[0:00] Chapter 3, 2 Timothy chapter 3. I don't like taking verses and using them as jumping off points.
[0:15] ! I like to go through the scriptures and things, but today I'm kind of doing that.! I'm using this scripture as a jumping off point. 2 Timothy chapter 3, beginning at verse 14, and we'll read to the end of the chapter.
[0:30] It says four verses. Notice what it says, as soon as I put my glasses on. It says, But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned, and hast been assured of, of whom thou hast learned them.
[0:47] And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.
[0:58] Jared, grab your fly swatter. I've already killed one today. Verse 16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
[1:17] Right here. Right there. I am so glad we did this.
[1:30] We don't know where to get it. It looked like we got it. He did. Show me on the camera. That's number two today.
[1:42] So, all right. I don't know where they're all coming from, but. Yep. Outside. Very good. Very good. All right.
[1:54] I'm distracted by the watch. Let's have a word of prayer and get back on track. Dear Heavenly Father, just thank you for today, Lord, and thank you for this scripture. They're all scripture. Given by inspiration of God.
[2:05] Lord, that you have given us the things that we need to grow, to learn, to have a closer walk with you. Lord, thank you for giving us the scriptures. Thank you for giving us what we need in order to have that walk with you.
[2:21] So, Lord, just bless our time as we begin a study on bibliology, the study of the Bible. So, Lord, help us as we learn today. In Jesus' name. Amen.
[2:31] Amen. Bibliology. The answer doesn't have that up there yet. But, what is bibliology? Just what I said.
[2:42] The bibliology is the study of the Bible. Now, it's different than Bible study. Normally, we come in here and we have a study of the Bible, passages, books.
[2:54] You know, like we're doing Esther now. We've done Galatians. We've done different. And we study and we learn as we go past verse by verse through the passage. And we learn the things that are there.
[3:06] We learn how to properly interpret it. We learn how to apply it to one's life and everything. Bibliology, yeah, that word, is different. What I'm talking about when I say bibliology, we're going to talk about the foundational questions about the Bible.
[3:21] What is the Bible? If I had to ask you that, what is the Bible? God's Word. Okay. Book of Life.
[3:33] Book of Life. Okay. Anybody else? 66 books. Okay. So, we're going to talk about things like that. About what the Bible actually is.
[3:44] How about, how did it come to be? God gave us, God inspired. And we're going to talk about things concerning that. Is it trustworthy?
[3:56] Ooh, there's a big one. Because you get a lot of people out there saying, oh, no, it's just fables and myths. And, you know, Aesop did just as good, right? No. What is it all about?
[4:10] So, we're going to look at those foundational questions about the Bible. Hopefully, to help us to have a confidence that's unshakable in the Word of God that we have in front of us.
[4:21] And also, so that when people say things like, well, it's just like any other book, you know, it's full of myths and fables and stuff. We have an answer for them. And say, no, no, no, no, no. They all like the fables.
[4:31] Men wrote it. Men wrote it. Yeah. So, we'll be talking about things like that. Try to take some of those questions out of play. Yep.
[4:44] He gave it to us. Yep. So, we're going to be looking at those foundational questions. And we're going to be looking at the Bible's trustworthiness, God's trustworthiness. We're going to have, hopefully, we're going to have even more confidence in it than we do already.
[4:59] And we have quite confidence in it already. So, where are we going to begin when we do all this? Where are we going to begin? Well, at the beginning. That's a good place to start.
[5:10] That sounds like a song. Anyway. That's right. When we take a look at the Bible and what it is, we've already said it's God's Word.
[5:21] It's, you know, those type of things about it. But it's actually God's message to us about his character and his ways.
[5:34] When we go into the Bible and we read the Bible, we're learning about who God is. When we go into the Bible, we're learning about how he handles things. How does he do things? So, we're going in there to look at those.
[5:45] And it's not only, but it's not the only message given to us. Did you know that? The Bible is not the only message given to us.
[5:56] You say, oh, he's talking heresy now. Nope. God has other ways of showing us things. As a matter of fact, before Adam and Eve or with Adam and Eve and stuff, they didn't have a Bible.
[6:12] Abraham didn't have a Bible. How did they know? They had the direct Word of God spoken to them. They had the direct Word of God spoken to them. But even more than that, they had some other things.
[6:26] The Bible says, we talked about starting at the beginning. In the beginning, what happened? God created. Every time you look out, God has revelation for you.
[6:41] God has things to show you. God has a way of showing himself to mankind that he is there. You know, there are certain foundational things that we need to have.
[6:55] And we need to have confidence in the Bible. We need to have a confidence in God and the things that he has shown us. He supplied revelation to us. Now, I keep using that word revelation.
