This message by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday morning, January 6, 2008, and was taken from Mark 12:18-27.
We live in a time and culture where the Christian faith is under attack. This may be a good thing, because the Christian church has become comfortable, spiritually complacent and lazy. We have our own music, our own books, our own stores, and therefore have become increasingly irrelevant to the culture we live in. In a similar light, there is reason to be concerned about the changes that have also occurred here in our church.
Notice in this exchange between Jesus and the Sadducees, we find something which we need to wrap our minds around: An intricate knowledge of Scripture apart from a belief that they are authoritative, trustworthy, and sufficient, leads to a worthless and deadly faith.
- A profound knowledge of Scripture governed by intellectual pride leads to theological foolishness and skepticism, ending in utter unbelief. We should allow the Scriptures to inform our thinking, and the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds.
- Simple trust in the word of God and God’s power leads to a knowledge of who he is and what his power is.
There should be a grave concern over those who have an understanding of the Bible, who enjoy it because they find it interesting, but nothing more. Their reading of the Bible will lead them further and further away from a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.