But the authority and sufficiency of the Bible and kind of the leading question tonight that I wanted to ask and then answer and work through together is this. Is the Bible really sufficient? Is the Bible really perfect? Is the Bible really complete and adequate for everything that that we need for life and for walking with God and living with God and just living a life that honors and glorifies God. You know, the amazing thing is, you know, we all know that We are no doubt a minority in our culture that believes wholeheartedly in a book that is given by God, that is inspired by God, that is complete and sufficient from the Lord. There are many that don't Believe that many that think the Bible has errors that the Bible has been changed that the Bible has been edited and on and on and on you can go and all through school and into college and into the workforce and friends and family and strangers and neighbors and We're going to find people all over the place that don't have the same view of this book that we do. And so tonight, we wanted to sort of open up that question and really examine, okay, why do we believe this is true? And maybe from a negative perspective, how is the Bible being attacked today? And as I began to think on this, really over the last couple of weeks, Kind of narrowed it down to five different ways that the Bible is being attacked. And that's kind of what I wanted to bring out tonight and work through together with you. But there is much today, of course, that is being thrown in our face that sort of screams at us. The Bible is good. It's a good old book. It's a good ancient book. It's maybe got a lot of history in it, but is it really reliable? Is it really true? Do you need to add anything to the Bible? Do you need to have a vision? Do you need to hear God talk to you? Do you need to see God in order to validate anything from the scriptures. For instance, if you would find a Jewish person, maybe even a Jewish skeptic, they might, and you talk to them about the Bible and about the New Testament, a Jewish skeptic might kind of give you this idea that Jesus didn't really fulfill what the Old Testament in their idea prophesied. He didn't really complete what they were looking for. They were looking for a perfect kingdom of peace and of righteousness and where there's a lot of prosperity and that will come, but not right now. If you talk to a Muslim, and by the way, Muslims are just growing so fast around the world, even in some of our own neighborhoods, we're finding out as well, but if you talk to a Muslim person, they would say that, well, you know, Jesus and the Bible, Jesus just kind of failed as a prophet, as really what the Bible makes him out to be. He didn't really complete what it is that We say, the Bible says, he did. In other words, he is a false prophet because, according to the Muslims, he presented the faith of Christianity, really, and they would say that the faith that Jesus presented was not true, it was not reliable, and he was a false prophet. If you go up to people today walking on the street, even post-moderns, many post-moderns would even have the idea that Christianity is okay if you add the Bible to everything else. If you add the scriptures to every other faith or every other religion, but as soon as you begin to say that the Bible is the only a divinely inspired book, and as soon as you say that the Bible is the only way to learning about the true knowledge of God, and Christ is the only way to God, then you have a big issue. Then they are intolerant when we say that the Bible is exclusive. If you haven't come in contact with these folks, you will, and no doubt it will happen often. The more that you talk about your faith, and people learn about your faith, the more that you will realize that this kind of thinking is just everywhere. Earlier today I was out sharing the gospel at a Metrolink station and came to see that again for people that don't see that the Bible is the authoritative book and they don't like it when the Bible really shows their sin. and they don't want to submit to what God has to say in the Bible. And even, you know, we have some among us who are going to go to college this year, or next year, and those that are growing up, and this is just, I mean, how much more so will it be you know, in the next few years as they, you know, go off and, you know, families are not under the same roof anymore because they are in the dorm and they are off doing their thing and how important it is for them to be grounded in God's Word and be confident in this book. So five attacks on scripture. And the first is this. The first attack that I think is very common in our day is an attack on the sufficiency of the Bible. The sufficiency of the Bible. And by that, I mean that the issue says, is the Bible really enough? for us and for our Christian life. Do we need anything else? Do we need anything in addition to the Bible to sort of fill in the gaps? Because, you know, let's be honest, the Bible's an old book. The Bible was written thousands of years ago. It was written in sort of a pre-modern era. They didn't have computers, they didn't have maybe what some people might argue all of the intelligence that we have today. That is a common argument. That could even show itself in so-called modern psychology, modern day medication, psychotherapeutic and psychotropic drugs, where any issue, there's medication for it, and there's a drug for it, and there's something to help you cope with your problems, that is in addition to God's Word. And it could be from an anti-depressant to ADD, ADHD, it could be bipolar, it could be any sort of and thousands more that we could talk about. That well, yes the Bible talks about this but we need something quick, something here and now, something fast that can sort of solve or what they think is really going to solve the issue and the problem Every need of every human being as we know ultimately goes back to to a spiritual fundamental issue you know every every need of the human heart and of the human soul is Really when it comes down to it a spiritual need whether whether it's somebody who struggles with depression somebody who struggles with anger or Somebody who struggles with loneliness. Somebody who has a fear of something. Though there are a lot of medications that people go on nowadays, those are issues that really fundamentally are directly related to the spiritual relationship with God. and God's Word does address these things. That's why one author could put it this way. He said, churches today sometimes look to the modern psychology movement to fill the gap. But that is not going to work because professional psychologists, if that's where all of the hope and all of the goal and all of the trust is put into, There's no substitute for spiritually gifted people. And the counsel that psychology can offer that cannot replace biblical wisdom or divine power, but psychology can tend to make people dependent upon a person, a therapist, a drug, a system, rather than a sufficient savior and Word that is true and sufficient and reliable and certainly inspired by God Let's open up our Bible and just look together at Psalm 19 and We're going to go to a lot of different scriptures