This evening, Steve Anderson. Steve and his family have started coming just fairly recently, several months now, but Steve has been a blessing.
I tell you what, I've appreciated him playing the piano this evening. I know, of course, I know Tracy and Regina have appreciated that too.
They got a little bit of break here. They wanted a break. They said, can we get someone else, teach someone else to play, I guess.
Steve's going to preach tonight. I'm looking forward to this. I really am. Steve's got a lot of wisdom. He's got a lot of knowledge about some things that a young man, more than likely, normally doesn't have.
I know he knows a lot of pastors talk with him at quite length about the King James Bible and Steve knows quite a bit about the King James issue and what it means to stand strong on the King James.
I appreciate that. I appreciate Steve very much. He's been just a good teen to have in the youth group. Someone who you can talk to and he's honest about how he feels about the Lord. I appreciate that.
Steve, if you've come at this time, give Steve a hand if you want to stand with him.
Thank you.
Would you please turn your Bibles to Mark 1 14.
We're going to be reading 14 and 15 and then I'm going to skip down to 21 and 22.
Now after that, John was put in prison. Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying the time was fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel.
And then down to 21 and they went into Capernaum and straightway on the Sabbath day he entered into the synagogue and taught and they were astonished at his doctrine for he taught them as one that had authority and not as the scribes.
And then if you would turn to Luke 4 33 through 37.
And in the synagogue, there was a man which had a spirit of an unclean devil and cried out with a loud voice saying, Let us alone. What have we to do with the thou Jesus of Nazareth art thou come to destroy us.
I know the who thou art the Holy One of God, and Jesus rebuked him saying, Hold thy peace and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him and hurt him not.
And they were all amazed and spake among themselves saying, What a word is this for the authority and power he commanded the unclean spirits and they come out of them.
And the fame of him went out into every place of the country around about and then just one more verse john 5 26 to 27.
The father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the son to have life in himself, and it's given him authority to execute judgment also because he's the son of man.
Basically, what I wanted to talk about today was the Christians authority, which is lies in the Bible, because you've seen in these verses that Christ had authority, and we know from john chapter one that Christ and his word are the same.
Jesus is the word. So if Christ has authority, then the Bible is going to have an equal authority. Now, when a Christian is speaking to people and you know he's quoting from Scripture.
He's not just speaking his own words, he's speaking God's words. So he can speak with the authority knowing that what he says is going to be the absolute truth.
I mean, it's not just an opinion or somebody's point of view. It's not one person's interpretation. I mean, if you're staying true to the Bible and you're stating absolute truth, not just your belief, it's God's belief.
I mean, when we talk to people about the gospel, when we tell people about God, we need to be talking to them from Scripture. God's word has power, and if we're speaking from the Scriptures, we don't even have to worry about what we're saying is right.
Because if we're just saying the Scriptures, we know it's right. Because God's word has the same authority as Jesus himself does. Jesus is our example.
You know, we're supposed to look to him. Christian means Christ-like. And he preached the gospel, and he told people to repent, and he told them with authority. And he got his authority from the Scriptures.
So we should preach the gospel in the same way, because we've got our hands on that same authority. And let's turn to Titus 2.15.
Titus 2.15 says, these things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.
Alright, let's go back a few verses and see what he's talking about. Starting with verse 11.
These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. So if we go through that, we can see that in verse 12, it's saying that all those things need to be spoken with authority.
So let's go to verse 12, it says that we need to deny ungodliness with authority. We need to deny worldly lusts with authority. And we need to live soberly, righteously, and godly.
And then if we go down to verse 13, he's talking about the second coming of Christ. We can say that with authority. We can tell people that he's coming back from this and we know it's true.
You know, no one can deny that, because it's said in the Bible, the Bible has authority.
Go down to verse 14, it talks about Christ redeeming us from iniquity. That's another thing that we need to tell with authority. We need to be redeemed from iniquity.
You know, these are all things from scriptures. Let's turn to 2 Corinthians 10.
All right, 2 Corinthians 10.
For the edification of others, not for their destruction. But I mean, if we're given God's Word to people, like I said, if we're speaking to them from Scripture, we're always going to be edifying them.
Because the Scripture can do nothing but edify people. I mean, the Scriptures are what bring about the fear of God, and that's the beginning of knowledge, and it's the fountain of life, according to Proverbs 14.27.
And even though a lot of the Bible's teachings are going to be painful to an unsaved person when we're telling them, you know, it might appear to be hurting them, but it's only hurting them because they don't want to conform to God's standards.
If they were willing to accept it, you know, in the end it's going to help them. It hurts a little bit, but it's going to help them in the end.
So, basically the point of this is, when you go out soul winning, or you know, even if you're at work or at school, wherever you have any kind of ministry, you know, there's no reason to be ashamed if you're speaking from God's Word, because you know it's right.
And you don't even have to think about it. You know it's right. And you know that no one's going to ever prove you wrong on that. And you can speak with the authority of the Bible.
And that's another thing. These people that, you know, believe that there are all these versions of the Bible, they don't have the same authority. We know that the King James Bible is the end of all arguments.
So, you know, any preacher preaching out of the NIV, he can say, you know, this is the way it is, and read his verse, but then anyone else can whip out their living Bible, find something completely different, you know.
God wouldn't do that. God isn't the author. That's why I'm thankful that God gave us this Bible, the King James Bible, that I can just say, hey look, you know, Romans 3.23 all have sinned, and that's end of story.
I don't have to, you know, think about if that's the proper interpretation. You know, I know that's what it says. And I mean, we know we have a pure Bible, and no one can undermine the authority of a pure Bible.
Amen. That's all. Amen.
Praise God. That is wonderful. That is great. The authority of God's word. Oh, man, I like that.
Brother Steve, thank you. Man, that's good. It wasn't that good. It wasn't that great. Oh, man, from teenagers, I tell you what, the wisdom that God can give a teenager.
The wisdom that God, hey, the wisdom that God can give anyone if they'll just say, that's my authority. That's it. That's it. That's my authority. You know, when I was a little boy, I had an authority. When I got older, where is my authority?
Man, Brother Steve showed us right there. That's it. Boy, that's good. Hey, man, you want to preach again? Right now, I like that.