Questions Christians Ask: Is the Bible Really Reliable?

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Lord, it's our prayer today that the wellness that comes from the truth will be over our souls like a waxy seal.

So easy to believe for a long time and then just kind of get tired and grow weary in well-doing.

We come to confess today that it is well with our soul.

It is right.

It's like strawberry rhubarb pie.

It just sets you right.

And so when we say, it is well with my soul, we're saying, Yes, God, what you do is good.

And it's well.

That's not a word we use.

It's not a, we don't put words together like that anymore.

But we've come today into this building as the church.

This building's not the church.

These people are the church.

And you're building your church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Because Jesus is Lord, and the kingdoms of this world are becoming the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.

Just like the Bible says.

And so, Lord, we come together to confess that it is well.

You don't have to check with us, you don't have to confer with us or consult with us.

What you do is right and it is well.

And I pray that the wellness of God will just kind of be over our souls today.

We don't come today and listen to find offense.

We come today and we listen to be convicted, to be conformed, to be shaped into who the Bible says we are.

That's why we're here today.

Lord, don't let us just come and check a box.

Don't let us just come and just kind of go through religious motions.

Thank you that you've rescued us from the enslaving emptiness of religion.

And you've made available to us all a relationship of substance and thought and joy and gladness.

Give ourselves to that now.

We do it in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

You can have a seat.

If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to 2 Timothy chapter 3.

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

If you're our guest today, we just started a new series last week entitled Questions That Christians Ask.

Questions Christian Christians Ask.

And we're just looking at different questions that Christians ask.

And the question today is simply this can we excuse me, is the Bible really that reliable?

Is the Bible really that reliable?

Because I hear you say, I've never asked that.

I just started writing down months ago when we planned this sermon series.

I just started making note.

I see a lot of people in pastoral counseling situations.

Uh, if you're new to our church, know this.

We don't want to just preach to you.

We want to be your pastor, okay?

And so uh when when you hear people preach, it ought to stir up questions.

Matter of fact, a guy asked me recently, he said, Hey, do the people in your church, do they read read the Bible?

Is your church about the word?

And I said, Yeah, we're very much about the word.

I said, I don't think all the people in my church read the Bible.

He says, How do you know the ones that are actually reading the Bible?

I said, They're the ones that have questions.

And he looked at me and he said, I don't get it.

I said, If you read the Bible, you'll have some questions.

It'll kind of burn you and jolture.

You'll be like, no, wait a minute, what exactly does that mean?

But I just started making notes, and here's some things that people have said to me just over the past couple of months about the Bible.

Uh, can we really trust the Bible?

Uh, how do you know that it is what it claims to be?

Uh one guy said, Are you willing to take your life on it?

I said, I already have.

Why?

That's why I'm sitting on this side of the desk.

Uh, I'm not here because we have dental insurance.

Uh after all, the Bible is just a book written by men, so we can't take it too seriously.

But here's my favorite this is from a 20-year-old.

You just need to know that uh I'm a millennial, so I'm very progressive in my thought process.

You ever been to Six Flags?

You get on the roller coaster and the little announcement comes on, please hold on to the bar.

The ride is about to depart.

I heard that in my office.

And I was just like, rock and roll.

Thank you, Jesus, that this man came to see me.

Uh, here's probably another one of my favorites.

Isn't the Bible outdated after all?

How can a book written by different men in a different time period in a different part of the country still be relevant for us in America today?

And I was like, man, that's a whole lot of words put together to ask a question.

And that's a great question.

By the way, some of you in this room may have that may have had that question and still have that question.

Not here to make a light of you.

I'm just here to kind of open up the Bible.

I'm gonna start reading in 2 Timothy chapter 3, and I'm gonna read the whole chapter, okay?

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

And here's why.

Because everything in the Bible was written in a specific context, okay?

It's written.

I want you to hear the context in which it was written.

So the first part will be he'll be kind of describing what the culture was like.

Ask yourself if it sounds anything like a culture that you're aware of.

And then towards the second part, about verse 10, he turns the corner and kind of says, Hey, culture doesn't triumph over Christ.

The Bible is still truthful, regardless of what the culture is like.

This is what the Bible says.

Second Timothy chapter 3, verse 1.