tonight. You can jot these down. You can remember these if you'd like but in Psalm 19 verse Verse 7. Let's just begin and let's just read a couple of verses about God's Word. Psalm 19, verse 7. The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever, and the judgments of the Lord are true. They are righteous all together. Isn't it interesting in verse 7 that he said, the word of God is sure. It's trustworthy. It's where we get our English word, Amen. It's a trustworthy thing. It's a confirmed fact that makes wise the simple. The word simple means naive. If we need wisdom, if we need to learn, if we need to grow, if we need to understand more about life and how to live and how to honor God, right here, the God's Word, the testimonies of the Lord, makes it very It gives us the wisdom that we need. God's Word is sufficient, one author writes, to meet every need of the human soul. That's what David writes right here in Psalm 19. These verses that we just read is a comprehensive statement regarding the sufficiency of the Bible. It is an inspired statement about scripture as a qualified guide for every situation. Now think about that. Every situation in your life that you will ever face, you can turn to the Bible and it will, either directly or indirectly, lead you and guide you in a way where you can honor God and walk in a way that is pleasing to Him. every issue, every circumstance, every scenario in life. Scripture is comprehensive. It contains everything necessary for our spiritual life. Scripture is sure, and it is more sure than human experience, Because our human experience is subject to our own interpretation, our own judgment. But God's Word is unchanging, and it is true, and it is reliable. Scripture contains divine principles that are the best guide for how we are to live our lives. There are no errors in the Bible, and that's why Scripture lasts forever. Scripture is true regarding all things that matter, making it capable of producing comprehensive righteousness. So scripture can meet every need in your life and in my life. It can guide us, it can direct us, it can shape us. Why is it being attacked and where did it begin? Let's go all the way back to Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3, and you know as well as I do that the Bible is God's revealed, God's spoken word to us. And really the attack on the sufficiency of the Bible began in Genesis chapter 3, beginning in verse 1. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, that's Eve, we know that from the context. Indeed, has God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? Now, just right there, if you read back in chapter 2, that's exactly what God told Eve. That's exactly what God told Adam, rather, specifically. don't eat from this tree which is in the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But the fact that Satan, the serpent, would even question that, would even say, did God really say that? It is almost questioning the sufficiency and the clarity of what God had already said to Adam. Verse 2 the woman said the serpent from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat But from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden God said you shall not eat from it or touch it or you will die Then the serpent said to the woman you surely will not die so now this the serpent is totally contradicting outright what God said Then verse 5 For God knows that in the day that you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. What is Satan saying? He's saying, you know, God didn't tell you this, but you know that when you eat of this tree, then you will really know good and evil. That, right there, was an attack on the sufficiency of God's Word. Because he undermined what God said, he questioned what God said, and he said, surely God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Let's go to Psalm 119. Psalm 119, verse 97. And I like this section of scripture. You know, Psalm 119 has about 20 stanzas of 8 verses each. And beginning in verse 97 is a great stanza on God's word being sufficient to give wisdom for godliness and a godly life. Verse 97, O how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. That just means he thinks about it all day long. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies. If somebody tempts him and he's meditating on God's Word, that will make him wise enough to withstand and not fall into that temptation. Verse 99, I have more insight than all of my teachers for your testimonies or my meditation. In other words, even the most scholarly of people, even the most wise of human teachers, if I'm really meditating on and learning from God's Word, I am, in a sense, wiser than them because I have God's Word before me. Now we need teachers, we need people to teach us, and we need to learn from them. But this is saying God's Word will make us wise enough because it comes from the mind of God. And that 100, I understand more than the aged, because I have observed your precepts. I have restrained my feet from every evil way that I may keep your word. I've not turned aside from your ordinances, for you yourself have taught me." And he continues by saying, I live by your word, I meditate on your word, and it leads me, it guides me, it gives me wisdom, and it makes me sufficient for handling any issue in life. And of course the section that we looked at a couple weeks ago from 2 Timothy 3, I think that's the greatest and the clearest phrase and verse in scripture on how God's Word is really sufficient. All Scripture, 2 Timothy 3 verse 16, All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, so that, why is the Bible true? Why is it reliable? So that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. If you want to accomplish every good work in your life, then live it according to this book. Hey, Jack. Yeah. You said, if I can interject. Yeah, yeah, yeah, please. If you were to, um, I'm just trying to think if I'm talking to somebody in the office down the way. Yeah. And they weren't hostile. Sure. They were just, I didn't know. Yeah. And if you were to, if you were to try to describe what is the What is the main purpose for which God gave us the Bible? What, from a 30,000 foot flyover in one or two sentences, what, why did God give us the Bible? What is the purpose? I mean, it's not a, you know, it's not a science book, right? If you were to try to explain that to a coworker or something like that, what would you say? Why, what's the purpose of this book in just kind of real succinct way? Why is it, Why is this book so important? Why would a Christian cherish this book? I have some sense of that, but I don't know that I can communicate that real clearly. And there's probably many good answers to that question, right? Maybe one that I like to think of when I think of this big book and a big message with a lot going on in this book. Why did God give it? I think to reveal His plan of redemption for His people to glorify Himself. It's kind of God putting Himself on display as He redeems the people, beginning with really God killing and making the first sacrifice in Genesis chapter 4. When the whole Cain and Abel incident, remember God was the one who killed the animal and made that sacrifice there. All the way through Abraham, and the nation of Israel, and of course our Lord Jesus, and all the way to the book of Revelation. It's about God saving and redeeming a people for himself. Now, this book is not going to give every detail of human history, obviously, but it's in God's perfect wisdom and perfect mind what is sufficient to lead us and guide us down that path of understanding that message. Yeah. So, 30,000 for flyover reduction. Yeah, I think if I could sum up the entire Bible in one word, that would be the word. Because that's a word that means God buying back, owning, purchasing a people for himself, for his own possession. And that's what the New Testament and the Old Testament is all about. All about. From Israel all the way to the church as well. Let's just look at one more verse, 2 Peter chapter 1. And this is one of those little verses that's kind of tucked away, sort of in the back of our Bibles, and we kind of read over the paragraph, but we forget about the great and awesome content that is found here. Let's begin in verse 2. