The Doctrine of The Bible

[0:00] 2 Timothy 3 verse 14, a familiar one.

[0:14] Paul writing to Timothy, he says to Timothy, But continue thou in the things which thou hast learnt and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learnt them, 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.

[0:38] 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, truly furnished unto all good works.

[1:00] The word of God, the word of God, a unique book, a special book, written in three languages by some 40 different authors who lived on three continents.

[1:15] The Bible was composed over some 1600 years, big period of time, from the first to the end. Among its human authors there were kings, farmers, mechanics, scientific men, lawyers, generals, fishermen, ministers and priests, a tax collector, a doctor, some rich, some poor, some city bred, some country born.

[1:44] Yet it's in agreement in all its parts, it's got a wonderful unity. This book, really 66 books, yet one, united, unified in its message.

[1:56] And it's been said of this, this is a quote from MacArthur's Study Bible, This book contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners and the happiness of believers.

[2:11] Its doctrine is holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true and its decisions are immutable or unchanging.

[2:23] Read it to be wise, believe it to be saved, practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you and comfort to cheer you.

[2:34] It is the traveller's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword and the Christian's charter. Here heaven is open and the gates of hell are disclosed.

[2:48] Christ is the grand subject, our good its design and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart and guide the feet.

[3:01] Read it slowly, frequently and prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, health to the soul and a river of pleasure.

[3:12] It is given to you here in this life, will be opened at the judgment and is established forever. It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labour and will condemn all who trifle with its contents.

[3:30] It's the Word of God. The Word of God is precious to us. It's wonderful, unique in its claims, astounding in its accuracy, revolutionary in its teachings.

[3:42] And it can be something personal that we take into our lives, into our hearts, into action. I want to look at some things about the Word of God which are really self-evident.

[3:53] But firstly, the inspiration of the Bible. The inspiration of the Bible. Paul wrote to Timothy, all Scripture is inspired of God.

[4:05] It's given by inspiration of God. Literally, it's breathed out by God. It's breathed out of God's mouth. Hebrews 1.1 says, God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners, spake in time passed unto the fathers by the prophets.

[4:24] God spoke through the prophets in the Word of God in different ways, at different times, different contexts. God spoke through the prophets.

[4:35] Hebrews 1.1, in sundry times, in diverse manners. At many times, in various ways. And the people who penned the Word of God that we hold in our hands in 2 Peter 1.

[4:49] Verse 20, it says that No prophecy of the Scriptures is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

[5:09] Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. That's 2 Peter 1. Verses 20 to 21. So it's not a private interpretation.

[5:20] The holy men of God spake or wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And the Bible is full of this inspiration. God's breath to us.

[5:31] And we know what did God's breath bring in Genesis? Life. God's breath is life. It's the Word of life. It's the Word of truth. It's living. It's alive. It's vibrant and vital and life-giving.

[5:46] The Word of God. And it's gracious to us. It's God's gracious message. His message of grace. A revelation of Himself to man and women. God's book. And working through the Holy Spirit, God used the Word through the ordinary people that He employed to pennant.

[6:04] Ordinary men and women, through their personalities, they conveyed His messages to humanity through the ages. Of course, I don't think there's any ladies who wrote.

[6:15] But there is Esther there, the book of Esther. But certainly, the Word was penned by human authors, human writers, as God moved them to write it.

[6:26] And, of course, we know God did speak through women on occasion as prophets likewise too. But the Holy Spirit moved on the people of God and brought His message to humanity through the ages.

[6:39] And God superintended what was written. All the actual words of the Bible are inspired and without error. It's without error, the Word of God. Now, inspiration, this doctrine, has been described as verbal and plenary.

[6:56] Verbal and plenary. So, just to explain verbal, of course, verbal means words. It means that the inspired Word of God is verbally inspired.

[7:07] In other words, every word, the precise words and the precise phrases, whilst at the same time God used the vocabulary and the grammar of the human authors.

[7:19] It was verbally inspired. And secondly, plenary inspiration. There was plenary inspiration. Plenary means whole. It means the total, the sum of it.

[7:32] So, in other words, when we say we believe in plenary inspiration, we believe that every single portion of the Bible is fully and completely inspired by God.

[7:44] It's fully and completely inspired from Genesis to Revelation. Every word, every portion of it, every single portion of the Bible is fully and completely inspired by God.

[7:55] And the 66 books. Now, there's some folk who think there's more than that. But, brothers and sisters, the early church in its wisdom, they tested, they measured, they approved, as in spite of God, 66 books.

