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[0:00] One of these wives, one of these weeks I'm going to do a message on the rebellious wife.

[0:10] ! I said one of these weeks I'm going to do a thing on the rebellious wife. I don't know. All right. Take your Bibles once more and go to 2 Timothy chapter 3. 2 Timothy chapter 3.

[0:31] 2 Timothy chapter 3. We're talking about the inspiration of Scripture. We talked about the fact last week that it's not just inspirational sayings.

[0:49] It's inspired in the fact that it is God-breathed. God gave it to us. And it's maybe motivational in some ways, but more importantly, it's transformational.

[0:59] Because of the relationship that we establish with Christ through studying His Word. We talked about the word that's used there, theopnusos, and it means God-breathed.

[1:13] That's the word for inspiration there in 2 Timothy chapter 3, 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.

[1:28] It is God-breathed. And we gave a definition from Charles Ryrie that said this. It said, inspiration is God's superintendence of human authors so that using their own individual personalities, they composed and record without error His revelation to men in the words of the original autographs.

[1:52] So God gave His Word to the writers, and they wrote it down, and He used their personalities and everything, which is okay because God gave them their personalities.

[2:05] They were all set. Second thing was the explanation of inspiration. The explanation of inspiration, first of all, again, it was the Scriptures God-breathed.

[2:16] God-breathed. You know, when we talked about, you know, God-breathing into Adam, the breath of life, and He became a living soul, the Bible says.

[2:28] God-breathed these words. They are living words for us to realize that they have been given to us. In 2 Peter 1, 20 to 21, it says, Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture came of any private interpretation.

[2:44] It wasn't the men making it up of themselves. It was God giving it to them. Verse 21, 2 Peter 1, 21. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of men, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

[3:01] And we talked about the fact that God gave these words. The second thing was, oh, and over 2,000 times it says in the Old Testament, Thus saith the Lord.

[3:14] So they were giving God's word. Thus saith the Lord. Here's what He said. Scripture, second, Scripture had human writers. Human writers.

[3:25] God used people. God gave it to people. When you look at, like I said, Paul and James, they write differently. They have different personalities. But God gave it to them. We recognize that the personalities don't diminish the fact that it's divinely inspired.

[3:41] God knew the men. He knew how they worded things. He knew what they did. So He gave it to them. And it is not of any private interpretation. Get that in our mind.

[3:53] Even today, we take the word of God. We read it for what it is. We read and we compare Scripture to Scripture so that it is no private interpretation.

[4:04] Oh, I think it means this. And I think it means that. And I think it means this. And I think it means that over there. And I think it means something totally different. He says it's not of any private interpretation. You take Scripture and you compare Scripture to Scripture.

[4:16] What does the Scripture say about it? And Peter writes in that 120, knowing this first. Keep this in mind as you try to interpret Scripture.

[4:31] Knowing this first. We don't get to make it up what we think it ought to be. Third thing was, Scriptures are God's word to humanity.

[4:41] God is communicating with us. God wants to have a relationship with us. And God is communicating to us through His word that He has given to us. Okay, let's go to the third thing.

[5:02] Third thing, the extent of inspiration. The extent of inspiration. And first of all, the original manuscripts are inspired. God gave it to them.

[5:13] They wrote it down as He gave it to them. So it applies to, and we use that term again, autographs. The autographs. The original manuscripts.

[5:24] Now, before you start thinking too long about what that means, give me a few moments and I'll get there to what you're thinking. For instance, God gave it to Paul.

[5:39] Okay? The Scriptures that he had, God gave them to Paul. Now, are they still inspired if Paul didn't write them down? Yeah. Yeah. Because God gave them to Paul.

[5:52] And Paul is basically, he doesn't say, thus saith the Lord, but he means the same thing. Look over in Romans chapter 16. Romans 16. And look at verse 22.

[6:11] Romans 16, 22. I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord.

[6:23] Paul dictated it. He didn't actually write the words down in this one. He dictated it. But it's still the word of God. And he still used Paul's personality.

[6:35] All Tertius did was just, here, you keep writing while I talk. And he took it down. It was all given to Paul. In 1 Corinthians 2, 13, it says this.

[6:47] He says, these are not the things that men taught.

[7:02] These are things that God, the Holy Spirit, taught. These are the things that he gave us. Now, do we have any of the originals today? No, we do not.

[7:14] None of the originals survived. And that's probably a good thing. Really? Yeah. Because think of what would happen if we had the originals. We would probably be worshiping them more than God himself.