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who has called us by His own glory and excellence. Well, how do we learn about the true knowledge of God but through the Bible, through His Word. So the more that we learn about the Word of God and learn about the Lord and His power, we understand that we have everything we need for life and for godliness. There are a couple of great books that if you wanted to read more just on the power of the Bible, the sufficiency of the Bible, I have a couple of titles here. There's an author by the name of John Frame who has a book called The Doctrine of the Word of God. Pretty straightforward. It's a bigger book, but there are a lot of sub-chapters in there and subsections and all those that are really readable, really, really helpful. A lot of scripture. Another book that is very helpful is edited by John MacArthur and it's just called Counseling. It's how to counsel biblically and they work through not only what is biblical counseling but how does the sufficiency of the Bible work into every practical issue that could come up in my life. Another issue, another attack that I think comes up in our day, not only the sufficiency of the Bible, but second, the canonicity of the Bible, the canonicity, like C-A-N-O-N, not canon like, you know, shooting a cannonball out, but canon comes from an old Greek word that refers to a standard or a rule of measurement. And when we talk about a canon of scripture, we're really talking about the Bible. What is the rule or standard of measuring our lives? Measuring who God is, and it's the Bible. So another word for the Bible could be canon. When we talk about the canonicity of the Bible, we talk about how did we get our Bible? How did we get the books that are in our Bible? And why are there not more books in our Bible? And why are there not less books in our Bible? And there are so many different issues that are related to this. But you've heard the people say, well, how do you know that all of the books in our Bible are really supposed to be there? What about all of the other books that they have found archaeologically in recent centuries? And they have found a lot. What do we do about other Gospels that have been found? A Gospel of Thomas or a Gospel of Peter? We know Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but what about other Gospels? Do we need to change our Bible and go add another book? The illustration here is a guy by the name of Bart Ehrman. I don't know if you've heard of that name. He is a professor at a university in North Carolina, and he used to be a professing Bible teaching scholar. He got a pastoral degree wanting to be in the ministry, and the more that he studied, and the more that he researched, and the more that he examined all of the manuscripts and all of the archaeology, he sort of argued himself out of believing the Bible is true. Believe it or not, now he has a goal and he has actually put this in publication. He said that when students from the Bible Belt come to my classes at the University of North Carolina, he wants to essentially take away their biblical foundation and show them that the Bible is not True. It's not sufficient. It's not adequate. It's not enough. There is much more that has been found and that's why God's Word and the canon of God's Word should be changed. He has written books entitled Forged. He has written a book entitled Misquoting Jesus. He's written a book entitled Lost Christianities. He's written a book entitled Lost Scriptures. I mean you can tell from the titles that this guy is out to essentially shatter your confidence in the scripture. Maybe a couple of years ago, the Da Vinci code was everywhere on the newsstands. You'd see people on the airplanes reading the book every day. It's not quite as popular as it was, but that was kind of an argument that there were these lost gospels. What would you say if you're sitting next to a guy on the plane and he or she is reading the Da Vinci code Well, you have a great inroad right there because you have an open door right there. He's reading about the Gospels. Unfortunately, you could ask him, say, do you know when those were written? Do you know who wrote them? And have you even not read a book about those Gospels, but have you read them themselves? Because For instance, one of the Gospels that Da Vinci Code refers to a lot is a book called the Gospel of Thomas. And in that book there's a lot of mythical stories and things like Jesus being a kid, and when he was a young boy, maybe four, five, six years old, he was out back, you know, playing with some friends in the Nazareth neighborhood or whatever, and he made a clay pigeon or a clay dove, and then he blew, and he said something, and then the dove flew off. And these kinds of miracles and these kinds of fables and stories that of course are not in the Bible, and there is really no evidence in the Bible that he did miracles until his public ministry began. So it would be good to ask, because ask them if they knew when they were written. who wrote them and what the content of these Gospels is because it's a very different message than the four Gospels we have in our Bible. Or you've heard people say something along the lines of, I had a vision, or I had a dream, or God talked to me, and God said something to me, and I know that we need to do this. And I'm not at all trying to diminish that God can prompt our heart, that the Spirit can lead us in different directions through His Word and through the Holy Spirit. God does do that. But the sort of visible vision and audible hearing the voice of God and that kind of thing, we hear people talk like that, and I know I had to marry that person because God showed up and He told me so, kind of a thing. That is really sort of a way of confronting the book, again, saying it's not sufficient, and saying the canon of scripture is not totally adequate. Maybe you would ask me, Jeff, how do we know that the books of our Bible are the right ones? What did the early Christians do to gather the right books and to eliminate other books. And they had a number of criteria that they went by, and the first is this. Was it written by an apostle? Was