2 Timothy 3:1

But understand this, then the last days there will be there will come times of difficulty.

Can I get an amen?

There will come times of difficulty, okay?

For people be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

Avoid such people.

For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

Mark that, beloved, in your Bibles.

Always learning, tossed to and fro by every controversy on the internet, and whatever someone posted on Facebook last, but never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

Just as Janice and Jambries opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth.

Men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith.

They will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

Here's where he turns the corner.

The Bible is durable.

It stands up in such a corrupt environment as that.

Verse 10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and Lystra, which persecutions I endured.

Yet for them all the Lord rescued me.

Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, that the woman of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Is the Bible really reliable?

In response to that, I want to say five things, and I want to give you four takeaways, okay?

And you say, What do you mean?

Number one, starting verse, I just want to focus in on verse 14, 15, and 16.

Starting in verse 14, the first thing I want to say is simply in response to that question is this learning leads to believing.

Learning leads to believing.

Look at verse 14.

He says, but as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed.

Continue in what you have learned.

There's got to be a starting point.

And he says, continue.

Just mark that word in your mind.

Continue.

Do not get to be 50, 55, 60, or don't raise your kids.

Don't just use the Bible in church to raise your kids and get them out of the house and then think you've earned a hall pass from church.

And I can put your, you can put your lumbago in a Winnebago and go see the countryside, okay?

Continue.

Continue.

Continue.

The dying need of the church in America is 60 to 70-year-old people who are still walking hard after God, looking in the eyes of 30-year-olds, moms of twos, who are kind of like, this is so hard.

I think God wants me to be happy, and you need an older woman to look at you and say, hey, now put your big girl pants on.

This ain't about happiness, okay?

Now that may sound like, oh, you don't know what it's like to be a woman.

You're exactly right.

Announced to my wife the other day I was gonna go visit somebody having a baby, and I said, you know, I'm just gonna go pray over the whole birthing process or something goofy like that.

And she looked at me like, you don't know what you're talking about, okay?

So just shut it.

Hmm, kitty likes to scratch.

I looked at her and she kind of said, I'm gonna tell God you spoke disrespectfully to your husband.

She said, Maybe God told me to say that.

I doubt that.

But anyway, learning leads to believing.

You say, why?

Why?

Not because this is a surely academic process, but I'm saying that, but you you need to think.

You need to think.

The first thing the gospel does is it makes us think.

And in the thinking, you are reinforced in what you believe.

Let me give you a question and think about it in your small groups tonight.

And it's simply this how certain are you of the things you believe right now?

There's some things that we start off believing when we were eight and ten, and you know, hey, it's like a it's like a story, and it's kind of like a nursery rhyme.

And you get older, what happens is how you live limits what you can believe.

And the Bible says it should just be the exact opposite.

What you believe should inform how you live.

And so, how certain of you are the things that you still believe, because our kids can get off the reservation and we think, see, there, this thing doesn't work.

This is not pragmatism, it's the truth.

Don't look at it through the lens of pragmatism because then you've got a skewed view of the whole thing.

But let me just say, first and foremost, because the Bible says this, learning leads to believing.

You say, What do you mean?

Sometimes when we read in the Bible, we we start in the middle or certain parts of it.

A lot of people don't read the Bible, actually, they read the same 25 verses to reinforce how they want to feel.

But if you start in Luke's gospel and you read Luke chapter 1, verses 1 to 4, you hear these words.

Luke 1:1–4

He's kind of explaining to Theophilus, this guy he's writing to, hey, this is why I'm writing.

He says, Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus.

Notice this, by the way, the Bible is not a collection of hearsay.

These are eyewitnesses, these are men who are there.

And this is what Luke says.

He says, To write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus.

Here's why.

That you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

That you may have certainty.

It's what I mean when I say learning leads to believing.

The more you read the Bible, it engages your mind and causes you to think.

And you cannot think wrongly about the Bible because it's self-authenticating, as we'll get to a little bit later.

But let me give you an example of what I mean when I say the Bible makes you think.

You want to think a little bit this morning?

You up for that?

Amen.

Uh I'll put up on the screen.

This is Matthew chapter 19, verse 4.

