Chapter One
What Will Your Legacy Be?

“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
--John 8:32

“What will my legacy be?” This is not a question that occupies the mind of a great many young men and women. It seems it is only as we grow older and become more aware of our creeping mortality, that we begin to worry about what we will leave behind for our children.

My job as senior pastor of a church forced me to consider this question much sooner than I might have otherwise. One of a pastor’s myriad responsibilities is to conduct funerals and memorial services and to minister to those who attend. I delivered a great many eulogies, extolling the virtues of the departed and listening to the surviving families memorialize their loved ones. As time passed, I would begin to mentally project myself into the casket. I thought, if it were my wife and children and grandchildren who had been asked to talk about what I had left for them to live by, what would they say? Would the best they could offer be, “Well, Jack worked hard. We didn’t see him much, but he did everything he could to provide for us.” I delivered the eulogy at my father’s funeral. He died at the age of 54. What was his legacy? Dad worked very hard to support us. That was the legacy that Dad received from his father, who bequeathed no spiritual inheritance to his family, either.

After ten years in the pulpit, I entered the business world and began a new career as a consultant and motivational speaker. During the last twenty-five years I have worked with a great many wealthy men and women. It is tragic how often they see their work as something that they are bequeathing to their children. I particularly remember one multi-billionaire whom I personally tutored for six months. When he died he left a money legacy, not a meaning legacy. The center and circumference of his life was money, not meaning. He died an empty man.

My mother’s uncle left a spiritual legacy because of his example. He was a deacon, and a real stalwart servant of his church. I watched him and admired his life, but he left behind nothing that would indicate the things that his family should study and live by. My father’s family left a legacy of work; my mother’s family left a legacy of spiritual work; but neither left behind any treasures of knowledge.

The True Ladder of Meaning

That is what I want to do with this book, Legacy. I’ve written it with nine people especially in mind: my three children and my six grandchildren. I’ve heard people say, “My life is my legacy,” but any mature Christian will tell you that no one’s life--with the exception of Jesus Christ--is a perfect basis for anything! We “all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.” I don’t want to point my kids toward my life! I’d like to point them away from the mistakes I’ve made, and I’d like to warn them about leaning the ladder of meaning against the wrong wall. I’ve met dozens of men and women, both in church and in the corporate world, who have leaned their ladder against the wall of power, or prestige, or professional success. They spend their lives climbing and clawing their way up the ladder of success, only to discover at the very end that they leaned it against the wrong wall! I ministered to some of these folks as they died. No one -- not one of them -- recalled the life that was coming to an end and said, “I should have worked harder. I should have spent more time at the office.” What they did say, time after time, was, “Oh, if only I’d spent more time with my kids. If only I’d been there for my family!” Sadly, these men and woman did not realize, until it was much too late, that they had invested their lives building the loot and passing on lunacy. Time had run out on the opportunity to build lives and pass on a legacy.

The Only Wall That Won’t Rot or Crumble

The Bible is the Legacy. It is the only guide for faith and practice. The Bible is the right wall, and I want to point my family toward the only wall on which to lean the ladder of success, which is the “perfect law of liberty.” I want my children to know that climbing a ladder that leads to worldly, material success leads to an inevitable outcome: self-sufficiency, bondage, and despair. It is only when you lean your ladder against the Person and the work of Jesus Christ that you are climbing towards salvation, sanity, and civilization. I want to teach my children and grandchildren -- and yours, too, if you will allow me -- to use the Bible as the plumb line for all truth.

If I were to examine in detail the wealth of knowledge that is available in God’s Word, I’d be writing several volumes, instead of this one book. Legacy was designed and written to be a primer. I want this book to point you toward the work of giants, men who have taken the truths of God’s Word and developed a comprehensive Christian philosophy that will allow you to measure all of faith and all of practice against it. I want to help our children build solid theological houses, and fashion a society that reflects the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

I spent a long time trying to find the right wall--ever since I became a Christian thirty-two years ago. I searched for truth for years. I’d like to warn my family about some of the dangerous paths that I mistakenly followed. I want to warn them about the song of the sirens.

The Song of the Sirens

Donald Barnhouse has recounted the ancient Greek myth of the sirens, which were said to be similar to what we call mermaids today. As sailing ships worked their way through dangerous waters, the crews would suddenly catch sight of these creatures -- half woman and half fish -- frolicking in the waters off the bow. The faces of these sirens were beautiful, and they sang to the sailors. The melodies were achingly lovely, and the sailors would be consumed by a longing for these sea creatures and their inexpressibly exquisite songs. Mesmerized by the beauty of the sirens and their music, the sailors would steer their ships towards these bewitching creatures, only to find that they had been lured into waters infested with treacherous rocks. Their vessels would be torn apart on the rocks, and it was said that the last thing the dazed and dying sailors heard before the waters of the deep closed over them for the last time was the haunting arias of the sirens. The sirens would then pilfer all the cargo from the wrecks and use it for their own purposes.

One day, however, a man named Orpheus was a passenger on a ship that was being beguiled by the sirens. Seeing that the crew was enchanted by the singing of the deceitful sea creatures, and knowing that to steer toward them meant death, Orpheus began to sing to the sailors himself. Orpheus had been gifted with a voice unlike that of any human who ever lived. His singing was so exquisite and his voice was so powerful that the sailors completely forgot about the sirens. Instead they fixed their eyes upon Orpheus, and he helped them navigate their vessel past the dangers of the rocks and the sirens’ songs. Barnhouse used the mythological tale of Orpheus and the sirens to remind us that we are to listen to the Word of God, the Song of songs, and adopt the teachings of Christ to navigate the sea lanes of our lives. “Do not love the world, or the things in the world,” 1 John 2:15 warns.

