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Thy Word is Truth Part 4 By John McCallum

 2 Timothy chapter 3, starting from the first verse.
But mark this, there will be terrible times in the last days.
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents,
ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal,
not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
having a form of godliness but denying its power, have nothing to do with them.
They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women,
who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires,
always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.
Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men opposed the truth.
Men of depraved minds, who as far as the faith is concerned are rejected.
But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.
You however know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecution, sufferings,
what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured.
Yet the Lord Jesus, yep, sorry I'll read that again, yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.
In fact everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of,
because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures,
which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuting, correcting and training in righteousness,
so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Amen.
This weekend is Thy Word is Truth, and we began to consider some of these things yesterday.
We were thinking about the fact that in this, our day, we are living in a day that I called the battle for the Bible.
And then I spoke about some of the reasons why people find the scripture offensive and unacceptable,
because of its teaching concerning God, its teaching concerning man, its teaching concerning prophecy,
and its teaching concerning miracles and the supernatural.
And we also looked finally yesterday at the authority of scripture,
where Christ resorted to the written Bible in order to rebut the overtures and temptations to sin from the devil.
We're going to be thinking today, right throughout today, in the three sessions today,
in 2 Timothy chapter 3, and in the closing three verses, 15, 16 and 17,
where we have in these verses one of the great passages, the classical passages, in the scripture concerning the scripture.
And we don't have time, as usual, we don't have time to say everything that we would like to say about the teaching here and the implications and the applications of the teaching.
But we are wanting to look today at these verses, and we're going to be looking first of all at the holiness of the scripture, that's what we're going to be looking at just now.
And then in the next session we're going to be thinking about the inspiration, what is called the inspiration of the scriptures.
And then finally this evening I understand we're going to turn and consider the purpose for which the scripture is given.
Now as I indicated yesterday, we are not exhausting the Bible's teaching about the Bible.
I won't have time to go into any details concerning the interpretation of the Bible.
For example, there are several key clues and ways of interpreting the Bible properly.
We're not going to be looking at the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, the continuity or the discontinuity.
And there are other things in the scripture, the completion of scripture, finality of scripture,
as opposed to the tendency today in many places in the Christian church to advocate continuing revelation and prophecies.
And the sufficiency of the scripture, the clarity of the scripture, what the old theologians used to call the perspicuity of the scripture.
There are a whole host of things that we're going to leave unsaid.
We're just having to make the best use of what time is available to us and deal with what we can deal with in those brief slots of time.
So I would draw your attention this morning to the 2 Timothy chapter 3 and I'll read again.
I'm reading from the old version, the authorized version, not that I want to be obscure in any way,
but it's the version with which I'm familiar and I hope to be re-translating as we try to expound these verses
and point out the meaning as best we can understand it, the true meaning of what Paul is actually saying here.
But I'll read from these verses 15. Indeed, it would be better to read from verse 14 to give the context and the connection with what has gone before.
Paul says, but continue thou in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing of whom you have learned them.
And that from a child you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
All scripture is given by inspiration. And here is where in the old version we have this word, inspiration, and I noticed in the NIV I think it was, was read.
We have it translated, God breathed, and that is a very good translation indeed, it's accurate in that sense.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
And our attention this morning is going to be limited to verse 15 where Paul is writing to Timothy, encouraging this younger preacher of the gospel to continue as he has been doing.
He has been doing fairly well and Paul is encouraging him to continue. And he reminds Timothy of something very important in the experience of Timothy.
He says that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
And here we have this expression that I want to concentrate our minds on this morning, that Timothy from a child has known the holy scriptures.
And this leads us into the theme of the holy scriptures. The scriptures are holy.
And I want to begin by emphasizing something which is rather unusual in the language in the original, it doesn't come out so well in the English versions.
But in the original language Paul is using an unusual word for holy and an unusual word for the scriptures.
This is not the normal word that is used or the most frequently word used that is used in the New Testament for the idea of holy.
I'm sure you know that the word holy and holiness occurs in the Bible in many different places.
And the usual word is a word that has the connotation of being separated unto God.
We tend to think of holy and holiness in terms of moral character primarily but that is not really how the Bible initially means holy or holiness.
The word holiness originally under this basic meaning has a relationship to God, a proper relationship to God.
And what flows from our proper relationship to God is the holy character.
But the fundamental idea of holiness in the Bible is our relationship to God where we are set apart from ordinary worldly secular things and we are set apart for God's glory.