Matthew 19:4

Every once in a while, people will ask me questions to kind of make a point.

Uh they'll, hey, preacher, and they'll say something, and I'm like, Because people do that with Jesus, and I'm like, well, no big deal.

This is Jesus talking about divorce in Matthew chapter 19.

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

He says, He answered them, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?

Uh, and said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

And so they're no longer two, but they're one flesh.

Well, therefore, God is joined together.

Let not man separate.

That's Matthew 19, verses 4 to 6.

Matthew 19:4–6

Now, here's where I want you to think a little bit.

The people that came to him and said, Hey, you know, hey, is it wrong, is it okay for us to divorce our wives?

Because, you know, Moses allows us to write a writ or a bill of divorcement and send our wives away.

And Jesus quotes the Bible.

You ever notice in the New Testament people ask Jesus questions, he quotes the Bible.

It's just kind of like, here you go.

And so he's quoting Genesis chapter 2, verse 24.

Genesis 2:24

Now, if you turn back there, I don't want you to right now, but if you turn back there, you would see that's not God talking.

That's the narrator, that's the writer of Genesis.

It's Moses.

Now, why am I telling you this?

This is where I want you to exercise your noodle a little bit this morning.

When Jesus quotes Genesis chapter 2 in Matthew 19 in response to their question, what he's saying is when the when the people that wrote the Bible speak, it's as if God speaks.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

Do you make the connection?

It's not, because you go back and read, it's it's it's it's a narrator of Genesis who's saying what Jesus is saying, but Jesus quotes it and says, Hey, here's scripture in response to your question.

Here's what the Bible says.

This is what I mean when I say that the learning leads to believing.

The more you read the Bible or the more you attend a church that actually teaches the Bible, which is hard to find nowadays.

Uh, the more you sit under that, the more it will engage your mind.

It will not uh offend your intellectual faculties, it will invite you and lead you to the truth.

That's the first thing I want to say that learning leads to believing.

Second thing the text tells us is that this is a personal process.

Look at verse 14.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed.

And then he says this knowing from whom you learned it.

Knowing from whom you've learned it.

When I say this is a personal process, if you're a mom or a dad or an aunt or an uncle or a grandparent, you should circle the word whom in your Bible.

It's a plural in the Greek, it's a plural.

What do you mean?

It's not just one person, it's not just your mom or your dad or your favorite TV preacher.

It's a it's a cloud of witnesses.

You should, as a matter of fact, I told the first service, you should have people over for dinner that are that are consequential people that expose your kids to people who have walked with God for a long time.

Matter of fact, if you're in your 30s, you should look around this church and find some 70 and 80-year-olds uh and invite them over for dinner and ask them, what's the hardest thing you've gone through in life and what did God teach you?

And watch your kids just kind of like, whoa, that's a big soul right there.

Yay, absolutely.

And here's one thing that'll happen.

Your kids will go to bed at night.

They won't say it, but they'll go to bed at night and go, maybe this is just not my mom and dad practicing behavior modification.

Maybe they'll look around and kind of go, hey, there's other people.

And if you can find you a missionary, have missionaries in your home.

Take missionaries to lunch and put them around your kids.

Why?

Because you're exercising the power of whom.

It's not just you.

Put them around other people and let your kids kind of see, hey, here's the deal.

This is a personal process.

Okay?

Third thing the Bible tells us is it's never too early to start.

Look at verse 15.

Now, I want to get at you a little bit this morning.

Is that okay?

Okay, thank you.

There's one person.

How about the rest of you?

You say, what do you mean?

Here's what I mean.

Look at verse 15.

It's never too early to start.

Verse 15 says this after he says, hey, knowing from whom you have learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings.

How from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings.

I got a question for you parents this morning.

Do you require as much from your kids spiritually as you do academically or athletically?

Let me say it again.

Do you require as much from your kids spiritually as you do athletically or academically?

Nothing against academics or athletics.

I'm a world-class athlete underneath these dressed clothes right here.

So I don't want to be a hypocrite today.

But here's my concern is we got these sports training facilities.

If your kid can walk and chew bubblegum, someone's convinced you they're going to be a major leaguer, and you've got to take them every Saturday and every Sunday and every Tuesday and every Thursday so they can get intense video coaching and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Or if your kid likes it, it's great.