[8:11] 66 books that they considered to be the rule of faith and practice for the church. And the word canon is the word that they use to describe the 66 books or the canon of Scripture.

[8:28] What that means is from the Greek. It means a measuring rod. A measuring rod. They took a measuring rod, the canon, and they said, this measures up, these books measure up, these other ones don't measure up.

[8:39] And so, we can be assured that these 66 books are inspired of God. We believe in the canon of Scripture. It's a unified witness to the one divine author, our almighty God.

[8:52] And so, because it's inspired of God. Because it comes, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.

[9:04] Because it's inspired, it has a beautiful and wonderful authority. The Bible has authority. It has authority over our life.

[9:15] And a question was asked, why do some people deny the authority of the Bible? Why do some people discount the Bible?

[9:26] And sceptics would seek to question and to tear it apart, to deny the authority of it, and therefore obedience to it.

[9:37] And a preacher put it like this, that the real reason that people deny the authority of the Bible, it is moral and spiritual, not intellectual.

[9:49] It's moral and spiritual. That is why they deny the Bible. People have a problem with the Bible because it says we are sinners. It says we are lost and condemned.

[10:02] We are sinners under the wrath of God. And the only way to remedy this problem is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. That is why some deny the authority of the Scriptures because they don't want to come under that obedience to Christ.

[10:19] And that necessary salvation, that is the only salvation, they deny it because they don't want to come under that authority.

[10:31] But brothers and sisters, there's a wonderful inspiration of the Bible. It's inspired of God. And secondly, it's got integrity. There's the inspiration of the Word.

[10:42] There's the integrity of the Word. The Word of God has an integrity. It's entirely true in all that it affirms. It is accurate. It can be trusted.

[10:53] It's truthful. It's trustworthy. The phrase or like phrases, Thus saith the Lord, occurs 3,800 times or so in God's Word.

[11:05] This is God speaking to us. This is thus saith the Lord. This is the Word of God to us today. And we can take it as true and count it as true.

[11:20] And God's Word, it's inerrant. It's without error. In 1 Thessalonians 2.13 it says, For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because when you received the Word of God, which you received of us, you received it not as the Word of men, but as it is in truth the Word of God, which effectively worketh also in you that believe.

[11:47] You received it not as the Word of men, but as the Word of God. And so when Paul exhorted, when he penned these letters and scriptures, he says, You received it not as the Word of men, but as the Word of God.

[12:01] And people today, this is the Word of God. There's many names we can give the Bible, the Holy Scriptures. One of them is the Word of God. And that's a precious truth that we can count in His Word today.

[12:16] Titus 1.2 it says, In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. In hope of eternal life, that God which cannot lie promised before the world began.

[12:29] This is promised to us. It's from the God who cannot lie. And elsewhere it says, It's impossible for God to lie. And so we have His promise. We have it in black and white and red in some Bibles.

[12:42] The Word of God. Amen. It's in our hands today. We can hold it and believe it. Everything that the Bible teaches is true, is divinely inspired, and it's authoritative.

[12:53] It's authoritative for today. The Word of God. It's infallible. In other words, it's wholly trustworthy. Infallible means it's absolutely without error.

[13:05] It's absolutely saturated with truth. It is truth. It's true in regard to the facts, in regard to the content, in regard to the history.

[13:19] Some have tried to find fault and sought to make contradictions or profess contradictions, but they don't stack up.

[13:33] The contradictions don't stack up. It's when you search the Scriptures and compare Scripture with Scripture and you understand the context and the background and the comparisons that you can make, the Scripture cannot be broken.

[13:48] As the Lord Jesus said, the Scripture cannot be broken. It's absolutely enduring and trustworthy and you can trust the accuracy of it.

[14:00] Even some have said, well, perhaps it's not scientific, but even when they've scoured and tried and sought to find fault in that regard, despite the day in which it was written in which time there was all kinds of fanciful ideas in different legends and stories of different backgrounds in the times that the Bible was written, yet the Bible stacks up with scientific findings today.

[14:29] Of course, we could say that the view of evolution, the theory of evolution doesn't fit with the Bible, but there's certainly faults we can make, there's faults that we can show with the theory of evolution, that really the theory of evolution is false, but the truth of creation, of God's account, does measure up and does stand up to scrutiny.

[14:52] But things like, for example, that he sitteth on the circle of the earth, where it shows that the Word of God sees that the planet earth is a sphere, whereas in those days, many legends and stories had all kinds of fanciful theories about the way the earth was formed or the shape of the earth, but the Bible says what science has confirmed.