The Siren Song of “Discovered” Truth

For the longest time I thought I had succeeded in resisting the song of the sirens. It was not until I began my consulting business that I realized I had deceived myself. Just as I had done all my life, when I set out to become a corporate coach I threw myself into study to prepare for my new vocation. I read and researched book after book on the subject of personal and professional transformation. Today I have a library filled with thousands of volumes that reflect a lifelong search for “truth” -- books on theology, education, health, the family, business systems, psychology, behaviorism, and motivation. I’ve spent hours in all kinds of bookstores, from the huge new super chains to dusty little used book sellers. Without realizing it, I had been lured away by the song of the sirens.

The deceitful melody that opened up a virtual Pandora’s Box of humanism in my life was a phrase I heard shortly after I first trusted in Christ as my Savior: “All truth is God’s truth.” I was told that there were two kinds of truth: revealed truth and “discovered truth.” Revealed truth, of course, was God’s truth -- His revelation of Himself and His activities through the Bible. I firmly believed that the entire Bible was the inerrant, inspired Word of God. But I also believed that truth could be discovered by the “experts” in fields like psychology, science, education, and so forth. I ran aground on intellectual rocks -- I put this so-called “discovered truth” that was contained in all these books on the same level with the Bible. I was searching for the “Twins of Truth” - revealed and discovered truth. My golden calf was knowledge.

I’m ashamed to admit this today. I’m ashamed because I should have known better. The whole time I was poring over all these books, the truth was sitting right on my desk, literally right under my nose: God’s Word is all truth. I had never become truly grounded in the Number One axiom of Christianity. My friend and mentor, Dr. John Robbins, defines axiom this way: “An axiom...is a beginning. Nothing comes before it; it is a first principle. All men and all philosophies have axioms; they all must start their thinking somewhere.” The Number One axiom of Christianity is that the Bible alone is the Word of God. God’s Word, and only God’s Word, is the truth. John recorded Jesus’ prayer to the Father: “Your word is truth.”

What IS Truth?

I believed there were many roads to truth. I didn’t understand the axiom! If the Bible alone is the Word of God, then there is nothing that is not contained within the sixty-six books of the Bible that is any better than a hypothesis about the truth. One day John Robbins put it all in perspective. He heard me trot out my well-worn phrase: “All truth is God’s truth,” and he corrected me gently: “Jack,” he said, “you’ve got it backward. God’s truth is all truth. That is the maxim.” God’s truth is all truth! It is only in God’s Word that we find truth. For man to proclaim that he knows truth apart from God’s revelation is wicked. It is blasphemy.

My mistaken belief that “All truth is God’s truth” was really no different from the idea that “All worship is God’s worship.” John Moffat addressed this idea in an article in The Christian Conscience:I can imagine Nadab and Abihu talking before the early worship service in the wilderness. One says to the other, “All fire is God’s fire. God made all fire; therefore it is all of him.” Or while Moses was up on Mount Sinai the children of Israel could have said to Aaron, “All worship is God’s worship.” These analogies have the same deceptive sound of being logical at first glance, but they are all full of the same ambiguity and deceit as the expression “All truth is God’s truth.”

In the case of either false maxim--“All truth is God’s truth” or “All worship is God’s worship” --we have failed to define our terms. In the case of worship, there is plenty of worship that is not the worship of the God of the Bible. The Israelites worshiped a golden calf, and the Lord was greatly displeased! God’s servant, Moses, prepared a special cocktail for the idolatrous people of Israel after they bowed down to a graven image. Clearly, this was not “God’s worship.” The same concept holds in the arena of truth. If we say that “All truth is God’s truth,” we are implying that science possesses truth! The academy and the laboratory can provide us with a great deal of useful information, but they do not give us absolute, objective truth from the mind of God. Only Scripture can do that. The Bible is the context for all truth.

Once God had opened my eyes to the truth of this foundational axiom, I realized that this first principle of Christianity--The Bible alone is the Word of God--represents an entire unified, coherent, consistent system of truth. Once you and I have learned and digested this truth, we are no longer working for truth and authority, we’re working from a rock-solid foundation of truth and authority. In Matthew 7:28-29, we read that after Jesus had finished delivering the Sermon on the Mount “the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority.” Jesus explained this succinctly: “I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak... Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak.”

Jesus spoke with authority because He spoke God’s Word! We, too, have God’s Word at our disposal. It is God’s Word that gives us influence. Psychology is not the authority. Science is not the authority. Government is not the authority. Education does not give us authority. We may have diplomas and certificates covering our walls but still blindly miss the truth. “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their own craftiness’; and again, ‘The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.’” Today we see so many men and women who are graduates and postgraduates of prestigious centers of “higher learning,” yet they have clearly become “futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts [are] darkened. Professing to be wise, they [have become] fools.” They are “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Contrast God’s disdain for the wisdom of the world with Peter and John, who boldly declared the Word of God, and the people “were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” Peter and John spoke with authority because they spoke God’s words. They spent three years with Jesus and learned to preach with the words that God had given Him.

God’s Word, and God’s Word alone, is the authority and standard for all of faith and practice. We must be like the Bereans, who listened to the preaching of the apostle Paul, and “received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.” Everything we hear from the scientist, from the psychologist, the politician, the economist, the educator, and especially the words we hear from the pulpit should be immediately measured against the truth of God’s infallible Word, that we may be sure the things our leaders tell us are in line with God’s truth. John warned us not to “believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Indeed, there are many voices out there, in both the secular and the sacred arenas, telling us that with the proper education in “discovered truth,” we “will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Satan conducted the very first humanistic motivational seminar for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. “You don’t need God’s truth,” Satan assured them. “Just do what feels good to you!” But we must ignore Satan’s deadly siren song. Christians have been commanded to “Test all things.” We must hold fast to God’s truth, as expressed in His Word, and ignore the songs of the world’s sirens.

