Sunday March 14, 2021 PM

Alright folks, we're going to go ahead and get started. Well, we're going to come back to our study and is entitled coming to the Bible. And of course many people have a great deal of questions about the Bible and I think the best place to start answering those questions are from the Bible itself.

Those are the most satisfying answers. They are the most faith-building answers that we would come to the word of God and God has not left the critical and needful answers to our questions up for grabs.

He has given us the answers in his word. He wants us to be assured of the quality and the goodness of his word and he has given many answers to the questions we tend to have and one of the most recent questions we've been asking is why these books?

We know that there are other books written ancient books written that well, they don't have anything to do with Christianity and there are other books that were written in between the old and the New Testament.

We call them the Apocrypha like first and second Maccabees and different books like that, but those aren't included in our Bibles and there are other books written during the New Testament era that we do not have included in our Bibles either like the Didache or the Shepherd of Hermas.

Why don't we have those books in why these books but not other.

Books?

And so we've been answering that from the angle of what does the Bible have to say about itself? And so we've talked about the Bible's self-attestation that what is being said by the prophets and the apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is in fact, this is the.

Word of the Lord.

This is this. These are the words of God written down important to pay attention to and to follow Bible also is self-arbitrating false teaching false prophets are named their false doctrines exposed and rejected and done.

So in a way in which the Bible agrees with itself, no matter if you're in Genesis or Revelation there is agreement in the books of the Bible that we have and that's called the Bible's self-affirmation.

In fact, the Bible quotes itself all the time. The latter Old Testament quotes the former Old Testament affirming the words that were written down before the New Testament, of course quotes the Old Testament.

In fact, in a couple of places the New Testament quotes the New Testament. So you see that the Bible affirms itself and we've come to the fourth point of this particular study, which is the Bible's self-authentication.

How do we know this is the word of God these 66 books and not.

Others?

Well, there's the self-authentication of the Bible. And we see this in a few passages John chapter 10 verses 26 to 28 is one such passage. And so Jesus is explaining the difference between folks. Some are his sheep.

Some are not his sheep and what good news it is if we are his sheep and verses 26 to 28. He says this but you do not believe he says to the Pharisees to the religious leaders of the day. He says you do not believe why because he hadn't given them enough evidence.

Oh, he had given them all the evidence in the world when Jesus himself is living in your towns and your time and doing those kinds of miracles. They've been given massive amounts of evidence that he is indeed the Christ the son of the living God.

Now he's going to tell them why they don't believe he says, but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep as I told you and that's why they don't believe my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.

You see that my sheep hear my voice. And I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.

Well, we've been talking about the nature of Scripture for quite some time that Jesus Christ being the one mediator between God and man that by that through the Holy Spirit that Christ speaks the word of God through his prophets and his apostles to us when it says my sheep hear my voice and they follow me.

Where do we hear the voice of Jesus Christ? We do not hear it from prophets on TBN who were visited in their sleep with some special word. Okay, we do not hear it in Sarah Young's meditations Jesus calling that is not the voice of Jesus.

Where do we hear the voice of Jesus Christ? We receive the voice of Jesus Christ and hear what he has to say to us in this word in Holy Scripture. That's where we receive his voice. That's how we hear what he has to say.

And then how do we follow him? Well not to be just hearers of the word but doers also and that's how we follow Jesus by hearing what he has to say to us in the word of God and then following I'm not totally against a red letter Bible, but let's just be clear.

Jesus said more than what was on the red letters. Okay, the whole thing should be in red if it's going to be a red letter edition. Okay, so we need to hear what Jesus has to say and follow him. And now the reason why I'm saying this is self-authenticating is that when the people of God read the word of God, they know.

It is.

They hear the voice of Christ and then they follow him. It's an interesting phenomenon that during some of the early persecutions in the church such as the one under the Roman Emperor Diocletian and so on that they were they were into canceling things back then as well.

And they wanted to cancel all kinds of books that they saw to be dangerous to the stability of the Empire, you know important for the greater good and love your neighbors. So give up your religious literature that's causing so much instability.