[7:07] If I say the word revelation, what do you think of? Revelations. You know, the last book of the Bible. That's, you know, where they... Revealed things. Yeah. Revealed things.
[7:18] It's not just the one book. God has revealed himself to us in different ways. So revelation, if you want a definition, revelation comes from God.
[7:30] The definition is, revelation is the work of God by which he makes himself and his purposes known to mankind. Let me read that again.
[7:41] Revelation is the work of God by which he makes himself and his purposes known to mankind. God is revealing himself to us.
[7:51] He does it through the word of God. He does it through creation. He does it through the way he works in our life. God is revealing himself to us. Did you notice it did not say how?
[8:03] Revelation is the work of God by which he makes himself and his purposes known to mankind. Didn't say specifically how. And as I just said, word of God, creation, his work in our life, things that he does for us.
[8:16] He's revealing some things about himself. The means are secondary to the purpose. The purpose is for God to make himself known to us.
[8:28] And so God is trying to do that. Which brings us to the purpose. Revelation was around before Adam existed. Think about that.
[8:38] God had done creation. God had made the things that we have in this world. And he made a lot of them before Adam even came along. Think about that.
[8:51] And when I say before Adam came along, I'm not talking about evolution. I'm talking about before he was created on the sixth day. There were five days of creation before that. So in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are there.
[9:06] God's making himself known to them. He walked with them in the garden. He talked with them in the garden. He spent time with them. He's making himself known. He's making himself available so that they can learn about his purposes.
[9:22] You think about it. Adam and Eve are created. Okay? Did they know anything about what their purpose was as individuals or as a couple? No. No.
[9:32] No. No. God had to teach them. You're here for a reason. You're here to accomplish something. You think about the fact that on the sixth day, God showed Adam what he needed to know.
[9:48] One of the first things Adam had to do was what? Name all the animals. So Adam's naming the animals as they go by, and Adam's noticing something about the animals as they go by.
[10:01] There's two of those, and there's two of those, and there's two of those, and there's two of those, and there's one of me. Hmm. God? Something doesn't seem right here.
[10:11] You just got a revelation? Adam knew how to add. Adam knew how to add. Very good. Yes. He knew how to add.
[10:22] But he couldn't multiply. That's right. He's going to learn how to multiply. Yes. So he and God have a conversation, and God creates Eve.
[10:34] Eve, you ever stop and think about Adam's, what did God reveal to Adam when he created Eve? What did Adam say? She is, now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
[10:47] She came from Adam. Adam learned some things about God. Adam learned some things about what God can do and is going to do. He learned a whole lot in that one incident about what God could accomplish.
[10:59] So God initiated the Revelation 2 man, showed him his needs. Yeah. Exactly.
[11:18] Good point. Yep. He had no preconceived notions. He had no... Yep. He had no preconceived notions. He had no preconceived notions.
[11:29] He had no preconceived notions. He had no preconceived notions. Yep. Very good. Yeah, the pureness of his mind at that time. Think about it. Along with that, the pureness that we think of, but the pureness of, you know what?
[11:45] Everything I have comes from God. Everything that's going to happen to me is because God wants it to happen. Everything I know is because God has put it in front of me.
[11:57] God is the most important thing in my life. He's about to get Eve. But before then, I didn't make any jokes. But before then, it was just, it's all God.
[12:11] Everything was about him. His whole focus. So would you say when Adam was full close, or would you say he didn't want that to say? No. No. No. No. No.
[12:22] The devil caused its sin. Yeah. Once a woman came along, yeah, well, we won't go there. Yeah, so it was women. Okay.
[12:34] Anyway, in Romans chapter 3, verse 10, it says, There is none righteous, no, not one. See, sin alienated us from God. Sin took us away from God, took our mind off of those pure thoughts, took our mind off of that focus on him.
[12:51] Sin brought things into our life that caused us problems. Turn to Psalm 115. Psalm 115. I'm going to read a lengthy passage here.
[13:05] So, Psalm 115. Follow along with me.
[13:20] I'm going to, like I said, I'm going to read quite a little bit of this. Psalm 115, beginning at verse 1. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake.
[13:37] Where of should the heathen say, Where is now their God? But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.
[13:48] Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not.
[14:00] Noses have they, but they smell not. Their hands, but they handle not. Feet have they, but they walk not. Neither speak they through their throat. They that made them are like unto us.
[14:15] So is every one that trusted in them. Notice the contrast he gives here between God and idols. What is the contrast that he gives?
[14:27] Well, first of all, he talks about God. Where is he? He's in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases. He wants people to put their trust in him. He's the creator of all.
[14:40] What about the idols? They're made by man. They're inanimate objects. He lists all the different things. They have mouths, they can't talk. They have ears, they can't hear.
[14:53] They have eyes, but they can't see. They're made by men. In the image of men. He said, God Almighty, who's up here in the heavens, versus these idols that men are making to look like themselves?