[15:17] And the Bible has predated scientific discoveries, including things such as the hydrological cycle where there's evaporation and then clouds are formed and precipitation, rain falls.

[15:32] The Word of God talks about such things. It talks about the tides and the flow of the oceans and so on. There's lots of scientific truth in the Word of God that shows that it's true and as well as the account of history where people have sought to pick fault where they have not had archaeological proof of certain names or groups of people and yet of recent times they have found such things.

[16:02] And so the Word of God has been proven yet again to be true. It's like some have said, it's an anvil on which man has broken many hammers because it cannot be destroyed.

[16:13] The Word of God. The Lord Jesus says that not one jot or tittle, not one minute portion, not one minute concept of what he said, of what he spoke, of what he's written is going to pass away.

[16:26] He says, My words shall not pass away. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Matthew 24, 35. So you can trust the accuracy of the Bible.

[16:38] You can count your eternity upon the Bible, on the Word of God. The truth of it, it's our divine authority in all things pertaining to life and godliness. Our Lord says, Sanctify them through thy truth.

[16:51] Thy word is truth. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. That's John 17, 17. And it's been pointed out here that it is the noun, not the adjective.

[17:06] So it's the noun truth, not the adjective true. Meaning that God's Word is not just true, but it is the truth. Thy word is truth.

[17:18] The Lord Jesus didn't just say, Thy word is true. He says, Thy word is truth. The noun. The truth. And we can rely upon that word. The word of God, God's Word.

[17:29] It's stamped from cover to cover with the truthfulness of God. And it's the reliable guide to life. And so it's got a wonderful integrity. There's an integrity to it.

[17:40] And now, in our world today, there's many that profess to have scriptures. They call them holy scriptures in all kinds of backgrounds and views.

[17:51] And there's some who knock on our door saying they've got another testament. of Jesus Christ. There's many that profess latter-day prophecies and revelations of various latter-day prophets and delusions of men.

[18:06] But the Bible is complete. It's reliable. And it is sufficient. There's a sufficiency of scripture. We don't need to add to it and we don't need to take away from it.

[18:19] It's sufficient for us. The Word of God. And so seeing we see the inspiration of the Word of God, seeing we see the integrity of the Word of God, what should that mean for us? Think of the application of the Word of God.

[18:31] The application of it for your life, for mine, in the practical day-by-day living. Since the Bible is, God's inspired, inerrant Word, what are the implications for us today?

[18:46] What are the implications for you, for me? If this Word has authority, shouldn't it matter? Shouldn't it count? Shouldn't we want to take heed of it and apply it and dig deep into it?

[19:00] As God gives us time and strength and energy and the tools to do so, let us seek it and search it and apply it. The Bible's message. What is the Bible's message?

[19:12] It's about changing people's lives. It's about life change. It's about nurture. It's about feeding. It's about sustenance. It's about faith in Christ. Conversion.

[19:23] From darkness to light. This is the Word of God. This is the truth. And it demands a response. The Word of God demands a response from you, from me.

[19:34] This is not something that should sit on the shelf and gather dust or we just dust it off once a Sunday, once a week. It's something we should want to grab a hold of and get as much of as we can and make it personal, a personal application to real life.

[19:53] God's given it to you for a reason. It's His love letter to humanity, isn't it? And God's Word, it changes lives or it should. If we listen to it, if we heed it, if we obey it, it will.

[20:07] Hebrews 4.12, it says, For the Word of God is quick, or in other words, alive. It's quick, it's alive, it's living, and it's powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

[20:28] This Word is alive, it's powerful, it's active, it's living, it's dynamic, it's dynamic. And people today, Christians tonight, maybe you've lost your dynamite, but we all can, amen?

[20:42] We need the dynamic of the Word of God, the power of His Word as His Holy Spirit vitalizes it and spurs us to heed it and live it.

[20:54] As the Holy Spirit quickens it, makes it alive to us, then the Word will be fresh and living and vibrant in our hearts. The power of the Word of God, the Word is powerful, it's powerful, it's quick and powerful, it's alive, it's living, it's power.

[21:16] It's got an authority and the Word of God is something the Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to guide, to lead, for when we apply the truth, He'll help us to understand it.

