Welcome to the Covenant of Peace radio broadcast, the teaching ministry of Pastor Blair Bradley. This program is dedicated to bringing you the glorious truth of God's Word, one verse at a time. We are living in powerful days, and we are seeing tremendous changes in our lives, our culture, our nation, and in the Church. So now more than ever, we have a great need to exercise spiritual discernment and to know what the Bible teaches about the important issues that we all face today. So let's join Pastor Blair as he continues our study on the Word of God. Welcome again my beloved in Jesus Christ. We're continuing our verse-by-verse journey through the epistle of Hebrews and today I want to continue to look at what the writer of Hebrews taught about how God speaks to man. So let's open our Bibles and read Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 and 2 again together. God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world. Now, we're continuing to look at what the writer of Hebrews is discussing here in these two verses by looking at the various ways that God used to speak to man under the First or the Old Covenant versus the much more superior way that God speaks to man through the New Covenant. Last time, we were talking about the two sources of divine revelation, and I want to continue that again on today's broadcast. Now, as I told you last time, the Bible teaches that there are two ways or two main sources of divine revelation. These are the two methods by which God reveals himself to mankind. The first type of revelation is what is called general revelation, and general revelation is God's own creation itself. And we went into that in great detail last time, how that God's own creation testifies and declares and reveals the very glory of God 24 hours every day and seven days every week. We also saw how that this declaring of God's glory is so obvious and so pervasive that the Apostle Paul taught in Romans 1 verse 20 that since the very creation of the universe the invisible attributes of God Almighty, two of them in particular, God's own eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen. So they are not hidden to people, they are not obscure, they are clearly seen, they are clearly understood by man. And this is so true and this is so obvious and so pervasive that the result of all of this is that from the general revelation of God that can be received very easily from creation, no human being on the face of the earth has any excuse at all as to why he did not bow before this great God and worship and serve him. And the fact that the overwhelming majority of the human race does not bow or worship or serve the one true living God from what can be seen and known from the general revelation of creation, does not in any way diminish their requirement to do so. It does not in any way relieve them of their responsibility to do so. And it in no way eliminates the eternal damnation because they do not do so. The fact that man can be so rebellious, so evil in his heart, so wicked in his imagination, so hard-hearted that he can ignore, reject, and refuse the obvious and clear and consistent revelation of the glory of God that is being declared and shown and revealed 24 hours every day and seven days every week all around us. is not a testimony that God should have done something more to make himself known. No, no. This is a very clear testimony of the condition of man's own darkened heart. And this is why David wrote in Psalm 14, verse one, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Now, when David says here that the man who says there is no God is a fool, David was not just calling people names. No, by using this term fool, God is making a moral judgment about the man who can ignore the general revelation of the glory of God that is so obvious from creation. The bottom line to the seriousness and the importance of general revelation is that Paul said at the end of Romans 1 verse 20, they are without excuse. So nobody is going to be able to stand before God who has lived on the earth for any length of time and observed the declaration and the showing and the revealing of the glory of God through the general revelation of creation and get away with the excuse, but I didn't know. God's not going to buy that and we shouldn't either. But as powerful as general revelation is, there is a second type of revelation that God uses to communicate with man, and that second type is called special or specific revelation. Special revelation is that type of divine revelation whereby God graciously and mercifully goes into great detail about many different issues. In other words, God speaks very precisely and specifically to us, and the source of this second type of revelation is the written Word of God. You see dear friends, God has given us 66 different and unique books, which were written by 40 different writers who wrote these books in their own language, using their own terminology and expressions over a 1500 year timeframe. And while it is true that there were 40 writers of the 66 books of the Bible, there was only one single author. God the Holy Spirit authored every letter of every word of every sentence of every paragraph of every verse of every chapter of every book of the Bible. And the method by which God the Holy Spirit authored those books was by a very supernatural and mysterious method called inspiration. Please read with me 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17. All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. Now the word that was translated here into English as inspiration comes from the Greek word theopneustos, which means to exhale or to breathe out. This is the Greek word from which we get English words such as pneumatic or pneumonia, words which are associated with air or breath or breathing. So what Paul is telling us here is that God exhaled or he breathed out scripture, all of scripture. Every single word was exhaled or breathed out of the very mouth of God. Now, by default, because Scripture came to us by way of inspiration, that makes Scripture to be special. It makes Scripture to be unique. It's different than any other book or any other writing on earth. And the way in which this verse is written here shows us that what Paul was actually saying is that God only breathed out scripture. In other words, every other production of words, languages, books, and writings that come from any other source written by any man for any other reason, other than the 66 books of the Holy Bible are not inspired. It is so