Bibles to the book of 2nd Timothy chapter 3, 2nd Timothy chapter number 3. Last week I brought a message about the Bible and some of the pictures of the Bible, how the Bible pictures itself. And if you remember that last week, the Bible pictures itself as gold and silver. If you like gold and silver, you like profit? All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. We're going to read that here in just a minute. Profitable. The Bible is profitable. The Bible is like honey. The Bible is like light. The Bible is like fire. The Bible is like a hammer. This is last week. The Bible is like bread. The Bible's like seed. The Bible's like a sword. The Bible's like meat. The Bible's like milk. So we looked at those 10 pictures, how the Bible pictures itself. It's a wonderful, wonderful book. Those are 10 pictures and there's a whole lot more in there. And of the Bible. And so I hope you love the Bible. God has magnified his word above his name. Psalm 138 verse 2. Now the longer you think about that statement, the more it will blow your mind. God has magnified His Word above all His name. Think of all the names and titles God has. He's put His Word above it all. Where have we put His Word? Where is that on our list of priorities? God's put His Word above His name. I used to wake up in school when I heard a teacher say this, now this is going to be on the test. I used to be sleeping until that time. But if a teacher ever said, now this is going to be on the test, boy, I'd wake right up. Something about those words just got to me, brought me out of my daydreaming. We're going to be tested on this. There's a test coming. And God's magnified this above his name. He spent 1,500 years writing this. That's a pretty long project. He didn't spend 1,500 years writing this book by 40 different authors on three different continents and three different languages just so we could say, well, I got to watch TV or, you know, I got to scroll through my phone or the internet or something. Boy, I want to encourage you to love the Bible, and it's not going to hurt you. All those pictures about bread and meat and milk and gold and silver and honey and all that stuff, it's going to be yours to experience. This is like a treasure chest. Every time you open it, you just say, wow, guess what I saw. So that was last week. That was last week. I want to talk about understanding the Bible this week. Understanding the Bible, you say, well, We got our appetites wet to get back to being Bible-reading people last week, I hope. If you stopped reading your Bible, start over. Start again. If you've never started, get a Bible, we'll give you one, and start reading. If you're not familiar with the Bible at all, we're going to talk about its organization here under point number one this morning, but start in the New Testament. It's towards the back of your Bible. 25% the back quarter of your Bibles the New Testament starts with Matthew Mark Luke and John start in those books and read those books and If you're reading the Bible and you're an addict Keep up keep being an addict. That's a good addiction Just don't ever stop. So I don't know where you're at but You know two two men They were about as tried as much as anybody in the Old Testament. They were Job and Jeremiah. Those guys had hard lives. We think we've had hard lives, but Job and Jeremiah had tough times. But you know what Job said about the Word of God? He said, I have esteemed the words thy mouth more than my necessary food. And because he did that, it sustained him through the worst trials probably any man's ever gone through. Jeremiah, they say, never had a convert in the last 23 years of his preaching ministry. Imagine that, not one convert. How did he get through that? He said, thy words were found and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart, for I am called by thy name, O Lord of hosts. Now you might be going through a time in life where nothing is fun, no joy, But if you get into the word of God, it'll sustain you through this season in your life. It'll help you. And so you can understand the Bible. And I wanna give you four things today that help you understand the Bible. You may have to write some of it on the back, just write all over your paper if you want to. But number one, I wanna look at this morning, the organization of the Bible. One thing that'll help you understand the Bible is to know how it is organized. It is organized in two major sections. One is called the Old Testament. The other is called the New Testament. The top two lines on your sheet today are the Old Testament books. The bottom two lines are the New Testament. As I said, the Old Testament is about three quarters or 75% of your Bible. Those are the books you see on the first two lines, Genesis through Malachi. If you can, and you probably can, I remember doing this as a boy, try to memorize those books, just the names of them so you can say Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah. Those are the 39 books of the Old Testament. I learned that when I was about 12, 13, somewhere around there. I'm 63 now. I still remember it. You that are young, use your minds. Don't watch television. Don't play video games. Don't just scroll the internet and let all these other people do your thinking for you. Those of us that grew up without that stuff, we were able to use our minds to invent things, create things, And, you know, people like writing songs, you know, that people who write songs, they're thinkers. Be a thinker. We need thinkers this day and age. God gave you about four or five pounds of gray matter. Use that. Watch out for idle times. The psalmist said, while I was musing, the fire burned. He didn't say, while I was a-musing. A-musing is when you sit there in front of television and just... Don't waste your mind, man. It's a horrible thing to waste. Use your mind. Memorize the books in the New Testament, too. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. You can memorize those two down through Revelation. It'll help you when you're in church. Some preacher's preaching and he says, turn to the book of Habakkuk. And you can turn there. You can find it. You know where it is. And so there's 39 books in the Old Testament, the first three quarters of the Bible. And they are organized by subject, not by chronology. All right, the Bible is not in chronological order. It is put in order by subjects. The first subjects on the top line are history. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, that's all history. And then that history goes on, 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st 2nd Kings, 2nd Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther. And that's where the history books end. But some of those books, you know, even though they're towards the front of the Bible, like Ezra talks about way in the end of the Old Testament after the captivity. So they're organized by subject. You got your historical books first, and then your poetical books or poetry next. They're the books that are read on your sheet, top line. Now they're not poetry to us, but if we read Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon on the top there, in Hebrew, and Hebrew poetry is different than English poetry, but that would be written in a form of Hebrew poetry. So we call them the poetic books. And then after that, the rest of the New Testament on the second line is all prophecy. What is prophecy? Prophecy is the foretelling of history before it happens. A lot of these prophecies have been fulfilled. Some, like we looked at two weeks ago, are yet to be fulfilled or being fulfilled. Like Ezekiel 38.13, we talked about Sheba and Dedan a few weeks ago and how that is just being brokered right now by President Trump Jews, and the United Arab Emirates, and the Saudis, and Oman, and that's being fulfilled right now. And then there's a lot of prophecies that need to be fulfilled yet in the future. And so all those books on the second line there are what are called prophecies. So when you get to them, this will help you understand the Bible. If you say, okay, we're talking about prophecy here. God is inspiring prophets to tell future events, maybe about some countries back then or in the future. Then you get to the New Testament and you come to the biographies or the history of the New Testament is found in the first five books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts. That's on the third line down now. That's biography, that is the biographies of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John about Jesus Christ. Or we could call it history. And then the book of Acts. That's history of the first century church, about the first 40 years of the church after Christ ascended into heaven. What happened during those first four decades? Very important, very foundational stuff for us as a church. Then these green books here are what are called Paul's letters. There's 13 of them. God saved the chief of sinners. He was, what, the worst man that ever walked the earth? changed him, transformed him, and turned him into an author. And by the Holy Spirit's inspiration, we'll get to that under number two, he writes Romans, 1st, 2nd Corinthians, all the way through Philemon, and maybe Hebrews on the next line. We're not sure. But 13 letters. So don't ever think God can't use you again if you've messed up. All right? Moses was a murderer. God used him to write the first five books. of the Bible. David was acessory to murder, and he wrote 73 of the Psalms. Paul was a murderer, and God used him, forgave him. You know, that's like we were talking earlier in the bulletin, love covers a multitude of sins. Aren't you glad God has covered your sins? And he doesn't bring them up anymore from your past, and God can use you today. No matter what you've done, even this week, maybe you fell this week. All right, God can lift you up today. He can use you again. He can use you. He's just that way. He's amazing. Then the last line are the other letters, which we call the general letters, or the general epistles is the kind of fancy name. That's Hebrews, James, 1st, 2nd Peter, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, and Jude. So altogether there's eight authors in the New Testament at the bottom, and then the others write the Old Testament. Now in the New Testament, the word testament means a covenant or a new will that's been written. And that is in the blood of Jesus Christ. This is where Jesus Christ comes on the scene in history, and God becomes manifest in the flesh. Even though there were Old Testament appearances of Christ, He's revealed to us, especially in the New Testament. And the New Testament is now the new covenant that He has, the new will that He shows to man through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope you know Him as your Savior. So that's generally the organization of the Bible. That will help you understand the Bible if you know how it got put together. It got put together by subjects, not necessarily chronologically in order. Now there are chronological Bibles out there. And you'll be reading history and then they'll stick a psalm in there. This psalm was written at this point in history. They're pretty neat to have too. I want to talk about number two, the inspiration of the