And that is why for example in the Old Testament the whole of the nation of Israel for example was regarded as a holy nation.
Now in that nation there were people who were not converted.
There were people even among the priests as we know from our readings of the holy scriptures and they were ungodly men.
And we read of many in the nation of Israel who evidently were not good men, they were evil men and yet in a sense they were also holy men.
In the sense that they belonged to the nation that God had taken to belong peculiarly unto himself.
Now that's the common idea of holiness in the Bible but that is not the actual idea that Paul has here.
What Paul is using here a word that has to do with priestly and temple activity.
And even the word for scripture here where Paul says and that thou has known the holy scriptures.
He is using a word that is not the usual word for scripture.
The word that he usually uses it occurs 50 times in the New Testament and every one of the 50 of currencies is in reference to the Old Testament scriptures.
Now Paul is here of course referring to the Old Testament scriptures but he is referring to sacred writings.
And it's not the usual way that Paul speaks about holiness or about the holy scripture.
Now what is Paul driving at then when he speaks here of the holy scripture of the sacred writings in this particular way.
He is reminding us I believe of something that is easily forgotten and that is that the Bible is essentially a religious book.
Because this word that Paul is using it refers to the temple worship.
It is a word that occurs for example in first Corinthians in chapter 9 at verse 13 where Paul is speaking there again of the maintenance of the ministry.
And in verse 13 in first Corinthians chapter 9 he says do you not know that they which minister about holy things that's about temple sacred religious things.
They live off the things of the temple.
Now the word the adjective that Paul is using in second Timothy chapter 3 at verse 15 is a word that has to do with religious activities.
And what Paul is reminding us here is this that there is a collection of books in the world and they are what he calls the sacred writings and these books are different.
I'll touch on that just shortly.
These books are different because the whole content of them the purpose of them and the origin of these books is that they belong to the things of God in the same kind of way as the priests in the Old Testament belonged exclusively to God.
And the temple itself was built for the sole purpose of expressing the presence of God and the things of God and to the people of God.
So what Paul is saying here in this definition of the scripture that Timothy has known from his childhood is he is reminding Timothy that he has been familiar with the things of God and with the book that speaks of the things of God even from his very infancy.
Now I think that we have to grasp that very clearly because when we pick up the Bible we have got to understand that we are picking up something to read that is not just an ordinary book.
It is a book that is intended in everything that it says and in the very fact and the essence of what it itself is, it is intended to lead us into the things of God.
The Bible is intended to bring us into contact with the things of God and that is what the Apostle Paul is indeed driving at here.
And furthermore when Paul here says that Timothy has known the sacred writings and Paul is referring to actual writings, indeed it is holy letters.
The word in the Greek is the word from which we get our English word grammar and we all know that grammar has to do with the understanding and the breaking down of language and the composition of language.
And what Paul is saying is in effect that every single letter that is written down in this book that he is referring to, the holy writings, the sacred grammar, he is saying that it is all, it has all been given by God.
Every little iota, every jot and every tittle that is written down in the Bible he says is the product of God's activity.
Now that is important to keep that in the background of our thinking as we come further to consider the holy scripture.
But I want to emphasize this, Paul is speaking principally but not exclusively of the Old Testament scriptures.
Timothy is still a young man but by the time Paul was writing this last letter to Timothy, the last letter that Paul wrote, Christianity had been spreading in the world for over 30 years.
Paul has been preaching the gospel for over 30 years. The gospel is widespread now in the Roman Empire and many converts have been brought in, the church has been built up and there is already a collection of New Testament writings in existence.
And Paul has already in fact penned all his epistles that we have in the rest of the New Testament and these epistles would be circulating among the churches.
And Timothy from his youngest days had been acquainted not only with the Old Testament scriptures but also to a certain degree at least with the New Testament scriptures.
So Paul is not simply referring to the Old Testament when he says as he speaks here about the holy scriptures and Timothy's acquaintance.
Some of these scriptures have been in existence or the content of them as long perhaps almost as long as Timothy himself has been in the world.
Timothy is probably a man in his early or mid 30s at the very most.
And so Timothy is well acquainted with the Christian message as he has been acquainted with the Old Testament message and Paul is including all of this when he is reminding Timothy you are well aware of those sacred letters that God has indeed given for our salvation.
And Paul makes reference in Romans chapter 1 verse 2 for example to the holy scriptures.