very important for every one of us to fully understand that we have used the word inspiration or inspired for so long and so often to discuss many different things that the word has almost lost its significance. For example, we like a song that is sung because it moves us or because it encourages us to come closer to God. And we say that because the song moved us, then that must mean that the song is inspired. We say because something is inspirational, that that is the same thing as it being inspired, but it's not the same thing. Something that we produce or write or sing or say or do can very well be inspiring. But, and we thank God for that. In fact, all believers should strive very hard so that everything that we say or do would encourage other people to love and serve Jesus Christ. Later on in our journey through Hebrews, we're going to find in Hebrews 10 verse 24 that the writer says, let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and to good deeds. So all believers have the responsibility and the privilege of encouraging one another and to even stimulate one another to godliness. But that is not the same thing as saying that what we did or what we said or what we wrote or what we sung was inspired. Several years ago, a very popular Christian writer was asked about a particular song that he had written as to just what it exactly meant. And this person replied that since he received his song directly from the Holy Spirit by way of inspiration, he really didn't want to analyze it too much because he felt like we ought to just leave it as God had given it. Now from everything that I've read about this man, he's a very wonderful and godly man who I believe is very sincere and who has written many songs which cause me to want to worship God. But nevertheless, that statement about his song was dead wrong. And if he really believes what he said, he either doesn't understand what the word inspiration means or else he is equating the song that he wrote with scripture. In fact, by that statement he is saying that what he wrote is even higher and even more sacred than Scripture, because even though he doesn't want anybody to analyze what he wrote, we can and we do and we are told to analyze and struggle and study and rightly divide Scripture so that we can understand what God meant by what he said. No, statements like this are becoming more and more common in our day and is the logical result of the church continuing to abandon edification for entertainment and continuing to leave the line-upon-line, precept-upon-precept study of the Bible in favor of tickling the ears of lukewarm or unsaved people. The word inspiration has a very narrow definition that does not include all the stuff that we've placed on it. Inspiration means God breathed, but it doesn't stop at that. By inference, when something is inspired, it is God breathed. It is not the product of human imagination, or human cleverness, or human ingenuity, or human wisdom, or based on human concepts. Being inspired means that it came from the mind, and the heart, and the mouth of Almighty God. And by default, that means that scripture is also inerrant. Now the word inerrant means that scripture does not contain any error, none, not one. So when we say that scripture is inspired, we are also attaching the fact that scripture does not contain any error or contradiction in any word or any sentence or any paragraph or any verse or any chapter of any book of the Bible. and inerrancy also means that scripture is without error historically, factually, scientifically, and theologically. In other words, for example, when the Bible says in Genesis that God created the heavens and the earth in six 24-hour periods called day, We absolutely mean to say that true science, real science, science that is not politically motivated, but is an honest search for truth based on physical evidence will confirm that the earth is not millions and billions of years old, but is in fact only thousands of years old. And it also means that as a Bible-believing Christian, I have absolutely no compulsion to try to fit my theology into what has been falsely portrayed as being science. but that they are the ones who have to answer as to why they are so determined to teach things that God said were not true. And when we say that scripture is inspired, we are also saying that scripture is infallible. Now, as I said, the word inerrant means that Scripture does not contain any error, but the word infallible means that Scripture does not possess the power to contain any error. So because Scripture is God-breathed, it does not have the ability to be wrong about anything. That means Scripture is always true. It is always right. It is always reliable and always trustworthy. Now, it's very possible that I could write something down that would be inerrant. Anybody can write something that has the possibility of being inerrant in the sense that whatever we write does not contain any error. For example, if I take a math test and score 100 on it, what does that 100 score indicate? Well, it means that I don't have any errors on that particular test, right? So every single thing that I wrote on that test is true, and therefore, it is inerrant. Now I can take an English test the very same day and score only an 80% on that, indicating that on that test, I was only 80% error free or only 80% inerrant. But if I am anything other than 100% inerrant, then I cannot say that I am inerrant at all. You see any error at all, even one, just one error means that it's not inerrant. And so if the Bible has one error in it at all, anywhere, in any of the 66 books, I can't trust it with my soul. That's how important it is for us to understand what inerrancy really is. Well, I'm gonna have to stop right here, but please join me again on the next broadcast as we continue our journey through the epistle of Hebrews. May God help us all. Dear friends, if this radio broadcast of line-upon-line, precept-upon-precept teaching of God's Holy Word is a blessing to you, will you prayerfully consider supporting us financially? We want to increase our exposure here on the Gulf Coast through more radio stations and through the Internet. Would you pray about coming alongside of us and help us do that, to God's glory? For further information about how you can partner with us in seeing the gospel triumph in our area, or to receive a copy of today's broadcast, go to our website, www.covenantofpeace.net. Until next time, may the peace of God keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.