[21:29] We all need to dig deep and sometimes there's confusing bits, there's bits that we don't always get the first time but the Holy Spirit will help you and lead you into all truth and your Christianity can be a real, lived out, real life, real world experience and Paul longed for the people that he ministered to, Paul longed for them that the Word of God would work in them, the Word of God would work in them and as he ministered God's truths, as he ministered God's Word, one thing really sticks out to me here in Galatians 4.19 what he said, what he prayed, what he sought for the people of God in Galatia, in Galatians 4.19 he says, My little children of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.

[22:24] Paul, we know he travailed in that spiritual childbirth of seeing people born again, regenerated, getting new life in Christ, becoming new creatures in Christ as they trusted him, as they received Christ as Saviour, as they forsook self and sin and trusted Christ for his saving grace.

[22:45] Paul had a travailing, he had a childbirth experience as a man, as a soul winner and we can too and yet he says I travail again, I travail again that Christ be formed in you, that Christ be formed in you and isn't that our prayer?

[23:02] I pray that Christ would be formed in you, that you would not only be in Christ but Christ would be in you, that Christ would be formed in you, that you would become more like Christ, that you would become more like him, that he would be formed in you. And the Word of God is going to give a spiritual growth, a spiritual life. And the Word of God in Psalm 107 20, it says He sent the Word and He healed them and delivered them from their destructions. There's healing in the Word of God. Maybe you've got some soul sickness tonight. There's some sickness in your soul.

[23:41] He sent the Word and He healed them. This Word, this message can heal the hurt, can heal the heartache, it can heal the bruising, the pain, the sadness, most of all the sickness of our sin. It's the remedy, isn't it? This message. Brother, sister, maybe if you've had some tough times, He sent the Word and He healed them and delivered them from all their destructions. We can take heart in that. Brother and sister, take heart in the Word of God. If there's destruction in your life, if there's wounds and hurts and sadness and bruising in your soul, the Word can come and heal that heartache, that heartbreak. And the Word of God, it helps us. There's a soothing power in this Word because not only does it provoke us, not only does it jab between the soul and spirit and discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart and starts to search the heart and reins of man and see that uncovers the stain and guilt and foulness of our sin, it brings that balm of Gilead, doesn't it?

[24:57] It brings that healing power of the blood of Christ to wash away every stain of guilt, of shame, of our foulness, of our frailty, of our fault.

[25:09] God brings that healing message to our hearts, the healing of His saving grace. Brothers and sisters, He sent the Word and He healed them. It convicts us of sin, of our need, of our guilt, of our shame, and it shows us Calvary.

[25:25] It acts like a mirror. In James 1.23, it says that we behold ourselves as we take a look in the mirror of the Word of God. We see, for I can see a bit of me in Adam there in Genesis 3. Amen.

[25:41] I can see a bit of me in that account of Noah and his faults and failings. I can see me in what David did. I can see that sin. I can see that sin when I look through the Word of God.

[25:54] I can see that fault when I see these men and women of God. You know, this book says it warts and all, doesn't it? It tells us the story warts and all. There's some so-called holy scriptures that just paint people as perfect.

[26:07] But this Word says man is far from perfect. Man, the only perfect one, is the one this Word tells us to turn to, the Saviour of humanity, our Lord Jesus Christ.

[26:18] And it acts like a mirror with our conscience. God has spoken. He's spoken in a way that's real, that's relevant, that speaks to our everyday need, to our deepest and direst need of His saving grace.

[26:31] And He's preserved this message through history, to us in the scriptures. His message of life, it's here for you. It's here for me and it's true. It's complete and it's without error.

[26:41] We can believe it. In Isaiah 14, verse 8, it says, As the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, But the Word of our God endureth forever.

[26:52] Now, you can drive around our city streets and see the state of our verges and the grass. It's dying, isn't it? You might have had some flowers in that garden not long before they're going to fade and fall.

[27:07] The heads are just going to wilt and drop. And those beautiful flowers in Mrs Young's garden, that one day they're going to just frizzle up and die. But, amen, the Word of God is going to endure forever.

[27:20] This is eternal. This will endure forever. It's going to last longer than those beautiful roses, than that lovely garden, or not so lovely garden in my case. But the Word of God is going to endure forever.

[27:31] It's not going to fade. It's not going to fail. It's everlasting. And the Bible is God's Word to man. In this book, God discloses everything. Everything. He desires man to know concerning himself, his workings in the past, and his plans for the future.

[27:45] Everything in the Bible is part of his divine revelation. It comes from God. And Psalm 19 says lots of beautiful truths too. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.

[27:58] The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

[28:10] The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold.

[28:24] Sweeter also than honey, and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned, and in keeping of them there is great reward. Every word of God is pure. He has a shield unto them that put their trust in him.

