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"GIVE ME THE BIBLE" #2

LEGAL PRECEDENTS THAT WON'T GO AWAY

I've got a little courtroom quiz for you today, so get out your old lawbooks and see how you do. Have you ever heard of any of these three landmark cases? Marbury vs. Madison, Plessy vs. Ferguson, and Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

I won't ask you to recite chapter and verse of any of them, because I wouldn't know enough to know if you were right or wrong. But I DO know that the Marbury case goes all the way back to 1803, and gave judicial courts much greater power in defining laws, establishing the doctrine of judicial review. Plessy vs. Ferguson and the Brown case, in 1876 and 1954 respectively, were huge civil rights cases that finally resulted in striking down the idea of separate-but-equal public school education.

Now, why does any good first-year law student need to know these OLD, ancient cases? For one simple reason, friend. Even cases that get filed today, Tuesday, November 21, 1995 — if they relate to an established legal ruling going back 50 or a hundred or even a THOUSAND years — those old cases are PRECEDENTS.

You don't hear of anybody today who tries to set up a legally segregated public school. And then call a press conference, saying, "I'll take this one to the Supreme Court!" That case has ALREADY been to the Supreme Court! It's a settled issue. The past findings in our nation's history have a powerful effect on what gets determined in courts of law today. That's why every lawyer's office and every judge's chambers are lined with row after row after row of those huge law volumes. Virtually every important past legal case is there for them to look up. The rulings of yesteryear still weigh heavily here in 1995.

I guess we could say it this way: "The new stuff depends on the old stuff."
In fact, I'm going to quote just a little bit of Latin for you on our program today. There's a legal expression that goes like this: Stare decisis. In fact, the long form is "stare decisis et non quieta movere." Which basically refers to the fact that a law, maybe even a not-very-good law, soon has piled on top of it all sorts of follow-up decisions. An old ruling going back 30 or 40 years may soon have resting on its back a huge mountain of laws using IT as a precedent. And lawyers and judges, even if they'd like to pull out that one shaky law, hesitate to do so because the whole mountain might come tumbling down.

A LEGAL definition of stare decisis reads like this:

"To stand by matters that have been decided and not disturb what is tranquil; to uphold precedents and resist change."

Now, friend, where is all this taking us during National Bible Week? What does this have to do with the Word of God?

I said yesterday that so many things in our lives are shaky. Bridges come tumbling down. Earthquakes knock our houses flat. A marriage we thought was rock-solid abruptly splits up. Someone you believed in suddenly betrays every belief, every principle, you thought you had in common.

And this happens all the time. No wonder people complain here in 1995: "I don't really know what to believe in anymore!"

But friend, the Bible is that unique Book. Its truths have been laid down . . . and they can't be overturned. You can't tear a page out of it or try to find enough votes to amend certain portions. You can't even take it to the Supreme Court, because this is a Book that's already been ruled on by the "supremest" Supreme Court there is.

I read something very interesting the other day in a book by our Voice of Prophecy friend Morris Venden. His title? The Answer Is Prayer. And in Chapter 12, entitled "When God Speaks," he lists THIRTEEN ways that God communicates with us. Thirteen ways! Let me quickly list them for you.

Number one, ANGELS. Number two, VISIONS AND DREAMS. Three: AN AUDIBLE VOICE. Four: SIGNS AND SYMBOLS. Five: His SON. Six: the HOLY SPIRIT. Seven: EARTHQUAKES, FIRES, JUDGMENTS, AFFLICTIONS, and TRIALS. (That's all one thing in Venden's list.) Number eight: MESSAGES THROUGH PROPHETS. Nine: PREACHERS AND THEIR SERMONS. Ten: THE STILL SMALL VOICE. Eleven: THE BIBLE. Twelve: He speaks to us through NATURE. And thirteen: PROVIDENTIAL WORKINGS.

Isn't that a tremendous list? I hope that you sensed how God has used many of those as His specific, tangible means of communicating personally with YOU.
But, you know, there's a powerful word of warning to consider as we look at this list and at the ways God communicates with us. ONE of these 13 things is the final court of appeal for the others. Did you notice which one?
Let's take a very common scenario: ANGELS. Suppose you have an encounter with an angel. Here at The Voice of Prophecy we believe in angels; in fact, many of you own a copy of our recent book, In the Presence of Angels. It's filled with 256 pages worth of TRUE, really-happening angel experiences shared with us by very real people.

