Impressions Rerun Christ Jesus is the one who never compromised. Pastor Mike starts off today’s show by mentioning some of the formats that Bethlehem Bible Church uses to teach about The Bible: Preaching Sunday morning/evening, No Compromise Radio Program, book store at the church, and IBS Classes. Pastor Mike then begins to discern how God DOES and DOES NOT speak to us. 2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” Sola Scriptura! All Scriptures is inspired and profitable. It is foolish to think that you need more than the Scripture God gave us. There are many people who try to communicate with God without Scripture and try to understand God and truth through themselves via feelings, visions, and instincts. This is a functional denial of Sola Scriptura. We cannot trust ourselves, our feelings, our visions, and our instincts because of the fall. God does NOT speak to us via contemplative prayer, impressions, or labyrinths (paths you walk through with an open mind/open heart, where you do what feels natural): Contemplative prayer. You cannot say one word over and over again in a yoga like state of trance. When you pray you need to use your mind. You do not want to pray in vain repetition like the gentiles do. Read Matthew 6—The Lord’s Prayer. Impressions from God. God does NOT speak to us via impressions. What does the Bible say about trusting yourself? —Trusting yourself is a bad idea. Proverbs 28:26 “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.” How can you tell your own impressions from God’s impressions? You cannot. If you trust yourself, you will place self, not God, at the center of everything. You cannot learn about God from yourself, you need the external revelation of The Bible. Impressions are impressions—not a form of revelation—and are not authoritative. Do not look for tainted truth on the inside rather read and study your Bible to find truth. If you want God to talk to you, He has definitively and finally in the Scriptures given us plenty —so you should work on reading Scripture and mastering Scripture. Everything in the Scripture is for us. Scripture alone is revelation. If you abandon the sole source of Gods revelation today (1,900 years after the final books of Scripture written), and you say that God has given you an impression you could get God to “say” things that contradict His Word. For example if you change 1 Timothy 2 from what God said to what you “say” from your impression you are disobeying scripture. If a man says “well God told me to attend a church with a woman pastor, and woman elders because I feel closer to God at these churches and God said it was okay for me to do” is a clear violation of God’s Word. God, who is perfect, would not contradict Himself. These men ought to mature and be ashamed of themselves and never go back to these types of churches. It is not that women are “bad”; it is however the fact that God gives men and women different roles in 1 Timothy 2. You cannot just pick and choose what parts of The Bible you want to follow. If you stop following one part of God’s Word, then why follow any of it? We do not need anything new. We have a book from God that is written in such a way that you could study it for the rest of your life—and you will still be impressed with Jesus Christ the great Creator.