I don't want to enlarge on this over much but in Romans chapter 1 Paul is setting out to write out his gospel in the fullest way that he has done in any of his other epistles and he is immediately reminding these Roman Christians of who he is.
Paul a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle separated unto the gospel of God but he immediately reminds us that the gospel of God is not something new.
It's not something that he has invented it is something which has already been spoken of by the holy prophets which he promised before by his prophets in the holy scriptures.
And so Paul is saying that this gospel which is recorded now in New Testament times and in the New Testament scripture is not something that is different it is a continuation to what the prophets were writing off hundreds of years before in the Old Testament scriptures.
So I am emphasizing all of this because I want to clarify and to establish that Paul here is speaking of the scriptures, Old Testament, New Testament scriptures as being specifically related to the visible and the tangible things of God.
Just as the priesthood was, just as the temple was and all the worship it was something that you could go to, you could be exposed to it, you could hear it, you could see it, you could touch it, so it is with the scriptures.
When you and I have access to the scriptures we are having access to something visible and tangible that God has given and it is intended to drive into our consciousness that God is speaking to us and that God is there and that God is interested in our salvation.
So that is what Paul is indeed driving at. Now when Paul says here that these scriptures are holy we've got to ask the question, because it is an important question, we've got to ask the question who is it that regards those scriptures as holy?
Because the world doesn't, the world regards the Bible to a large extent as foolishness, the world doesn't regard the Bible as important, the world passes by the Bible, if you go into any second hand book shop in I dare say in Warners Bay as in Sydney, you will find stacks of Bibles and they are going as cheap as you can get them because nobody wants to buy them and they are gathering dust in our own houses tragically, in our own homes.
Tragically our Bibles often they are simply there for the special occasion and they gather dust and in these old second hand book shops they are there and they are cheaper than the most trashy novel because nobody wants to buy them and the world doesn't regard the Bible as being an important book to consider, the world regards it as ancient myths and legends and who knows what.
So therefore when Paul is saying the scriptures are holy, who is it that regards them as important? Does the world? The world no, the world doesn't regard the Bible with any particular degree of affection, the world is not attracted to the message of the Bible in the least.
And let's be clear about that because there are those Christians today and they imagine that the world out there is just looking for God and longing for God and all we have to do is go and bring the message of the gospel to them and they will immediately believe and receive the message.
I used to think that when I began to preach over 30 years ago I was amazed that people were not believing the message that I was preaching.
And I used to think that all we had to do was just go to people and they've got a hunger for God and they're longing for God and they're just waiting for someone to come and tell them about the Lord and the moment they come they're going to be so thankful to us and they're going to receive the message.
That is a great mistake. The Bible says there's none that seeks after God. And if you and I think that this morning in Warner's Bay all these people out there are looking for God then we've got to revise our thinking.
There's not one of them as far as I know according to the teaching of the Bible that is looking for God.
And if you were to go to them in their natural condition and present to them the message of the Bible and say, thus saith the Lord, they would look at you with amazement if not with downright animosity.
The world does not regard the Bible as holy or as important. And tragically sometimes the church doesn't.
And this is why today there is an increasing emphasis upon what is called, instead of the old, in the old days they used to have the order of service.
And the reading of the scripture and the preaching of the scripture was given a high place and a most prominent place and a large portion of the activities of any Christian church service.
But not today. What you find is the program and the sermon is perhaps tacked on at the end. Fifteen minutes if you're lucky.
And everybody else has their say and the children have their say and the women's group have their say and the flower group.
And there's all these solos and all these testimonies probably proper in their place but not to take advantage of valuable Bible reading and Bible exposition time.
Now why is it that there is this increasing program of activity, of involvement, which is at the expense of the Bible's emphasis in reading and preaching. Why?
Because the church of our day to a great extent also does not value the scripture. It is failing to understand the true identity of these written grammatical statements that we call the Bible.
So to whom is the Bible precious? Well it is precious to God's people and if you are a true Christian you regard the Bible as holy and you are thankful that God has come with such a word and like the psalmist of old you meditate upon his law day and night.
O how love I thy law, says the psalmist, it is my meditation all the day, it makes me wiser than my foes for it doth with me stay.
And every Christian says Amen to that. But the point I want to make is this, that the scriptures are holy to God and whatever the world may say and whatever the church may say,
they can say what they like or regard the Bible in any way that they please. The scriptures are holy. God regards his word as a holy special word and God regards his word as something of great value.
It is precious to him whether it be precious to unbelievers or believers. It is precious to God. Because in that deposit of divine revelation that we call the Bible, we have the immensity of God's love revealed.
