
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But sorry, twist in mind here. But man, that horse just stays there. They're shooting off cannons. The bands playing that horse is just sitting there and it's the coolest horse ever. It's like, hey, I'm a horse. You know what I mean?
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He's just being cool. And they throw up this video about the guy riding the horse and he's a true hick. I love this kid. And he's like, yeah, I'm a man I interviewed to ride the horse into the stadium. He sounds just like this. My horse's name is Blueberry.
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And he's just talking like that. I'm like, yeah, that's cool. Well, then all of a sudden, you know, some things happen. I can in fires. And then I look corner my eye. I see this horse kind of kind of get. And then it just launches. And this dude just goes racing down the field.
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100 yards. I mean full gallop. And guys, it's awesome. It is awesome to see this animal that's just said in Terry. This is sitting there. And then you just see the raw power of this animal. Just go racing across. And he races down. I'm like, dude, that's cool. And then he rounds the end zone. And then I mean full gallop. I mean, and this guy, he is just putting the lead to it. I mean, he's just going at it.
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Turns around goes down to other 100 yards. I mean, he just right by us. And it is awesome. I don't understand. Y'all try explaining this to me. Why girls love horses? Why do they? I don't understand that. Why do little kids just love horses so much? Because as a grown adult, I'm going to be honest. I'm scared to death of them.
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Y'all with me on that because I know what they can do. I know how powerful they are. Y'all with me on that. They're like, hey, go around there and get this. I'm like, I'm not walking behind that animal because I'm scared to death is going to kick me.
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But you see the raw power of this animal. How in the world can we sit there and say, yeah, evolution created that? No. God created that.
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And we see the power of God in all of creation. But yet in Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 and 2, it says that God spoke through the prophets, but he also speaks through his son. It says in the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways.
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But these days these last days he's spoken to us by his son whom he appointed heirs over things. If you look then down in 2nd Timothy chapter 2 verse 2nd Timothy chapter 3 verse 15, we see that God speaks to us and reveals himself to us.
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But then it says this, but as for you continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of because you know these because you know those from whom you've learned it and how from infancy you have known what does it say the holy scriptures.
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Which are able to make wise which able which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
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Man, what do we see it is through the scriptures that God reveals himself to us. The second thing we see is that God records God records or inspiration who wrote the Bible.
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There's the question who wrote the Bible. Well it is through the Holy Spirit and it is not by one single man and it is without error.
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You know the difference between the Bible and the Quran and here's what I find really fascinating is that the Bible is written by over 40 authors yet it has the same theme.
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It says the same thing. It supports itself but when you look at the Quran you know what the Quran is only written by one author.
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And if you go back and you look in the Quran, guess what? They even get a lot of historical facts wrong.
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And yet over and over and over what do we see we see in scripture that it is historically accurate. God records and he does it accurately.
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And second Timothy 316 was to say all scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching and rebuking correcting training and righteousness.
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And second Peter 1 21 21 21 was it say it says above all you must understand that no prophecy of scripture came about by the prophets own interpretation of things.
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What is that saying? In other words guys just sit down and say I'm going to add to the Bible. No it didn't come from them or their own brains or what is out of their heart.
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What rather was this a says for prophecy never has its origin and what in human will but prophets through human though human spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
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Don't you like that? So when we read we're not just we're not reading something that somebody just thought, oh yeah I'm just going to write this down.
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No they were led by the Holy Spirit Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 9. I love this. Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, I have put my words in your mouth.
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I put my words in your mouth. Who wrote the Bible? Well obviously the medium was through human hands but whose words are they? They are God's words. Exodus 24, 4 Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said.
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Moses wrote down everything the Lord had said. What was God saying he was sitting there and he was giving them the commandments, he was giving them the rules and the laws and so Moses he's just taking dictation right there.
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He's like hold on a guy he got slow down because I got to chisel this into a rock. Thank you. Why do you thought that was funny?
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It was his say he got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain instead of 12 pillars representing his 12 tribes of Israel.
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Moses wrote down what he thought but he wrote down what God was saying. Number three God rules authority. Why should I apply the standards of the Bible?
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Why should I apply the standards of the Bible? Because the Bible is the final authority on faith and life. The Bible is the final authority on faith and life.
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Here's what I love is that we see that God's word accomplishes his purposes as a 55 11. So is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
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You know I often wondered people hand out a track. You see those cards maybe with a Bible verse on it. I hope me why are we wasting money on that? Why do we hand that stuff out?
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Do people even read it? Do people even care? Tell you what when God's word goes out it has a purpose. There is a reason why and it does not come back void. It does not come back empty.
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You say a verse you speak a verse from scripture. I guarantee you it's going to stick with somebody because here's what they're going to say. They may come back a few days a few weeks a few months. It could even be a few years and they'll say you know you said something that came from the Bible and it it really impacted me.
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You know why that because that's God's word and God's word is not useless. It is only useful. What does it say in John 17 17? Jesus says sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truce.
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God's word is truth. It is the absolute truth. Matthew 724 the wise man. What does he do? He builds his house on God's word. It says therefore everyone who hears these words of mine. Jesus is talking and puts them to practice.
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Jesus is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. I love this. It says therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them to what practice. In other words we can hear it but we got to do something with it.
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Right now y'all are all sitting here. You're hanging out and you're hearing God's word but it doesn't matter that you hear it. You have got to put it into practice.
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I can teach my son all day long how to change a tire but the best way to teach him how to change a tire is not to sit there and show him and tell him but rather to stand back and let him do it himself.
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Amen. Y'all with me on that. You learn best when you do it yourself and men we have got to start practicing scripture ourselves and not trying to depend depend on John Mark or the staff.