[15:09] He says, no. That's not the way we're supposed to worship. See, when we see people go to idol worship, what are we learning? We're learning. We're learning that man has a universal need to commune with God.
[15:23] They don't believe in God, but they believe there's a God, and I'm going to make an image of him that looks a lot like me. I always think people who are atheists.
[15:37] I don't believe in God. I don't believe there is a God. I don't believe anything about God. I am in control of my own life. I will take care of whatever I need. I will do. Okay.
[15:49] So you're telling me you do believe in a God, and it's you. Because you're going to control everything. You're going to take care of everything. You're going to meet your every need. You're going to.
[16:00] So there is a God. It just happens to be you. That's what you're trying to tell me, right? See, there's some people, some volunteers to look up some verses.
[16:12] Romans 128. We have a volunteer. Kathy? Romans 128. Ephesians 4.18. Not everybody at once.
[16:24] Jared? Yep. Ephesians 4.18. Romans 8.7 and 8. Okay, Corey? Romans 8.7 and 8. And 2 Corinthians 4.4.
[16:38] One more. 2 Corinthians 4.4. Bonnie? Okay. 2 Corinthians 4.4. All right. So, idol worship.
[16:53] We are trying to make ourselves our own gods. We know there's a need for God. There's a void in our life without God. And so we're trying to fill that void. And we use idols or whatever.
[17:05] But sin has warped our thinking. Romans 128. Kathy? Kathy? And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them hope for them.
[17:18] What do they want? To do those things which were not seen? They didn't want to retain God in their knowledge. If I retain God in my knowledge, if I think about God and I think about there being a God, what does that mean to me?
[17:35] I have to answer to that God. If there is a God who created me, made me, made the world, I have to answer to him.
[17:46] My life has to be one that when I look at my life and what I do with my life, I have to answer to God with what I do.
[17:58] He created me, what am I going to do with my life? Okay? So sin comes in, messes up that thinking. I start thinking I can take care of things on my own.
[18:11] We'll talk about evolution in a few minutes. Not only that, but when the sin comes in, our understanding of things of God becomes kind of fuzzy.
[18:24] Ephesians 4.18. Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God to the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of the heart.
[18:38] He says it's been darkened. When sin comes into our life, it clouds over. It darkens things in there so we don't see clearly what God has for us.
[18:49] That's the problem with having sin in our life and letting it just run rampant. If we're not living the way God wants us to and following him, sin is clouding over us and we're not living the way God wants us to.
[19:02] And we can't see that we're not. Satan has blinded us to that. If we have sin in our life and we're not living the way God wants us to, then we're not going to be pleasing to God.
[19:15] Romans 8, 7, and 8. Corey? Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, or is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
[19:30] So then they are in the flesh cannot please God. Those that are in the flesh cannot please God. Those who are allowed sin into their life and are controlling their life cannot please God.
[19:40] There's enmity, the word used there. There's a battle going on between God and the sin and the devil and the things that we have for our own desires.
[19:52] He says there's a battle going on there, and we cannot do the right things because we are not living the way that God has called us to live. But their sinfulness has created a world of their own where they make all the decisions, they call all the shots, and they do everything instead of listening to what God wants.
[20:12] But when God starts revealing things to us, God in his grace starts showing us sin, starts showing us that we're going the wrong direction, starts showing us that we have been blinded, then God is going to show us the light of the gospel into our lives.
[20:32] 2 Corinthians 4.4 In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on the devil.
[20:45] The devil is trying to blind us all the time. He's bringing all kinds of things into our life to blind us from what God wants us to do. But he says God is at work. God, through his Holy Spirit, is at work, and he's trying to show us the light of the gospel.
[20:59] Are we going to listen to the devil, or are we going to listen to God? Which one are we going to listen to? And a lot of times, we choose to listen to the devil. We choose to go the direction he wants us to go.
[21:12] Well, this is more fun. This is more enjoyable. This is more, doesn't take as much work. I can just do whatever I want to and whatever I feel like. I don't have to go this certain direction and do these certain things that God wants me to do.
[21:26] How do people picture the Christian life? They picture it as a list of do's and don'ts. You do this and do this and do this, and you don't do this, and you don't do this.
[21:37] They don't see it as guardrails that God has put up for us to keep us out of trouble, to keep us going in a way that will be pleasing, and a way that will help us to live a life that is enjoyable without all the things that take place over here that's going to lead us astray and going to lead us into trouble.
[21:59] He says keep your eyes focused on him. When God shows us things, listen to what he has to say. The root word for revelation in all of this, used in the Hebrew, has an idea of an unveiling.
[22:20] God is giving us revelation. He's unveiling the things that he has for us. He's unveiling the life he impictures for us. He's unveiling what happens if we walk that way.