And yet there are also stories, many of them, where people heard from angels . . . and the messages they received were in violent opposition to the plain teachings of the Bible. Someone had recently lost a loved one, maybe a child. And a glorious being of light would show up and explain: "Your little girl's happy and safe in a beautiful new country. The forces of light are protecting her. The Spirit Masters have taken her to a new level of life and existence."

Now friend, the Bible has some very clear statements about what happens when a Christian dies and it plainly describes the resurrection when Jesus returns to this earth. So when a "(quote) being of light" appears and tells us a contrary story, where do we place our faith? Do you see what I'm getting at? There are heavenly angels and other angels, aren't there?

My writer/producer, David Smith, was participating in a live call-in radio program once when a very sincere woman phoned in to describe a recent dream. She was sure that this dream had come directly from God. But it was a difficult moment, because several of the things which she suggested had been revealed to her were in flat contradiction to what you and I can read explicitly written in the Bible.

What, then, is the final court of appeal, friend? Let me say it as clearly as I can: THE WORD OF GOD! All sources of truth MUST be subject to the Holy Bible. Angel messages, sermons you listen to, dreams you receive, impressions from nature, even audible voices you may think you hear. What God has said in His Book, the Bible, is the unshakeable precedent that supercedes all else. That's why I'm so grateful today, Tuesday, November 21, 1995, for National BIBLE Week. It reminds us there's no better place to turn for solid strength and a renewed national confidence.

And I want to add something else right here. I'm certainly willing, and even ANXIOUS, to put this radio ministry and every single one of our daily and Sunday broadcasts to this same test.

We get letters and phone calls all the time from listeners around the country, and they feel the voice of God speaking to them through these radio messages. And that's wonderful news. We praise God that we can be used as one of His many voices, His many avenues of communication. Certainly here in 1995, Christian radio is one of the most exciting ways there is of sharing God's Word.
But friend, I want this same warning I've shared to apply to every word spoken on this radio program. What you HEAR on this program . . . please, DO check it against God's Word. Check it for yourself. In your thinking and in your spiritual study, this radio broadcast ought to be in subjection to the Bible and not the other way around.

I suppose this is a good day for us to travel back 474 years to April 18 in the year 1521, where a simple monk named Martin Luther stood before the princes and the bishops and the clerics and presiding officials of the church of the Middle Ages. And when they demanded that he retract his beliefs and his teachings, he gave them the answer that should be on all of our lips today:

"Unless I am convinced BY THE TESTIMONY OF SCRIPTURE . . . I cannot and I will not retract."

Martin Luther, brave Reformer, understood and proclaimed that the Bible reigned supreme over all. The Bible was ahead of traditions. It was ahead of human theories. It even ruled over popes themselves.

Friend, there are church leaders today — and some of them are wise and good people. There are brilliant pastors and effective TV and radio preachers. And yes, there's a well-traveled pope in 1995 who goes around the world preaching many things that are undeniably beneficial to the human condition.

But let me tell you something: as far as I'm concerned, what Martin Luther said at that Diet of Worms still goes today. The testimony of Scripture rules over all. The Bible establishes a PRECEDENT in my life and in this ministry — and I hope in your life too — that simply CANNOT be overturned or amended away.

Not once, but THREE times, we find recorded for our encouragement these ringing words of security from Jesus Himself. Matthew 24:35, Mark 13:31, and Luke 21:33 all say the same thing:

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My Words will NEVER pass away."

I quoted from Morris Venden a moment ago with his list of 13 communication avenues. Here's his own conclusion:

"As a basis for knowing when it IS [God's] voice that is speaking to us through the various methods He may use, He has given us HIS WORD. His Word is to be THE test. For although God speaks in many ways, His messages DO NOT contradict each other. He will not command in one voice that which He has forbidden in another. God's voice is always in harmony with itself."

What a reason to celebrate National BIBLE Week!