[7:34] You think about how fascinated, every time somebody comes up with, we found Noah's Ark. They found Noah's Ark how many times? You know? But we found Noah's Ark.

[7:46] Well, we still haven't seen it. We see the things that we think it might be yet, but we still haven't seen it. But what happens if we actually do find it? What happens if we actually found the Ark of the Covenant?

[7:59] What happens if we actually found the brass pole? Remember when the snakes came and they were going to look at the pole? You know?

[8:11] Hmm? Caduceus? Caduceus? Okay. Oh, this one you had because of doctors and other people.

[8:23] What happens if we found that? We would wind up worshiping that more than the thing. We worship the thing more than the creator. And, you know, and we get close to that today.

[8:37] I've told you there's a church guy I know. He has it in front of his church, outside in front of him. They have a statue to the King James Bible.

[8:51] And I'm like, hmm. We came to worship God. You know, we're going to make sure we worship the right thing. Keep the focus where it belongs. You can't hear me today?

[9:05] Margaret says you can't hear me today. How about now? That's better? Okay. Jared? 1622.

[9:20] 1622. Okay. 1622. Somebody else? Okay. So, we don't have the original autographs.

[9:33] And that's what the inspiration, when God said, I inspired those. But, in 1 Peter chapter 1, we looked at verse 20 and 21.

[9:44] How about verse 25? But the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. The word of God endureth forever.

[9:58] The word of the Lord endureth forever. Over in Matthew chapter 5, verse 18. Probably a verse some of you are familiar with. Matthew 5, verse 18. It says this. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.

[10:19] He says one little mark. One little, you know, punctuation. Nothing. Nothing. He says, I'm going to make sure God told us that he would preserve his word.

[10:35] And he has. We have the preserved word of God. You know, we've grown accustomed with our computers and printers and all those things that we want something.

[10:47] We just go and we print it out and there it is and stuff. And you can have a copy. Well, back when they were doing the Bible, that's not how it worked. We didn't have all those things.

[10:59] So, what did they do? They copied by hand. Copy here. Copying it down as they were looking at it, writing it.

[11:11] You say, well, there's a lot of room for human error there. Really? I'll tell you why. There was a group called the Masorites. You've probably heard of the Masoretic text and all that.

[11:25] The Masorites, they were copyists. They were ones who, that was their job. Their job was to copy everything. Handwriting the word of God.

[11:36] But as they hand wrote the word of God, there was two things that they would do. They would count the words. One, two, three, four.

[11:46] One, two, three, four. Make sure the number of words were the same. That they had. And then, they would count the letters. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

[12:00] And then they'd go, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4. And, you know, they would count the letters and stuff to make sure they copied it exactly right.

[12:13] They were probably better at copying than some of us are with all of our technology and stuff. Was that process effective? Well, let's take a look at history.

[12:26] Until the 1950s, the oldest Hebrew Old Testament text that was available to us had been a copy found that dated back to 900 A.D.

[12:39] Okay? Well, Malachi finished writing around 400 B.C. So there's a 1,300-year gap between when Malachi finished writing and the oldest copy we have of the Bible.

[12:56] A had. Let me rephrase that. A had. And then in the 1950s came the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. When they discovered those Dead Sea Scrolls, those provided manuscripts that dated back to the 2nd century.

[13:12] And when I say 2nd century, you remember 0 to 100 is the 1st century. 100 to 200 is the 2nd century. So they're dating back to the 100s A.D.

[13:27] That's a 1,000-year difference. And you know what they found? There was virtually no difference between the one that they had and the ones that they found.

[13:40] Maybe a little scribble here, a little thing there. But otherwise, it was word for word exactly the same. You know, God was preserving his word for us.

[13:52] New Testament, same thing. New Testament manuscripts, there's thousands of copies of those available to us. There's all kinds of New Testament parts and whole.

[14:06] There's papyrus, you know, the paper stuff that they use. There's vellum. Anybody know what vellum is? Vellum is animal skin. They were actually written on animal skin to help them preserve and stay longer.

[14:20] There was a fragment of the Gospel of John found in Egypt in A.D. 125, dating back to A.D. 125.

[14:32] Now, you think about John. Jesus lived to be in his 30s, and John was his disciple. And then John lived a long time after that. You remember reading about John and the things that he went through and the things that he faced?

[14:46] Because somebody was talking to me the other day, and they just learned that John had been boiled in oil and survived, lived, before he went to Patmos.

[14:58] Yep. He lived to be in his 90s. So, here's John. He's been writing the Gospel of John. You know, it's 1, 2, 3 John, Revelation.

