as I've expressed over and over again to individuals. Truly, and I'm sure we're almost tired of hearing this, this has been a spiritual highlight in our lives. I represent a new church who, thank the Lord, this summer has now a new pastor, our first pastor. And I would like to ask all the members of the Lakeland Grace Brethren Church Our topic for this hour does seem a little bit extreme, sensational. and beyond rational comprehension, and certainly beyond human confirmation and demonstration. And that's why it's threatening to people, the absolute inerrancy of the Bible. May we start this brief meditation, friends, by assuring everyone that it is impossible for finite sinful minds in this world to demonstrate rationalistically that every word in the Bible is absolutely true. God never expected us to do that. It is impossible. Why? Well, no, there are no tape recordings of everything Abraham said to Sarah, for example, that's recorded in Genesis. How do you know that everything he said to her and her responses to him and 10,000 other things recorded in this book really were uttered verbatim as recorded, so it's absolutely fundamental for us to understand how we know the Bible is inerrant. Now, we don't have time this morning, and really it's not necessary for us to go through the hundreds of passages of the Bible that claim that this book is absolutely inerrant. The Lord Jesus said so, didn't he, in the Sermon on the Mount? that millions of people claim they live by and have perhaps and apparently never even read, namely, that heaven and earth will pass away, but not one jot or tittle, yo, smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet, or tittle, smallest part of a Hebrew radical that distinguishes it from another one, not even the smallest part of a Hebrew letter, as it were, like the cross on a T that makes it obviously not an L or a dot on an I that makes it not an E, the smallest parts of letters make the letters distinguishable, and thus the word understandable. Not even a part of a word or of a letter will pass away till it is all fulfilled. Now, how can you be sure that that's true? That's the ultimate issue of our generation that demands proof, demands evidence, in order to take God seriously? I invite you to turn to John chapter 8, friends. This is a somewhat different approach to the subject, I think you'll see. But this is the bottom line of how we know that these things Jesus said about the Bible are really true. And hundreds of other such statements. In fact, there are 2,000 statements in the Bible that claim that what you and I read is from God. Thus saith the Lord. 2,000 times. Well, how do we know that what the Lord said He said is really, really true? Well, John 8, 12. Again, therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in the darkness but shall have the light of life." Now, what a stupendous claim, especially, friends, when you realize that he made that statement in the midst of Pharisees and Sadducees and other not only unregenerate but satanically dominated men who assumed, presupposed that he was a finite and sinful man, and even worse, he was a blasphemer in their midst. who deserve to be killed, they therefore said to him, now watch, you are bearing witness of yourself. Your witness is not true. Now is that a valid challenge? Of course it is, because the Jewish law that God gave them through Moses demanded that at the mouth of how many witnesses? Two or three witnesses should important issues be settled. And here's one man walking around saying, I'm the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. In effect, who do you think you are making statements like that? Now, friends, watch the astounding response. And here's where you and I and our fellowship must take our stand right here. Are you ready? Verse 14, Jesus answered and said to them, Even if I bear witness of myself, remember, according to Jewish law, that is unacceptable. That's illegal. Even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true. I don't need any other witnesses. Why? I'm infinitely different. I'm not finite. I'm not sinful like all of you. I'm divine. Now watch the wording, please. For I know where I came from, and the implication is you really don't know where you came from. You don't know anything about anything that's really significant about yourselves. And I know where I'm going. I know every intricate detail of the future, and you don't know anything. You do not know where I come from or where I am going. Follow that point, friends. I'm divine. I'm omniscient. You're finite, sinful, and abysmally ignorant. So I don't need witnesses to back me up like other finite, sinful people like you do. Please note, I am self-authenticating as God. Oh, that's very impressive. Verse 15, you people judge according to the flesh. What other measuring stick do you people have? I am not judging anyone, but even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for I am not alone in it, but I am he who sent me." On and on in this chapter, my father sent me, my father endorses me, you can't see my father, but I represent him, and my word, therefore, is self-authenticating. Now friends, what is a self-authenticating witness, anyway? Well, turn