One such song is often harmonized with the concept of “discovered truth” and is stated: “Whatever works.” Today’s sirens tell us that if something works, it is good and true. As a consultant and motivator, I sought knowledge that would produce positive mental and emotional change in my clients. But there is a question that is far more important and infinitely more fundamental than “What works?” The question we must always ask is: “What is true?”

Many false things work; counterfeit money is a perfect example. If I walk up to a checkout line in the supermarket and plunk down a fifty dollar bill, the cashier isn’t concerned whether the bill will work--she need only pop the bill into the cash drawer and let me leave with the groceries. The counterfeit bill “worked” very well! However, the cashier wants to ascertain that I have paid with a true fifty dollar bill which has actual value. So she swipes the bill with a pen, or runs it under a light, verifying that it is a true fifty dollar bill, not a false one.

The field of psychology offers all manner of theorems that seem to work. One author has estimated that there are over four hundred different theories about effecting change in the human soul. From these four hundred theories, ten thousand techniques have been developed, all designed to assist psychologists in initiating that change. Of course, many of these theories and techniques contradict each other. They can’t possibly all be true! Do they work? Whoever developed each theory or technique claims that they do!

The Plumb Line for Truth

The point of this discussion is to demonstrate that there are sirens all around us, vying for our minds and spirits. They are engaged in the furious pursuit of our very souls. What we desperately need in today’s society is a standard, an accurate, reliable plumb line against which we can measure truth and falsehood.

The concept of standards is a common one for all of us. We live by standard times, we have standards for weights and measures, and we used to live under a gold standard. But what is our standard for truth? What is the axiom against which we measure all of faith and practice? We have a standard measure for a gallon of water, but what is the standard for right and wrong?

Only God’s Word--the Bible--offers comprehensive, coherent, and consistent truth. I emphatically endorse Dr. John Robbins’ assertion that Christianity is the only intellectually defensible system of thought on the planet. Christianity is THE standard for all of life and practice. Christianity is the plumb line for truth. Where is the consistency, the coherency, and the comprehension in psychology, with its four hundred-plus theories for human change? There is none! Only the Bible provides the authority and the standard for human transformation.

“OK,” you respond, “maybe the answer isn’t in psychology. But there is truth in education. If I send my children to Harvard, or Yale, or one of the other seats of ‘higher learning,’ they’ll learn the truth there.” Oh, really? Where is the consistent, comprehensive system of thought at the university? Our college campuses have become “multi-versities,” where dozens of theories of knowledge and thinking all clamor for attention, in a cacophonous gaggle which professional educators like to call “diversity.” Clearly, there is no unified system of thought at the university.

“All right,” you gamely persist, “I can educate myself. I’ll go to the bookstore and pick out the great books that will teach me.” I appreciate your diligence, but it will yield no fruit! The bookstore used to be my home away from home, remember? Our national bestsellers present a dizzying array of contradictory ideas and values, from William Bennett’s Book of Virtues to Howard Stern’s Private Parts. As I learned from years of laborious study and toil, there is absolutely no consistency or coherence to be found on the shelves of any bookstore. There is one bestseller, however, that does reside on the shelf of every bookstore, which is the one infallible source of all knowledge and truth: The Bible.

What Are the Inevitable Outcomes?

Let’s examine the inevitable outcomes of following God’s blueprint for success. My purpose in writing this book is to show you that the Bible is God’s legacy for our salvation, our sanity, and our civilization. Listen to this command that God gave to Joshua and the nation of Israel: “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

The inevitable outcome of living according to God’s template for civilization is freedom. “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” Jesus told the Jewish believers. Paul told the Corinthians, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” I don’t for a minute believe that God’s Word is referring only to the joyful freedom from death’s grip that is the fruit of salvation, but also to political and economic freedom as well. The Founding Fathers of our nation strove to create a representative system of government that would incorporate God’s principles for society. That system caused America to thrive for more than two hundred years, a shining city set upon a hill that attracted immigrants from all over the globe who desired to become prosperous and successful in our free republic and free markets. Dr. John Robbins has said, “A free society and a free market were the political and economic expressions of the religious ideas of the Reformation. Capitalism was the economic practice of which Christianity was the theory.”

A Question of Discernment

I have already mentioned my friend and mentor, Dr. John Robbins, twice in this book. Dr. Robbins is one of the most brilliant men I have ever met. He directs the Trinity Foundation, which is an educational organization dedicated to bringing the truth of God’s Word to bear on every aspect of life. Dr. Robbins has been a patient and powerful teacher for me, and he has opened up avenues of godly thinking that I had only dimly understood before I came under his tutelage. As you and I progress through this book together, I am going to do more to introduce you to this Christian scholar, and also to his teacher, Dr. Gordon Clark.

John Robbins taught me a very simple question that has had a marvelously crystalizing effect on my thinking:
“What is more important, what is less important, and what is not important at all?”

What is more important in the struggle for life and liberty that America is engaged in? Is it more important to get out into the political arena to do battle with the forces of secularism that are moving so aggressively to conquer our culture? I think not. Please understand me: I do not wish to imply for even an instant that the many pro-life and pro-family groups that have formed all across our land are unimportant. We are blessed to live in a country which still allows free political association, and we should take full advantage of that privilege.

But I must state to you categorically that I do believe that political activism is less important. When Jesus walked the earth, all manner of political corruption and social injustice pervaded the land. Israel was under the harsh political rule of the Roman conqueror. A great many men and women had turned away from God. Slavery was an accepted practice. Infanticide was common, as parents would take their unwanted children out at night and leave them to be eaten by wild animals or to be picked up by evil men and women who would raise the babies for their own dark purposes. Many of the Jews believed that the Messiah would come as a great military and political leader who would overthrow Roman rule and affect social change. What was Jesus’ concern? He asked the disciples:

“‘Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?’ So they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven..”

