God Speaks What Is True

All right, good morning.

Our children are dismissed to their classes.

! Let's open our Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 18.

Deuteronomy 18 · chapter mention

! Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 9.

Deuteronomy 18:9

I'm thankful for the opportunity to preach this week and next week.

We're going to do a little two-week miniseries on the doctrine of Scripture, on its truth and authority.

This week, Deuteronomy 18. Next week, 1 Kings 13.

That'll be a strange story about a false prophet and a donkey and a lion and some crazy stuff that goes on.

So make sure you're back next week for that.

Let's open in prayer and ask for the Lord's help.

Father, as we open the book of Deuteronomy, we are aware that this is your holy word.

And we need your help to understand it.

And we pray that your Spirit would press upon us its truth, its relevance.

I pray that you would help me to be clear and for all of us to be attentive.

And we ask these things in your name. Amen.

Amen.

Everyone, Christian, non-Christian, past, present, future, wants to know things.

We want to know.

We want to know about the world around us.

And that's because knowledge is a kind of power.

It helps us make decisions.

It gives us perspective.

It can sometimes give us influence over other people and over outcomes.

It creates opportunities for us.

And we want our knowledge to be reliable and true.

And so we look to sources of knowledge that are accurate.

I grew up watching Dan Rather, the anchor of the CBS Evening News.

I know some of you are too young to know him.

Dan Rather spoke with authority.

He had gravitas.

He was one of the anchors of the big three networks.

And when he spoke, people listened.

But then, on September 8, 2004, in the midst of the U.S. presidential election,

Dan Rather reported on documents that had been discovered that called into question one of the candidates in the U.S. presidential election,

George W. Bush, that called into question his National Guard service.

And these documents said that he had disobeyed orders and that his record had been embellished.

But almost immediately after the broadcast was over, the authenticity of those documents was questioned.

The font and the spacing in the documents were not those of a typewriter of the 1970s.

And the source of the documents admitted that he had lied on how those documents had come into his possession.

And a few weeks later, after everything had been sorted out, Dan Rather came on the air and he apologized and stated that he should not have run the story.

But it was too late.

His reputation was ruined at that point.

He could not recover from this serious and significant blow to his credibility.

And a few months later, he stepped down as anchor of the CBS Evening News.

And the next year after that, he was fired altogether.

He had been an anchor, a serious anchor at CBS for 24 years.

So let's do some math.

There are 260 weekdays in a year times 24 years.

That means, and we'll be conservative here on our estimate, that means that Rather anchored the news about 6,000 times.

And if in a given newscast he anchored about 10 stories, that means that over the course of his career he had anchored 60,000 stories.

And yet, when he got one wrong, it destroyed his credibility.

Now, it was a big one.

It was a big one because it was tied up with the presidential election and questions about media bias and things like that.

But one faulty story out of 60,000, and people would not take him seriously any longer as a source of knowledge.

If we have high expectations for a 30-minute newscast on CBS, how much more do we require a reliable word from the Lord?

A word that teaches us about how and why God made us.

A word that teaches us what God values and what he hates and how we're supposed to treat each other and what we're supposed to prioritize in our lives.

A word that warns that we are actually born into a hostile relationship with God and what he has done in the gospel to solve that problem and what we must do to have that solution applied to us.

It's huge.

The stakes are high.

It is critical.

We have to be able to depend on the word of God.

In the Bible, God acknowledges that a word that is authoritative also must be reliable.

And he addresses this issue through Moses in our passage today, Deuteronomy 18.

If you, again, have your Bible, why don't you follow along with me.

In the context here, Moses is giving a series of instructions to the people of Israel as they're right on the edge of going into the promised land.

And Moses calls for obedience and he warns against the consequences of disobedience.

And he reminds them of the resources that God has given to them to remain faithful, God's presence and his power and his word.

And Moses has been an incredible prophet.

He has been God's spokesman who led Israel out of slavery in Egypt.

And he's the one that led Israel in the wilderness and performed incredible miracles.

He was the first one to function as a prophet of the Lord.

He received the word of the Lord and then turned and taught it to the people.

That's what a prophet does.

And he was, in fact, unique among all the prophets of the Old Testament because Exodus 33 tells us that God spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks with his friend.