And Christians are testimony of the of the Christians during this time was that whereas they would be perhaps willing to give up their copy of the Shepherd of Hermas, which was a devotional or to give up their copy of Adidake, which was the discipleship manual for the early church.

They were unwilling to give up their copy of the book of James or their copy of the book of Matthew and they would die for that but they would not do so for these other books. And why were they making such a because they knew what was the word of God and what wasn't.

You see they knew what was the word of God and what wasn't. Jesus' sheep hear his voice that and he knows them and they follow him. The Bible self-authentication is also seen in the blessing of conversion of regeneration.

Let's look at first Peter chapter 1 verse 23 through 24 first Peter chapter 1 verses 23 through 24 might even go to 25. Now we read this having been born again. Remember that Jesus said Nicodemus you must be born again unless he is born again.

He cannot even see the kingdom of God. You must be born again and Nicodemus wanted to know how he was able to do that. How do I go through that process? How do I how do I birth myself again? And Jesus told him it was of the Holy Spirit.

Well notice how the Spirit works having been born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible through the word of God which lives and abides forever because all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass the grass withers and the flower falls away.

But the word of the Lord endures forever. When the word of God is preached in Jesus' parable of the sower when the when the when the word of God is sown when it lands on on ground good ground what happens there is life there is life the new birth God means for the new birth includes the preaching of the word of God the teaching of the word of God the reading of the word of God and this authenticates the Bible as the word of God when new life comes from the use of the word of God and the preaching of the gospel and the sharing of the gospel.

And again in John chapter 20 verses 30 through 31 and truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book. Don't you wish you knew what those were? You know oh come on what about all the other things and he says but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the son of God and that believing you may have life in his name.

So that and we'll see this again in our next point. We're going to go to second Timothy three but the word of God is especially given so that when we receive the words of God that we believe the truth of God that we are saved by the grace of God so that this was written so that believing in him we would have life in his name.

So like why this is not true. This is not true of the other books that were written in and around that time the books that are not scripture though. They may be ancient. They are not the word of God. They are not scripture and but the scripture is given to us so that we may have that we may hear the words of Christ may hear the voice of Christ and follow him even from the very beginning when he first calls us to follow him and our regeneration our new birth.

So that's not necessarily a satisfactory answer to everyone why these books and not others but it certainly it certainly is the answer that the Bible gives. Now the next question is this what good is it?

All right.

What good is the Bible? This question comes from a perspective of well, it's very old.

Right?

The Bible is very old written a long time ago talks about people and places and and issues that are no longer really the theme.

Of the day.

Right?

We're not as we read through the Old Testament for doing our Bible readings. You know, we're not really concerned about whose ox is pinned.

Up.

Correctly. Okay, not necessarily concerned about the Feast of Tabernacles and and how to do that properly. Okay, we're you know, we're not really concerned about whose faces on what Denarius. Okay, reading through, you know, we're not really concerned about whose runaway slave went where and how to get him back and how to make reconciliation.

All sorts of things in the Bible that you read about that are not necessarily at the forefront of of our minds and our concerns of today. Okay, written a long time ago and languages that that few people understand how to be translated and preserved all so what good is it?

Well, that answer is given to us in the Word of God. The Word of God tells us what good the Word of God is and so and it does so throughout throughout the scripture. So let's go to 2nd Timothy 3 to answer this question.

Of course, there are other places we could go. I read for us out of Hebrews chapter 4 this morning, which is another place that we could go to but in 2nd Timothy chapter 3. I want to read verses 14 through 17.

The first thing that it's good for is it's good for conversion. It's good for regeneration. It's good for bringing us to Christ a saving knowledge of Christ. So for 2nd Timothy 3 beginning in verse 14 Paul says to Timothy, but you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of knowing from whom you have learned them and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

So do you hear the good of Holy Scripture? Now it says knowing from whom you have learned them. Well, of course Timothy learned a lot from Paul, but that was not the only Paul was not the only person who discipled Timothy.