to Hebrews 6 with me, please. Hebrews 6, and here is the shocker, if I can put it that way, for the Jewish mind, and I suspect for ours. Let's look at verse 13. How does God confirm His Word? How does He make this absolutely certain, no fuzzy, foggy guesswork here at all? No need for archaeologists to dig up things to support the veracity of God's revelation in Scripture. No need for experts to endorse the Bible to permit us to really believe it. How do we really know that what God says is true? Hebrews 6.13. For when God made the promise to Abraham, he made tremendous promises to him. Remember in Genesis 22, because you believe me, I will confirm my covenant with you. and to your seed after you, forever, et cetera. Since he could swear by no one greater, he did what? Watch that one. He swore by himself. You can't do that as a Jew. My friends, you know what an oath sounded like in the Old Testament time? It sounded something like this, with rather gruesome visual aids to enforce it, like animals slashed into pieces with blood gushing out of their bodies, making a bloody pathway down which the two covenant makers would walk, and saying words like this, may God do so to me, and more also, if I break my covenant with you. That's an oath, and a horrible threat. But you see, God cannot swear, you know, may God do so to me. Uh-oh, wait a minute, He is God. And God tells us in Isaiah 45, He's really searched the whole universe, and He really can't find any other God up there. He's looked very hard for a long time. There's nobody else there. So guess what He has to do to utter an oath? He says, I swear by myself. Oh really? How can you do that? Well, because he's infinitely different than we are. He's divine, he's holy, he's eternal, he's omniscient. Friends, that's the whole point underlying the absolute inerrancy of the Bible. Whatever God says, because of who God is, is automatically, intrinsically, totally, and eternally true. Since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself. So he backed up, of course, that marvellous promise with an oath, verse 18, in order that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have strong encouragement, we who have fled for refuge and laying hold of the hope set before us, which is as an anchor to the soul. Now, friends, if we reduce the whole discussion of the absolute inerrancy of the Scripture to any lower level, we are absolutely doomed. And that is why, friends, vast numbers of people who claim to be born again, and to God knows their hearts, maybe some of them are, because there are vast, deep heresies existing among God's people. I mean, none of us is totally free of sin in our thinking on doctrine or our attitudes or our words or our practice. Why is it that people who claim to be and perhaps are born-again people do not accept the absolute inerrancy of Scripture? Because of a defective view of God Himself. Now listen to this statement in 1 John 4, excuse me, 1 John 5, verse 9. Here's another one of those kinds of self-authenticating statements about God's Word. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is what? Greater. That's the whole point. Who is bearing witness to the quality, to the character of this book? It is not mere finite men. However great the scholars may be in many theological seminaries in America and around the world, they are not your source of encouragement, of assurance at all of the nature and character of this book. In fact, 1 John chapter 2 assures us that we have an anointing of the Holy One whereby we know these things and that we don't need any finite, merely human experts to assure us that the Bible is really true. God's Word is what? Self-authenticating. Like light that shines in the darkness. And a fascinating statement along that line, I think, is Proverbs 20, verse 12, that says, The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made them both. You don't have to have anybody authenticate what your eye sees and what your ear hears in everyday normal situations of life Because light is self-authenticating to your eyes, and sounds are self-authenticating to your God-designed ears. And you know there's another aspect of us, isn't there, thank the Lord? There's a God-created heart in which we place the soul, the spirit, the image, the likeness, the mind, the will, the conscience, all those things that make us infinitely and eternally different from animals, that heart, that center of you and me as persons. That has been designed by God to recognize God's self-authenticating witness automatically, intuitively, and instantly, and if we don't respond to His witness, to our heart that He designed to receive that witness, we are under His wrath and His judgment forever. My understanding, friends, of the lake of fire is the eternal hell, It's the place where people reject and suppress the self-authenticating witness of God to our heart. We refuse to believe Him. That's how profound the teaching of absolute inerrancy of scripture is. Who is it that wrote this book? Not 40 men over 2,000 years. They are the mere what? Instruments through whom the Holy Spirit wrote words that he guarantees by divine authentication. Of course, God used human beings to write