it written by an apostle or somebody who was very closely related to one of the twelve disciples, to one of the twelve apostles? Matthew was one of the Twelve Disciples. John was one of the Twelve Disciples. Peter was one of the Disciples. Jude was the brother of Jesus. James was the brother of Jesus. So obviously they were closely related to our Savior. When you deal with Gospel of Thomas and you deal with other Gospels that were written and other books that have been found archaeologically, we're talking they were written 1 to 2 to 300 AD. For the most part, later than our New Testament. So, number one, was it written by an apostle? Second, is it orthodox? Does it fit within What the Bible teaches, theologically, does it teach the same message? Or does it have a lot of, kind of, what seem to be made up stories about Jesus making clay doves and blowing them off in the wind? What does that show? What does that prove? Another test that the early church went by was really, was Jesus Christ central in the writing? Did he have an active part to play in this writing, in this gospel? Not in an outrageous kind of a thing, but is Christ there? Is the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, dying for sinners, is that there? Is that present? You read the New Testament and every book refers to the Lord. Jesus in some way, shape, or form. And then two more. Next, did the early church universally receive the letter? Not just in one location, but was it received and accepted by many people in the known world at that time? And then I think most importantly, how do we really, really know that the books of the Bible, the canon of the Bible, is the only 66 books that God wants us to have? And it's this. It's the testimony of God in our hearts to his own word. Because we can argue with all of the great criteria that the early church went by, and we can give all the great arguments, but that may not argue somebody to believe the Bible. It's ultimately going to be a work of God the Spirit that's going to affirm and confirm that in somebody's heart. By the way, something that is helpful Somebody may say, well, but I heard somewhere that a bunch of Christians got together in 300, 400 AD and it was kind of a church council and they kind of picked what books they liked and that kind of became our Bible. And I think the best answer to that is that we need to realize that nobody ever decided what books were going to be in the Bible. God did. Right? God could decide what books in the Bible. All man had to do was to recognize by reading it and God's Spirit affirming and confirming what is the truth and what are the true and inspired books. Really, it comes down to faith. And it comes down to God's Spirit working in the hearts of His people. and that's why we'll probably never have a good run at convincing the Atalantia that the word of God is the canon. If the demons could assume it could be a circular argument that all hinges upon the work of the Holy Spirit. And they're not going to be able to understand that, well, they, meaning those who are antagonists. If I know what Luther was very uncomfortable with James, when was the canon sort of officially formed or closed. Yeah, yeah. Well, the last book of the Bible written was the book of Revelation. Maybe mid-90s AD. There are manuscripts of early church fathers, early Christians, that compiled what they thought were books of the New Testament. As early as 150 AD, 160 AD, that may not have had all of the books, but almost all of the books. It was easily within the first couple of centuries that the entire church unanimously recognized that all of the books, both the Old, but specifically of the New Testament, are part of the canon, no more, no less. It wasn't a council that decided it, and even early on you have different fragments, different manuscripts that have been found archaeologically that have the four Gospels, the letters of Paul, 1st and 2nd Peter, Hebrews, James, Revelation, and it's pretty remarkable that how early that testimony can go back. Ultimately, it doesn't matter how convincing your argument is, you're never going to convince them once they're out of it. It's the Holy Spirit, like I said, it's like the Holy Spirit. There's so many things you can look at. I mean, any book that we're going to read, there's a study of Romans that we're going to see. There's a number of books on Rome, because it's no excuse. And there isn't any argument you can do on this, it's going to be, you're never going to convince somebody The only hypothesis to that argument is your argument is circular also. It's dependent upon your own belief. You're right by that. Yeah, and it's really an unbelievable, because we're saying, I can't convince you the Bible's true. That's what we're really believing and saying to people. God's Spirit has to do it. Same with conversion. We can give all the best arguments for why they should repent and believe in Christ, but I can't save anybody. You know, I can't craft the best gospel presentation. It's God. Just a really, really great testimony. And you'll see some that are just really cryptic and really, really rough testimony in a presentation when somebody comes to the Lord. If the Bible was... I mean, the early Church Fathers were pretty much in unanimous agreement as early as the 1st and 2nd century. What made the yeah that's a good question a lot of it has to do with with other books that are good and helpful historically like Maccabees for instance we've all heard of Maccabees and they are very good historical books that kind of give us a record of what happened between the Old Testament and New Testament era. The problem is this. There are historical errors in those books. There are chronological errors, flat out errors, in those books. They know that and they affirm that. Do the Catholic Church recognize those as being inspired? They do. They do. They do. Yeah, and it is, and there are of course about a dozen or more other books that the Catholic Church does add to their Bible, but it may be a way of how much more of a fuller and complete, the more books we find the better, may be a mindset. The problem is when you have errors, you have an errant Bible, not an inerrant Bible. It doesn't matter about the books, it matters about God gave us the Bibles and he needs enough people for the world he's going to make. The new world. Let's look at another issue and I appreciate these comments because these are good and helpful and any question, any issue that is raised is really, really welcome. Number three, what is another attack on the Bible? And it's this, it's the attack on the clarity of the Bible. And you'd be shocked, but God is a communicating God. God created human language, He created human beings, and God knows how to communicate with us through language, which is what he also created. There is a lot written today that says that God can't communicate with us, that God couldn't communicate with us, that whether God just couldn't bring himself to condescend to our level or whatever their reasoning, God is just not a communicating God. So, if you do that, then you really have a problem with God's character, because you say, He can't reveal Himself. He can't make Himself clear to His