But then that raises a question for the Israelites.

What are we going to do when Moses is gone?

And here in Deuteronomy 18, Moses answers that question.

And as he looks forward to Israel's entrance into the promised land, he contrasts two fundamentally different sources of knowledge.

Two potentially fundamentally different sources of special knowledge.

Verses 9 through 14 describe the practice of the pagan nations around them.

And then verses 15 to 22 describe God's way of revealing knowledge to his people.

So let's look at each of these halves in turn.

How does this passage inform the way that we think about the truth of the Bible?

Is the Bible reliable and trustworthy in whatever it claims?

We call this the doctrine of inerrancy.

The doctrine of inerrancy.

The inerrancy means that whatever the Bible claims is true.

Whatever the Bible claims is without error.

So let's look at the first section in Deuteronomy 18, 9 to 14.

When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.

Verse 10.

There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering,

anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens,

or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a necromancer, or one who inquires of the dead.

For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.

And because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

You shall be blameless before the Lord your God.

For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune tellers and to diviners.

But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.

Moses begins by anticipating that the way the nations gain divine knowledge is different from that of Israel.

But notice in verse 9 that these aren't just alternate ways of gaining knowledge.

They are abominable practices.

They are incompatible with God's character, and they're deeply offensive to him.

These rituals provide opportunities for the gods to speak to the people through nature or through physical objects.

One example of this is that the priests of the nations would take a goat, or a lamb, or something like that,

and they would pray over it, and they would perform some kind of a special ritual over it.

And then they would slaughter it, and they would cut it open, and then they would look at its organs.

They would look at the liver, and they would look at the kidneys and the lungs,

and they would say, oh, what do we see here?

Are these normal, or is there any discoloration?

Anything abnormally enlarged or misshapen?

Because the expectation was that by looking at the organs of this animal,

this was the opportunity for the God to speak.

The God could communicate to them through these means.

He mentions in verse 10 and 11, divination, fortune-telling, omens, sorcery, mediums, necromancy.

And notice that Moses does not say here that these things don't work.

In 1 Samuel chapter 28, King Saul asked a medium to bring up Samuel from the dead, and then he came.

1 Samuel 28 · chapter mention

I mean, I don't know what to think about this.

My grandfather in Ohio was a farmer, and when he needed to find sources of water in the field,

he would take a stick, and he would walk around the field, and then the stick would all of a sudden dip.

And he'd say, oh, I'll dig here for water, and there was water there.

When my dad was a child, the cousins would gather around the farm table, and they would chant.

True story, absolutely true story.

They would chant, and the table, the heavy oak kitchen farm table would levitate.

One half of it weighs about an inch or two off the ground.

And then the kids would ask the table questions, and it would tap.

These things work.

They really do.

But what they all have in common is that they are attempts to extract information from the divine world.

They are at the initiative of the people.

The people decide what they want to know and when they want to know it.

They are in the driver's seat of this knowledge.

And they all assume many different sources of gods and voices.

There is no overarching authority here.

Instead, there's all this conflicting information that needs to be sorted out.

Because one person learns one thing in this ritual, and one person learns this thing,

and maybe they're coming from different gods, and it's all under human control.

And it's usually used to support human agendas and to strengthen those people who are already in power.

To strengthen the position of the king, or to strengthen the position of the priesthood, or something like that.

And these sources of knowledge are alive and well in other parts of the world.

In Africa, in Asia, South America.

When I teach at the seminary in Liberia, and we talk about these kinds of issues,

the people are like, well, yeah.

People do this kind of thing all the time.

This is the nature of religion.

Of religious practices, right?

We construct religion to control the situation, to try and figure out meaning for our lives,

to try and gain knowledge for ourselves.

And we want a divine word.

The temptation is to have a divine word that is under our control.

That doesn't demand too much of us,

but that hopefully we can use to benefit ourselves.

And God says in the first part of this chapter,

the people of Israel are not allowed to go to these sources of truth and knowledge.

Look at verse 14.

Moses says,

But as for you, the Lord has not allowed you to do this.

The people of God belong to the Lord.