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Or somebody else to do it. It only benefits you men when you decide to actually practice what God tells you to do.
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All right. Thank you for that. I'm going to give you 20 bucks afterward. Amen.
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What does he do? He did it back then.
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Man you're too light.
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He only had one twenty dollar bill. But guys we have got to practice it and we can't leave it up to somebody else and we just can't sit there and listen to it.
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We got to go out there and we got to run those trials and errors on it. We got to run that trial and error on it. If y'all ever thought about that what does God say just simply about tithing.
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What does he say man give 10% bring it to the storehouse and test me on it and just know that I will bless you guys we can sit there and talk about that and we can teach that but until you practice it you will not benefit from God's blessings until you trust him.
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You will not benefit from God's blessings of salvation until you choose to follow Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior you will not benefit from living a life that God has called you to until you start living it and trying to do it and trying to practice it and do we fail absolutely.
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Do we screw up absolutely but that's okay.
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The question is what are you going to do about it tomorrow are you going to get back on the horse and are you going to try again.
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Practice we have to practice look at what it says about the birrens there when when Paul was preaching in Tegi says now the birren Jews were more notable of more notable character in that.
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So I'm going to ask you guys to take a look at the message with great eagerness and examine the scriptures every day to see what Paul said was true.
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Here's what they did is they said hey listen you're teaching us this but we need to search the scriptures to make sure what you're telling us is true.
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What is John Mark said what are all of our staff says hey make sure and check the scriptures and what we're telling you is the truth make sure what we say and what scripture says lines up.
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Because our foundation are very base is scripture.
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I simply need to be repeating what scripture says that's all I need to do.
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Number four God recognizes God recognizes there is the cannon yes I'm almost done thank you for that alarm God recognizes the cannons we say man how can I trust that the scriptures are accurate the spirit has guided.
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And put together 66 books first of all we hear that word cannon that that word cannon comes from the Greek word which simply means read and it means measuring stick the early church use the word cannon and it simply mean the rule of faith it is the standard in Exodus chapter 31 verse eight.
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18 what happens God gives the children of Israel the 10 commandments he gives them the standard and that's right there on the screen Luke 24 44 Jesus affirms the law and the prophets and the Psalms as scripture Jesus affirms the Old Testament as God's word.
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Look at what he says and he said to them this is what I told you while I was still with you everything must be fulfilled that is written about me and the law of Moses the prophets and the Psalms.
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Peter in the New Testament recognizes Paul's writing as scripture in second Peter 315 and 60 bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the word.
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So we're going to give you a wisdom that God gave him what is Peter do he affirms what Paul is writing he says hey listen my brother Paul even though we disagree on some things even though we're like this what he is saying is truth people say well we can get we can agree on the Old Testament how that is that's been around for thousands of years but the New Testament it's only been around for 2000 years can we really trusted it and what's Peter say he says what my brother Paul is writing is true.
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I like what winky pratton you said and the only reason why I'm quoting him is because I wanted to say winky in church.
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I'm just kidding that's funny I look at what he says and I love this no other work of man in any language even faintly resembles the intricate script the intricate structure and design of the Bible.
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The facts remain only an infinite mind could have devised this book of books tell you what he's right only an infinite mind can compile 66 different books written by over 40 authors on three different
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icons the three different languages to say the same thing and finally there's that part where God requires application how am I supposed to live scripture gives us the standard scripture God's word is sufficient to be studied to be obeyed and to be lived out.
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It is sufficient I don't know about you but for me there are times when I open up God's word and I read a verse that I've read before and there's something new in there that I've never discovered senior heard.
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Going me on that there's some stuff and we'll have like a staff devotion like a five minute staff revotio devotion and there've been times where I walked in and said guys I've read this verse over and over again but I never have seen it until today.
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Like where in the world did that come from how in the world have I read that over the past several decades and I've never ever seen that it's because God's word is constantly speaking to us constantly teaching us like what James 122 says it says do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves but do what it says.
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We talked about that just a little earlier with the whole practice thing do what it says and for a lot of us we have sat and we have consumed so much scripture what would happen and how in the world would God use you if you would finally start doing what scripture says.
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What would happen what would happen to your family what would happen to your spouse what would happen at your job what would happen.
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May God's word gives us everything we need for life and godliness second Peter one three his divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
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May God's giving us everything we need and it is all found in the Bible everything we need is found right there in scripture like as we close do normally four one and two it says now Israel here the decrees and laws I'm about to teach you.
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So God's going to teach the children of Israel the rules the laws the standards by which to live but then what does he say follow them so you might know him in here but you need to practice him in life follow them so that you may live and you may go in and take possession of the land the Lord the God of your ancestors is giving you.
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Verse two do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you you know what I love I love about God disease like hey listen don't add to it but don't take away from it.
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Man even a holy God allows us as Christians to experience freedom in him don't add to it but don't take away from it just simply follow and do what it says Chuck Colson said this the Bible's power rests upon the fact that it is reliable
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there is no more error lists in the infallible word of God let's pray God we love you thank you for this day father as we go out into this world God may we may we practice put into practice what we learn may we not just sit and absorb your words and just say you know pastor that's a great sermon but father may we take what you have taught us and practice it
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and show other people your truth your light God in your way may we point people to salvation into Jesus Christ father we love you and we thank you for this day make our hands productive as we go our separate ways and father as we go to our jobs father may we be lights in our dark community may we be seasoning in our bland world of influence we love you Lord and we thank you we ask all these things
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in Jesus name all guys men said y'all have a great day take care bye bye
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thanks for tuning in to today's Bible study for more information regarding cottonwood Creek go to cottonwood Creek dot org we hope you tune in next week for more episodes of men's Bible study