[22:34] God is giving us revelation. He's giving us an opportunity to know his will and what the results of following his will will be. Deuteronomy 29.29.
[22:46] It says this. Listen to this verse. Deuteronomy 29.29. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of the law.
[23:11] Who does he say the secret things belong to? God. Who does he say the revealed things belong to? Us. So God in his word and God through nature and God through creation and God through all the ways he's trying to reveal himself to us, he says, look, I have secret things that I still have and they belong to me.
[23:32] But the things that I'm revealing to you, they're for you. They're to help you. They're to take you. You know, God doesn't reveal everything to humanity. He gives us what we need in order to live rightly.
[23:48] Now, third thing, what are the implications of that? What are the implications of the fact that God has some secret things, but he reveals other things to us and we have those things? All revelation points to God.
[24:03] When God is revealing things to us, everything about it points to him. When I look out, you know, we are fortunate. We live on the coast of Maine. You've heard me say this many times.
[24:14] But we are fortunate in the fact that we live here. How many people come here every year to see what God did here? The creation that he has here.
[24:26] And we look at that creation and we kind of like, Bonnie used to go down on the island every day for work. He can go down, back, down, back, down.
[24:37] But that can get to be old hat. She didn't allow it to be. Every day she said she went down to certain spots that she would look at. The way the sun was shining, the way the waves were going, the way the wind was blowing, the way every day was a little bit different.
[24:51] And God's revealing himself to us. And the implications of that, God's revelation to us, is the only opportunity we have to know him and to be reconciled to him.
[25:04] We have to submit to what God is showing us. Now, think about it for a second. There are some things he has chosen not to tell us. What are some things that you think of that he has not chosen to tell us?
[25:20] The day we're going to die. Or the day we're going to get born. They don't always get it right. And to go along with that, the day of Christ's return.
[25:33] Christ is coming back. But he hasn't told us when. Jared was talking to some, I guess it was a men's Bible study or something, the other last Monday or whenever.
[25:44] But he was talking about the fact that God doesn't tell us. Why not? Why doesn't God say, hey, you know what? We like Christmas.
[25:55] Christmas is heading this way quickly. December 25th, 2025, at noontime, 12 o'clock. Jesus is coming again. Yay!
[26:07] We know when Jesus is coming. He's going to come on this day. Oh! What would we do between now and then? Anything we want.
[26:18] Because in our mind, we're going, I just have to be ready by 11 o'clock on the 25th of December. You know, make sure everything's ready then. All my sins are covered. I've been, you know what?
[26:29] No, he doesn't tell us those things. Because we're supposed to live for him day after day after day. And he knows us. Same with why we don't know the day we're going to die.
[26:40] I can live any way I want to. And an hour before I die, oh, Jesus, please. Forgive me. Help me. No. So he doesn't tell us certain things. He has certain things that he's kept from us.
[26:54] There are certain reasons for everything that he does. For all of his actions. Does he fill us in on everything that happens and why it happens the way it does? What's the biggest question most people get?
[27:06] Well, how come there's so much suffering in the world? How come this happened? And how come that happened? You know what? I don't know. But I trust the God who did it. I trust the God who's in charge. I trust the fact that he knows best.
[27:19] I trust him. We're going to talk about that in the morning service, too. Do we trust him? So, you know what? How do we live our lives? How do we live according to the revelation that God has given to us?
[27:34] Jared? Yeah. When people oftentimes may ask me, why is there so much stamina? Why is there so much killing? I'll lead that into the world. And one of the things that I've always used to tell him is that because God doesn't even have that choice, he can't just be able to live.
[27:50] And, of course, I tell him I don't understand why people do the things they do. But, again, they come down to that, that's that very well. And God doesn't have that choice. And anyone should be able to thank God.
[28:02] I was watching a clip of Lee Strobel yesterday. And he was talking about that.
[28:13] You know, most people, if you ask them things about God, it says the first thing they're going to ask you, well, if there's a God, why is there so much suffering in the world? And he said, I used to give them a five-point mini-message on all this.
[28:28] He said, I've learned not to do that anymore. He said, what I do now is I say, so what happened to you? Did you ask that question? He said, I find out things that have been going on in their life.
[28:40] He said, and I start there to start to talk about what God does. So, yeah, God doesn't give us all the answers. But he is giving us answers all the time.
[28:51] He is revealing himself to us. So, as we talk about Bibiology, we're going to talk about how this revelation translates into how we live our lives, especially the revelation of the Bible itself.
[29:10] We're going to be talking about why God's work and what it does for us. And we'll continue that next week. Next week, we'll talk about two different types of revelation, general revelation and specific, special revelation.
[29:24] And we'll talk about what the meaning is of those two things. So, do you have any, Father? Thank you for this time we've had.