His word is the only legitimate authority,

and he will speak when he wants,

for his own purposes,

and then he expects his people to obey.

Because he wants good for them.

But how is God going to speak?

Well, let's look at the second half of our passage in verses 15 to 22.

Verse 15.

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you,

from your brothers.

It is to him you shall listen.

Just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly,

when you said,

Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God,

or see this great fire anymore, lest I die.

And the Lord said to me,

They are right in what they have spoken.

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers,

and I will put my words in his mouth,

and he shall speak to them all that I command him.

And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name,

I myself will require it of him.

Verse 20.

But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name

that I have not commanded him to speak,

or who speaks in the name of other gods,

that same prophet shall die.

Verse 21.

And if you say in your heart,

How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?

When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord,

if the word does not come to pass or come true,

that is a word that the Lord has not spoken.

The prophet has spoken it presumptuously.

You need not be afraid of him.

In contrast to the nations,

with their various and frantic attempts

to extract knowledge from the divine word,

the Lord has a gracious gift for his people.

The institution of prophecy.

Moses says in verse 15,

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me.

Moses had access to the presence of God.

He had received God's word and delivered it to the people.

He mediated between God and his people,

and so he will serve as a pattern.

And the singular here,

God will raise up for you a prophet like me.

It's a generic singular.

It means many prophets, right?

Prophets like me.

God is going to use prophets like Moses

to reveal himself to the people.

He's not going to use magic.

He's not going to use divination.

And the word order at the end of verse 15

signals an important contrast.

Look what it says at the end of verse 15.

It is to him you shall listen.

Not to the magicians and diviners.

You will listen to the true source of God's revelation,

the prophet,

and the word that God has spoken.

God has provided only this one source

of divine knowledge.

In verse 16,

Moses refers back to Horeb,

which we also read in our Bibles

is called Mount Sinai.

He goes back to Mount Horeb,

the original gathering of God's people.

It says,

when you said,

verse 16,

let me not hear again

the voice of the Lord my God

or see this great fire lest I die.

See, at first,

it sounds like the people

don't want to hear from God.

But actually,

they did want to hear,

but they knew

that because he was holy

and they were sinful,

they could not speak with him directly.

They're like,

I don't want to hear the voice of the Lord

because I'll be killed.

He's holy.

They're sinful.

It's too dangerous

to be close to God.

And in verse 17,

God agrees with them.

He says in verse 17,

they are right in what they have spoken.

In God's holiness,

he cannot just have

a direct conversation

with the people.

He needs representatives.

He needs spokesmen.

So,

God says he will raise up

a prophet like Moses.

Look at the second half

of verse 18.

I will put my words

in his mouth

and he shall speak to them

all that I command him.

This is like a job description

for the Old Testament prophet.

Unlike the nations,

it is God

who will take the initiative.

He will decide

when to speak.

It's on his terms.

Unlike the nations

who control the rituals

and perform the rituals

in order to try and

get the God to do

what they want him to do,

the prophet obeys.

The prophet obeys

and serves God.

And unlike the nations

who have this

plurality of deities

all speaking different things,

there's the God of thunder

and there's the God of fertility

and there's the God of the sea.

No, no.

Instead,

there is one God.

There is one God

and his word

is unified

and coherent.

He says,

these are going to be

my words.

And because

they are the actual

spoken words

by the one true God,

they are authoritative

and binding

on the people.

They must

be obeyed.

God will hold

his people

accountable to that word

because it comes from him.

Look what he says

in verse 19.

Whoever will not

listen to my words

that he shall speak

in my name,

I myself

will require it of him.

So,

the stakes are high.

If it is a word

from the Lord,

it must be

believed

and obeyed

no matter what.

But because

the stakes are high,

because the word

from God

is absolutely

authoritative

and absolutely

binding,

the people

have to know

that it actually

came from God,

right?

They can't

get something

false

and then

find themselves

bound to that.

It has to be

known

that

this comes

from God

because it's

the source

of the word

that gives it

its authority.

And in verse 20,

Moses acknowledges

a potential problem.