people. There is an attack on the clarity of the Bible today. There's a movement called Open Theism. And that's a movement that's kind of known in the scholarly world, but the thinking is kind of reaching churches, schools, and it's the idea that God doesn't know the future. That literally God is just as surprised about what's going to happen tomorrow as we are. And the way that this came about was there was a guy, believe it or not, who was counseling I don't remember if it was a woman or her husband or both of them together, and they had just lost a child. And this man, who had been trained theologically, I think he was in some sort of a church ministry at the time, he said to her, you know, even though you didn't see this coming, and they, I forget what the reason was, they lost this child, but you didn't see it coming, and you know what? God didn't either. And God is just as surprised as you are. And that was supposed to be a way of comforting this family. Which isn't comforting at all. It's the exact opposite. Especially when you read Isaiah chapter 40 all the way to chapter 55, God ordains The end from the beginning. One of the ways that God, in the book of Isaiah, mocks the idols is because they don't know the future, but He does. And the Bible's clear. Crystal clear on this. But yet, again, it's, well, but how do you talk to people when God does know the future and bad things happen? Well, the easy way out is, well, God just didn't know the future. He didn't know what was going to happen. It's an attack on the clarity of the Bible. Even more recent than that, there's been an attack on the clarity of the Bible on the issue of hell. you guys all know and are aware of a guy named Rob Bell who has written a book entitled Love Wins where he believes that God's love will in the end win and that every single human being who has ever lived will be saved and end up in heaven and he has a sequel coming out I don't know if it is already out but how many places in the Bible do you read about judgment and hell, and who spoke more about that than Jesus? But again, another attack on the clarity of the Bible. And perhaps maybe well known to you, is what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. And it's not to point the finger at a person or a religion necessarily, but it's to point out, here's an error and here's a flaw in this Roman Catholic faith. Here's what they write. In their own Vatican Council, their own catechism, It says, Holy Mother Church, the Catholic Church, is to judge the true interpretation of the Bible. And therefore, it is permitted that nobody is to interpret the Bible against such sense or also against the agreement of the Fathers. In other words, if anybody interprets the Bible or has an understanding of the Bible that differs from the Roman Catholic Church or from their fathers, he's wrong, essentially. And to make it even more clear, they have a catechism like You know we the Protestants have many catechisms through the centuries in paragraph 100 It says this the task of interpreting the Word of God Authentically has been entrusted and here's the key word solely to the magisterium that is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him and The only true interpretation of the Bible is only found in the leadership, the Pope, the priests of the Catholic Church. And maybe just one more quick attack on the clarity of scripture. When Tikvah, our daughter, was born, we were getting in the car one day and it was right across the street from a Christian science, a church of Scientology, which is not Christian and it's not a church, and it really didn't have much to do with science, but anyway, we were interacting with a lady there who actually approached Elizabeth to proselytize her, And it was amazing. We started talking to her and she says, if you have five minutes, come into our building and we will teach you about the special knowledge you need to learn about God or salvation or whatever she said. And I said, well I'm a pastor and we teach from the Bible and we believe the Bible alone is the true word of God. And it was amazing that she said, well that works. Just bring it here and learn the special knowledge and just kind of add that to what you believe. And it was pretty amazing. Yeah, to the shame of whomever she was speaking about. She's like, we have numerous Christians that come and worship here with us. So if you can just come in and be a part of what we're doing. It all goes together. But you know what is interesting to me is, all the way back in Deuteronomy chapter 6, Verse 6, these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart, you shall teach them diligently to your sons, and you shall talk of them when you sit in the home. And we know these verses, you teach your families. But remember the context, Moses is saying to the people of Israel, everything that I have taught you teach them to your children. With the idea of, it's clear, they can understand it. Let's not forget that in the book of Colossians, and in the book of Ephesians, Paul is writing there, and remember, he doesn't just talk about the armor of God, and husbands and wives, but he talks to children. Remember? He says, children obey your parents. In other words, he's speaking to them. Assuming that children who are in the community can hear the word, understand the word, and obey the word. So the Bible can be interpreted, it can be understood. The only qualification to rightly understand the Bible is to be a spirit indwelt, regenerated Christian. Right? Remember when the Jewish people who knew the Bible very well in John chapter 8, they heard what Jesus was saying, and Jesus said this. Jesus said, why do you not understand what I am saying? It's because you cannot hear my word. And they're thinking, what do you mean I can't hear the word? I'm hearing you talk. And Jesus says, you are of your father the devil. And you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and so on. John 8, 43 and 44. And what is he saying? He says, you guys, because you don't believe in me, you don't have new life in you, You CANNOT understand my words. And 1 Corinthians 2 says the same thing. The natural man can't accept the things of the Spirit of God because they're foolishness to him. And he CANNOT understand them because they are spiritually appraised. We are taught the things of God's Word and able to not only understand it but apply it to our lives because we have the Holy Spirit living in us. That's why Wayne Grudem can conclude and say this, the appropriate conclusion from these passages and many more is that the Bible repeatedly affirms that it is able to be understood, not only certain verses or certain statements, but the meaning of the entirety of scripture on many topics is able to be understood by God's people. These affirmations about the nature of Scripture are grounded in an assumption that the Scripture is communicated by God who can communicate to His people clearly. Okay, two more thoughts and then maybe we can have more questions and answers if you'd like. Another one, another attack on the Bible. that you might not really consider, you might not have thought of before, because it's not an aggressive attack from the opponents. It's really kind