There was there was some other folks who else discipled Timothy his mother and his grandmother Eunice and Lois. We learn about that in chapter 1 of this book. So and how did they disciple him? How did they teach him?

Well, they use the Holy Scriptures. Well, what Holy Scriptures did they have Old Testament? You know today is it? Well, if you're going to disciple someone and bring them through the Scriptures tell them about the good news of of Jesus Christ.

Well, you take the book of Mark see do eight special studies out of the book of Mark or or you take the Gospel of John and you read through that. Well, what what did Eunice and Lois use in the in the case of Timothy grandson and son they use the Holy Scriptures.

What did they have? They had the Old Testament. And now what does Paul say about the good of the Old Testament? Well, he says that they are that the Holy Scriptures which what they had was the Old Testament.

These are able to make you wise for salvation. Through faith, which is in Christ Jesus now. Now normally in anybody's evangelism class. If they're going to give you some scriptures to memorize in order to witness to someone it's not a bad thing at all, but they're basically going to give you some Old Testament Scriptures to give you the law which is a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ the fact that we need a Savior is exposed the fact the law exposes our sinfulness and so on but then they're going to give you the New Testament Scriptures which are undoubtedly very clear about the nature of Christ being our.

Savior.

But this is not to say that the Old Testament is unable to give us a witness of Jesus Christ in him as our Savior. Oh, in fact it is. Do you remember how Philip evangelized the Ethiopian eunuch? What book of the Bible?

Isaiah.

That's right.

The Bible and of course we could go to the Psalms. We go to many places in the Old Testament where clearly there's a gospel witness salvation in the Messiah salvation in Jesus.

Christ.

And so it is good for conversion. It is in fact essential that the Scriptures be used to bring attention to the need for a Savior in the person and work of the Savior Jesus Christ. And so it is good for it is if it's good for conversion if it's good for generation certainly it's good for the children.

Good for family right. This is what in the context he's talking about Eunice and Lois discipling Timothy. When we think about that we can see how good it is for children. The Bible is good for children.

We're on the cusp of living in a society where the Bible will be used to the Bible and a child's life will be called child abuse and I don't know if it's going to happen in five years or ten years or five months or ten months but at some point there's going to be a big screaming fit after having canceled Dr. Seuss the bullseye is on the Bible nuts not Dr.

Seuss.

They can lynch Dr.

Seuss.

He's easy to lynch but the Bible is the most is that is the bestseller in all of history. So they're working their way up the ladder see and at some point they're going to say the use of the Bible in the life of a child as child abuse.

But what does the Bible say? Well Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 6 through 9 and these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. He shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and 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 should be as front lit between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. In other words. Everything you do needs to be directed and named by the word.

Of God.

So everywhere you look word of God is the way you're going to understand whatever you're looking at whatever you do if you do your hand whatever work you do. The word of God is what should be defining the way you do it and everything you do in life get up lay down morning and evening coming and going should all be defined by the word of God and that is how to raise up your children in that way.

So they will fear the Lord and see the world through his point of view. And in many ways this is the way that children come to faith in Jesus Christ. Is it not by being instructed in the ways of the Lord they come to know who God is and come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through the discipling efforts of not only their parents but also their grandparents praise the Lord.

And so I guess of course you've already said it but we might as well say it again. It is good for salvation. John chapter 5 verses 38 through 40. Fact it is so good for salvation. The word of God can even be used to save religious people.

It's good news.

John chapter 5 verse 38 Jesus is talking to some religious people and he says but you do not have his word abiding in you because whom he sent him you do not believe you search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life.

But these and these are they which testify of me but you're not willing to come to me that you may not so that you may have life. In other words he's saying the word of God testifies of Christ and it is Christ who is your Savior it is Christ who gives you eternal life it is Christ who dies for you and is raised from the dead for you who lives for you and reigns over you and will return for you.

It is Christ who saves you and it's the scriptures who testify of him. So just because you have a Bible doesn't mean you have eternal life just because you read a Bible doesn't mean you have eternal life.