There is going

to be a temptation

among people

in the community

to fabricate

the prophetic word

because if the word

has that much

authority

in its binding,

well,

let me make

something up

and then everyone's

going to do

what I say.

there's going

to be a temptation

in the community

to invent it

or to make it up

and then attribute

it to God

and say,

hey,

you'll never guess

what God told me.

And Moses says

in verse 20,

but the prophet

who presumes

to speak a word

in my name

that I have not

commanded him

to speak,

why,

why,

why is that

a temptation?

Why is that

a temptation

to fabricate

or invent

a divine word?

Well,

I mean,

from a purely

theological standpoint,

you might want

to make the God

say what you prefer.

You want a God

who acts like you

and thinks like you.

You want a God

who agrees with you.

You don't want a God

that has any rough edges

or says anything

that you find offensive

or demands

too much of you

in your life.

or you might invent

a word of the Lord

for influence

and power.

If you control it,

if you create

the divine word,

then you can shape

people's values

and control their actions.

They have to listen

to you, right,

because

the authoritative

word of God.

Or you might make up

a divine word

to excuse yourself

from wrongdoing,

to redefine

right and wrong.

To say,

well,

I know everyone

thought that was wrong,

but let me tell you,

God told me it's okay.

This is the question

in the Garden of Eden

in Genesis chapter 3

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

when the serpent says,

did God actually say

you shall not eat

of any tree?

There's always a temptation

to invent a word

from the Lord

that supports

our own behavior

and beliefs.

the stakes

are high.

And so God says,

if anyone does this,

if anyone invents

a word from the Lord

or fabricates

a word from the Lord

that I did not

actually speak,

that same prophet

shall die.

The prophet

who invents a word

and attributes it

to me

when I didn't

really speak it,

that prophet

shall die.

It cannot happen.

You cannot allow

people in the community

to invent something.

The people

in the community

of Israel

cannot be expected

to obey a word

that was just invented.

The source

of the divine word

is what gives it

its authority.

So the people

have to have confidence

that it really came

from the Lord.

But that

raises a question.

How do we know?

Someone can just

claim to be a prophet.

They can say,

guess what?

I received a word

from the Lord

and here's what

you all have to do.

It's that easy

to fake it.

It's super easy.

So how are the people

of Israel

supposed to know

if it's a genuine

word of the Lord

or not?

Well,

Moses answers

that question

in verse 22.

When a prophet

speaks in the name

of the Lord,

if the word

does not come

to pass

or come true,

that is a word

that the Lord

has not spoken.

If the prophet

speaks in the name

of God

on his behalf

and claims

that the divine word

came from God

and if that word

does not come true,

then God

did not speak it.

If it does not

come true,

it cannot be

from the Lord.

It must be

fabricated

and invented.

This is based

on an assumption,

right?

It's a pretty good

assumption that God

never gets things

wrong.

Humans get things

wrong.

Humans who invent

or fabricate

a supposedly

divine word

get things wrong

but not the Lord.

He bats

a thousand.

He has a perfect

record.

And notice here

that it does not

specify the nature

or the seriousness

of the error.

It does not say,

well,

if it's a really

important prophet

who spoke it.

Or if it's

a prophetic word

that concerns

a key doctrinal

issue,

then it matters.

It doesn't say that.

It says,

any time

the prophetic word

does not come true,

God didn't say that.

It doesn't rank

the prophetic word

into categories.

Well,

these are more

important aspects

of God's word.

These are less

important aspects

of God's word.

It's a test

that only falsifies.

It only falsifies.

It doesn't,

now,

unfortunately,

right,

if it comes true,

you don't know.

If it comes true,

it could be a coincidence.

It could be,

even a false prophet

can guess

and get things right

sometimes.

But if it ever

is shown to be false,

you know it's false

because God never

gets things wrong.

And if you discover

that the word

is not accurate

and therefore

it did not come

from God,

then it is not

authoritative.

He says,

just disregard it.

Don't worry about that.

He says at the end

of verse 22,

the prophet has spoken

it presumptuously.

You don't need

to be afraid of that.

So,

Moses has just

described for us

two potential sources

of a divine word here.

two sources

for a word

that comes

from the divine realm,

that comes from

outside of our

natural world

and outside of our

experience.

The first

is utterly human.

It might be obtained

by the practices

of the pagan nations.