I'm not against any of that.

Here's what I'm saying.

Don't walk out and go, oh man, the preacher's dogging on us.

No, I wasn't.

Don't lie.

I ain't got time to fight all y'all, but I'll get some of you.

Here's what I'm saying.

Your kids watch what you do, not what you say.

And if the priority is in school and education, this, the Bible says, hey, if the priority is in all that stuff, and not on spiritual things, your kids are gonna leave your house and kind of go, my parents use the Bible just to modify my behavior.

But it really wasn't a priority for us.

Excel academically, glory to God.

My daughter's got an academic patch on her letter jacket, and I went, Yeah, that's gonna get you beat up at recess.

Shut up, dad.

Awesome.

So I'm not against academics, not at all.

Not against athletics, not at all.

I'm just saying the Bible says, let me just quote the Bible and how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings.

Remember when we got pregnant with our first child, we had difficulty getting pregnant.

Uh, and we we we we walked the whole infertility thing, and every month it was like God sent us a rejection letter.

And after a while, you're just like, hey man, I work for you.

Help a brother out here, okay?

So we finally got pregnant, and my wife had a Bible about that thick she kept under the couch in our little apartment.

She would pull it out.

And the Bible was called What to Expect When You're Expecting.

Yeah.

You crazy women read the same thing.

And my wife would have a pain or a thought or a feeling.

Oh, she'd look it up, and I was just sitting there, like, oh great, here we go.

Because when my wife reads something, I get to read it too.

Because that's I'm gonna look at it, she's gonna read it to me.

And she'll go, huh?

And I just turn up the volume.

Oh, wow, that's awesome.

And I'm just turned up the volume.

Man, I didn't know that.

She's right there on the couch.

I ain't biting.

I'm just like, mmm, just watching Sports Center, and then she'll go, Hey, can I read this to you?

Why are you asking?

You've been already reading it to me with all your, huh?

Wow, awesome.

It's like watching Batman.

Baf, pow.

That was before the days of a DVR.

Now you can pause the TV.

Back then I had to miss stuff to listen to my wife talk.

Pray for I know, isn't that horrible?

And I would just be like, and she said, you can mute it, and I'm like, I'll just turn it off.

Read to me out of the Bible of what to expect when you're expecting.

But my wife, great parent.

I'm irresponsible.

I give my kids chocolate cake for breakfast.

I tell them it ain't gonna hurt you.

One day my wife was gone, her and her friends went off for a week of lollygagging or whatever.

We're gonna get facials and massages.

Awesome.

I got this, okay?

And so Mass was like five years old, six years old.

She's in Mother's Day Out over First Baptist Sugarland.

And I just thought, hey, I want to make a memory, so I went and got an inflatable swimming pool, put it in our kitchen.

Got one of those hookups that you fill up a water bed with, put it on my kitchen sink, filled it up with water, went and woke her up at 7:15.

Hey, you want to go swimming before you go to Mother's Day Out?

Silly dad, we don't have a pool.

Yeah, we do.

Yeah.

Because your dad's awesome.

Your mom's boring.

But your dad about to set it off up in here.

And she got up, ran up the hall, ran you, oh! Sorry, just taking her pajamas off and just jumped in.

I made her some toast, and we sat in the pool and watched cartoons and had toast.

She got the Mother's Day out and she said, I eat swimming today.

And they were like, Yeah, in my kitchen.

They're like, Yeah, whatever.

And I went.

Don't hate the play, I hate the game.

I'm just saying.

My wife got home the next day.

I was leaving to go out of town to go preach somewhere.

I got a phone call about 11 o'clock at night.

Oh, I found you a little swimming pool in the kitchen.

I'm gonna get you when you get back for this.

All I've heard about is how daddy put his swimming pool in here, and I'm with a five-gallon bucket, taking it out through the house, throwing it in the backyard.

When you get back, you're mine.

Remember, I said to the preacher, I was church I was preaching that.

If we need to extend the revival, this will be okay.

Now here's what I'm saying: it's never too early to start.

Madison's 17 now.

She's almost as tall as me.

She wears boots, she is taller than me.

You ask her about that, and she'll go, Yeah, that was awesome.