of a passive attack from within the walls of the church. And it's the attack on the knowledge of the Bible. And what I mean by that is the illiteracy of the Bible. We are living in a day and in an age when the Bible is just not a known book. There was a day, from what I understand from my reading, that people, Christians or non-Christians, just knew the content of the Bible. But so many, even within the four walls of gathering together on a weekly basis, don't understand the Bible, because they don't know the content of the Bible. Just a couple of years ago, let me... I don't mean this to be funny, because it isn't really funny, but a couple years ago there was a survey taken, and more Americans could name all four members of the band The Beatles, rather than list only one of the Ten Commandments. Not only that, in March of 2007, USA Today did an article entitled, America's Biblical Illiteracy. And the USA Today said this, 80% of people that go to church nowadays could not place Moses, Adam, David, Solomon, or Abraham in chronological order. And that's not to be hard on people that are new believers, that's not saying that, but there ought to be a time when there is infancy in the spiritual life and a time of maturity and growing in the Lord and understanding His word. 50% of high schoolers in that same survey thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were married. Not only that, Most troubling, most troubling, was that the most widely known Bible verse among adult believers and teenage believers in that survey, the most widely known Bible verse is this, that God helps those who help themselves. And you've heard this before, right? You've heard this. Which is not even, of course, in the Bible, and it disagrees with the basic premise of the scripture. J.C. Ryle lived in the 19th century. And he said this, he said, I have no doubt there are more Bibles in our country, in England, at this moment than there ever were since the world began. There is more Bible buying, and more Bible selling, and more Bible printing, and more Bible distributing than ever before. since we were a nation. But at this time, I fear that we are all in danger of forgetting that to have the Bible is one thing, but to read the Bible is quite another." I think he was exactly right. And sadly, he wrote almost 200 years ago. How much more true is it today Charles Spurgeon said, when you have received regeneration and a new life, keep on reading the Bible because it will comfort you and you will see more of what the Lord has done for you. You will learn that you are redeemed and adopted and saved and sanctified. Half of the errors in the world spring from people not reading their Bibles. It's very common that, especially it seems like on college campuses, these things sprout up. The recent thing, and I don't know if it's even out here or how big it is out here, but this whole Mother of God theology. I don't know if you've heard of it or if it's kind of reached your hearing, but it's huge on the college campuses of California. And it's this cult that believes that there is God the Mother. There's God the Father, we all know that, but there has to be God the Mother if there's God the Father. And they take verses like the Bride of Christ and they twist them into Being God the mother and it's it's wacky And you think how do you come up with that? When you're reading the Bible you can't You think of the You know the the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons that you know there's so much of their doctrine and of their thinking that is When you read the Bible, it differs from their thinking. It contradicts some of their doctrine. J.C. Ryle applied this and he said, this is the book about which I addressed the readers of this paper in which he was writing. It is no light matter what you are doing with the Bible. It is no light thing that God should have caused the Bible to be written to teach us. And that you should have the Bible before you, the very words of God. And then he said, I charge you, I summon you to give an honest answer to my question. What are you doing with the Bible? Do you read it at all? And how do you read it? And then he said this. Actually, let's go to the Bible. Acts 8. Go to Acts 8. I want to read a fun story. I've preached this a couple of times and it's a fun text to preach. Acts chapter 8, verse 25. Let me read a couple of verses and then we'll kind of stop at the pivotal point. Acts 8 beginning of verse 25, So when they had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem, and they were preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans. But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza, that is, the desert road. So he got up and he went, and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. And he had come to Jerusalem to worship. And he was returning and sitting in his chariot and was reading the prophet Isaiah. And there's so much in this story. But verse 29, then the Spirit said to Philip, go up and join this chariot. So Philip ran up and he heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and he said, do you understand what you're reading? And he said, well, how could I unless somebody guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of scripture which he was reading was this, he was led as a sheep to slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer silent, so he does not open his mouth. In humiliation his judgment was taken away. Who will relate his generation? For his life is removed from the earth. That's a quote from Isaiah chapter 53, one of the most messianic passages in all the Old Testament. Verse 34, the eunuch answered Philip and said, please tell me of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else? Now verse 35, here's the whole point. Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this scripture, he preached Jesus to him. I mean, that is great material because here's a guy walking down a road, he hears a guy reading a couple of what seem to be random verses from the prophet Isaiah. And he understands it, and he's able to go from that scripture all the way and trace Jesus and all of the work of Christ and tie it all together. And of course the application is if somebody were to ask you about Leviticus chapter 10 could you go from that chapter and teach about Jesus because We know the Bible, and read the Bible, and understand the Bible, and know how it fits together. And it comes with time, and it comes with diligence, and it comes with just an ongoing Bible reading. It doesn't just happen overnight. We understand that. But at the same time, are we committed to reading the Scriptures? Then J.C. Ryle gives a host of ways in which you can read the Bible. Read it daily. Read it frequently. Read it humbly. Read it applicationally. Read it devotionally. Read the Bible all the way through. Read the Bible fairly. Don't pick and choose what you want to believe. And read the Bible with the gospel constantly in view. That would have been a great sermon to hear. Great to be, I was going to say a fly on the wall, but there was no wall when they were on the road there. A fly flying by. Okay, a fifth attack, very quickly, and we won't even deal with it much in depth, but