Bible, and here in our text I've asked you to turn to, the Bible says this. In 2 Timothy 3, let's begin verse 14, but continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of knowing of whom thou hast learned them, and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Jesus Christ. So if you want to know how to be saved, it's very simple. Put your faith in Jesus Christ. The scriptures teach us how to be saved. That's what verses 15 says, and the scriptures tell us here in verse 15, even a child can be saved. It's so simple. It's so simple. Charles Spurgeon said, the only theology you know to get saved is this, number one, yourself a sinner, and number two, Christ the Savior. So that's all the theology you need to know to go to heaven. If you know yourself a sinner, and you know Christ the Savior, and you put your faith in Christ, you'll be saved. So you don't have to know everything. It's all you need to know to be saved. But then after that, there's a lot God wants to teach you. But from a child, you've known the Holy Scriptures. I want to encourage you mothers and fathers and grandmas and grandpas to teach your children and grandchildren the Scriptures. Teach them the Scriptures. It's able to make them wise unto salvation. Jesus said in John 5 39, search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life and they are they which testify of me. Search the scriptures, don't be bashful, don't be afraid, get into the book. They will tell you how to have eternal life through me, Jesus said, through Christ. But here's verse 16, and I want you to notice number two, the inspiration of the Bible. Number one, the organization of the Bible. Number two, the inspiration of the Bible. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness so we can be changed. Verse 17, that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works. This book has the power to save us and the power to change us. And all scripture is given by inspiration of God. What does that mean? That means when we say Moses wrote this, David wrote this, Paul wrote this, James wrote this, we would be more accurate to say God wrote this through James. God wrote this through Moses. God wrote this through David. God wrote this through Paul. The word inspiration, it's an interesting word, it comes from a Greek word, theos, noustos, theos being God, noustos meaning breathed. When we talk about the inspiration of the Bible, we believe God has breathed and inspired every single word of it. He gave the authors, now I know he fit their personalities and all that, the whole Bible's a miracle. But he gave those authors word by word what to write. It was almost like they mechanically, he mechanically dictated to them what to put down on paper. See, there's some people out there you gotta watch out from. They say, oh, God just inspired the thoughts. Like, David, write a real nice psalm about me being a shepherd. And so David said, okay, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. and they think God just inspired the thoughts. Or Luke, write a story about a guy that gets a bunch of money and goes off and lives in sin and comes back to his dad, okay. So Luke was inspired one day to write a thought God gave him about a prodigal son. No, no, no, that's not the inspiration we're talking about. Because people to this day have inspirations from God like that to write songs like that, amen? Some of these songs people write, I say, wow, that's inspired. But it's not the word of God. It's based on an inspiration from God. But God's word is where he gives us every single word of the Bible is inspired by God. It's God breathed. That's what we mean by inspiration. Now, for those of you that are of fuller age in Christ, that means we believe there's a text in the Hebrew, which the Old Testament was written in, mainly, called the Masoretic Text. And we believe that that is the original Hebrew. And any Bible, whether it's English, Spanish, German, Chinese, or whatever, that's based on the Masoretic Hebrew text is the Word of God. Those of you of fuller age also, the New Testament was written in Greek manuscripts called the Received Text, also known as the Majority Text or the Textus Receptus. And we believe that any Bible, any New Testament based on that Greek, whether it's English, Spanish, Chinese, German, whatever, is the Word of God. Now for us in the English-speaking world, we believe the only Bible in English that fits both The Masoretic Hebrew and the Received Text Greek of the New Testament is our King James Bible. It's the only one. It's the only one. Others are based on perverted texts. Now, don't put it past the devil to pervert the Word of God. He's not sitting around doing nothing. What's the first words we ever hear out of the devil's mouth? What? Yea, hath God said. Amen. Who do you say it to? Eve. Chapter three. You only get three chapters and the very first thing Satan ever said is, yea, hath God said. He questions the word of God. What's the second thing he said? Thou shalt not surely die. He changes the word of God. God said, you eat of that tree, you're going to die. And he came to Eve. And he deceived her and he said, yea hath God said. He questions the word of God and then he changes it. You're not gonna die. And Eve gave in and Eve found out that God was right and the devil was wrong. We have no right to change the word of God. But he's been changing it ever since, all these versions. Almost 400 versions since 1970 have been written of, quote unquote, the Bible. Well, we gotta come up to, take for instance, the New International Version comes out in 1979. The New King James Version comes out in 1982, three years later. Now is God that confused that he's gotta change his word every three years? The New International Version has 66,000 less words than our King James Bible. That's 8% of the Bible has been deleted in the New International Version. Who's got the right to do that? Who's got the right to say, well, 8% of what God said, we don't need it. We don't need it today. The New King James Version, that's a real deceptive one. has 20,000 less words than the King James Version. 