We have Christ revealed and everything that has to do with Christ is precious to God. He is God's well beloved Son and whatever speaks of him and whatever reveals him and whatever would draw men to him is of value to God.
And so let's be clear on this. The great God of heaven regards his word as being important, as being not only God given but God honouring and containing in every statement the truth of God.
Now that's the first thing that I want to emphasize and I don't want to go on any further in that way. But then at this point, this raises a question. And the question is, in what way or how is it that we can say that the Bible is holy?
Continue, and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures. And I want to give several reasons why it is that we can say with confidence, with Paul, that the scriptures are holy scriptures.
And if we understand the scriptures are right, we will value the Bible. We won't neglect it. We will read it. We will love it. We will seek to implement it in our lives and store up its message in our hearts if we have a proper understanding of what the Bible actually is.
And the first reason I want to give as to why we can maintain that the scriptures are holy scriptures, whatever the world may think and whatever the church may think, they are inherently holy because the author of the scriptures is holy.
Now who is the author of the scripture? Let's not confuse the writing of the Bible with the authorship of the Bible.
And I want to make this point as clear as I possibly can. For this reason, that there are many books being written today about the nature of the Bible.
And you will find increasingly there is an emphasis upon the human authorship of the Bible. And you will find that good men actually are using this expression, the human authors of the Bible.
Now we know what they mean, but they are wrong in their expression of what they mean. Because the Bible does not speak of its authorship in terms of human activity. The Bible is spoken of in terms of God's word.
And it may well be that God uses over 40 different writers, about 45 or 46 different writers. We don't even know the names as far as I know of some of the books of the Bible. But we know the names of a great many of them.
And they are all different in their style and they use different language. And Isaiah is very different to Jeremiah. And Luke's gospel is very different to John's. And the apostle Paul, he is going to style all of his own apparently.
And so there is the human instrumentality. But the Bible does not say that these men are the authors of the scripture. It says that they are the writers of the scripture. And it says that they are those men, those different men in different places and different times over a period of some 2000 odd years who wrote different portions of the Bible.
And they wrote for their own times as God moved them. I'll deal with this later on when we come to consider the inspiration of the scriptures. But what I want to emphasize is that running through all the various pen men whom God used to actually record and write down these sacred letters.
There is one authorship and that authorship is God himself. It is the word of God. No matter who the penman may be or who the prophet or the apostle is, it is God who is indeed the author of the scripture.
And therefore it is not strictly accurate, it's not biblical for good men to be saying or speaking in terms of human authorship. Rather to be biblically accurate we should be speaking of human instrumentality or the human writers of the Bible.
We don't deny that the Bible was written by men. But the apostle Peter tells us that it was holy men of God as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. That they indeed then wrote down those things that God commanded them and inspired them so to write.
And I'm stressing that and I want to stress something else if I may. And it is the Holy Spirit in particular who is the authorship, who is the author within the Godhead of the writing of the Holy Scriptures.
In the Bible we have God revealed in terms of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And our understanding of Christianity to a large degree depends upon our understanding of the Trinitarian relationship of the family and the fellowship of the Godhead.
Now why do I say that? I say it for this reason. We have a great, let me illustrate what I mean. We have a great danger as Christians of being so concentrated upon Christ that we are forgetting the work of God the Father and forgetting the work of God the Holy Spirit.
We as Christians, to be a Christian doesn't mean simply that we believe in God. Muslims believe in God. The Jews believe in one God. Many of the religions of the world believe in the one God, just as do we.
But when you come to consider and analyze closely what is it then that makes Christianity different if we all believe in God, what are the differences?
The differences are vast because we believe in Christ. The Muslim doesn't believe that Christ is the Son of God. The Hindu as far as I know doesn't believe that either, although they will say that Jesus was a good man.
And indeed so will the Muslims say that Jesus was a good man, that he was a prophet, but indeed an inferior prophet to Mohammed who is the superior and final prophet. But they will give him a certain place.
And as Christians we don't just say that Christ is the greatest man, he is the greatest man. We don't just say he is the final prophet and so he is. We actually say that he is God.
And so the Christian faith is a particular faith. We believe that Jesus Christ is the second person of the Godhead. But here is where these distinctions within the Godhead begin to apply.
Because we can be so concentrating upon Christ and that is what a Christian is. A Christian is someone who believes specific things about Christ. He is the Son of God, he is the Son of the Virgin Mary, he was born and he lived and he died without sin, he died for our sins, he rose again.
