VBS 2026 - "Unity of Scripture" by Chris Young - Part 4

Good evening.

Certainly appreciate everyone being here tonight.

Appreciate folks coming all the way from Africa to be in my class tonight.

Very complimentary. Just a few announcements.

This is Wednesday evening. We typically do announcements on Wednesday evenings. And I'm

not sure it would be scriptural if we didn't, so we'll do that. We want

to certainly extend our sympathies to Amanda Loden and her family

during the loss of her father, Jeffrey Hogue, who passed

away Monday, July 13th.

The Wynn Funeral Home will be where the visitation in Horse Cave

will be. That starts tomorrow from 4 to 8, and then Friday

will be the funeral. Visitation will start at 8 o'clock on Friday

until the time of the service at 11 o'clock. Also,

Lorvetta Dillard received her recent PET scan results,

which revealed tumors in her pancreas and liver.

She's chosen not to seek treatment, so please continue to pray

for her strength and all those that are on our

prayer list. So I wanted to make sure we communicated those, those announcements.

All right, let's start in Mark chapter 9 tonight.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

Mark chapter 9. I want to thank those who taught

Mark 9 · chapter mention

the class before me this week.

We've looked at a lot of interesting things, I believe.

I want to thank Bill for his presentation on the consistency

of Scripture and archaeology,

for Dale, who, his predictive

prophecies, And then also, Joey last

night with the scientific consistencies of Scripture.

And tonight, what we're going to be looking at, my assignment is the unity,

you call it unity or you can call it harmony of the

Scriptures with itself. And so, that's what we're going to

look at tonight. Start in Mark chapter 9

Mark 9 · chapter mention

and let's go down to verse 24. The context

here, Jesus had just healed a young boy, and his father

makes a comment here in verse 24 of Mark chapter 9. He says,

Mark 9 · chapter mention

Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears,

Lord, I believe; help my

unbelief. Lord, I believe;

help my unbelief. Do we ever find ourselves

there? We call ourselves believers.

We do believe, but sometimes there's

a little bit of seed of doubt maybe creep in.

And so, we also have to say, Lord, I believe,

but help my unbelief. I think that's

only natural that from time to time,

little pebbles of doubt might creep into our minds

And I think hopefully this week has been an encouragement to you,

not only as you study the Scriptures,

but also as you talk to others, what we've learned about

the archaeological consistencies of Scripture, the prophecies

and how they've come to be, and then also the scientific

consistencies. Well, tonight, again, we're going to be

looking at Scripture as a whole, and the unity

or harmony that's part of that. Let's go over

to a couple more Scriptures here. Let's go to 2 Peter

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1, 2 Peter chapter 1,

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

and let's look at verses 20 and 21,

2 Peter chapter 1, verses 20 and 21.

2 Peter 1:20

Here Peter writes, Knowing this first, that no prophecy

of Scripture is of any private interpretation,

for prophecy never came by the will of man,

but holy men of God, as they were moved by

the Holy Spirit. The second one I'd like

for us to take a look at is 2 Timothy 3,

2 Timothy 3, And Paul

writing to Timothy here, starting in verse 10 of chapter

3 of 2 Timothy, Paul writes, But you

have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of

life, purpose, faith,

longsuffering, love, perseverance,

persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me

at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra,

What persecutions I endured! And out of them all the Lord delivered

me. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in

Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse,

deceiving and being deceived. But you,

talking to Timothy, 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. I want

you to particularly notice verse 16, all Scripture

is given by inspiration of God

and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,

for instruction in righteousness. Look at verse 16,

the first part of verse 16 again, all Scripture is

given by inspiration of

God. I think a lot

of times we'll gloss over that Scripture and not really capture

what's being said, not realizing what's being said.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Do we believe that?

If that's really at the forefront of our minds and

of our hearts, and we're really honed

in on that, knowing that what we have

here is from God to

us, from God to

us, if we really believed

it, And if we really thought about that,

would we treat the Bible as we do now? Would we study

more? Would we be into the Scriptures more?

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.

It's profitable, and it gives all the ways that it's profitable.