[15:09] And John had a part of his writings in Egypt, and they were dated back to A.D. 125. So, here's John.

[15:22] He's living to 90. This dates back to 125. That's a pretty narrow gap between the writer and the original.

[15:34] Okay? Or the copy, actually. The copy. So, we don't have to worry about whether we have the Word of God in our hands or not. God has preserved his Word for us and made sure that we had what we're supposed to.

[15:49] He promised it. He said he would do it. And he has preserved it for us. Okay? So, the words that we have in front of us, they were inspired.

[16:01] God preserved them. So, these words are inspired. These are the words that God wanted us to have. So, you look at those verses again.

[16:13] 2 Timothy. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. 2 Peter 1.21 about the fact that men moved by the Holy Spirit. Gave us what we needed to have.

[16:25] We know that we have the right thing in front of us. You know, this is not the concept of some prophet or somebody who is writing or anything like that. These are the words that God gave to us and he promised to preserve.

[16:38] You know, nowhere does the Bible say, well, as long as you get the general idea. One of the problems I have with some of our translations and stuff, some of them are word for word.

[16:52] Others are like, well, this is kind of what it means and this is kind of what it means and this is kind of what it means. I don't want to know what it means. I want to know what it says. So, we take the ones that give us the word as it says.

[17:05] Moses wrote this. He said, take heed to the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord your God commanded to teach you.

[17:20] That's in Deuteronomy 6.1. He says, take heed to those things. Listen to those things that God has given to you. And then he commands them to keep them in their heart in 6.6.

[17:34] Keep them in your heart. In Deuteronomy chapter 30, verses 15 and 16. See, I have set before thee this day life and good and death and evil.

[17:48] In that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply.

[18:00] And the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land where thou goest to possess it. He says, you keep God's word. You keep his commandments. You keep his statutes. You keep his judgments. All those words refer back to his word.

[18:11] And he said, you keep his word and God's going to bless you. How important is it that we take this book, we read it, we study it, we know it. He said, you keep this book and I will bless and I will keep you.

[18:26] New Testament says, look, hold on to God's word. Look at Galatians 3.16.

[18:38] Just back a couple of pages. Galatians 3.16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.

[18:58] He saith not to and to seeds as of many, but as of one. And to thy seed, which is Christ. Notice how Paul points out the importance of the wording.

[19:12] He said, it's not seeds. It's seed. Make sure. Galatians 3.16. Galatians 3.16. He says, look, make sure you pay attention.

[19:24] As you're reading the word of God, pay attention. The words are important. God gave us these words. And then he points out this thing about Abraham.

[19:35] People are referring, oh, the seeds of Abraham. No, the seed of Abraham. God promised Abraham that those that came from him were going to have blessing.

[19:49] And as I mentioned before, even the smallest letter, the smallest punctuation mark, God says, I'm going to keep those. One jot, one tittle. They're going to keep those so that you have them.

[20:03] Jesus promised that he came to fulfill the word of God. He promises that he came to take care of the word of God and make sure that it was fulfilled.

[20:18] So when we come and we're reading in the New Testament, we're reading all the different things that Jesus did. We especially, we're coming up on Christmas. Christmas and Easter, we notice this.

[20:29] The fact that though how many promises they were given, Jesus was there to fulfill them and take care of them. Hundreds. And he met them all.

[20:41] The smallest letter in the Hebrew language is the, interesting enough, Yod. Not Yoda, but the Yod.

[20:52] Y-O-D. And it says, that's like an English apostrophe. And it makes the sound of a Y. He says, that little, I'm preserving that.

[21:06] I'm taking care of that. Then he says, look, the smallest pen stroke, it differentiates. Different, if, thank you. That word. He says, look, even those, I'm preserving those.

[21:20] I'm taking care of those. You want to know what the size, what that is? Let me explain it to you this way in English. Take a C. And then take a G.

[21:33] That's the difference. Between those marks. Difference between a C and a G. He says, I'm preserving those. You think of how important the word of God is to God.

[21:48] That we have it. And he says, you've got it. And it's not going to change. And then, third thing, the whole text of scripture.

[22:01] He inspired the smallest little letter. He inspired the words. And then the whole text. There's a word that people use, plenary. Plenary basically means all of the whole.

[22:14] Sometimes you'll go to a conference or something, and there'll be a plenary sessions. And what those are is a lot of times they'll have workshops and things, but there'll be plenary sessions where everybody comes together for this particular one.

[22:27] This has the whole group together. This has everybody all together in one spot because we're all going to hear the same thing. And the Bible is considered to be plenary.