Jesus rejoiced, not that Peter was going out to do battle against the political authorities, but that His Father revealed truth directly to Peter’s mind. That truth, revealed to us in the Bible by our Father in heaven is THE foundation for salvation, sanity, and civilization.

Jude urged believers to “contend earnestly for the faith.”
We as believers need to bring the Bible out of the musty storage closet into which modern society has carelessly flung it, and proclaim it to be the truth. We need to drag the falsehoods of man’s vain imaginings out into the light of day and expose them for the distorted monstrosities that they are! Ephesians 5:11 clearly admonishes us to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.” We must use God’s Word to expose these counterfeit competitors, these humanistic sources of “knowledge” which have no legitimacy. This is the most important battle that needs to be fought--the battle for the clear presentation of God’s truth. It is only by maintaining the purity of God’s revealed truth, and rejecting the contamination of man’s “discovered truth,” that we will maintain our free society.

Too many men and women in powerful positions in this country hate the legacy that God has left us. Our government schools, and particularly the leadership of the powerful national teachers’ unions, despise the truth of God’s Word and often lead the charge to censor it from all of our educational systems. Many business leaders despise God’s standards for society because Biblical integrity often interferes with “profit-at-any-price.” If Christian parents do not pass God’s keys for salvation, sanity, and civilization on to their children, the inevitable outcome is moral bankruptcy, societal chaos, and ultimately tyranny.

The Barkers’ Lure

I once heard a story about two farm boys who were sent to the annual county fair by their father. Mr. Farmer told his sons to go to the main tent, look at the new cultivators on display there, and learn all about the wonderful new agricultural techniques that had been developed during the year. The boys went to the fair fully intending to do what Dad wanted, but as they walked down the midway toward the big tent they were drawn by the calls of the barkers hawking their various games and foods and things to sell. Just as the sailors of ancient mythology were lured off course by the song of the sirens, these two country boys were attracted by the call of the barkers encouraging them to “step right up” and toss the rings, throw the darts, and so on. Suddenly the boys realized that it was growing late, and they still hadn’t gotten to the agricultural tent. They hurried up the midway, but when they arrived at the big tent, they found that all the new tools had been covered or stored away and the exhibits were closed. The boys had to go home and tell their disappointed father that they had failed to carry out the assignment he had given them. They had gotten so caught up in all the side shows that they missed the main event!

How about you? Are you focused on the main event? Our Father has given us instructions: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you...” That is the main event. We are to go into the world and make disciples and to teach them the truth of God’s Word, i.e., Christian doctrine! Too many of us get caught up in the side shows of social and political activism and miss the main event!

Let me say again that I don’t mean to imply that those of you who are involved in the issues of the day are doing something unimportant. You are doing a good thing. But the good is the enemy of the best. We can give our children all sorts of information about the concerns of the day. We can talk to them about why Halloween is a pagan holiday and why they shouldn’t watch garbage TV like Dawson’s Creek or South Park. We can teach our kids all about which political party supports abortion and homosexuality, and why they should vote for pro-life and pro-family candidates. We can do all these good things to help them spot the evil fruit growing on the trees of our land, and we may lose sight of the legacy that God has commanded us to pass on to our kids, which is the root of truth.

“These words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

We’ll soon see that it was “these words,” not political activism, which brought the world out of the Dark Ages. It was when Martin Luther translated the Bible into a language which the people--not just the priesthood--could understand, that they were delivered “out of darkness and into His marvelous light.”

The apostle Paul told the Corinthians, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (The King James version translates “pretension” with the word “imagining.”) All throughout the book of Acts, we read of Paul using the Scriptures to reason with people and to persuade them. “Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, ‘This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ... He reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.”

Paul did not limit his preaching from the Scriptures to sermons in church on the Sabbath day. He went into the marketplace--the public arena--daily to reason from the Scriptures, with believers (worshipers) and unbelievers (those who happened to be there) alike! What weapon did Paul use to counter the arguments--the pretensions and imaginings--in both the secular and sacred arena? The Scriptures, “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

A Powerful Word for Perilous Times

When Satan tried to tempt Jesus to turn away from God and embrace a man-centered theology, how did He respond? Three times, Jesus told Satan, “It is written.” Did Jesus have some catchy slogan written on a signboard to wave at the enemy? Did he quote from a position paper published by a political “think tank,” or cite the latest poll results? No, Jesus told Satan, “Man shall not live by bread alone [not by the “weapons of the world”], but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

You and I are in possession of the words that proceeded from the mouth of God! “All Scripture is God-breathed,” as the NIV version accurately translates 2 Timothy 3:16. God has given us the weapon that demolishes the strongholds and vain imaginings that set themselves against the knowledge of God.

“Jack, we’re living in a different age,” you might well protest. “I quote Scripture when I’m tempted by Satan, as Jesus did, but when I’m going up against the National Organization for Women or the National Gay and Lesbian Alliance, I need more than Scripture verses!”

Are you really so sure? Let’s read Ephesians 6:12. “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Our struggle is not against the militant feminists, the angry homosexuals, and the aggressive secularists who have arrayed themselves “against the knowledge of God.” No, our struggle is against the dark forces of spiritual evil, the minions of Satan, that are arrayed against us. Paul urged Timothy to avoid quarreling with those who oppose Christian truth, and “gently instruct” them, “in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” Satan is our enemy, not the abortionist! It is Satan who seeks to lead our great nation to destruction, not a particular political party. And what weapon did Jesus use--He who could have summoned legions of angels to do battle if He had needed them--what was the most effective weapon He knew to defeat the enemy? He used God’s Word!

Our Behavior Broadcasts Our Beliefs

Attitude precedes action, belief is the foundation for behavior, and philosophy is the precursor of performance. Look at our society’s problems. We have become a people like those whom Isaiah warned: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness.” The unbelievers in our society are certainly putting their beliefs on display: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” Clearly, the majority of Americans do not believe that God’s Word has any authority over their lives. Hostility and rebellion against the knowledge of God have reached a level of intensity here in the United States that is unprecedented in our history. Europe has, for the most part, already succumbed to the forces of humanism and unbelief.