She was, I think, five.

Why do I tell you that?

And how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings.

You talked to either one of my kids, they had the vocabulary of a defense attorney.

Why?

Because my wife was a great mom.

I was a slacker.

I was like, eat whatever you want for breakfast.

It doesn't matter.

No, we need to have a protein and a vegetable.

Thank you, Martha Stewart.

I got it.

We got a little video called the Letter Factory.

The A says, uh.

The A says, uh.

Every letter makes a letter, it makes a sound.

The A says, uh, then you go to the B.

I hate that frog.

I hate the whole factory he works at.

We went on a road trip, eight and a half hours to my in-laws.

It's blaring in the back of my suburbia.

The B says, ba, the B.

I'm like, Daddy says, shut up.

That's what daddy says.

However, about the age of two, my kids could carry on a full-blown conversation with adults.

And they would go, that's the most verbal children.

Yeah, their mom talks a lot.

What am I saying?

It's never too early to start.

It's never too early to start.

And don't talk about the Bible like it's a nursery rhyme.

Talk about the Bible like it's presented in the Bible.

That will capture your kids' imagination.

Fourth thing that the Bible tells us in response to this the scriptures lead us to Jesus.

Is the Bible really reliable?

What do you mean the scriptures lead us to Jesus?

Look at verse 15.

He says, How from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

They don't just make you wise.

The destination for the Bible is not your intellect, it's not your reputation.

It's to bring you to faith in Christ.

They're able to make you wise.

What does that mean?

For salvation in Jesus Christ.

In the Bible, you see enough and you comprehend enough, and God reveals enough that you don't want to put your faith in anything else but Jesus Christ.

That's what we mean when we say the scriptures lead us to Jesus.

That's why the Bible is reliable.

That's why God says in Isaiah, my word never goes out and comes back void, but it accomplishes the purpose for which I sent it.

I told the staff this morning when we met for prayer, hey, listen, we cannot add anything to the Bible.

It's never going to go out and come back void.

All we can do is dilute it or screw it up.

So let's do our best to stay out of the way.

And they were like, Amen.

Rock and roll.

Why?

Because the scriptures lead us to Jesus.

That's what Jesus, he kind of got after the religious leaders of his day in John chapter 5 by verse 39.

John 5 · chapter mention

He says, You search the scriptures because they testify of me.

You search the scriptures because they testify me, and you want to have life.

But you refuse to come to me.

You refuse to come to me that you may have eternal life.

Look at me.

And this is a thin analogy, but I'm going to use it.

Look at me.

The menu leads to the meal.

Don't just stop at the menu.

Don't just search the scriptures.

When my wife goes to dinner, my wife loves to go to Carabas.

I love to go to Carabas because they have a dish called chicken brian.

Oh, shut your mouth.

And when I go to Carabas, the guy's like, let me guess.

And I'm like, why are you hating?

I'm like an old man.

I get the same thing every time.

I don't go to Carabas and just sit and go, what are you gonna have?

You're gonna have the chicken brand.

No, I'm just gonna read the menu.

I just love the menu.

The Bible says, taste and see that the Lord is good.

Taste and see.

The menu's great.

And I'm not disparaging the Bible like it's a menu we order off of.

It's not what I'm saying.

It's what Jesus says in John chapter 5.

John 5 · chapter mention

You search the scriptures because they testify me, yet you refuse to come to me.

So you may have life.

Why?

Because that's what the Bible says all through it.

The scriptures lead us to Jesus.

Fifth point I want to make is simply this the Bible was recorded by man, but not written by man.

That's verse 16.

You still with me?

He says, All Scripture is breathed out by God.

Hello.

All scripture is breathed out by God, and it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God, that the woman of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

If you're in 2 Timothy, turn to the right to the book of 2 Peter.

I want to show you one thing and then we'll be done this morning.

You ready to be done?

I'm not ready.

I've got a little bit more left in me now.

Look out.

Pow, pow, pow.

I've had some coffee this morning.

I want you.

I heard that out there.

Uh-oh.

2 Peter chapter 1.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

I'm going to start reading in verse 12.

I want you to see this.

Remember, we're talking about this simple point.

The Bible was recorded by man, but not written by man.