So that's something to think about. Do tonight is talk

about how it's obvious that

this book that we have numerous copies

of, we're very blessed people that we have ready

access to Scripture, to what God is

communicating to us, we're going

to show how it's obviously inspired.

I realize you probably believe that it is,

but we may be talking to people on a daily basis

that may not believe that. There's a lot of people out

there that think, you know, this is a really good book.

It's like classic literature. It's like

Shakespeare or some great works of literary accomplishment.

But this is more than that. This is special.

This is from God. And so, that's what we're

going to look at tonight, and the unity and the harmony of

Scripture. We've looked at harmony with archaeology.

We've looked at harmony with the prophecies. We've looked at harmony with scientific

exploration.

Tonight, we're going to look at harmony of the Bible with itself.

Apologetics Press, Eric Lyons wrote an article.

It was in the book that Neil gave us to use as

a guide for these classes. I don't

think anybody's used this one yet, so I'm going to go ahead and read

this illustration to give you an idea of

how difficult it would be to pull off what's

been— by humans to pull off what what we have

here, okay, without God being involved.

Here's a story that Eric Lyons wrote as an illustration.

You have been given a very challenging task: help

write a 1,000-page book on human health

and nutrition with 39 other people.

The publishers of the book would like for it to become

the best-selling most trusted and complete book in the world

on eating healthy. It should be accurate about

everything. Is chocolate good or bad for you?

Is cow's milk harmful or helpful? Is it okay

to eat large amounts of pork? And what about

sugar? This is about eating healthy. Speaking of which,

it is perfectly fine as far as nutrition is concerned

to occasionally have a Papa John's pizza. They're really good.

It's also very acceptable to have

Baskin-Robbins ice cream with an extra

scoop. But don't do that within 15 minutes of each other,

okay? And don't ask me how I know that. The book needs

to be perfectly consistent without contradictions,

as well as in harmony with all scientific facts, whether known or currently

unknown. The publishers want to print a resource that

can stand up to all manner of inspection. They want a book that

will stand the test of time and be helpful to people for the next

2,000 years, if Jesus has not returned by then.

As if the job does not sound difficult enough, the publishers also inform

you that the chosen authors of the book have a lot

of differences. Several writers are from the United

States, but some are also from Canada,

Mexico, and Brazil.

Most speak English, but some speak Spanish,

and 2 speak Portuguese. There are a number

of cultural differences among the writers, including their diets,

and only a few of the chosen authors know

much about nutrition. To top it all off,

there is no financial gain working on such a difficult project.

No one will get a paycheck. Everything is being done

for the good of humanity.

Could we pull that off? Is that possible?

Is it humanly possible? Is it humanly

possible for even 2 or 3 writers

writing about the same subject to be consistent?

Without contradiction, to make it last for

thousands of years, to be— continue to be relevant?

That's what we're going to talk about tonight. We're going

to look at some things with Scripture that makes it obvious that

it is united, there is harmony,

and that it has to come from God.

When we think about the various— well,

let's look at the time period. What kind of time period are

we looking at here in Scripture? It's a period over approximately

1,600 years. You had Moses who

penned the books that he wrote roughly

around 1,500 BC. You had

Isaiah come along a few hundred years later around 700

BC. And then you've got Malachi around 400

BC. And then you have the writings of the New Testament,

which were roughly between 50 AD and 100 AD.

So, if you do the math, you're talking about a span of

1,600 years for 40 individuals,

40 individuals to write 66

books that comprise the

book that you have, okay, the Bible.

So think about that, over 1,600 years,

which is approximately 40 generations.

But then also add to that,

who are the writers? Are the writers in

sync with one another? Well,

they're in different time periods, but what about their

backgrounds? What kind of background does each of these writers have?

Is it consistent with one another? Well, I think we

could safely say that the writers of Scripture that

God used came from various backgrounds.

What about Moses? What was his background?

You can talk, by the way. It's okay. Pharaoh's house.

Okay, so he was a political leader trained in Egypt,

right? Okay. Who are some

others? How does that compare with,

say, several hundred years later, an author of,

you know, let's say Peter. Fisherman.

Peter have much education? Probably not,

okay? What about Amos?