We believe those things as Christians and as far as I know only Christians do believe those things. But here is where we must be clear that we must not so concentrate upon Christ.
That we forget the love of God. Where does our salvation begin? Why is it that Christ came into the world born of the Virgin? Why did he die on the cross of Calvary?
He died on the cross of Calvary not because he initiated salvation, not because he loved the world, but that because God his Father so loved the world. In other words God the Father is the fountainhead of our salvation.
And it's not his sovereignty or his will or his desire to save, it is his love. And we as Calvinists have got to be very careful that we don't so emphasize the sovereignty of God.
That we forget that according to the Bible it is the love of God that is the moving principle behind all the salvation of which we read in the Holy Scripture.
And unto God is to be given all the glory. Christ has done all things for the glory of God the Father.
Now why you say are you giving us this lecture on the Trinity? I'm doing so because God the Father and God the Son are not strictly speaking the authors of the Bible.
It is God the Holy Spirit who strictly speaking is the one who moves men to write the Bible.
Now of course the Bible is the word of God the Father. And of course the Bible is the word of Christ because Colossians speaks of letting the word of Christ dwell within you.
It is Christ's word, but it is specifically the Holy Spirit of whom the Bible says that he moved holy men of God to write and to speak.
Think for example, let me give a couple of examples of this. Remember in Acts 28 verse 25 Paul was taken to Rome as a prisoner.
When he arrived in Rome he called for the elders of the synagogue, you remember, and how he spoke to them and some of them rejected the message and Paul turns to them.
And do you remember what he says? He says this at verse 25,
And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed after that Paul had spoken one word.
He's been speaking the gospel to these Jewish leaders at Rome and some of them have been arguing about his message and then Paul gives this one final word.
Well did the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit by Isaiah the prophet speak unto her fathers.
Remember that is a reference to Isaiah chapter 6 and in the Old Testament if you go to Isaiah chapter 6 you will find that it is the Lord.
Indeed it is the Lord Jesus Christ who is speaking. But Paul says it is the Holy Ghost who is speaking.
And there you have the writings of the prophet and they are attributed directly to the leading and the guiding of the Holy Ghost.
I'll give you one more example. In Hebrews chapter 3 at verse 7 you remember the writer is exhorting these Christians not to follow the bad example of Israel in the past but to follow on.
And then at verse 7,
Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost says today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Now that is a quotation out of Psalm 95 and there again the scripture is attributed to something that the Holy Ghost is saying.
So in the scriptures we have this marvelous message that the authorship is God.
It is God the Father speaking, it is God the Son speaking, but it is God the Holy Spirit who is causing men to write down what is to be recorded in the Holy Scriptures.
Now I want to press home a point here. The authorship of any material will betray the character of the author.
If you are interested in painting, for example, Isaiah, you can look at a certain picture and you can say that's a Gainsborough or that's a Constable or that's a Rembrandt.
And you don't have to be very long looking until you just look and you see the stamp of the master is there.
Or if you are reading literature you will find that if you are familiar with certain authors that you don't have to be told here is so and so's writing.
Charles Dickens or some of those great novelists or some of the great literature, the very stamp of the author.
You can tell even in anonymous works, I was reading quite recently where classical scholars were arguing as to the authorship of Homer's two great poems, The Odyssey and Aeneid.
And there is a disagreement among the scholars as to whether the same author wrote both of these two great poems.
And this classical scholar was arguing, of course he did. On what basis? Quality. This author was saying the quality of both of these great Greek poems is of such that they come from the one mind.
In other words, the stamp of a great mind was on these epic poems. Now that is a kind of true statement that applies to everything that we produce.
You can identify something in its grandeur or in its debauchery for that matter. There are some writers and they write gutter things and gutter languages and the moment that you pick them up they are revealing their dirty mind.
Now you and I read the Bible and there are all these different writers, different times, different backgrounds, spread over hundreds of years.
And yet if you read the Bible you'll find that you're not reading here a library of books. Sometimes the Bible is described as a library of books. That is an inaccurate description again.
The Bible is a collection of different parts of the one book. Different men have been used with different expressions but there is the unity of theme.
And that is why as you open up the Bible you begin at Genesis and you find that Moses, we indeed hold that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible.
But then you go into the books of Joshua and you find that whilst there are different emphases the theme is carried on right from the beginning of the creation of the world right up to the end and the creation, the new creation of the new heaven and earth.