79, 82, three years later, they come out. Those are the best sellers today besides the King James Bible. Do you wanna trust a guy who's so confused he has to change his word every three years? Who wants to do that? And then there's 200 other ones, most of them just, just die and the shrivel up on the vine and go away. But we have an every word Bible. Every word. That's important, because I want to come to number three here. I got four points today. Number three is the preservation of the Bible. See, that's something we believe at the Faith Bible Baptist Church that a lot of churches don't believe in. We not only believe in number two, the inspiration of the Bible, that God gave every single word of it over a period of 1,500 years. That's quite a project. I mean, none of us have lived long enough to put that much effort into some project. Never will. God did. I mean, he made everything in creation in six days. Whippy. What's six days compared to 1,500 years? Which do you think would be more valuable to God, something he did in six days or something that took 1,500 years? Which would be more valuable? That's why he said, I've magnified my word above my name. Don't mess with this. Don't trifle with this holy things. I believe there's going to be Christians, believers in heaven who are going to have no right or access to the New Jerusalem because in their life they messed with the Word of God. You read the last chapter. Forever. Forever. They won't have access. They'll be in heaven. I don't know how that works. They're saved. But they won't have access to the New Jerusalem because they trifle with the Word of God. They added or took away from the prophecies of this book. I wouldn't do that. If I were you, I would just by faith say, look, I don't understand all this Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and manuscripts and stuff. Neither do I. So I think just by faith, I'm going to trust this. And if I'm wrong, I'll let God correct me at the judgment seat. Until then, I'm going to believe every word of this book. because he not only inspired it, but he preserved it. Number three, look back at Psalm 12, Psalm 12. Psalm 12 says this in verse six and seven, the words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation Forever. What does that mean? It means from this generation forever. God is going to preserve his word. Now there are people, and they're very educated, and they're theologians, and if you're not careful, you'll get deceived by them. And they'll say, yeah, I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God in the original autographs. Now let me interpret. I don't believe the Bible's the word of God. You know why? The original autographs don't exist. You know, I've written a lot of books, booklets, little stuff, okay? And what I do is I get out a yellow legal pad and I start writing in shorthand. I'm scratching off things. I'm changing things, so on and so forth. Then I take and I hand it to one of my secretaries. They then type it into a computer and then they take that yellow thing I wrote on and throw it in the garbage. The original autographs of any of my writings do not exist. But we still have an accurate record, word by word, of what I said. Now do you think God can do that? Or do you think I'm greater than God somehow? Of course God can do that. God has preserved his word. And I can take any one of my booklets and say that is exactly what I wrote on the original autographs. They've been preserved. Not just inspired, but preserved. And God's a lot greater than we are with our little computers and secretaries and stuff. Turn over to Matthew. What did Jesus say about this? I kind of like, he's like the final word, isn't he? In Matthew chapter 24, verse 35, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Do you believe Jesus today? Do you believe what He said about salvation? Sure, we're staking our eternal souls on what He said, that He told the truth, right? Well, why don't we believe what He said about preservation? Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Word shall not pass away. That means God's Word must still be in existence somewhere. Amen? That's called the preservation. That will help you understand the Bible. When you open this up, that just say, hey, that is the inspired, preserved word of God. Now, what about the struggles? Some people say, well, all those these and thous and thines and yees and so on and so forth, those were added intentionally to help your understanding. Thee, thou, thine, thy, every time it starts with a T, that's singular. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. That's singular, that's God. Anytime there's a why, ye, you, yourselves, that's plural. Ye must be born again. That's plural, that's everybody. Y'all gotta be born again if you're gonna go to heaven, you gotta be saved. Those are put, they didn't speak like that in 1611. They added that to give us clarity. You look at the other versions and how many times they get that wrong. Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. That's what the perversions say. That means all of ours. We're equal to God all of a sudden. No, thine is the kingdom. Does that make it clear? Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Singular. So we have the preservation of the scriptures. Jesus said, heaven and earth shall pass away, my word shall. So I'm holding on to that to the day I take my last breath. I'm saying my Lord said his word would not pass away. It must be somewhere on earth and for us English speaking people, the only version we have based on the Masoretic Hebrew that received text, the majority text of the New Testament is the King James Bible. All the others use that and other perverted texts, which is a deeper subject. But let me just say this, last of all, number four. And this is where it'll really help you in closing, the illumination of the Bible. Turn to 1 Corinthians 2, in closing, 1 Corinthians 2. Yeah, go ahead, Liz. 1 Corinthians 2. And this is where it's the most practical, the sermon today. But if you'll understand the organization of the Bible, the inspiration, every single word is inspired by God, not just the thoughts, but every word, even the genealogies, the preservation that God is going to keep His word for all the time. But here's where we get help, the illumination, the illumination. To understand the Bible, we have an illuminator living inside of us called the person of the Holy Ghost. Peter, which I don't want to have time to because we have baptism, but Peter said these men who wrote the scriptures were moved by the Holy Ghost. That means the Holy Ghost was the one who actually taught the authors word by word what to write down And he just so happens to live inside of you if you are a born again Christian today. The one who wrote the Bible lives inside of your body. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost. Jesus said, I'm leaving, I'm gonna send the Holy Ghost. When he comes and lives inside of you, he'll live there forever. He'll never leave you. You have the author of the Bible living inside of you. Now, if I'm reading a book on plumbing that Sam Hazlett writes, And I'm like this with my copper over here and my torch and everything. And I'm like, man, what does this mean? And Sam walks in. What do you think I should do? Yeah, I said, Sam, what do you mean here? What does this mean? Can you show me how this works? Because he wrote a book on plumbing, if he did. I would turn to the author. I said, what do you mean by this? Oh, let me show you. Oh, now it's clear. That's called illumination. The illumination of the scriptures is found in verse 10. This whole chapter is great, but let's just close. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth what? All things, yea, the deep things of God. It is impossible for you ever to run out of things to learn. He can teach you the rest of your life and you get to the end of your life and you say, boy, I've just scratched the surface of what the Bible's all about. But I don't care if you're a man or a woman or if you're far away from God today or close to today, you can open up the Bible again and the Holy Ghost will give you illumination. It says, He, but God hath revealed them unto us. Call it revelation if you want to, but illumination. For what man, verse 11, knoweth the things of man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Pastor Cole, you're smart. No, I was an idiot until I got saved and the Holy Ghost came into me and started teaching me some things. And so were you. Those of you that are in the Lord a long time, don't get proud about it like you figured it out or something. No, the end of verse number 11 says, even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God. Skip to verse 13, which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth. And what is his method of teaching? Look at the end of verse number 13, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. You gotta compare scripture with scripture. It's the only way. That's the only way. Now, there's more to understanding the Bible than this, and maybe I'll go on next week or something. We'll see. But there's four things that'll help you understand the Bible. Understand, number one, how it's organized, the organization of the Bible, why the books are in the order they are. That'll help you. Number two, the inspiration of the Bible. Oh, every single word in this book is important. It's put there by God. The preservation, oh, we do have a complete copy of the Word of God with us. It hasn't been lost somewhere. We've got the Word of God, understand it. That'll help you understand it. And then the illumination is only by the Spirit of God. He's inside of you. Have communion with Him. Have communion with Him. Let me just illustrate, and then Pastor Seth, pick out a couple songs to sing baptism preparation. If I open up the Bible in the morning and I try to read it and I say, man, what in the world was that about? I didn't get much out of that. I might get something. But if I do this, listen. Dear Holy Spirit, you wrote this book and I'm about ready to read it. I don't know what you mean by this. Would you please show me something today out of your Word and help me to understand it. And then I start reading. You will experience illumination. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you'll be the one saying, hey, guess what? I just learned from the Bible that I never saw this before. All right, the kids are coming up for baptism to watch. Pastor Seth, why don't you come, Brianne? Sing a couple songs while we get ready. And while we're singing, if you want to come and pray about, I don't know how you're doing with the Bible, but maybe you need to get back into it. Just go home, find out where it is, and get it out again. Get into the Word. All right.