But I’m afraid that we Christians also broadcast our own brand of unbelief to a watching world. When we do try to resist the tidal wave of humanism crashing down over our nation, we take up the weapons of the world! We march, we boycott, we organize, and we participate in panel debates on television. We become just another group of angry voices clamoring to be heard. We’ve even been tagged with our own political nickname: “The Religious Right.” John Whitehead reminded his readers of the great theologian J. Gresham Machen’s warning that “We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation... to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion.”

What we seem to have forgotten is that “The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” It is God’s Word that is more effective than any worldly weapon, and sharper than any double-edged sword. It is God’s Word that has divine power to demolish secular strongholds and refute the vain imaginings that make up so much of modern day psychological, scientific, educational, political, economic, and ethical thought.

Where Are the Shepherds?

There is a crime more heinous than the abortionist commits when he vacuums out the brains of a living baby in the ghastly “partial birth abortion” procedure. That crime is committed by the man who stands in the pulpit and does violence to the Word of God by claiming that the Bible isn’t true, or is only partially true, or is insufficient for faith and practice.

God places the greatest emphasis on the importance of preaching the truth of His Word. In Psalm 138:2, David said of the Lord that “You have magnified Your word above all Your name.” God places greater importance on His Word of truth than on His own name! It is only through the proper exposition and understanding of God’s Word that we can follow the path to salvation, sanity, and civilization. God has a message for those who stand in front of their congregations week after week and give them some thinly disguised Twelve-Step theology sprinkled with a few Scripture verses here and there to make it sound like a sermon instead of a seminar. God issues a stern warning to pastors who regularly subject their flocks to some form of 20th century prosperity gospel or social gospel. God condemns the theologians who proclaim that the Bible is, after all, an archaic book written by men and that is, therefore, filled with errors and generally useless for ordering our lives and society.

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!” says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel against the shepherds who feed My people: “You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings,” says the Lord.

The root cause of all our problems is that many theologians and pastors of the West have abandoned their sacred charge of proclaiming the pure truth of God’s Word. Look at Jeremiah 23:4. “‘I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking,’ says the Lord.” The root cause of America’s moral malaise lies, not in our politics, but in our pulpits! We are lacking a biblical worldview for all of faith and practice because we aren’t being fed! Our children are being brainwashed by evolutionary, New Age dogma in the government schools because our pastors aren’t teaching them or their parents the doctrines of historical, biblical Christianity. The dreadful humanist teachings of Sigmund Freud hold sway with our pastors today because our seminaries haven’t taught them that it is the Bible, not psychology, that is the only true basis for all human transformation. Marxist economic thought still occupies the imaginings of far too many professors at our universities because our pastors don’t even realize that it is Christianity, not the dialectic, which holds the only workable model for economic prosperity. Our national ethics are at their most dismal lows because the pulpits of America are no longer “aflame with righteousness,” as Alexis de Tocqueville found them when he visited America in the 19th century. The flock is scattered, fearful, and dismayed because our churches no longer teach the reasons why the angel said, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Jesus Christ did not come to walk the earth so that true believers would feel better about themselves, or so that they could accumulate great wealth. In Part II of this book I’ll explain the specific, legal agreement that took place between the Father and the Son before the creation of the world that ensured that “you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” I am unfailingly astonished and dismayed, as I travel the United States, to discover how abysmally deficient the average church member’s knowledge of the Scriptures really is. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,” said the Lord. This is certainly being proven true in the West. We are sinking inexorably into moral quicksand because we don’t really understand the exalted alternative that God has provided for us. We have abdicated the power of the sword of the Spirit, God’s Word, because we don’t understand its relevance to every aspect of our lives.
“Woe to the Shepherds Who Destroy and Scatter...”

Preachers and teachers who mishandle the Word of God or deliberately twist and distort what it says, will not escape God’s judgment. The apostle Peter grimly warned that “untaught and unstable people” would distort the meaning of Scripture “to their own destruction.” Peter also foresaw “false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who brought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.” These false teachers will be judged with “swift destruction.” But “many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.” The final chapter of the Bible contains a warning even more stern and explicit: “For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”

Hebrews 5:14 commands us to develop discernment, to train ourselves “to distinguish good from evil.” But how will the average churchgoer develop that discernment if he isn’t being taught? Christians must learn to turn to God’s Word for their answers, like the Bereans in Acts 17. They didn’t blindly accept Paul’s word as truth. They searched the Scriptures daily to be sure that what Paul said was true. We need biblical teachers who encourage us to search God’s Word for truth. “To the law and to the testimony!” Isaiah thundered. Turn to the Bible! If our teachers “do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”

I have become outraged as I visit church after church across this country, hoping to hear the man in the pulpit conduct an exegesis (“ex ah jeess iss”)--a “bringing out,” an exposition of the biblical text--the law and the testimony. Nehemiah 8:8 gives us a wonderful illustration of biblical exegesis: “They read distinctly from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading.” In Luke 24 we see our Lord “bringing out” the truths of the Bible when he walked along the road with the two discouraged believers, “And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” After Jesus had disappeared, the two disciples “said to one another, ‘Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?’” The Greek word in Luke 24:27 that is translated “expounded” is the same word from which we get our English word “hermeneutics,” which is the science of interpretation. Jesus interpreted the Scriptures for the disciples. He went through the entire Old Testament and showed how it prophesied His birth, death, and resurrection. He exposed the biblical texts, which is what we literally mean by expository preaching. Jesus didn’t expound on the philosophies of the day; He explained what the Word of God had to say. That is exegesis.