It's characterized

by human initiative

and control

and manipulation.

Or,

it might be

attributed to the Lord,

but it is not authentic.

It is invented

or fabricated

to serve

the interests

of the false prophet.

That's one source,

the human source.

The second source

is actually

the Lord,

the God of Israel.

He speaks

at his own initiative

and on his own terms

to a prophet

of his own choosing.

And that prophet

serves as a spokesman

repeating the word

of the Lord faithfully.

And these are the only

two options.

These are the only

two possible sources.

And not only are these

the only two possible

sources of the prophetic word,

but these are the only

two possible sources

of Holy Scripture

that we have

in our Bible.

The prophetic word

that is here

described for us

in Deuteronomy 18,

the prophetic word

of Moses

and David

and Jeremiah

and Amos

and Isaiah

and Daniel

and Luke

and Paul

and John

were written down

over time.

That prophetic word

was given by God

and written down

over time

and published

in the books

of our Bible.

And either

the words

that we have

in our Bible

are of a human origin

and the men

who wrote those words

are just simply

doing their best,

they're just trying

to write something

kind of inspiring

for us

and they're just

trying to articulate

a convincing faith

but they're writing

out of a very

limited perspective,

a very limited

historical context

and they're just

kind of doing

their best

to come up

with a plausible

religion

or

this is the word

of God

and it has

its source

and its origin

in God

and if it's

a human source

then those people

in history

that wrote the Bible

are going to get

some things right

and some things wrong

and in some cases

they're going to have

a perspective

that doesn't really

hold up very well

over time

but if it's

from a divine word

then it has

its source

and its origin

in God

and it's rooted

in his character.

Listen to what it says

in 2 Peter 1

in the New Testament.

No prophecy

of scripture

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.

So whatever

Moses is teaching us

here in Deuteronomy 18

applies

to how we think

about our Bibles

and how we think

about scripture today.

Deuteronomy 18

gives us

three links

in a chain.

Three links.

the accuracy

of the word

indicates

its divine source

and the divine source

is what establishes

its authority.

Or let's flip it around

and make it negative

right?

The way that

Deuteronomy 18

puts it.

The text

is invalidated

when it errs.

And an errant word

must have

a merely human source

and a merely human source

has no authority

and must be disregarded.

Its accuracy

indicates its source

and its source

indicates its authority

or if we work backwards

if it errs

then it must be human

and if it's human

it has no authority.

Why should we

pay attention

to something like that?

Dan Rather

anchored

60,000

stories

but when we

learned that

one of them

was fabricated

we're like

okay

we're done

with you.

So what is

the main point

of Deuteronomy 18?

If we were just

going to say

let's just summarize

this in one main point

I think it's this

God's word

is authoritative

because it was

spoken by him

and we know

it was spoken

by him

because it does

not err.

It does not

make mistakes.

This is what

we mean

by the doctrines

of inspiration

and inerrancy.

God's word

is authoritative

because it is

spoken by him

and we know

it was spoken

by him

because it does

not err.

Now

does this mean

that the Bible

says everything

that it could say

on a given topic?

No.

But it means

that whatever

the Bible

does claim

is always

accurate.

It never

gets things

wrong.

Now let's

take a couple

of minutes

then and

reflect on

what we

lose

if we

compromise

this view

of Scripture.

What if

we were to

say well

I think

the Bible

does sometimes

make mistakes.

I don't think

it always

gets things

right.

I'm not

sure

it is

entirely

from God.

What do

we lose?

Well the

easy answer

if we

just get it

directly from

Deuteronomy 18

is we

lose the

authority of

Scripture.

If the

Bible is not

accurate

then it

doesn't come

from God

and if it

doesn't come

from God

then it

doesn't really

have any

authority over

us.

But I think

we can break

that down a

little bit

and so let's

talk about

three

might as well

do three

let's

just talk

about three

quick things

that we

lose if

we compromise

our doctrine

of Scripture.

Number one

without

inerrancy

and the

authority of

the text

we lose

authentic

revelation.

Sometimes

people say

that the

historical

details of

the Bible

are just

trivia.

It doesn't

really matter

if the

Nile

actually

turned to

blood

in the

book of

Exodus.