Herdsman.

Joshua? Military guy, right?

Nehemiah? What was his profession?

Cupbearer, cupbearer to the king of Persia. What about Daniel?

Daniel, prime minister in the courts of Babylon.

You have one that wrote 2 books of the New Testament,

Luke. What about him?

Physician, doctor, right.

Solomon, a philosopher, you might say, a king.

What about Matthew?

Tax collector. The IRS,

basically. What about Paul?

Well-educated, Pharisee of Pharisees.

But he also worked with his hands, didn't he? Tentmaker.

Okay. So I think it becomes very clear that

not only was this book authored over a period of 1,600

years, by 40 individuals over

a long period of time, but they are from very

diverse backgrounds, very diverse backgrounds.

What about the circumstances they were in?

Okay, you had Paul, you know, he wrote some while

in prison, had the prison epistles, Ephesians,

Colossians, Help me

out here, Philemon, I think. Philippians, Philippians, there you go,

thank you. Okay,

Luke while traveling. What about John? What was his situation when he wrote

the book of Revelation? Exile,

island of Patmos, right? Okay, so we have

a diversity of authors, diversity of backgrounds,

diversity of You know, times,

diversity of location, okay,

3 continents at that time, Asia, Africa,

and Europe, languages, 3 languages,

Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek,

diversity of subject matter, okay.

So I think it becomes pretty clear that This

comes from God. This comes from God. Okay,

uh, let's see here. And it's organized

so well. Of course, you know, man has done the chapter breaks and

kind of organized some of this. It's not necessarily in chronological order,

but, you know, you have history and law. You also have a diversity

in writing styles, right? You have law

and history. You also have,

let's see, what else do we have? Poetry, we have

poetry, okay? We even have apocalyptic literature

that we see in the book of, primarily in the book of Revelation, but also

here and there in some other books as well,

basically communicating in signs and symbols like

the book of Revelation. We also have

a situation where we're promised that we're

going to have these Scriptures, the longevity,

we'll have this whenever Christ returns. If you go to Revelation chapter

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

12, you don't have to go there, but if you go to Revelation chapter

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

12, what you're going to see in John's

writing there in that apocalyptic language

or literature that he employs there, Meaning,

it's in signs and symbols. You're going

to see there that Satan tried to conquer

Christ. Didn't work,

will not work, okay?

Satan will also try to

conquer us. It makes it very clear. He may or

may not, that's going to depend upon us, right?

But he says, Satan also tries

to conquer and wipe out the church.

That's not going to happen. We're told that's not going to happen,

okay? There's something else that's not going to happen.

Go to 1 Peter chapter— let's go to

1 Peter chapter 1, back in 1 Peter.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

We'll go back there for just a minute. 1 Peter chapter

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

1, and let's look

at verses 22 through 25.

This is one of the things that's so special. You know,

books come and books go. You know, there'll be a book that's out

on the market for a while, and then, You know, it fades away.

But look at what we're told about Scripture,

starting in verse 22, since you have purified your souls in obeying the

truth through the Spirit and sincere love of the brethren, love one

another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed,

but incorruptible, through the Word of God,

which lives and abides, how long?

Forever. Forever, because— now,

look at the unity of Scripture here. He quotes Isaiah

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

chapter 40 right here, Peter does.

All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as

the flower of the grass. The grass withers,

and its flower falls away. Now remember, he's quoting somebody

from hundreds of years before, He says,

but the Word of the Lord endures!

He puts an exclamation point on here, endures forever!

Okay? Christ's church will

endure. God's Word will also endure.

It's what makes it unique, makes it special,

okay, one of the things, okay? And again, that's a quote

from Isaiah 40:8. Showing that

Isaiah 40:8

unity, okay?

So, unity of God's Word,

the fact that it's so harmonious even among 66 books,

okay? A few other areas that shows the unity of

Scripture. There's a unity of the overall

theme of this book, okay?

If I were to ask you,

the Old Testament, what is, in one sentence,

what is the overall theme of Genesis

to Malachi of the Old Testament?

Christ is coming. A Savior is coming. Okay?

Absolutely. Okay?