Tragically, I find that today’s congregation is usually subjected to an eisegesis (“ice ah jeess iss”), where, rather than exposing the truth of the biblical text, the preacher imposes his own ideas on the text. The great preachers of the past followed the three laws of hermeneutics: “What does the text say? What does it mean? What does the text require of me?” All too often, the eisegesis of today’s modern preacher only uses the biblical text--if the Bible is mentioned at all--as a springboard to launch into some kind of “life application” seminar. And the tragic fact is that unwary Christians, who have never been taught the great doctrines of their faith, walk away as if they’ve just been fed a tremendous meal. They mentally pat their spiritual bellies like someone who has just finished a mouth-watering banana split of all-natural biblical ice cream, syrups, and fruits. Unwittingly, what they have really consumed is a humanistic concoction consisting of one scoop of sensationalism and two scoops of possibility thinking, flavored with non-biblical sprinkles and decorated with the whipped cream of medieval paganism, all topped with a “health and wealth” cherry!

The Skeleton and the Bones: The Parts Must Relate to the Whole

Gordon Clark teaches that the various parts of a system are explained by the whole. For example, some of the incredibly tiny and exquisitely shaped bones of our inner ear would be very difficult to understand if we were to examine them one at a time, individually. We might well not be able to comprehend what their function is. But their utility immediately becomes apparent when we see how they fit into the structure--the system--of the ear. To expand this analogy only slightly, most of us would be unable to identify a great many of the 206 bones that make up our skeletal system if we were to view them individually. It is only when we see how they fit into the overall skeletal system that we come to a complete understanding of their individual meaning, and see how each part interdependently contributes to the whole system.

The Bible, as I have said, is a complete, coherent, comprehensive, system of truth. Just as with the human skeleton, we aren’t going to completely understand the parts without a clear view of the whole. Unfortunately, even in churches that genuinely desire to feed the flock with the truth of God’s Word, the pastor has no clear, unified theological system that he is following. He has no skeletal system to which he can attach the individual bones of truth. As a result, each Sunday he’ll pull out an individual bone from randomly selected parts of the theological body of knowledge and explain it to the congregation.

“Here’s the femur bone of God’s view of marriage.”

“Here’s the ulna bone of spiritual warfare.”

“Here’s the vertebrae of eternal security.”

Every Sunday the congregation learns all about a different bone but nothing about how it relates to the whole! The people are handed a jumbled pile of disjointed, unrelated, isolated bones which, apart from a theological system, have no real significance. You might approach a church member and ask him how he likes the teaching at his church.

“Oh, it’s wonderful,” the church member beams. He is dragging a large suitcase behind him. “I’ve been coming here ten years, and we almost always learn fascinating things about these bones!”

You glance curiously at the suitcase that he is straining to haul up the aisle. Perhaps he is packed for an extended trip to Europe. Your new friend notices your eyes flickering towards the heavy suitcase.

“Ah, you like my sermon notebook, eh?” he asks delightedly. “I have every one of Pastor Smith’s sermons in here.” He lets the suitcase fall to the floor with a heavy thump, unzips the cover, and throws it back. “See?” He looks up at you proudly. “I’ve saved every one of them!”

To your astonishment, you see that the huge suitcase is filled with dozens and dozens of bones! There are large bones and small bones, thick bones and slender ones, long and short bones, all tossed willy-nilly into the suitcase like some sort of ghoulish chef’s salad. You realize that your mouth is hanging down somewhere near your chest, and you abruptly snap it shut again. You ask the first question that comes to your mind: “Wow, you sure have a lot of bones in there! What do you do with them all? How do they fit together?”

The church member stares silently, almost resentfully, back at you. His lips move, but no sound emerges. He has no answer to give you! He has sat faithfully in church, Sunday after Sunday, listening to sermons that have explained a great many theological parts, but he has no idea how these parts fit together into a unified whole. He has no overarching structure--no skeletal system--which provides a framework for understanding the meaning of each of the individual bones he has been storing away so diligently.

Truth is a System of Thought

The God of the universe has created systems. He created solar systems--groupings of stars and planets and space, each member orbiting in relation to the other. He has created ecosystems--infinitely complex arrangements of plants, animals, water, and vegetation which interconnect in a marvelous symphony in which all the parts mutually reinforce one another, provide nourishment to the whole, and at the same time derive their sustenance from the whole. There are no “rogue” members of the system which contribute nothing to their environment. There is a marvelous tapestry of life which supports itself, as God directs.

God created man’s skeletal system, which we know consists of the 206 bones that support the body. Each of the widely varying shapes and sizes of bones contained in the skeletal system performs an important function, ordained by God, which contributes strength and support and agility to the body. At the same time, the human body gives meaning and significance to each of the individual bones.

God has also revealed a complete system of truth and knowledge called the Word of God. The Word is a supernatural revelation of the eternal mind of God. As with all God’s magnificent systems, there is a perfect harmony and interdependency among all the members. “Every word of God is pure,” Proverbs asserts. Every word--down to the merest article and the smallest preposition--every phrase, every proposition, every prophecy, every doctrine are all part of God’s grand and glorious revelation: “The whole counsel of God.” Each part provides strength and support to the whole, and the whole gives meaning and significance to each individual part. Charles Hodge wrote eloquently of the “harmony and consistency ... (the) systematic order and mutual relation” of God’s Word and the system contained therein, and asserted that “as [God] wills that men should study his works [systems] and discover their wonderful organic relation and harmonious combination, so it is his will that we should study his Word, and learn that, like the stars, its truths are not isolated points, but systems, cycles, and epicycles, in unending harmony and grandeur.”