It doesn't

really matter

if food

fell from

the sky

in the

form of

manna.

It doesn't

really matter

if the

Israelites

conquered

the

promised

land.

That's

history.

The important

thing is

that the

Bible gets

theology

right.

That we

learn the

truth about

ourselves

and the

truth about

the gospel.

That's what

really counts.

In fact I

had a

professor in

grad school

that said

that.

He said

the Bible

isn't

factual

but it's

true.

Maybe the

way that

literature is

true.

It speaks

something true

about my

heart but it

gets a lot

of things

wrong.

But the

problem with

that view

is that the

Bible unlike

other ancient

and contemporary

religious texts

anchors what

it claims in

history.

If the

Bible's

historical

claims are

wrong then

it means that

human authors

are just kind

of doing their

best.

They get

some things

wrong here

and there.

And if

human authors

are making

theological

claims about

God and

what he's

like it

also means

that they're

just sort

of doing

their best.

They're kind

of guessing.

I wonder

what God

is like.

This is what

I think.

The stories

of the Bible

tell us that

God is

powerful because

he actually

allowed the

Israelites to

cross the

Jordan on

dry ground.

It tells

us that he's

holy because

he actually

killed a

man named

Uzzah for

touching the

Ark of the

Covenant when

it started to

fall onto the

ground.

It tells us

that God is

gracious because

he actually

showed mercy

to the people

of Nineveh

when Jonah

preached to

them.

So the

history is

the anchor

and the

foundation for

the theological

claims.

And another

reason that the

Bible's historical

claims are

important is

that predictive

prophecy in the

Old Testament

that has been

fulfilled in the

short term gives

us confidence

about long-range

prophecies.

In other

words, when

Isaiah gets a

prophecy right in

his own time

period or maybe

a hundred years

in the future,

then it builds

our confidence

that when he

talks about the

new heavens and

the new earth

and God's

ultimate justice

and the kinds

of things that

Pastor Mike was

praying about in

that prayer of

lament, it

means that God

can actually do

that, that he

actually will do

that because we've

already seen him

fulfill prophecy

in the past.

Second, without

inerrancy we

lose our objective

standard of

morality that is

anchored in God's

character.

Morality refers

to objective,

absolute standards

of right and

wrong that

never change.

And how do we

know the nature

and the contents

of God's

unchanging

character?

Well, we read

about it in our

Bibles.

Our Bibles tell

us about all

kinds of things.

The right

treatment of

women, the

death penalty,

the right

attitude toward

government

authorities,

right behaviors

of sexuality,

the right

treatment of

people who are

different than

you are, the

right attitude

toward the

poor, and

toward money, and

children, and

toward your spouse,

and toward issues

of justice.

The Bible talks

about all of

these things.

And in our

society there is

such a huge

variety of

perspectives on

all these matters,

right?

And some of

them are highly

contentious.

And unfortunately

some of these

values and

issues become

associated with

national political

parties, and

then we engage in

a kind of trench

warfare, wrangling

over them in a

power play.

And so these

values and

morality become

weapons that we

use to kind of

defeat the other

side.

Here's a

ridiculous example.

A number of

months ago, do

you remember

when we saw

this little

miniature culture

war arise over

Sidney Sweeney's

genes?

Do you remember

this?

Sidney Sweeney,

the actress, did

a marketing

campaign for

American Eagle

genes.

People on the

political left

complained that

American Eagle

was advancing

white supremacy

and eugenics

because they

said she had

good genes.

But then,

people on the

right saw an

opportunity to

do battle with

the left, and

so they defended

the ads.

And they said to

people on the

left, you're being

ridiculous.

And then people

on the left were

offended because of

the way that the

ads objectified.

And then, because

they had to do

battle with the

left, the people

on the right

praised the ads

for returning to

traditional standards

of beauty.

And they went

back and forth.

It was a ridiculous

situation.

It was not our

society's best

moment.

And here's what

happened.

What happened is

that because of

the demand to

just do battle

with the other

side, conservative

Christians, because

they were doing

battle with the

left, and they

were joining the

right, ended up

defending ads

that were sensual

and fairly

inappropriate.