[28:37] Proverbs 30 verse 5. This word is pure. It's unadulterated. It's uncontaminated. It's something you can stake your soul on.

[28:47] This message is life everlasting. And just as we draw to a close, think of it today, the inspiration of the scriptures. It's inspired. God has inspired.

[28:59] He's breathed it out into the hearts of men to pen it, for us to have it translated in our language, for us to take it into our ear gate, and let it enter into our mind.

[29:15] Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. There's faith generated as we hear this message. Faith gets generated. Faith happens as the word is preached, and heard, and understood.

[29:29] And ask God by his Holy Spirit to give you understanding. Now for many, sometimes it takes some time to get a grasp of it. I know I was in church many times before I was saved.

[29:43] I heard preachers, I heard gospel messages, I heard the truth, it took me some time. Maybe that's true for you tonight. Maybe you've heard this and heard it, yet it's not personal yet.

[29:55] It's not personal yet. And then, the light goes on. The light goes on. Wow, I never saw that before. You know, you can read this as a book, or you can read it as God's message, as God's word.

[30:09] Read it as his word to you. Read it as personal to you. Read it. Read it. Devotional reading. Read it daily. Read it often. Read it regularly.

[30:21] Read it. And keep on reading it. Study it. Study it. Dissect it. Dig deep into it. Mine it. It might be just a few words that you dig into moment by moment.

[30:37] The treasures are deep and rich and incredibly diverse, incredibly rich and full. And sometimes we just scratch the surface or we gloss over it.

[30:51] Let's take the time to study it, to apply it, and meditate on it. Meditate on it. When I say meditation, it's not like the meditation of the Eastern type, but this is a meditation where we, our concentration is upon the word.

[31:10] A meditation where it's truth that we're searching. It's truth that we're dwelling on.

[31:21] That is the meditation of God's word where it soaks into our imagination where we we churn it over and chew it over like a cow would chew the cud.

[31:34] Meditate on it. Chew it over. Keep on chewing it. Keep on reading it. Read it and read it again. And soak it in into your mind. It's not an emptying of the mind.

[31:46] Christian meditation is a filling of your mind. It's a filling of your mind with God's truth. You can do that. There's folk that have got the Bible on tape, on iPod, on the internet.

[31:57] You can hear it as it's read and hear it in your ear as well as read it with your eyes. So read it, study it, meditate and memorise it. Memorise it.

[32:07] Let the word be living. Let it be resident. Let it be something that is within you that you can regurgitate it, that you can apply it, that you can internalise it and that you can recite it.

[32:19] When there's opportunity comes, when something faces you, the word's in you and you don't need to suddenly search for it. It's within you. Memorise it and it'll keep you from sin.

[32:31] And the Bible must be our final authority, our source of direction. What must we do? Faith in the word of God. Zeal for the word of God. Devotion, obedience to the word of God.

[32:44] Take it seriously. It's God's word. Lay it up in your heart. Study it with the intention of obeying it. People tonight, lastly, this is a scripture that we all know it, but do we do it?

[33:01] James 1.21, Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity or in other words abundance of naughtiness, of evil. Lay aside the filthiness, he says.

[33:13] Lay aside the evil. James 1.21, And receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls, but be ye doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves.

[33:35] You can come to church morning, noon and midweek and miss it. You can hear it and hear it, but God says, do it. Do it.

[33:46] Put it into action. Put it into your life. Into the walk. And that means faith is when the light goes on, you trust him.

[33:59] Faith is really just the beginning of the walk. It's the starting point. None of us have arrived yet. It's a walk. It's a daily walk, isn't it? As we know, it gets closer and closer.

[34:13] That perfect day. And one day, it will be that perfect day, but it's not yet. Meantime, obedience is that which we call to have. Not an obedience that saves us or keeps us saved, but an obedience that is innate within us.

[34:30] We cannot help but obey because we're his, because we love him. How can we, who else can we go to? Thou hast the words of eternal life. Who else, the world can offer you just a load of trash and cheap substitutes.

[34:47] Go to the word, brother. Go to the word, sister. Let this fill you. Hunger and thirst for it. Let it fill you. And do it. Most of all, do it. That is the vital thing.

[34:57] Do the word. Do what is true. Do what he says to do. Do what he says to do. Do what he says to do. Do what he says to do. Do what he says to do. Do what he says to do. Do what he says to do.

[35:08] Do what he says to do. Do what he says to do. Do what he says to do. Do what he says to do. Do what he says to do.