just to mention it. The attack is on the historicity of the Bible. We know the Bible is not a history book, but it is a book about His story, right? The story of God. Just read Daniel 2, Daniel 5, Daniel 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. God is a God who ordains human history. Proverbs 8, verse 15. God says, by me, kings reign. And by me, princes rule. In other words, God says, I'm the one who sets up kingdoms, and I establish kings. And I tear him down as well. That's why God could say to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 25 verse 9, Nebuchadnezzar is my servant. The one who would come to Israel and do really all the evil that Nebuchadnezzar did, he was still a servant of God. God was in charge of human history. Everything that happened. And here's Isaiah 46 verse 9. Topics that come in here include evolution, Is the Bible really a historical book? And if it is, is Genesis chapters 1 and 2 real? Is it fact? Is it history? Did God really say, let there be light? And there was light. Did God really have the ability to speak the world into existence like Psalm 33 says? denying the historical Adam and Eve. There is a movement nowadays, and it's growing, believe it or not, that denies Adam and Eve as real historical people. There's a professor of a college in Santa Barbara, a Christian college, and he said this, The question of the historical Adam is an urgent issue in biblical interpretation today. Recent developments in biology have indicated, with impressive evidence, that humanity does not go back to a single human couple. And even in that statement, he's saying biology has shown us the truth, ultimately, that we subject the scriptures to a biological hypothesis? To what a doctor, a scientist, or whatever has said, are we really going to deny the Bible for biology? Israel and the miracles? Did Moses really lead Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground? We would say yes. 90%, 95% of scholarship would say no. The Bible was made up at that point. Jesus and his miracles. Did Jesus really take a loaf of bread and multiply it for 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 people? We would say yes. Most New Testament scholars would probably say no. That is a made-up account. I think that we should conclude with a guy by the name of Eric Auerbach, a German guy, he said this, the world of the scripture stories is not satisfied with claiming to be historically true, but it insists that it is the only real world and it is destined for truth. The scripture stories do not like Homer's appeal to our favor. They do not flatter us that they may please us and enchant us. But they demand that we be subject to them. And if we refuse to be subject to the Bible, we are rebels. I think he's right. I think he's exactly right. The Bible is that true and that reliable that whatever it says goes. I like the way a pastor of old said, he said, he got up in the pulpit one day to preach and he said, I'm one of those old-fashioned Christians that actually believes everything the Bible says. Unfortunately, that's out of character nowadays. Thoughts, issues, questions. I thought you used them to get there. But their children were raised almost uniformly around our country. In fact, your grandma has a bible that Aunt Margaret, my aunt, who must be 104, She used all through school, in public schools growing up, because that's all there were back then. And that's what they used as the method to teach reading, you know, from grades, you know, kindergarten all the way through high school. In the Dallas school district where I was educated, In the fifties they actually had a curriculum on the Bible, going through the books of the Bible, and that was part of the high school program in Dallas and for the school district. Was it required to study? I'm not sure about that. I've met a number of pastors here in the St. Louis area who we've had some lively conversations over whether or not Adam and Eve were real people and some pretty basic stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. And you know, when you deal with issues like that, it goes well beyond Genesis 1, 2, and 3, although it's there. Then you deal with how Christ referred to these people, how Paul referred to these individuals. And now, not only Moses is wrong, but now Paul and others, I think about it from... I mean I've got friends that go to churches that are not... I think what it goes to sometimes is just the universalism. As long as you believe something That's what's important, whether you're a Muslim, whether you're Jewish, whether you're Christian, as long as we all believe it's the same God anyway. And you see it on Channel 9, just recently I was flipping by it, it was comparing the Muslims and the Jews, what can we agree on? What can we agree on? Because really Christianity is an intolerant religion. And there must be some things that we can all agree on. It's all the same. If we just have some faith, we're all going to go to heaven. I think that's a real danger. I think the five points have a commonality in that they all seem to be based in autonomy. Man's autonomy. And as we progress in the eight and nine refutations of the Bible, when we were not so sold upon our existence apart from God, the writ was more respected. As we become more autonomous, and as we're schooled to become more autonomous, we're going to look upon this with askance, more and more. So I think the basic attack is nothing new. Those five points are nothing new. This has been around ever since Satan in chapter 2 of Genesis. Did he really say? And that was the beginning of Adam and Eve discovering autonomy and how great choice is. Yeah, the elevation of man, the enthroning of man and the dethroning of God. Man and his wisdom and his knowledge and his autonomy, refusing to be subjected to an all-sovereign God. And you said it quite well, you said rebellion as you were going through this. And it is rebellion. When we have, when I have a pet sin, an idol, myself usually, that I'm trying to sit on God's throne and replace Him in me, I'm going to go all out crazy against this writ. Because as you pointed out, this writ is designed to make us dependent, to point us back to He who created us for a relationship, for community with Him. In my rebellion on autonomy, I want nothing to do with Him. Yeah, that's a great point. Great point. In the line of 2 Jephthah, the temptation in the narrative of Matthew 4, when our Lord's, well, he had been hungry for 40 days, and afterwards he became hungry in excess. But then Satan takes him and asks him to turn these stones into bread, and he says, I shall not live by the bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And then what's interesting, in one of the, it's either the second or the third temptation, Satan actually quotes scripture verbatim. but he quotes it and he quotes it with an inappropriate application. And then our Lord, it's like, this angel shall bear you up. And then Jesus says, you know, but you shall not test the Lord your God. And so, knowing scripture is not a whole thing that's not adequate. Knowing the correct interpretation and the correct application of scripture, the sight and view of scripture, with an incorrect application. And I think about all the people who Sort of like, well, let's see, what's the Bible say? And so, boom, you know, they look for a little verse out there somewhere that the students, we should be, you know, so that we understand the scripture correctly. You know, I think about how Satan knows the scripture verbatim. A lot better than we do. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, good stuff. Any more questions? if you're sending your son or daughter off to college and you know that they're going to be exposed to attacks, what's the best way to equip them to stand up against stuff like that? Bible in their hand. With a strong plea and a strong prayer life behind them backing that. Really just and a confident trust in God's sovereignty that you know they know the Bible, they have read the Bible, they understand the Bible, but really, I mean, there are a lot of arguments, there are a lot of great explanations and answers to everything, but having the Bible in hand, and having a commitment to the Scriptures, and really a recognition that it's foolishness. You know, the world is going to mock that, and if they don't, then If I'm not being mocked as being foolish, I must not be a fool for Christ. And that's a bad place to be. And it's important to tell them that there aren't answers. I mean, just because they ask a question, they don't have to know the answer right off the bat. That doesn't mean that there's not an answer. It's an interesting answer to all those questions. I went through that, and you had the blessing of going to a Bible teaching school, but not everybody has that experience. But just to know that there are answers to these questions. Just because somebody attacks the Scripture doesn't mean that the Scripture is inanimate. You know, my experience when I got saved at 33, I think the Bible is a big intimidating book. It's like, where do you start? But it's just a kind of consoling curtain down on myself. scholar, but after years and years of just kind of plotting, it's like, wow, I know a lot more than I did. I'd like to know a lot better than I do, but it's just kind of that encouragement to just stay with it and keep planting seeds, because someday it will bear fruit. That would be a good, another super, good super study is how to actually study the Bible. For all of us, but especially for the youth and the kids, for you guys, how to actually study the Bible and make it meaningful. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. Any questions from you guys? I thought you had a question, Carly. I always get questions. The car ride home, huh? Kyra, do you have a question? Questions? Well, I hope it's helpful, kind of bringing up some of these things that maybe you're aware of, but maybe some scriptures along the lines that can be helpful, can be encouraging, and again, probably every One of the five attacks and all of the other, you know, sort of things that I've brought up could be their own super study evolution and history and historicity of Adam and Eve and that could be its own semester, of course, really. But I hope it was a little bit helpful to bring out some of these things and encourage you. into a new year and we're talking this morning about Bible reading and things like that. And Randy's question about college and everything is obviously timely from our standpoint. We kind of wish, you know, we had another two years in many ways. So I'm just trying to think if now that we're kind of in a sprint mode, especially with Santa Barbara College and everything, I'm just trying to think of ways to really kind of do some crammed chorus. I was listening to MacArthur last week or the week before, and he was talking about spending an extended period in one book of the Bible. First John or something like that, where you read it every day for a month. So you don't go far page-wise, but you go deep. And I was thinking about maybe Romans, or Galatians, or something that gets the gospel, you know, that's just so gospel sounding. If you have to know one thing, you know, if you can only know one thing really well within eight months, you know, it all zams off. Thoughts? Yeah, I think that's a great idea. You know, MacArthur has said, you know, when he was saved or entering into the ministry, I forget where it was chronologically, but he would read one book of the Bible every day for a month. So he'd read it 30 times or something near that. I think that's a great idea. I think Ephesians would be... because that's a book that's doable to read in one sitting. Or you could do Romans as well. But in Ephesians, you have certainly theology, the salvation that God gives us in chapters 1 to 3, and then you have so much overload of practical exhortations in chapter 4, from the words that come out of my mouth, to the way I'm living, to the way I conduct myself with non-believers, marriage, spiritual warfare, it's all there. That'd be a great idea. Even little booklets like J.C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men. It's not a long book, it's probably 30 pages. But you could read a page and just spend a week meditating on just the way he words things. That's a great little booklet that would almost be worth cramming that. There's one, I think it's by a guy named Chapman on servant leadership, or is it agape leadership, is that right? Yeah, I mean that one's just a great, again, another little booklet, but just full of what does it mean to be a humble man after God's heart who serves and, you know, doing it for the honor of the Lord. But, yeah, those would be a couple things that kind of come to mind. I mean, there are so many good books, as you well know, that are out there, but those are some real good meaty, meaty things to really kind of digest. It is a practical joke we'll start on while trying to memorize Leviticus. You don't want to steer him away too far. Maybe start with numbers or something. trying to encourage some of these guys who bring up just the basic spiritual disciplines of a time in God's word, whether it's table talk or a part of their daily study bible, or load up an iPod with some good stuff and give it to them. I mean just basic spiritual boot camp kind of stuff, just a part of their day, right? Well, yeah, and the thing now that our generation has is everybody's got, you know, an iPhone or an iPod or something. Some good sermons on there. Walking to class, driving their car, I mean, a lot of time to, you know, either be listening to the radio or whatever it is, but it could be filling their mind with good, solid, scriptural preaching as well, so. Alright, well thanks guys. Bill, would you pray for us? Father, I thank you for this time this evening. Let's all gather and get around your word, Lord. We just thank you for your word. Thank you for the sufficiency in our lives. It's trustworthy. It's perfect. Father, I just pray for all of us as we read your scriptures that we would come to know you better and love you more. And again, I just thank you for our time this evening and for those going home, for safety for them. And just pray that as we move through our day and our week, that we honor and glorify you when we ask these things of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thank you.