The Bible testifies to Jesus and he's the Savior and so and God is pleased to use the scriptures as that means. So what good is it first of all it's good for conversion and secondly it's good for completion not just conversion but completion not just regeneration but also restoration.

So in 2nd Timothy 3 back to the passage that we're in 2nd Timothy 3 Paul has more to say about the word of God. Moving past verse 15 look at verses 16 and 17 these are the ones that are very famous. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction and righteousness that the man of God may be complete thoroughly equipped for every good work.

And so so so what's it good for the word of God these God-breathed words these holy scriptures are good for doctrine reproof correction and instruction. They are fully sufficient for our faith and our practice.

Now the word doctrine first of all profitable for doctrine some translations say teaching and that is the meaning of the Greek word in play. It is any dictum or any system of belief teaching but not what kind of doctrine it is the doctrine of God doctrine of man the doctrine of sin the doctrine of even the word of God the teachings.

It's good for teaching so we would understand all these vital things that is good for doctrine. Some people don't think that doctrine is good. But anytime we talk about who God is we're talking doctrine.

It says I don't need doctrine I just need Jesus. Well I agree we all need Jesus but who is Jesus and what did.

He do.

And as soon as you open your mouth to say who he is and what he does you're speaking doctrine. Now it may be good doctrine it may be bad doctrine but the Bible is the determiner of that. So you have to study the scriptures to know who Jesus is and what he has done.

This is essential to our lives. So it's good for doctrine. It is not good to go find our understanding of God through some sort of piloting to the inner self to discover God in us as some people do. It is not a good idea to go find a high mountain somewhere and go meditate for a while and discover God at 9000 feet.

That's not where we get our doctrine. We don't get our doctrine from somebody else's amazing experiences. We don't get our doctrine from our amazing experiences. We get our doctrine our teaching our understanding of God and who he is and who Christ is and what the world is all about.

We get it from the word of God. It's good for doctrine. So if you want to know anything doctrinally you go to the word of God you go to the scriptures and anybody else writing a book on doctrine should be doing the same thing going to the word of God and submitting to the authority of Christ there.

It's also good for reproof. Good for reproof. This is an interesting word. I like to sum up 2nd Timothy 3 16 and these four things by saying it's good to tell us what's true where we're wrong how to get right and how to live God's way.

That's how I paraphrase this verse. And so, you know, what's true where we're wrong and this is very often the use of reproof saying, oh, you're wrong in.

This.

Well, we need to be told that. But when we're being told we're wrong in a certain area if we will submit to the authority of the word of God in that manner at the same time we're being told where we're wrong we'll be grabbing hold of what is right the grabbing hold of what is true letting go of a wrong idea so that we will grab the right idea letting go of a wrong way of living to grab the right way of living at this very same word.

It's very same word of reproof is used in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 1 which we talked about this morning. Now faith is the substance of things hope for the evidence of things not seen look at the word evidence.

That is the same Greek word as we have here in this passage. So this word is a conviction of proof. Some sort of conviction of proof. So the word of God is good for a proof in this way. The word of God provides us evidence that we're wrong.

Okay, and we're shown that so that they will grab hold of that that evidence so that that evidence becomes our conviction the evidence becomes what we believe having been so confronted in this way. I will now believe the right way.

And so the word of the Lord is good for that good for doctrine good for reproof and good for correction. Good for correction. This is the only place in the New Testament where this word appears in the original and has the idea of of being restored.

It has the idea of somebody who who is bent over in great pain, but then being straightened up again. And so it's good for straightening you up. You know straighten up the word of God is good for that.

It's good for correction. It's it's taking something that is crooked twisted and bent and putting it right again. The word of God is good for that. You know, we live in a world that needs to know what truth what what is the truth.

We live in a world that needs to know who God is what this world's all about. What is sin? Who is Jesus Christ? What is man? I mean this world needs truth. We need truth. We need the doctrine that we live in a world that is full of wrong ideas that needs to be corrected.