[22:37] Plenary. Now, what does that mean? That means all of it. Okay? Let me illustrate that. Let's illustrate it this way. Genesis 1.1. What does it say?

[22:51] Well, the verse. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Okay? Genesis 10.4.

[23:01] Genesis 10.4. I'm surprised you haven't memorized this. Genesis 10.4 says, And the sons of Jabin, Elisha, and Teresh, and Kittim, and Dodaman.

[23:21] He says, those are the sons of Jabin. And he says, he gave us that. That's verse 4. Chapter 10 of Genesis.

[23:33] And you're like, yeah. So? Exactly. Let me give you one more example. John 3.16 and 17. You could all quote that one. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

[23:44] That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent his son not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Yeah. That's an important verse. That's one we all got memorized.

[23:56] How about 2 Timothy 4.20? Why? Erastus abode in Corinth. But Trophimus have I sent to Miletum sick. You're going, what's your point?

[24:11] Here's my point. God, in the beginning, God created heaven. We all know that one. Why? It has some very important doctrine things there. The fact that God created everything.

[24:22] That God started everything. God is in control. Okay? Got that. The sons of Jeven? Yeah, okay. Who cares? And that's the attitude we have sometimes, isn't it?

[24:33] Who cares? John 3.16 and 17. God sent his son to the world. Not to. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

[24:47] And then we go to 2 Timothy. Erastus abode in Corinth. Who cares? Except for one problem. One little, one little thing. What does 2 Timothy 3.16 say?

[24:59] All scripture is given by inspiration of God. All scripture. So like I said, we use that word plenary.

[25:12] It means all. So we tend to say, oh, that's important. And that's important. And that's important. And that's important. And that. And those things, those genealogies in Leviticus.

[25:27] He says, all scripture. Yes, but I dare anybody to tell any parent that their child is not important.

[25:40] Right. So he gives that genealogy. There's something in there that's important about it. Even if, I always learned this. Even if it's nothing else, God pays attention to details.

[25:52] And so when we think, eh, I can do this or I can do that. No, he's concerned about the details. Dan? Well, the other thing is, again, all the aside from who was born to who is, you can do all the different.

[26:04] I really said the other day about stuff and the other stuff. It also gives you a timeline. Yep. Like when I talked about like an evolution, that gives us a timeline of the earth and events.

[26:19] Yep. So we have a way to trace. Yep. When things happen. And things went on. So good point. So if I said those certain passages are important, you'd say, yep.

[26:31] I say those other passages are not that important, you'd go, no. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. And I've got more to do, but we're almost done.

[26:42] And I don't know if I have. Well, oh, maybe I do. Okay. Let's keep going. So all the things are inspired. All the things are given to us. There are no trivial passages.

[26:55] Scripture refers to God's word. So we have all of it. God wanted us to have it. Go to 1 Timothy, chapter 5. 1 Timothy, chapter 5. 1 Timothy 5.

[27:12] Look at verse 18. For the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, and the labor is worthy of his reward.

[27:25] How many of you have a red-letter edition of the Bible? Okay, Bonnie does. Margaret does. Okay. Tell me what's different about that verse.

[27:40] That's a direct quote of Jesus when it says, the labor is worthy of his reward. That's in red letters. That's a direct quote of Jesus. What does the first part of the verse say? For the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.

[27:59] Paul is quoting two different passages of scripture when he makes this verse. And an interesting thing about it is, the first part of the verse, about the treading out, don't muzzle the ox, is from Deuteronomy 25.4.

[28:13] The second part is from Luke 10.7. What did Paul just do? Paul just said, you got Moses over here.

[28:23] We all love and respect Moses. Moses is great. Moses is, you know, the leader of our nation. And here's the apostle Luke over here, and he's on the same level.

[28:35] He says, God gave this. God gave this. They're both, and it says how the verse start. For the scripture saith. He says, they're both scripture.

[28:48] And they're both important. We need to make sure we recognize that. Now, there are some parts that are easier to understand than others, but he says that all scripture has value.

[29:01] God has given us all scripture. He's designed it for us. He's given it for our growth. He wants us to learn from it. So, the implication of the fact that God gave us verbal.

[29:17] He spoke it to the prophets. Plenary. All of it's important. Inspiration. God breathed it. So, this book you hold in your hand is important.

[29:30] Because God gave it to us. All of it. And he breathed it out to us. Therefore, we'd better sit up and pay attention as we read it.

[29:43] Okay? Let's have a word for it. Father. Father. Thank you.