Well, if you will stand with me for the reading of God's Word this evening, Luke chapter 3 will be our text, verses 23 to 38. One of the favorite passages, I'm sure, might be your life verse. I know that Bible reading programs, you're always looking forward to the genealogies whenever you find them. And so here is one of the two genealogies of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I wanna reflect with you for a few minutes this evening on the implications of these genealogical tables that we find throughout the scriptures. Here now the word of God from Luke chapter three, beginning at verse 23. Now Jesus himself began his ministry at about 30 years of age, being as was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Methath, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jana, the son of Joseph, the son of Mattithiah, the son of Amos, the son of Nehum, the son of Eslai, the son of Negai, the son of Maath, the son of Mattithiah, the son of Simei, the son of Joseph, the son of Judah, the son of Joannes, the son of Risa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, the son of Melchi, the son of Adai, the son of Kosem, the son of Elmodem, the son of Ur, the son of Jose, the son of Eleazar, the son of Joram, the son of Methat, the son of Levi, the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonah, the son of Eliakim, the son of Meleah, the son of Menan, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nashon, the son of Amenadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Pelag, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, the son of Canaan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Canaan, the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God." Congregation, this is the word of the Lord. Amen. You may be seated. Now, everyone knows how modern fairy tales begin. Once upon a time in a faraway land, and the same basically is true of ancient myths. Their provenance is shrouded in the mist. When, where, exactly who these stories involved is unknown, and in almost all cases is impossible to know. For example, Arthur was a king in ancient Britain. I'm persuaded he was a historical figure, but proving exactly when and where and who he might be based upon is impossible to determine, and scholars debate it in the literature. Greek and Norse myths are probably based on historical events. We might say very loosely based on historical events. But that historical background, if any, will remain undiscoverable and unknowable until the end of this present world. But the Bible, by contrast, organizes its narratives with specific dates and events, places, people, and markers of historical authenticity that are impossible to overlook. Not every person or event in the sacred record can be independently verified, but many, of course, have been and can be. Historical data points so permeate the biblical documents that one is forced to conclude that the Bible purports to record and reveal actual history. These are not myths, fairy tales, or legends. Scripture is not intended to be a philosophical treatise or, strictly speaking, academic theology. Now, of course, there is theology and philosophy in the Bible, but its doctrine is revealed primarily and overwhelmingly in the form of stories which are written and presented as historical records. Now, despite this, many religious scholars persist in trying to deal with the Bible in terms of its mythology. Jordan Peterson, who is not a biblical scholar, has lately popularized this approach, but the practice has been commonplace among academics for some time. Modern man cannot believe the fantastic and unreal accounts of the Bible, or at least he cannot believe their historicity, but he can accept and apply them insofar as they bear witness to larger truths and patterns. that reveal transcendent truths about the human experience. The Bible does not accurately record what was, they will say, but its mythology shows us what is and what always will be among men. And this allows modern men who are too wise and enlightened to simply accept the Bible as history to still profess admiration for the Bible while drawing from it what they like and discarding what they cannot believe. Now, conservative Christians have sometimes reacted in the wrong way to this form of unbelief, and it is a form of unbelief. They treat the Bible's history sometimes reductionistically. The Bible's record is historical, but it is not merely history. And it's not even history in the same way that we think about modern histories today. Its depictions of the world are often poetic and always perspectival. They are not mechanical descriptions of reality or function. They are accurate records of the phenomena of history as it was experienced and observed by the participants. The point of the biblical record is not to explain precisely how God made the world or the way that that operation of creation functioned. It never attempts to give us a precise age of the earth or to explain exactly how God accomplished events like Joshua's long day. The Bible is not written like a modern history or scientific textbook, and if we try to read it that way, we will inevitably misread it and misunderstand it. But sometimes, when more enlightened conservatives try to make this point, they end up conceding too much ground to those who simply treat the Bible as mythology. No, the Bible is not written in the form of modern history. No, it is not a scientific treatise in the way that we categorize those kind of texts in the modern world. But the Bible is thoroughly, robustly, and inescapably historical. It does repeatedly, undeniably, and emphatically assert how certain things happened. It tells us how God created the world, and the Confession summarizes it by the word of His power in the space of six days, and all very good. And what it records makes inescapable and necessary inferences about the age of the earth, about the history of mankind, about the reality of supernatural phenomena in the world in which we live. You cannot affirm the historicity of the Bible and deny the implications of that historical record. Let me say that again. You cannot affirm the historicity of the biblical documents and then deny the implications of that historical record. And yet that is what many even enlightened conservative scholars do today. You cannot say, yes, the Bible records real history, but then pick and choose what within that history you choose to treat as historical. The Bible reveals God and his actions primarily through historical narratives, through story. And those stories are either true or false. Now that these