The Bible says in 2 Timothy 3.16, all scripture is breathed out by God.

That's a literal translation from the Greek.

It's inspired.

It's not, it's the word, it's the breath of God, it's not the thoughts of men.

Okay?

This is what the Bible says.

2 Peter chapter 1, starting in verse 12.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

He says, Therefore, I intend always to remind you of these qualities.

Though you know them and are established in the truth that you have, I think it's right, as long as I'm in the body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon.

Hey, if you if you're like me, you're an old person like me, he says, Hey, I'm gonna die soon, so let me just stir you up and let me just get at it right here.

Grandma, grandpa, I'm talking to you.

The greatest thing you can do is not just take your kids to Chick-fil-A to give your kids a break.

The greatest thing you can do is live and speak and love the gospel around your grandkids.

So they go home and they go, hey, there's something peaceful about Grammy's house that I don't feel in our house.

What's up with that, Mom?

That's what Peter's saying right here.

He says, Hey, and I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.

Verse 16, for we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son, with whom I'm well pleased.

We ourselves heard this voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain, and we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed.

Let me stop right there for a second.

What Peter's talking about is this incredible experience he had.

It's referred to in the Bible as the Mount of Transfiguration.

Peter was one of the disciples that Jesus took up on the mountain, and they saw Jesus transfigured.

He was kind of taken up into heaven.

And so I explained it to a little boy one time.

He said, Pastor Neil, what is the mountain of transformation?

I went, Well, that's where Shia LaBeouf makes bad movies about robots.

But anyway, I said, the mount, you're talking about transfiguration.

And I said, it's kind of like Jesus was taken up and he started glowing right in front of them.

That little boy went, Oh, shut your mouth.

Absolutely lutely, he did.

That's what Peter's talking about.

He saw Moses and Elijah and had this incredible experience.

Look at what he says in verse 19.

And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

What am I saying?

I'm saying the Bible was recorded by man, uh, but not written by man.

No prophecy has its origin in the will of man.

But men spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

As God was breathing out the Bible, he used people, human beings, to record it, but they didn't write it.

It didn't have its origin in them.

So when your friends and my friends say to you, Oh, the Bible's written by men, we've got to remember that, you can just, with a smile on your face, say, No, actually, it wasn't.

It was breathed out by God.

Peter says, Hey, we have, you won't talk about experiences.

I had this incredible experience.

Why did I read you that whole thing?

Here's why.

Because I'm afraid, now look at me, beloved.

I'm afraid that in the church in America, we've started looking for in our experiences what can only be had in the Bible.

And people that run these churches, they're really not pastors because they don't preach.

They're kind of entrepreneurs, they're businessmen, they're mover, shakers, or whatever.

They come along and they go, You like experiences?

And every Sunday is a bigger and better experience.

Every special occasion, whoa, we got Baffo the Dancing Bear, and we got this, and we got that.

And here's how you know that you've been you go to a church like that.

Because after a period of about eight, it takes about 18 months for you just to kind of go, this is really as good as it's ever gonna get.

You get in the car and your kids, you say, How was church?

It's okay.

Well, what they talk about, well, we played games and we jumped on the trampoline and we or your wife looks at you and says, We're gonna we're gonna keep doing this.

Or you walk out and your biggest thought is, Well, we're gonna have lunch.

Now, I'm not hating on the church in America.

I've given my life to help get the bride ready, but look at me.

It is not God's design for Christianity or for Christians to go to church, and as a result of attending certain types of churches, you have this external sense of jaded cynicism and this internal sense of deep disappointment with yourself.

That's how you know you're not at a church that loves the Bible and teaches the Bible.

That's not what God created us for.

That's that that's not at all.

So when I say the Bible was accorded by man, but not written by man, that's what Peter says.

Peter says, Hey, I had this incredible experience.

I was on the Mount of Transfiguration Transfiguration.

I was, we were eyewitnesses of his glory.

We heard the voice of God speak.

Are you kidding me?

And then he turns on a dime in verse 19 and says, But we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you would do well to pay attention to it.

You say, No what?

Well, put up that verse 19.

Look at me.

If you're here in this room and you're not a Christian, you're like, I don't believe this.

