The Bible: God's Word

The Bible: God's Word
2 Tim. 3:16 - 2 Pet. 1:20-21
by Cooper Abrams

Introduction: Satan has attacked the Bible which is the Word of God every since God first spoke to man.
           In the Garden when the Devil tempted Eve she quoted what God had said, that they were not to eat the fruit of the tree of in the middle of the garden of Eden and would die if they did. The Devil replied, "That is not true, you will be like God."
          Since NT times Satan's has tried to destroy the Word God. After the church began he immediately began to sow doubts about the Bible in men's hearts. False teachers plagued the early church with all kinds of false teachings.
          The Judaizers began to teach in the Galatians and the Colossian churches that Christians must be circumcised and keep the Old Testament law. Some taught the Thessalonians they had missed the resurrection. In the Roman church were those who taught that sin was OK and that you should sin more to get more grace.
          Christians were tortured and burned with their Bibles at the stake. During the Dark Ages Satan had the Bible shut up in great cathedrals and monasteries and it was keep from the people. The Roman church said only priests could understand the Bible. They said that it would drive common people crazy. So they locked up the Bibles. That is one reason for the Dark Ages.
          Then came the reformers who began to read the Bible and preach its message of salvation by grace through faith and not of works. The Roman church persecuted those bold preachers and tortured them and burned them at the stake.
          John Wycliffe in England, began to translate the Bible into English and train young preachers called Lollards. When the people heard the Gospel there was a great revival and many were saved. The Anglican church hunted them down and murdered them one by one, burning their Bibles and many of them at the stake. Wycliffe got away and hid the remainder of his life in Europe. After he had been dead one hundred years the Church of England dug up his bones which were buried in the Canterbury church and burned them and threw his ashes into the river. They truly hated him and what was his crime? He preached the Bible, translated it so anyone could read it for themselves.
          Martin Luther, a Catholic priest, read the Bible and got saved and he too began to teach others the Gospel...they banded him a criminal and he was a fugitive the rest of his life.
          John Knox too, read the Bible and began to preach its message of forgiveness of sins and receiving of eternal life. They burned him alive at the stake for the crime of daring to preach God's Word.
          The printing press was invented and the first book printed by Gutenberg was the Bible. Luther translated it into Germany, Tyndale into English, Lafure in French, Erasmus completely the Greek text.
          The Devil could not keep the Bible from the people after the printing press was invented so he changed his tactics and began to attack the credibility of the Bible itself.
          In the 1800's from Germany came the higher critics of the Bible who said it was merely a group of religious myths written by the Jews in the four hundred year period before Christ. They denied this was God's Word and that it was no better that the Koran, the writing of Confucius.
          They bowed to Charles Darwin, who said God did not make the Universe, but it evolved naturally. Life came not from God, but from the chance happening of some inert chemicals coming together. Thus man is not responsible to God, there is God, no heaven or hell....so let the strongest force his will on everyone else. Adolf Hitler was a devoted convert to evolution and he tried to conqueror the whole world and make it serve him.
          Most universities and seminaries in the USA in the early 1900's began to leave the view that the Bible was correct and without error and began to teach the Graf-Wellhausen theory which is called Higher Criticism of the Bible. Its basically says the Bible is not the inspired word of God that it has errors, is a collects of myths and Jewish legends and is not historically or scientifically correct. The colleges and seminaries of every Protestant denominational teaches this including most SBC universities and seminaries as well.
          To discredit the Bible is to destroy the Gospel and call God a liar. I. The Bible is the final and only truth. 2 Tim. 3:16-17.

A. It says "all" Scripture is given by inspiration of God.

1. "Inspiration" means "breathed" by God.
2. Men were "superintended" by God so that each word they wrote was given to them by the Holy Spirit.

B. This is the teaching of "verbal plenary inspiration."

1. It does not say, part of the Scripture are true or that in the writing of these men we can find truth.
2. It says, "all Scripture given of God is God's truth."
3. It means that each and every word that the writers of the Bible God used, was so influenced and overshadowed by God that every word, even to the few punctuations used were perfect and were chosen by God to convey a particular truth. There is no error and anything in the Bible in the original manuscripts.

C. Note what God says the Bible is given by God for:

1. To record doctrine.
2. For reproof. Means: To rebuke error. (1 Tim. 5:20, 2 Tim. 4:2)
3. For Correction: Show those who erred where they went wrong and what is truth.
4. Instruction (training) in righteousness. Guiding believers toward maturity and godly living.