the Bible. Let's put it straight forward. Not one word of this book with 1160 chapters was written by anybody else but human beings. Even the Ten Commandments were recorded by a man, Moses. But friends, God wrote them all too. In fact, that's the main point. The fact he used instruments is astounding in which the personalities of the individual writers comes clearly through. Paul's style is different than Peter or John and so forth. Isaiah's style is different from Amos or Hosea, of course. But although God used a variety of human personalities through which that light would come, like light through the multi-stained glass of a cathedral window, it comes through by a miraculous guarantee and work of the Holy Spirit, called the miracle of inspiration, Theopneustos, as perfect, not complete. But what? Perfect. The Bible is not complete. We know in part. The Bible is an infinitesimal drop in an ocean of available truth, isn't it? In fact, the Gospel of John says so. If everything that Jesus ever said and did were actually recorded in part of the Bible, how big would the Bible be? Why, the planet Earth couldn't even hold the pages. So this is a very small portion of what God knows and what God has done through eternity. but it is absolutely perfect. Perfect. How do we know? Does this sound naive? Because God said it is. You say, but how do you know that what God said is true? You do not ask that question. You don't come to God and say, I heard what you said, Lord, But I demand proof that what you said is valid and true and authentic. That's blasphemy. That's exactly why, dear friends, we are in a state of near disaster in the so-called evangelical world today. Men who claim to be, and as I say, perhaps are born-again people, looking up as it were in the face of Almighty God and saying, now, until archaeologists Confirm what you said. I'm really not totally committed to this or that statement in the book of Kings or Chronicles or Exodus. Well, we're already totally defeated. And we're groping in semi-darkness with a little shaft of light over here. Oh, yes, I believe that part of the Bible. This morning, God spoke to me through that part of the Bible, but I'm really not sure about the other parts. And friends, until And unless you and I individually, in our fellowship as a whole, understand the basis upon which our faith is built, we're just adding to the problem and multiplying the disaster. So it's not enough to say the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, unless you understand how you know that's true. I wonder if somebody said, well, that's a marvelous testimony and motto. Please tell me, on what basis have you arrived at the conclusion that that's true? And you have to be prepared to be ridiculed like the Lord Jesus was by the Pharisees. You say, well, I know that's true because we worship a God who cannot lie, who has never deceived anybody ever. And this is the only book God ever wrote And God guarantees that what he wrote has his character, his holiness, his omniscience. And it is self-authenticating. That's exactly, dear friends, why it is that God has commanded us to preach the Word, not human opinions, ideas. Just preach the Word. Preach the Word. In season and out. Whether people like it or don't like it. Appreciate it or don't appreciate it. Understand it or don't understand it. None of us understand it all. God says preach it anyway. All of it. Always. Incessantly. Unremittingly. Because that's the only light there is. In the passage we heard read this morning. This is the light that shines in a dark place. unto which you do well to take heed, were surrounded, immersed in total darkness, outside and in. And the only light there is on this planet is not Jesus walking around saying, I am the light of the world, but what? Is self-authenticated, absolutely inerrant, now totally complete scriptures. This is it. This is the only light there is. And it's important for him not only to tell people what the book says, but to tell people why we know that what he says is unquestioningly, absolutely, totally dependable. Because we worship a God who never lies. And that's why you go through the Old Testament, passage after passage, and God says, Deuteronomy 4.2, don't you dare add or subtract one word from my revelation. Deuteronomy 12.32, don't you add or subtract one word from my revelation. Proverbs 35 and 6, don't you dare add one word to my revelation. God said to Jeremiah in chapter 26.2, and this really devastated Jeremiah. He was so sick of preaching the whole counsel of God and being bludgeoned every time he opened his mouth, he said, I'm retiring from this ministry. The Lord said, don't you detract one word from what I am commanding you to preach." That cost him almost his life and certainly his peace of mind and happiness and security in this world. So, friends, all of that is a buildup, isn't it? Like a pyramid to the final pinnacle or apex or capstone of the pyramid of Holy Scripture and progressive revelation when you get to the last chapter of the last book of all the books of the Bible, God says, if you add one word, I'm going to add the plagues in this book to you. I don't know what that means, but I've decided not to experiment. And