There is a unity of theme. Why is there this unity of theme? Because there is the one mind that lies behind everything that the Bible has to say. It is God unfolding his one plan and his one program from the very beginning to the very end of our world.
And that is a holy message simply because the author of the message is holy. Now in the Bible you find many unholy things. The Bible in many ways is quite a basic book and some of its language is pretty crude.
And the Bible doesn't hide the sins of the saints and it exposes them for what they are. But the fact of the matter is even in the midst of the unholy things that are recorded in the Bible there is always this holy mind, this holy authorship.
And the origin of the Bible is holy and therefore everything about the Bible inevitably is going to be holy. If the root is holy then the fruit is going to be holy. If my mind is clean what I write is going to be clean.
And if I have got a mind that is a cesspit of iniquity I can only write and express myself as a cesspit. And that is how we are to understand the Bible. The Bible records God's mind. It is not just men. I will touch on this later on in the sermon. It is not just men giving their opinions.
It is God telling us what he thinks of things and how he does things and what it is that he plans to do in the future. So first of all then the Bible is holy, the holy scriptures, because the author of the scriptures is holy.
And then secondly this. The actual message of the Bible is holy. I won't spend over much time on this. I have already touched on it in a sense. But the message of the Bible is different. It is holy in the sense that it is quite unique. I don't know anywhere else in the world. I have never come across any books either present or as I try to understand what people used to write about.
I have never found anything like the Bible. The Bible is different. The Bible is different not only in the tone in which it writes. It is different in the actual content of what it writes.
You read for example, have you ever read some of the ancient, well we all know I have already expressed myself when I think of the theory of evolution where we are told that the world made itself.
And that is the height of nonsense as far as I can see. But have you ever read some of the ancient theories, the ancient religious literature? Have you ever read how the Greeks thought the world was made?
Or the Hindus? Or the ancient Romans? The Romans and Greeks had much the same thoughts in some things. And they had all kinds of bizarre and absolutely incredulous stories of how the world began and the history in a most unrealistic way.
And it just wasn't true to life. It didn't fit the facts. And yet when you come to the Bible you find a sober, record, elevated, restrained language in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth.
And as far as I know that has never been disproved. And as far as I know it is not disprovable. How can you possibly undo what the Bible says concerning the beginning of the world?
And I think that many evolutionists and cosmologists even today are facing the fact that we just don't know how the world began. Well of course we do because we believe the Bible.
And you and I know no more about the beginning of the world in which we live other than what the Bible says.
I was reading recently about the space probes, the interplanetary, what are they called? The probe, I can't remember the name if it doesn't matter.
That they sent out to our planetary system and then it goes off eventually out past Pluto, way out into outer space, taking all these photographs.
And some of these astronomers say we've got enough information here to last us for fifty years of research. This one probe taking photographs.
And what is becoming evidently clear is that all the simple solutions to the problems of origin, they are saying well all of these models that we once had, they just don't fit anymore.
Because what these cameras are showing up is that all these little planets and their satellites are all different, some are going the wrong way around, some ought not to be where they are.
There's all kinds of difference and all the previous models of understanding how our world began we just have to face, we've got to start thinking all over again.
The fact is we don't know how it began. Well the Bible tells us, now I'm not going to start going into that necessary.
But right throughout the Bible there's this theme and there's this person speaking and he's telling us that he's the Lord and that he sees all things, he understands everything.
He controls the nations, he makes forecasts about the destiny of the empire of Rome, the destiny of the empire of the Greeks and the Romans, the Greeks, Macedonians.
And he foretells the future before it comes to pass and he tells us concerning the history of the Jews and the time of the Gentiles, Jerusalem is going to be destroyed, they'll be carried captive amongst all the nations.
And history works out according to this mysterious message that is recorded here in what we call the Bible.
And the message of the Bible is different. You read the Koran and you are faced with nonsensical statements quite frankly.
If you read some of the ancient Hindu literature, the Buddhist literature, you will find there's a lot of introspection, speculation as to how the world might be and all kinds of bizarre statements.
And you come to the Bible and you find that it makes sense and it fits the facts of history and the rising and the falling of nations as well as the inner workings of the human soul.
The message of the Bible is holy, it's sacred because it brings us to face reality concerning ourselves and concerning God.
And then there's a third thing I want to emphasize as well. Not only the origin of the Bible and the message of the Bible, but the purpose of the Bible is sacred.