D. Reason and Result. 2 Tim. 3:17.

1. "Man of God." The believer, who has the responsibility to teach others.
2. The believer with the Bible is equipped to do God's work.
3. Note: Bible is the only source of truth and nothing else is mentioned here. Absent is church hierarchy and tradition. Our authority to live as God directs and to teach others to do the same comes only from God's Word.
4. The Bible is complete and stands alone needing nothing to instruct us in God's truth.

II. God breathed through the Holy Spirit and what those men wrote was actual what God wanted to say and it is historically and scientifically correct.

A. 2 Peter 1:20, says "no prophecy of Scripture is on any private interpretation."

1. "Prophecy" is used here as a reference in the sense of preaching and telling the Word of God.
2. No group or church as a monopoly on the Bible. It is given to all to read and understand.

B. The Bible verse 21 says did not come by the will of men, but God through the Holy Spirit used holy (separated) men to record his Word.

1. Literally the word "moved" means God bore them along.
2. The Holy Spirit superintended each word to make sure it was perfect and without error.

III. God is True and so is the Bible.

A. The Critics of the Bible said Moses did not write the Pentateuch as Jesus said. Why? When Moses supposedly lived men could not write and were no more than uncivilized savages. Jesus was deceived and did not know what he was talking about.

1. However, the archaeologists read the Bible and the Bible said there were the great civilized cities called Ur and Babylon. The went seeking these cities and what do you think they found. The remains of the cities exactly as the Bible says.
2. They uncovered the pre-flood city of ancient Sumerian's. These people were highly civilized and lived in wonderful cities. They had a paved streets, libraries, school for their children and adults, a well organized government with a system of Laws very similar to our own. They have bathrooms, water and sewer systems. They live in marvelous and beautiful buildings. They had a written language which today is called cuneiform.
3. All this a thousand years before Moses!!! They uncovered other great cities such as Ebla, and ancient Babylon. At Ebla, they found a library of cuneiform tablets that gave get incite into the everyday life of ancient peoples.
Some of the tablets were the writings of school children which were crude such as our children do when they are learning to write. They found the records of business and land transactions.
There never was a problem with the Bible, the problem was man's understanding.

B. These critics of the Bible said that our Old Testament was not reliable. The oldest manuscript was called the Masoretic Text and was dated 800 years after Christ. They concluded that the true scriptures were lost by being passed down for so many years and were corrupted.

1. However, in 1947, a shepherd boy, threw a stone into a cave in Palestine to run his goats out and heard a clay pot break. Inside the cave were found what is called the Dead Sea Scrolls.
2. They contained almost all of the Old Testament and also many other documents that were written 200 years before Christ!
3. When they compared them with the modern Old Testament, guess what they found? 98.3 % of the documents were letter for letter actually like our modern Old Testament!! The 1.7 % of variants (differences) all were differences in such things as the spelling of words and punctuation and so forth. No differences, not contradiction and errors were found! The Bible had been perfectly passed down during 1000 years without any error...nothing was lost or changed!

C. Think that would quiet the critics?? Nope. They said the Bible was in error because it spoke of the great people called the Hittites and not one scrap of evidence for them existed. Conclusion of the unbelievers....the Bible is in error it is a myth and that means it is not the word of God.

1. However, archeology kept on digging and began to uncover the Hittites cites.
2. They discovered it was exactly as the Bible said that the Hittites were a powerful group of people controlling in time a great deal of the Bible lands. That showed who was really wrong....the unbelieving critics and the Bible was again vindicated as being accurate.

D. Many other criticisms were leveled at the Bible and yet each time they are proven wrong.

1. I could go on for hours relating how the Bible has stood the test of time and been proven over and over again.
2. I could tell you about scientific statements found in the Bible, that have only been discovered within the past 70 to 100 years. 3. Yet the most amazing thing about the Bible is what it does in the lives of those who read it and by faith believe its message.

Conclusion: I have seen over the years people who's lives were wrecked. People overcome by alcohol, drugs, and sin all every description, who heard the message of God's Grace as this book proclaims and who believed and were delivered, changed and given a new a wonderful life.

I have seen, people who thought they were OK. Some even very religious, who heard the Gospel and had their minds and hearts transformed by the power of God.
People from all walks of life and backgrounds, whose lives were changed, who now rejoice in the new life Christ as given them.
This is the message of the Bible...its central theme....That Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, because all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That if a man would by simple faith, believe what God has said, and accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, they would have forgiveness of sin and eternal life.
That is the simple, but powerful life changing good news. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved.

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