The only complete and non-contradictory system of thought to be found on the planet is revealed in the pages of Scripture. Since the Bible is the only comprehensive, integrated system of truth, I must understand “the whole counsel of God” if I am going to understand each of its parts. If I wish to learn the book of Romans, I must comprehend the foundation that was laid in Genesis. If I am going to fully drink in the significance of Genesis, I must look to the prophecy contained in the book of the Revelation. The Word of God is a coherent, consistent, unified system of truth. Paul wrote about a “form of doctrine.” There is a form, a pattern of doctrine, revealed in God’s Word, that the great servants of historical, biblical Christianity have labored to bring to light. Gordon Clark wrote in his marvelous book on the proper role of education, “If truth is a system, as the omniscience of God guarantees, and if an institution of higher learning aims to transmit some truth, then a professor ought to have at least an elementary grasp of the system in order to locate the position of his subject in the whole.” Satan would have us think in terms of brute factuality. He wants us to concentrate on individual items of information, and he seeks to prevent us from developing a system of truth that assigns each of those items a place in an unbreakable chain of unified knowledge. When we learn and discuss any subject, we should always be sure we understand how it fits into the larger whole.

In his fine book, What is Faith?, J. Gresham Machen wrote that too many churches are teaching the applications of Christianity without teaching the Christianity which is to be applied. Believers must understand the theories--the pattern of doctrine--of Christianity before they can go out and apply it. Our churches preach a great many sermons and offer dozens of seminars on the various applications of Christianity--marriage, raising children, financial responsibility, and so on--but we are never equipped with an unassailable system of truth that links all these applications together. “Theory without practice is dead, but practice without theory is blind.” We haven’t been taught to think logically, systemically, and systematically. Professors of theology and the pastors they train talk about the derivatives of our faith without first explaining a unified theological system of faith. We’ve been equipped with an assortment of random, seemingly disconnected facts--a suitcase full of bones!

The unspoken implication of this kind of teaching is that Christianity is seen as only a part of the way we think. We believe our faith is useful for Sunday worship and helpful for relationships in the home, but far too often we don’t accept the Bible as our authoritative source of all knowledge and truth. We don’t know how to take our faith out into the marketplace of ideas and confidently demonstrate that it is an entire philosophical system of truth. Yet our God is a jealous God, and Christianity defiantly asserts that it is not a part of anything, but rather that complete and comprehensive whole. Christianity is not an approximation of the truth, or a part of the truth, it is the truth!

I’ll often find myself distressed when I hear a Christian debating with a secularist or a cultist. If you or I were a general going into battle, we would bring our entire army to bear against the forces of the enemy. We wouldn’t send a squad out to fight against our enemy’s army, because they would be destroyed. Yet this is precisely what so many believers do when they engage in the ideological battle raging in our culture today! Instead of bringing the entire biblical system of thought to the table, they bring one or two precepts from their faith, and then proceed to brandish these disconnected bones against the entire philosophical structure of their opponents. There is no strength in such an approach!

Similarly, Christians are often lulled to sleep by cultists who use the same terms that we do, but have applied different meanings to them. For example, when Jehovah’s Witnesses speak of salvation through Christ, they do not mean that salvation comes through the Christ of Scripture. But they often don’t define their terms, and the Christian walks away thinking that Jehovah’s Witnesses are his brothers in the Lord! Similarly, more and more evangelicals are proclaiming the many “similarities” between the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches. For example, they hear a Catholic theologian say that the Bible is the Word of God and reason that Protestants and Catholics share a common belief in the sole authority of Scripture. The naive Protestant doesn’t realize that the Catholic cedes the same authority to the words of the pope, as well. Both the words of Catholic tradition and the Word of God carry equal authority for the Catholic, but the terms are not clearly defined, so we are easily misled.

I make these points to show you that we must be able to incorporate our entire system into our philosophical and theological arguments, but we must also guard against a natural tendency to assume that others who utilize the same words actually give the same definition to those words. We hear words that belong to our own system of thought, and we assume that others are using these words in the same context and with the same definition. In a great many cases, nothing could be further from the truth.

How Strong is Your Bridge?

A good friend of mine described a demonstration in a high school woodworking class that applies perfectly to the unified nature of God’s truth. A group of students were studying the construction of bridges. The instructor wanted to stress the importance of the triangle shaped trusses that give a bridge its strength, so he issued a challenge to the entire class. They were told to construct model bridges using only popsicle sticks and glue. Each bridge had to be 18 inches long, but beyond that there were no limitations on the construction. The students could use as many popsicle sticks as they liked, in whatever configuration they thought would provide the most strength. The student who built a bridge that held more weight than the instructor’s would win a prize.

A dozen students accepted the challenge. When the day came to test the bridges, many of them had assembled very formidable-looking structures. The instructor laid several thick strips of lead across the span of each bridge. Most of the bridges immediately splintered and collapsed under the weight of one or two lead strips. One or two bridges held three lead strips for a few seconds, and then they, too, gave way. At last the time came to test the instructor’s bridge. None of the students thought his structure looked particularly impressive. Where some of the students’ spans had been triple-reinforced with popsicle sticks, the instructor’s bridge had only one layer. The students began jostling and tittering, anticipating that his bridge would quickly crumble in the same ignominious manner that their classmates’ had, only to watch in goggle-eyed surprise as the instructor proceeded to place six of the lead strips on his bridge. Not only did his bridge hold the weight, but it was still standing firm the next day when the students returned to class!

The reason, of course, was that his was the only bridge which had been built with trusses. These simple looking devices transfer the weight from the span throughout the whole structure, rather than forcing one isolated area of the bridge to take up the entire load by itself. The trusses allowed the collective strength of the entire bridge to carry the weight, whereas on the student’s bridges, only a few pieces were forced to withstand the entire load. They snapped, and the entire structure gave way.