stories are more than simply historical accounts does not indicate that they are anything less. Conservative seminaries have been training ministerial candidates in what is called the historical grammatical method of interpretation for more than a hundred years. And this approach to scripture says we must interpret the Bible in terms of its historical background, according to the specific words of the language used, and based on the genre of each text in the canon. And all of that is well and good. We need to take the Bible seriously. That means taking seriously the historical and literary context of the documents. But too often, the historical grammatical method has been used as a justification for dismissing what the Bible actually says, either explicitly or by good and necessary consequence, on the basis of what someone thinks can be deduced from extra-biblical historical evidence. You'll hear things and read things like this. The ancient world had creation myths. So Genesis 1 and 2 is a creation myth designed to reveal that it was actually Yahweh and not the gods of the ancient world that brought the world into existence. We can't really know anything about the history of creation because Genesis 1 and 2 is not designed to narrate history. It's poetic. It's mythological. And while it is true, it's not historical but theological. We could say the same about Noah's flood. And arguably, once you start going down this road, you could say that about many events recorded in the Old Testament. But one might wonder, if the purpose of the creation account is only to reveal theological ideas and not actual history, then how can we be sure that the rest of the miracles in the Bible are not written and intended the same way? If it is unnecessary to take the story of Jonah historically, and who of course could, then why should we accept the resurrection of Jesus as historical? Because after all, Jesus is the one who refers to his own death and resurrection as the sign of Jonah. If we do not supplement the historical grammatical method with a robust commitment to biblical theology as revealed by historical narratives, if we do not immerse ourselves in Scripture and remain steadfast in interpreting Scripture with Scripture, then our academic approach will quickly become simply another version of enlightened dismissal of the Bible's own claims. And when we do that, the scripture becomes simply a repository of ideas, rather than a record of history in which and through which God has revealed himself and his righteousness in saving people from sin. Now, there are certainly ideas and principles we must discover in the Bible. We derive them from the text of Scripture, we apply them as we learn them, but these ideas are revealed through stories, and the Bible presents those stories as true. Not just in the ideas they communicate, but in the history by which they were made known. And so when the Gospels tell us the story of Jesus, they do not present him like King Arthur was in the ancient legends. He doesn't appear on the stage like Odysseus, and the stories about him are nothing like the records of Socrates left by his students Plato and Xenophon. Matthew and Luke provide two genealogies tracing Jesus' family tree all the way back to Abraham and Adam, respectively. And in doing so, they bear witness to the inescapably historical character and context of Christ and God's work of salvation. If these Old Testament characters were only legends, then the record we have of the life of Christ is not true and would not be reliable. Jesus may have been a real person, but the writers who bear witness to his life and work, to his death and resurrection, have crafted a work of fiction. A record that purports to be historical, but is actually based on myths and legends, not actual history. In other words, if you cannot believe the Old Testament, you cannot trust the New Testament. It is the Gospels which tie Jesus inextricably to the persons, places, and events of the Hebrew Bible. And if the Old Testament is not historical, then the historical claims of the New Testament are untrustworthy. But I want to suggest another way of reading the Bible, not merely as a witness to theological ideas or transcendent moral and philosophical truths. I want to suggest that you read the Bible as a faithful record of historical facts by which God revealed himself and his saving righteousness to his people and the world. Modern historians continue to debate events that happened in the recent past. They can't even figure that out. And the conclusions of modern scientists are constantly being revised and sometimes even overturned. But in Scripture, you have an inspired and infallible standard by which to know the history that can be known and must be known. Because it reveals God, our Maker, the Lord of the Covenant, the Redeemer and Savior of His people, the Master and Judge of the world. So I enjoy reading Plato, I do regularly, but don't read your Bible the way that you read Plato. Don't look merely for ideas that you might glean from the pages of Scripture, because the Bible is God's Word written. It is Theopneustos, breathed out by God. It is infallible. It is faithful, reliable, as true as the God who caused it to be written. If you cannot believe the Word breathed out by God, how can you have any confidence in the God who caused it to be written? Scripture, like the God-man, bears both a divine and human character. It is written by holy men of old. It was neither dependent upon nor tainted by the limits of their fallible knowledge and insight. They didn't know everything. But it was the Holy Spirit who carried them along. They were speaking under divine inspiration. They were directed by the unseen hand of the God who spoke the universe into existence. And if God can say, let there be light, and suddenly there is light, then when He speaks Scripture onto the page, we can believe that it is real, and it is true, and it is powerful. We live in an age of doubt and increasing skepticism. The expert class has lied to us so long that many question even what ought to be well established. They are questioning facts and history that is confirmed not by opinions or pontification, but by public evidence that is beyond question. But do not bring these doubts with you when you come to read your Bible. read not like a philosopher or an academic, but as a believer should, with humble faith, with an open and eager mind, and full surrender to the God who shows us what is by revealing to us what was and what he has done to secure our salvation. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.