Why did God write? Every book that is written is written with a purpose in view. Whether it be a biography, if you were going to sit down and write someone's biography, you would either write for them or you write against them.
And you would present a picture of them which would present them either as a great saint or a great sinner depending upon what you wanted to write.
All books have an agenda. Every book that has ever been written, the author has set out to do something and to portray some aspect that he wants to portray and so has God.
And what is the purpose of God in giving to us the Bible? Thou hast learned, been assured of, and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation.
Now I don't know of any other book in the whole of the universe that has this purpose in its writing. Not even the religious literature of the heathen religions of the world because they don't come to terms with the need of salvation and the grim reality of sin.
Here is the great God of heaven who made us against whom we have rebelled and we disregard him day after day and we disobey his word and we hold it up as something that is too heavy to learn and too difficult to read.
And why has he given us this book? He has given us this book for our salvation. That we might be saved because he is interested in us and he is concerned whether we live or whether we die.
The world is not concerned whether you go to heaven or to hell or whether it goes to heaven or to hell. It doesn't consider these things.
And God explains himself to us. Have you ever noticed how the Bible speaks of God humbling himself to behold the things that are upon the earth? The psalmist says that God is the God who burns down his ears. He doesn't have to burn down his ears.
There are people in this world and they won't humble themselves to listen to you. You can go to some of the great and mighty ones of the earth and go knocking at their door and they wouldn't gain even to look at you, let alone to listen to your complaints.
They don't want to know that he is the great God, the most half, and he wants to know. He wants us to speak to him.
And his arm is not shortened but it cannot save and his ear is never heavy but it cannot hear or cry. Call upon me, come to me he says, call upon me in the death.
Now what right, what warrant do we have? How do we know how to come? What are we to do to come? How can we be saved? The Bible tells us. After the Bible is given for, to tell us what kind of God he is to encourage us to come to the same of grace.
And to tell us that we'll be given a welcome and to tell us that God not only bends down his ear from his heavenly place but that in Christ his dear Son who came into the stream of human life.
Remember what was said concerning Christ in Philippians chapter 2, when Paul is exhorting you and me as a Christian to consider not only our own things but the things of others.
Let this mind be in you, that mind, the mind that was in Christ, that mind who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation as it is in the old version.
And he was found in fashion as a man and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even unto the death of the cross.
You see again the picture, God bending down and God humbling himself to behold the things that are upon you.
You see the worldly religions all have two false views of God, they're either, they're fixed things.
God is just like us, that's why the Romans and the Greeks and some of the most primitive religions are so anthropomorphic in their views of God.
Because God, they're just like us, glorified, greater but just essentially the same.
Or on the other, and so there's that extreme. Or the other extreme is that God is so different to us that we don't know him at all.
And that's one of the trends of the Muslim faith by the way, Allah.
You will find that the average Muslim doesn't love Allah but he fears him.
Because he's got a picture of Allah, he says, the great one, and he's so distant, he's deified, he's found it.
But that's what the picture of the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is different to us.
But he's still not so far away as to be beyond our approach.
And he comes near to us, and he draws near to us to make us wise unto salvation.
You see we need to be wise if we're going to be saved.
And wisdom in the Bible begins in the fear of the Lord.
And the prophecy is that we might be made wise unto salvation.
And this salvation is not just the improvement of our life.
It's not just the putting right of a few wrongs and the turning over of a new leap.
It is salvation in the sense of having all our sins blotted out.
A new heart and a new spirit being given to us.
So by we not only believe in the Lord Jesus Christ but we actually love him.
And we want to serve him and to do his will.
Not only from the penalty of our sins and the power of our sins but saved from our own sinful Christ.
And we don't want to sin anymore.
That's why the Bible is different.
That we might grow up into holiness and into the land of the sins of the Lord.
And I don't know of any other book in the whole of the universe I think which indeed has this passage.
And furthermore Paul is reminding us here of a few other important things about the message and the passage of the Bible.
He says it has, he says this, it is able to make you wise.
The scripture, these writings that seem so argument.
Just words on a page.
And Paul says because they are God's words.
They have an inherent power.
Being powerful, being able.
And the word in the Greek for power that is used, there's different words used.
But the word here is the word from which we get our English word dynamite.
Dynamite.
And what Paul is saying is there is an inherent power resident in God's word that can bring us to this salvation.
And so work enough that we lose our appetite for the old man of sin and stress.
And we have a new affection implanted within our hearts.