if you take one word from my book, I'll take your part out of the book of life. I don't know exactly what that means either, but I'm not going to try. Friends, that's exactly why. God says, I have a boundary line that is infinitely important. It separates my words from your words, and yours are infinitely unimportant, if not totally erroneous. My word is infinitely important and inerrant, infallible, inspired, and therefore, if you don't recognize the boundary line between my word and everybody else's word and start adjusting, changing, modifying, streamlining in a reductionism so that you won't unnecessarily offend people of the late 20th century and perhaps gain more people in your congregation. Just pick out the lovely things, the nice things, the positive things. And don't tell people everything God said because some of these things, friends, are very heavy. if not terrifying. God says, you are in infinite eternal trouble if you start doing that to my word. And so you see the Bible has the duality of the Lord Jesus himself. You know what he is? Of course you do. He is God and man. He is divine and human. He has two natures in one person. So does this book. It is 100% divine. It is 100% human. It has two natures. It's God's Word. It's a theanthropic volume, inscripturated representation and continuation of the incarnate theanthropic person, our Lord Jesus Christ. And the divine nature of the Bible, we are all familiar with in 2 Timothy 3.16. All scripture has been given by what? Inspiration of God. It is theopneustos. Literally, it is God-breathed. What does that mean? That's an Old Testament Hebrew expression that means it is totally the product of God himself supernaturally. You know, that's what the Bible says about the universe. The whole thing got here not by a chance big bang explosion of a so-called primeval cosmic egg somewhere. No. How did the universe get here? We have to know that. And Psalm 33, 6 says, by the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. For he spoke and it was done, he commanded it stood fast, an instantaneous response of a vast, complex universe to the mere spoken word of the living God through the Lord Jesus, pre-incarnate as the second person through whom all things were made." So all he did, friends, was just speak the word, and there it is. There it is. Now he chose to do it, of course, in six 24-hour stages. We're aware of that. But every stage and every part of every stage was what? supernatural and miraculous and cannot be fathomed or explained by finite minds naturalistically at all. That's how the universe got here. It is God-breathed. It is Eapnustos. How did the human race get on this planet? God-breathed planet Earth into existence out of nothing. Well, how did human beings get here? They were God-breathed too. And God breathed in his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. You mean the human race is theopneustos too? Yes. Which means what? God created. God designed. Nothing naturalistically can bring about an explanation of where we came from. And not only the universe, but the human race But thank God his word is theopneustos, God-breathed. And that's why it's profitable, first for teaching, for doctrine, for instruction, for warning, for discipline, for confrontation, that people can become mature step by step and day by day through the only book God has ever written that has the imprimatur, the stamp of his self-authenticating Holy Spirit created revelation. But you know, the Bible is also totally human. And while Paul's emphasis in 2 Timothy 3.16 is essential, foundational and ultimate, and that's why we call the Bible not men's word, 40 men's words, 2,000 years of 40 men's words, we call it God's words. Now it is all those other things, as we'll see now, but it's ultimately, and this is the really great issue at stake today, isn't it? It is God's Word. God breathed. God created. But let's never forget that the Bible just didn't fall from heaven like this, delivered to men by angels, or somehow. No, as we read, And you need not turn, but just listen again for a moment, please. Not one word of Holy Scripture came into existence by the will of man, by an act of the human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. Who spoke? Who wrote? Men. What kind of men? Why men who were moved? Carried along, guided, totally controlled by the Holy Spirit. Holy men doesn't mean specially nice people, brilliant people, wonderful people. In fact, every one of the human instruments God used was totally depraved, apart from His grace. If you don't think so, ask Peter, who wrote these words. But men spoke. Men spoke. Men wrote. not angels, men. It is totally human by virtue of God's use of human instruments to write down the words. In most cases, under very natural normal circumstances, Paul wrote letters to real people because he was really concerned about real situations and it wasn't some kind of an artificial dictation where he was just relaxing and all of a sudden some weird force took his hand and made him write an epistle to somebody he'd never heard of concerning things he hadn't the faintest idea what he was writing about. Of course we know that in the Old Testament, when the