If I were to ask you, okay, Let's go to the New

Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Gospels.

What's the overall theme in one sentence of

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Christ came,

right? He was here. What is the overall

theme, Acts to Revelation?

He's coming back, okay?

That's how you boil it down.

Unity of theme. Now, that's communicated within

the Law. It's communicated within the prophecies.

It's communicated within the Gospels.

It's communicated within letters to

individuals. It's communicated in letters to churches.

It's communicated to the 7 churches of Asia

in an apocalyptic manner.

That is the unity of the

Scripture, the whole Scripture authored over 1,600 years by

40 individuals through God, by God,

okay? You also have another

area, unity of God's instructions.

There's consistency there. If you take a

subject, let's say, lying,

for instance, okay? There is harmony,

there's unity of Scripture there. Let's take a

look at that. Go to Exodus chapter 20,

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

Exodus chapter 20 and verse

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

16,

Acts chapter 20 and verse 16.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

What's going on in Exodus 20:16?

Exodus 20:16

We're in the midst of the 10 Commandments, right? What's verse

16 say? Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor. In other words,

don't be lying about your neighbor, okay? Don't be doing that.

So that was written somewhere around 1450 BC.

Well, let's go 500 years later and see what Solomon has

to say about it. In Proverbs chapter 12.

Proverbs 12 · chapter mention

Proverbs chapter 12, and let's go down to

Proverbs 12 · chapter mention

verse 17. Here Solomon writes,

He who speaks truth declares righteousness,

but a false witness deceit. There is one who speaks

like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health.

The truthful A true lip shall be established

forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment.

Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil, but counselors of

peace have joy. No grave trouble will overtake the

righteous, but the wicked shall be filled with evil. Lying lips

are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal truthfully

are his delight. So, what Solomon pens

there sounds like right on track with what we saw

in Exodus chapter 20. Alright, let's go about 1,000

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

years later and see what Paul has to say on the subject.

Ephesians chapter 4, Ephesians chapter

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

4, and let's go down to about verse 25.

Here Paul writes, therefore putting away lying, Let each

of you speak truth with his neighbor,

for we are members of one another.

So, there's harmony and unity in God's instructions,

and that's an example. It's other things too,

murder, you know, just pick, and it's consistent

throughout Scripture. There's also unity

and consistency as it pertains to historical

accounts. If you look at, you know,

those rulers that Paul was in front of, it lines up perfectly

with actual history, okay?

Another area I'd like for us to look at as far as example

of unity of Scripture, this is probably one

of my favorites. And let's

go to Genesis chapter 2. Let's kind of go toward the beginning

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

there, Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

All right, let's go down to about verse

8. What I want us to look at here is

the unity of the end of human history

with the beginning of human history, okay?

So, what's going on here? In Genesis chapter 2,

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

finishing up creation, right? In chapter

2, man is created.

See verse 4, he says, this is the history of the heavens and the earth

when they were created. And if you go down

to verse 8, there's a few things I'd like

for you to particularly notice. Starting in

verse 8, it says, the Lord God after He'd made

man here, planted a garden eastward in Eden,

and there He put the man whom He had formed.

And out of the ground, the Lord God made every tree grow

that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

The tree of life,

keep that in mind. You can even mark it if you want to. The tree

of life, okay, pay particular attention to that,

was also in the midst of the garden,

and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Verse 10, now a river, remember that,

river, okay? So remember tree of life,

remember river. Now a river went out of Eden to

water the garden. And from there it parted

and became 4 riverheads. Okay?

Remember tree of life, remember river.

Let's see,

go down to— let's go

down to verse 15. Then the

Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden.

To tend and keep it. And the Lord God

commanded the man, saying, of every tree

of the garden you may freely eat, but of the

tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in

the day that you eat of it you shall surely

What happens? Chapter 3 happens,

right? Chapter 3 happens. Is chapter

Isaiah 3 · chapter mention

3— is that a good thing? Chapter 3,

disobedience.

And you're going to see some words as a result of

this sin that has now entered the world.

Sin has now entered the world. Man has become disobedient,

and as a result, there are some words you are going to see.