The same thing is true of any philosophy. If the system of thought rests upon a few flimsy principles, and if even one of these principles is proven to be false, the entire body of thought quickly topples. In a system that is not unified and consistent, when the weight of logical criticism is directed at a few of its intellectual supports, they snap, and the whole system of thought is discredited. Isolated truths do not provide strength! Dear Reader, God did not give us a flimsy theological structure! We do not have a few detached doctrines of faith, each isolated from the other, and each incapable of bearing up under the withering criticism directed at Christianity by secular scientists, educators, and philosophers. God’s Word is the only formidable philosophical and theological system of truth, in which each part is interconnected and interdependent, providing the entire structure with solid, unshakeable strength and durability. Each doctrine mutually supports the other. When I listen to someone speaking, his statements filter through the complete system of biblical thought, allowing me to carefully and dispassionately evaluate the truth claims of the speaker. When you and I construct this kind of self-supporting structure, we are then able to reach out and build stable, sturdy bridges of belief toward the unbeliever--structures which will withstand any weight of criticism.

Tragically, most of our pastors have not been educated within this kind of a systematic framework! Oh, yes, they are required to study “Systematic Theology” at seminary, but even the best of these courses (and there are a great many bad ones) do not develop the implications of taking the great systematized, doctrinal truths of our faith and applying these truths to every aspect of home, business, society, and government. The Lord told Jeremiah “And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.” Knowledge and understanding are a system. This system is a knowledge and understanding of “the whole counsel of God,” i.e., the entire body of Scripture. It is this system of knowledge and truth which far too many of our pastors have not been taught, and which they, in turn, are not teaching their congregations.

Source, Means, and End

I’d like to see more people asking their spiritual leaders these questions:
“What is your source?”
“What are your means?”
“What is the end?”There are only two sources of knowledge available to us--the human viewpoint and the divine viewpoint. As we have seen, human viewpoints vary wildly, and often directly contradict each other. Therefore the source of human knowledge is somewhat uncertain. You pick out a teacher or philosopher who “sounds good” to you, and you learn from him or her. “You pays your money and you takes your choice.” The means of human transformation are the efforts and energy of men and women. The end of all this is that we give glory to self. “I went to this seminar, and it really changed my life! I bought the books, I listened to the tapes, I put what I learned into practice, I worked hard, I’m so much happier now, I’m a success, blah, blah, blah.”

It is the Word of God--plus nothing--that creates true, lasting human transformation. Once I bring man’s “wisdom” into the equation I fall into an attitude of pride, and I boast of my wisdom, my strength, or my riches. The Bible is the one and only source of revealed, objective truth. The focus is on the wisdom and glory of God. All the other sources of “discovered truth” are subjective: the focus is on self. The Bible, on the other hand, delivers the divine viewpoint. God’s Word gives us a consistent, coherent, comprehensive system of truth. The means of transformation are divine. It is the Word of God, which is “living and powerful,” and the Holy Spirit of God which effectively work within us to accomplish God’s purpose. Jesus said, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” We have seen that Jesus testified that God’s Word is truth. John 17:17 tells us that we are sanctified by the truth, and 2 Thessalonians 2:10 asserts that we are saved by the truth. Abraham’s servant testified that God leads us in the way of truth. The end of this transformation is that we give glory to God, not ourselves! Paul plainly directed Christian believers, “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.” If that wasn’t clear enough, Paul instructed, “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Many translators’ footnotes refer the reader of this verse back to Jeremiah 9:23-24:
This is what the Lord says:
“Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom
or the strong man boast of his strength
or the rich man boast of his riches,
but let him who boasts boast about this:
that he understands and knows me,
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight.”

The Bible defies addition. Moses commanded the people of Israel:“You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” Colossians 2:2-3 speaks of “the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Let us take a second look at 2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” This testifies to the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. The Bible is useful to prepare us for every good work, not just in the Sunday school and the sanctuary, but in every area of life and society. It is my prayerful goal that this book will convince you of the sufficiency, the authority, and the supremacy of God's Word. I also intend to provide you with the tools to teach your children the vitally important truth that the Bible is not just a book you carry to church and Sunday school, but it is God's blueprint for salvation, sanity, and civilization.

Where Do We Go From Here?

R.J. Rushdooney has said that “The incorporation of sound furnishings does not make up for unsound foundations.” Our first task is to learn together about the foundation--the rock of truth upon which we can build our theological house. That foundation is the Bible, God’s Word, and we will discover how and why the Scriptures are our completely trustworthy source of truth and knowledge. Once we have established the source of all truth, our next step will be to learn how we may reason correctly from truth. With truth and reason as the foundation for our theological house, we will then begin to construct the superstructure of a home that will last for eternity. We will examine the great doctrines of historical, biblical Christianity, and your heart will soar with reverence and joy as you see the great truths that have been handed down to us from our courageous spiritual forefathers.

As I said before, this book is only a primer. For some of you, this will be the first time you have been exposed to many of these concepts, and it is impossible in this one brief volume to give them all the most detailed attention. My intention is to give you the building blocks which will equip you to develop a biblical worldview. My hope is that you’ll want to learn more. Dr. John Robbins has developed a reading list of books written by the giants of our faith, which appears in the appendix to this book. I have benefitted tremendously from these great scholars, and so will you. These books, and others I’ll recommend for your library, will provide you with a biblical education surpassing that found in virtually any seminary or Christian university. You’ll be equipped to work with the leadership of your church to help all the members develop a Christian philosophy for all of faith and practice.

Some of you will eagerly take my advice and continue on with your learning. Others may stop when they have finished this book. If I give you nothing else, I hope to encourage a deep, abiding love and reverence for God’s Holy Scriptures. When you have finished Legacy, you will be prepared to pass on to your family the only legacy that will not rust, or rot, or fade away with time: the life-giving truth of the Word of God.

Join me now as we prepare to open the pages of that incomparable book. I hope you’ll approach this study with a sense of anticipation and delight. There is no greater gift that you can give your children than the gift of God’s legacy of truth.

“Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren, especially concerning the day you stood before the Lord your God in Horeb, when the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to Me, and I will let them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.’”