prophets wrote of the coming Messiah, they were not writing from experience, their empirical observation. No. Those men, as Peter tells us, were searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when he spoke beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow, 1 Peter 1, 11. But nevertheless, friends, let's not make this some kind of a totally unreal, unrelated, situation where God just burst in and told people things they hadn't the faintest idea what he was saying and didn't even know what they were writing at all. Now the Old Testament prophets knew a lot about what they were writing, but they couldn't quite rearrange in chronological order and sequence the things about Messiah that they wrote. That's a balance we need to be careful about here. We do not endorse the dictation theory as commonly understood. Now, that's not all bad. I mean, if God dictated the whole Bible, we would be comforted to know that at least it's guaranteed to be divine. But just as there was a tendency in the early church to minimize the true humanity of the Lord Jesus, so there's a tendency to minimize in some quarters the true humanity of Scripture. And that's a point we need to be reminded of over and over. Now friends, what difference does it make what you or I think about the Bible? And this is the part that really hurts. Perhaps before we end our service this morning in this very hour, The really, really next thing on the agenda of the living God for you and me is the judgment seat of Christ. We could be instantly, right now, ushered into his presence, and that's the first thing we will confront. The Lord Jesus, who will have eyes like a flame of fire that will penetrate our heart and mind, and he will surely measure us according to what we've done with this book. Like he did to the two on the road to Emmaus, O fools and slow of heart not to believe all that the prophets have spoken in the beginning with Moses and all the prophets he talked to them about himself." That's serious, friends. He's not going to ask us, what degrees did you achieve? What level of fame or popularity or wealth or some other things that we count so important Don't you agree with me? The one thing he'll ask is, what have you done with my word? And you know, for pastors, that's terrifying. Listen to this statement. By the half-brother of Jesus who became, by God's mercy and grace, the pastor of the great church of Jerusalem, whose name was James. James said, chapter 3, verse 1, let not many of you become teachers. My brethren, Why not? Knowing that as such, we shall incur a stricter judgment. To whom much is entrusted, much will be required. That's terrifying. Friends, the Lord Jesus had nothing but horrible denunciations for the teachers of Israel, who perverted, suppressed the self-authenticating Word of God He said, you are of your father the devil. The worst words that ever fell from his lips were not for just plain, ordinary, wicked people, but for those in prominence, in religious leadership, even in the genuine, true theocracy of Israel, not just any religion, the true religion, who were looked up to, honored, respected, and heard by the people. Those are the ones that Jesus denounced as hypocrites and under the judgment of the living God. And so, friends, we say, I trust with humility and with a proper dose of reverence and terror the fear of the Lord. Lord, help me to honor your word. I never will master it all, but help me to be I mean, even a deacon has to know how to do what? To hold the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. That means I want to be teachable, Lord. I want to be a learner. I want to be a disciple. I don't want to be arrogant, proud. I don't want to lord it over people. I want you to be my Lord. I want you to tell me what you want me to do and to enable me to do what you've told me I need to do. And friends, if that's true, then our fellowship will be noted not for pride and arrogance, bombast and great claims about ourselves. But we'll be known as a people that have been taught deeply by God to sit at his feet and to exemplify the one thing needful, and that's to listen to him. He's God. He speaks nothing but truth. He authenticates his own words. We don't need any other witnesses. Are we ready to meet him on those terms? Perhaps today. Let's pray. Father, these are marvelous things. We're not groping in the fog here. We don't see everything, but what we see is absolutely clear. Just like you told us in Romans 1, the invisible things of God are clearly seen, even as eternal power and Godhead submitted without excuse. And Father, this book is not just a collection of inscrutable, mysterious, obscure, difficult things, but things that were designed to be understood and to be obeyed. And we've heard it said, and I repeat it to myself right now, Lord, It's not really the things in the Bible I don't understand that terrify me. It's the things I do understand that I'm not living up to. Help me and help us, by your mercy and grace, to walk in that light, that self-authenticating light of the Lord Jesus, that we may have the light of life and reflect that light. into the deepening darkness that surrounds us. I ask in Jesus' great and glorious name. Amen.