I come because my wife says we should come, it's kind of good.

I'm I'm an engineer, I'm kind of scientific.

That's great.

We do not believe in pressure, we don't believe in guilt.

We're not gonna dim the lights and yell at you or anything or hum kumbaya.

I'm just gonna tell you this keep paying attention.

You say, What do you mean?

Look right there.

We have something more sure than our experiences, the prophetic word to which you would do well to pay attention.

Why?

Because it's like a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Look at me, beloved.

The Bible is one of the means, it's the primary means by which God reveals Himself.

And when you pay attention to that, when you find a church that teaches the Bible and you go there, and by the way, every Sunday is not gonna be a home run for you.

Okay?

This is not.

Because guess what?

Every Sunday, you ain't a home run for me.

Hey, like them apples.

It's not, but you just pay attention.

You just pay attention.

Why?

What happens is the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

All of a sudden, you find yourself in your heart having a desire for the things of God.

So the class I teach on Wednesday nights this next Wednesday back in the fellowship hall, we're gonna talk about calling and how God just kind of woos you.

He doesn't yell at you, hey, hey, you moron, what are you doing?

Or as a friend of mine's dad used to say when he was a kid, do something stupid, his dad would say, Why do you want to pull a dumb stunt like that?

He's like, I just grew up thinking I should do dumb things because clearly I want to.

God's not that way.

This is a great example of the way God called.

You just pay attention.

You just pay attention.

No one here is gonna harangue you, no one's gonna, hey, but you know you're you just pay attention until the day dawns, and the truth of God is revealed in your heart.

That's what we mean when we say, just pay attention.

Let me give you four things to take away, uh, and we'll be done this morning.

You for being done?

Well, let's be done anyway.

Things to remember.

Number one, people will always doubt the Bible.

That some one of your friends or family members or whatever doubts the Bible, don't let that throw you.

Uh if you've got some money to burn, because it ain't cheap.

But Carl F.

Henry, he was the first editor of Christianity Today magazine, and he was a great mind that the church produced.

He he wrote a six-volume set of books called God, Revelation, and authority.

And the first line of the first chapter of the first volume, first thing you read, says this no fact of contemporary Western life is more evident than its growing distrust of final truth and its implacable questioning of any sure word.

That's that's our culture, beloved.

Second thing, people start with their experiences.

It's called the Wesleyan quadrilateral, if you're into that kind of thing.

Let you know, like Papa, I got an education.

Uh John Wesley, the great Methodist, he developed this thing called the Wesleyan quadrilateral, it's kind of a grid through which, and it starts with scripture, tradition, experience, and reason.

He said, This is how people in our day and age, people start with their experience.

And so a lot of people that you've had bad experiences.

Like I knew some folks that their uncle was killed, a great guy, but he was killed by a drunk driver.

And the whole family just said, I just can't believe in a God.

I don't want to read the Bible, I don't want to read anything.

You say the Bible's inspired, breathed out by God.

I don't care.

I a God that would let something like that happen, I don't want to hear about.

So what happens, that experience becomes like a pair of sunglasses, and it taints the way they look at the Bible.

You need to know that people start with their experiences, and not so you can go, oh, you should lay aside your experience.

They can't.

They can't.

What we have to ask is, how does the Bible come along and speak to this?

Third thing I'll give you by way of takeaway, simply this the Bible self-authenticating.

It has to be.

The Bible self-authenticating, it has to be.

Psalm 138, verse 2, it says, You have exalted above all things your name and your word.

Psalms 138:2

Uh it's like in the Bible when God, it says, and God sought to swear, since he could find no one greater, he swore by himself.

Think for just a minute, okay?

If the Bible is God's word, like it says it is, that it's breathed out by God, it's self-authenticating, what does that mean?

That means that to what does the Bible appeal to to validate itself?

You're smart people.

I mean, what do you say?

Because if you if you say, hey, I believe the Bible because it's rational, then what you're saying is rationalism is up here and the Bible's here, and rationalism makes the Bible okay to believe.

What you really, your highest authority is rationalism or pragmatism.

And people say, oh man, you should.

That's why you hear a bunch of sermons about four ways to survive and thrive in 2015 and 10 steps to being a godly man.