Don't underestimate the power of words.
You and I can destroy people with words, we can destroy their reputation.
Have you ever noticed how sometimes a parent might turn to a little child and in a moment of a flick of anger,
a parent might speak harshly to a little child's face.
And you see the little face crumpling up because the power of the word has come home like a flood hammer.
And we've all done it. I've done it and you've done it.
And the moment we see it, we say, ah, we have forgotten you.
But what we say carries power.
And on the other hand, some little, again, you've got children because they express themselves freely.
You see, we tend to hide our children, but children tend not to.
And so you might have your little child and he or she is crying.
And they might have fallen and bruised themselves.
And all you have to do is give them a tiny little word.
And they forget the pain and they begin to smile.
And their little me may still be just as daft as it was before.
But all is well because the mother of the father has spoken a word of kindness.
And all is well.
It's the same with ourselves. If you were to speak harshly to me, you might be damaged.
And if I was to do the same to you, I might damage you beyond my understanding.
On the other hand, to speak a tiny word, the Bible says how good it is.
The word of God is a word of good reason.
It's a good word because it's intended to make us wise.
And to the salvation, which is in through faith, which is in Christ's name.
I must, I will be pleased.
That was the first point I want to make. I've spoken of the origin of scripture.
God is the author. The message of scripture. The message of the scripture.
I forget where I am now. I've been throwing up my track.
The final thing I want to say is this, though.
The fruit of the scripture. The fruit of the obedient life to the scripture is always holy fruit.
You see, we're living in a world that is, as I said yesterday, pessimistic.
It's pessimistic and disillusioned.
And do you know one of the tragedies of the world is its attitude towards the Bible.
And its attitude towards Christianity.
Because what the world says is this.
We have tried Christianity. We've tried the Bible and it's failed.
Christianity, they say, has failed.
Look at all the wars that Christianity has caused.
Show the eyes when it goes. But do you know something?
The fact is the world has never tried Christianity.
It's not the, it's not Christianity which has caused the wars and the mayhem and the bloodshed and man's cruelty to man.
It is the rejection of Christianity.
It's not because people read the Bible and understand it that the world is in the mess it is today.
It's because people do not read the Bible and understand it.
Because let's be clear on something. The fruit of Christianity, the fruit of Bible reading and being biblically minded,
is not mayhem, warfare, cruelty, murder and rape and everything else.
Rather it is the feasible fruit of righteousness.
The fruit of Christianity is the fruit of the Spirit who inspired this book.
Love, joy, peace, long suffering, happy families, stable marriages, happy children, food for plenty, food for everybody.
And lands that feast one with the other.
And Christians in happy harmony and the world enjoying the blessing of God's special and God's common grace because they're taking his word seriously.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.
Faith is the scripture. Blessed is the world.
If our little world would become obedient to the scripture, great tensions would disappear.
Men beating up their wives and men and women being unfaithful to one another in marriages, cruelty to children, drunkenness would disappear overnight.
We could disband our police forces and pull down our prisons and build other useful things instead.
Because the fruit of Christianity and the fruit of the scripture is always holy fruit.
Where sin once rained, grace now reigns.
And grace is always stronger than sin. Sin is a power of reigning.
But grace does much more upon us.
I've got to stop. I'm very conscious of that clock now.
And we haven't really, and it doesn't matter.
But I think I've said enough.
One final point that I made just because I don't want to leave this until the next session.
Paul tells Timothy here that he has known the holy scripture from the time that he was a baby.
Timothy had a godly mother and a godly grandmother.
And they, when he was a little boy, you can just imagine them taking him and saying,
Timothy, hear the word of the Lord.
Timothy, and they would be teaching him the Bible stories.
And from his infancy, Timothy was exposed to the Bible.
Now what I'm saying is this in final application.
Expose your children to the Bible.
Teach them because the word that is used here is not just for Timothy as a little child.
It's Timothy as a baby.
It's not just a youth, not just us, the word is actually a little baby.
Bring your babies up.
Read the Bible to your babies.
Get the Bible into their head as soon as they can begin to hear anything.
Let them hear psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
And let them hear the words of the Lord.
Let them hear it in family worship.
Take your children to church.
I deplore those congregations for children.
Now put out, just when the sermon begins, the children are taken out away from the Sabbath.
Take them in to hear the sermon.
Out of the mouth of those gods are those born.
The Bible is for children.
To make them wise and to guide them.
I'd better stop there and say no more.
God bless this one.