They gave up

their traditional

values of sexual

morality in order

to win an

argument.

When we do this

kind of thing in

our culture, we

are just drifting.

We are just

reacting and

drifting and

engaging in a

kind of trench

warfare.

There is no

objective sense of

right or wrong.

There is just

winning.

There is just

power.

We stake out our

little claim and

we're going to

defend that spot,

even if it's

drifted from

what the Bible

teaches us.

And the

problem is that

ideas of right

and wrong shift

with cultures

over time.

There was a

time in

American history

when slavery

was accepted

and defended

by the majority

of the country.

And now it is

rightly condemned.

But now the

majority of our

country accepts

homosexual marriage,

a position that

was rejected by

both political

parties only about

30 years ago.

consensus,

social consensus

is not a

basis for

morality.

What we need

is an

authoritative

scripture that

does not

change teaching

God's enduring

will and values

that are in

effect no matter

what.

Scripture tells

us what is

right and wrong

in every

society,

in every time

period,

no matter

the circumstances.

But if we

do not hold

to the

doctrine of

inerrancy and

we say that

scripture just

kind of came

from people

who took

their best

guess,

then the

authors of

scripture are

merely adding

one more

perspective to

the chaos of

political battle.

I know what

this person

thinks,

and I know

what this

person thinks,

and here the

people in the

Bible, they

also have some

ideas too.

We'll see

what we like

the best.

No.

No, the

people in the

Bible have

written based

on God's

word, and

those values

are rooted in

the unchanging

character of

God.

Finally, number

three, without

inerrancy, we

lose our impulse

and basis for

evangelism and

missions.

There are

passages in the

Old and New

Testaments that

teach us that

we have a sin

nature that

separates us

from God and

prevents us from

being in a

relationship with

him.

Are those texts

reliable?

Or are they

only the opinions

of Isaiah and

Jeremiah and

Ezekiel and

Paul?

Jesus says in

John chapter

John 14:6

14, verse 6,

I am the way

and the truth

and the life.

No one comes

to the Father

except through

me.

Did Jesus

really say

that?

In Acts

Acts 4:12

chapter 4,

verse 12,

Peter teaches

that there is

salvation in

no one else,

for there is

no other name

under heaven

given among

men by which

we must be

saved.

Is that

true?

Is it true

that Jesus

is the only

way to solve

our problem

with sin?

If so,

then that will

radically affect

our relationship

to other

religions.

sins.

And it is

a powerful

motivation for

evangelism and

missions for

people who need

to know that

because there

is no other

way of salvation.

Jesus really

did command us

in Matthew

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

chapter 28 to

go and make

disciples of

all nations.

And in these

statements, the

authors of

Scripture are

not mistaken.

And therefore,

evangelism and

missions are not

only legitimate

things for the

church to do,

they are

absolutely

critical.

Because our

practice depends

on the

instructions and

we have to

know that the

instructions actually

came from God

and that they're

authoritative and

true.

So if we

compromise our

doctrine of

Scripture, if we

compromise on the

inerrancy of

Scripture, then we

not only lose

historical trivia,

you know, little

historical details or

geography or

science that may

or may not be

true, we lose

the divine source

of Scripture.

That would be a

word that the

Lord had not

spoken.

And then we

lose the

authority of

Scripture too.

We lose it all.

And we would be

left to sort

through the

statements from

news anchors and

political parties

and to drift with

the social consensus.

us.

And that is not

what God has

desired for his

church.

He has given us

his holy word as a

great gift to be

believed and obeyed

in all that it

teaches because it's

true and it comes

from him.

Let's pray.

Father, we pray as

we reflect on this

passage which is so

clear about the

source of your word,

about its accuracy,

we pray that this

would settle down

into our hearts and

give us an unshakable

confidence in the

authority and the

relevance of your

word for our lives.

It is so tempting

to focus on certain

parts of Scripture

that we like the

best, to ignore

parts of Scripture

that we aren't as

crazy about, to

reject parts of

Scripture that seem

offensive.

We need a settled

confidence that this

is our rock and our

anchor in all that we

do in our lives and

that your word is

true.

And we thank you for

telling us this this

morning.

In your name we pray.

Amen.