There's a bunch of chicken breath preachers.

They preach the Bible like it's a it's a self-help manual, and they're a life coach.

I'm not really a preacher, I'm a life coach.

Hey, listen, you need a preacher, you don't need a life coach.

You need someone to stand up and teach you the Bible.

But the Bible is self-authenticating.

What I mean by that is what?

It can't appeal to anything else to validate itself because there's nothing that has more authority than the Bible.

That's what I mean.

It's self-authenticated.

It has to be.

So if you're on a quest to look around, find something to make the Bible make sense, you're never going to find it.

And if you do, what you've done is you've exalted something above the Bible.

That's gonna be the standard for your life.

Last takeaway I want to give you is simply this the Bible's sufficient.

The Bible is sufficient.

What does that mean?

John writes, and he gets to the it's got 21 chapters in the book of John.

It gets to the end of chapter 20.

In chapter 20, verse 30 and 31, he says this.

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples.

Mark this in your mind because every once in a while somebody will say to me, I mean, like a man one time pointed the Bible on my desk.

He goes, You mean to tell me that the entire life of Jesus is recorded in that book?

And I said, Not at all.

I said, John says Jesus did many other things.

And one of the other gospel writers says, if we were record all the things that Jesus did, it would fill libraries.

It'd be all kinds of books.

And of course he said, Where is that?

And I turned to it and showed him.

He said, Here you go.

And he's like, All right, I'll concede that.

I'm not trying to win an argument.

He says, Hey, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Hear that again.

These are the Bible's sufficient.

Why?

Because it it it John, right here, he had three questions.

Question of integrity.

These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ.

That's a question of integrity.

Jesus is the Messiah.

Is he the promised one?

Is he the fulfillment of every promise God ever made?

Or is he just some charlatan or a prophet or a moral example?

The Bible says that he's the Christ.

It's a question of integrity.

Is he who he claims to be?

Second, it's a question of authority.

The Son of God.

The Son of God.

Because if Jesus isn't the Son of God, all you have on the cross is a Jewish man having a bad day.

And you're still in your sins.

And you have no hope of being forgiven, no means of forgiveness.

But because Jesus says, and God said to me not long ago, Jesus never professed to be God.

Then what did Jesus mean when he said, If you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

The Father and I are one.

It's a question of integrity.

He says, Hey, the Bible's sufficient.

You ain't got to look in, hey, these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ.

It's a question of integrity?

That he's the Son of God, a question of authority.

And here's the best question: it's a question of opportunity that by believing you may have life in his name.

Look at me, and we'll be done today.

What if God inspired the entire Bible, all 66 books, Old and New Testament?

And by the way, don't think of it as 66 different books.

You know, 39 here and 27 there.

It's one book.

It tells one story.

From beginning to end.

All the way through.

You read in Genesis 11, God sees them building the Tower of Babel, and he comes down and he scatters them.

I was talking to a friend just last week and he said, you know, what is that where the nations came from?

I said, yeah, because he speaks in the place, says, Come let us go down, because if they can do this, they'll think, hey, and it's not that God was afraid they were going to like compete with God.

No, God was concerned because God's merciful in his posture towards me.

He was concerned that they're going to think of themselves what they were created to think of God.

They're going to trust in themselves instead of trusting in God.

So God scatters 11 chapters into the Old Testament.

He scatters, he confuses their language.

That's where you get the different nationalities, different languages.

So that's in Genesis 11.

If you go all the way to the end of the New Testament, okay, thousands of years later, and you see a picture, John the Revelator, right, there's a picture in heaven, and around the throne of God is a multitude of all nations, all kindreds, all tribes, all tongues, all peoples.

Where did they come from?

From Genesis 11.

See, it's all one story.

And it's such a big story, it takes the whole Bible to tell the story.

The Bible is the only canvas big enough for God to paint the picture of redemption on.

And he comes down to the simple thing in John and says, hey, this is written so that by believing you may have life in his name.

So the question for you and I today is do you have life in his name?

And if not, why not?

Stand to your feet.

Let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

There are many reasons God inspired the Bible.

One of the main ones is so that you would just know what he's like.

He wants you to know what he's like.

Depart now and give yourself to this privilege in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.

You're dismissed.