Look at verse 16 of chapter 3,

because you have done this, you are cursed. You see the word

cursed. If you go on down,

He talks— He is talking to the serpent there, then He talks

to the woman. And the curse.

Then to Adam, about verse 17,

cursed is the ground for your sake. Okay?

You see all that? Cursed. Remember that word,

cursed. Go down to verse 23,

therefore the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of

Eden to till the ground from which he

was taken. Verse 24,

remember this, so he drove out the man,

remember that, and he placed cherubim

at the east of the Garden of Eden with a flaming sword

which turned every way to guard the way to the

tree of life. Okay, remember,

They've been banished from the garden, no access

to the tree of life. Remember that.

Go all the way back, to the back of

your Bible, to Revelation chapter 21.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

Revelation chapter 21.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

We're going to get a description of heaven.

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and

the first earth had passed away, and there was no more sea.

Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem,

coming down out of heaven from God.

Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice

from heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with

men. Look at this. He will dwell with them,

and they shall be His people. God Himself

will be with them and be their God.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes,

There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.

There shall be no more pain, for the former things

have passed away. Look at this wording in verse

5, then He who sat on the throne said,

behold, I make all things new.

Why is He making things new? Because of Genesis

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 when man gommed everything up.

Sin comes into the world. He's going to make

everything new. And he said to me, write, for these

words are true and faithful.

Go over to chapter 22. As he continues this description,

look at the wording that's used and notice the

harmony and the unity as

he concludes human history here,

the end of human history, and ties it to the beginning.

Look at the wording that's used here and see if you notice

anything. Hint,

maybe something we've just read, okay?

Chapter 22, verse 1, And He showed me

a pure river of water,

where did we hear that? Genesis chapter 2,

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from

the throne of God and of the Lamb.

In the middle of its street, and on either side of

the river, was the tree of life.

Where have we heard about that tree of life? Genesis chapter 2

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

at the beginning. Which bore 12 fruits, each tree yielding

its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were

for the healing of the nations. And there shall be

no more, what? Curse.

No more curse. Where do we hear about curse?

Genesis chapter 3, right? And the throne

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

of God and of the Lamb shall be

in it, and His servants shall serve Him.

They shall see His face.

Whose face? God, okay?

Remember, they were driven out.

Sin will separate you

from God. In the end,

all the effects of sin— remember, all things made new?

All the effects of sin are going to be gone. No effects

of sin in heaven.

They shall see His face, and His name

shall be on their forehead. There shall be no night

there. They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord

God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and

ever. So here,

talking about unity of Scripture,

John is linking up the end of human history

with the beginning that we saw in Genesis chapter 2 and

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

3.

Humans by themselves cannot pull this off.

Absolutely no way. Absolutely no way.

Period of 1,600 years, 40 individuals

being used that spoke 3 languages,

from 3 different continents over

a period of about 40 generations, and you

will not find a book anywhere that links

up and harmonizes like

Scripture does. And what we've been promised,

just like the church will be here, When Christ

returns, so will this. So,

when we think about that, the fact that

this 66 books, it's a letter to me

and it's a letter to you from God.

If we keep that at the forefront of our minds,

I don't think we'll be leaving the book on the shelf. We'll be

getting in it. And we'll be learning from it and we'll be doing

what it says. I appreciate,

again, Bill and Dale and Joey

and the way they've— the way they showed that.

But they did an outstanding job. And between

that and the way you see the unity of the Bible,

surely, There's no doubt who

this book is from. Any comments or anything

anybody else wants to make? I've done pretty much all the talking. Yes, sir.

Chris, it's interesting that when Jesus was

tempted 3 times, he said,

it is written. Yeah. Satan knows the Word. Right.

He misuses it, uses it, but Jesus

That's all he had to say. Right. We can say

the same thing. Absolutely. Others say the same thing. Absolutely.

The Word of God does. Sword of the Spirit. That's right. That's right.

You know, it talks about the sword of the Spirit. That's what Scripture is.

Anything else? All right. Thank you

all for your attention. I think I was

told you're supposed to be in here quietly until the children come back.

But you can talk if you want to, I think. All right.

Thank you.