We live in a world that is that is crooked twisted and perverse. Well, how in the world is anything ever going to get straightened down in anybody's life except by the word of God? The word of God straightens us out.

It it it the word of we have the promise of God that not only are can we have our sins forgiven but we can have our sins cleansed. We can be restored the word of God can do that. And also it's good for instruction.

It's good for instruction here. We have a word that basically means parenting has the idea of chastening and nurturing and instruction all together. The word of God is good for for parenting. How does the Heavenly Father parent us?

He does so through the word through the scriptures. He nurtures us. He chastens us. He instructs us. The word of God is good for instruction. How are we supposed to live? Now you can tell that these four words relate to one another they have their emphases but they all relate to one another and the end result is there in verse 17.

That the man of God may be complete thoroughly equipped for every good work. The idea is that one is fitted for the work. So if you were like Brother Ray, if you're a welder, there's a whole bunch of equipment and outfit you have to have in order to be a welder and if you're not fitted for the job, you can't do the job.

You don't have the equipment if you don't have the training don't have the know-how and so on then you're not fitted for that job. You can't do this job. Well, the word of God fits us equips us gets us ready for what every good work that covers a lot of ground.

There's a lot of good good works that God has prepared for us in Christ Jesus and it's not just about, you know, polishing.

Pews.

There's good works everywhere in the world at every level.

Everywhere.

There's good work to be done in the name of Jesus Christ. How in the world are we going to do any of it? We're going to be equipped to do it by the word of God thoroughly sufficient for every good work.

The word also complete or thoroughly equipped has the idea of or the idea of complete means that you're ripened. You're brought along to that proper stage where you're going to be most effective. Thoroughly equipped.

You're furnished completely for everything that you need to.

Do.

Look how good the word of God is. We are not left in a hopeless condition. Yes, there's you know, we can always think about the great mess out there, but God has given us a stewardship right up here and there's good works right in front of us that we need to do and we leave the big picture to Christ.

He's ruling and reigning and he's going to take care of it, but there's good works right in front of us that we need to.

Do.

There's things that need to be straightened out. There's things that need to be corrected. There's things that need to be taught and people need to be discipled. And so how are we going to do all these good works?

Word of God furnishes us completely for the good works that God has prepared for us and given to us to do. So we as children need to listen to the instruction of our Heavenly Father, take that up and then do whatever it is he's put in front of us to do, depending upon him.

I've got a good encouraging story for you. This is from an article from a Christian periodical. This is another exciting story came from a part of the world we can't name for security reasons. Wycliffe translators there told us about going to test a newly completed translation of Matthew in a local village.

We talked about translation, how important translation is that God wants people to have the Word of God in the language they know best. So when you do that, you try to translate the Bible into the language.

They understand that you have to test it to see if maybe you got a word or an expression wrong where they say, well, we don't know what that means. You have to test it. So you have a test reading. After you do the translation work with some locals helping you, then you test the reading with a larger group of people.

Our missionaries to the Pawlika people have been doing that in completing the New Testament for them. Okay, so the article continues, community testing is a central part of the rigorous process of Bible translation as a translation needs to be not only theologically accurate, but it's meaning clear to mother tongue speakers.

While Christians often help with community testing, this is not always possible. And in this case, Muhammad, the local imam, was involved. It makes sense that the local imam would be the most educated guy around, the most literate he could read.

Okay, so he's going to help with his translation of the Bible. Isn't God good? During the reading of Matthew, the imam was concentrating very hard as he grappled with and made comments about what Jesus was declaring.

On their third day together, the imam seemed to be bothered by something and was thinking deeply. The Bible translators stopped and pointed out that he didn't seem to be following the reading. The imam responded by saying, I am following.

It's just that these words are very powerful and forced me to think about my life. When he finished reading Matthew and later John, after it was translated, the imam said, when you have finished translating the Bible, this town will understand the truth and will change.

That will be the death of our religion. That's what it's good for. God knows what he's doing with his word. We can praise the Lord for that. Let's praise him now by singing the doxology together.

Praise God.