This Is The Word Of The Lord

Transcript

Good morning, family. Before we begin this morning, there are some folks that are visiting here this morning who just graduated from Western. And so, yes, for those of you who are here, congratulations. We’re always excited to see how God uses folks who’ve committed themselves to the work of ministry. It’s a hard job, but it’s a joyous one. It’s a rewarding job. And so, yeah, be deeply encouraged. You’ve only just begun, and I’m excited for you. So, if you would please turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Timothy, chapter 3. We’ll be looking at verses 16 and 17. If you don’t have a Bible here this morning, there are some Bibles in front of you in the seat underneath you. And in that Bible, you can find our passage on page 17. And you can find our passage on page 936. I’ll read, we’ll pray, and then we’ll jump in.

2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work

— 2 Timothy 3

(ESV)

. Friends, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray. Father, we do thank you for your word. Without it, we are hopeless. We recognize that every time we open up your word, you do powerful things. And so we pray, oh Lord, that now you would give us the help of the Holy Spirit to take your words, and as the song we just sang says, plant it deep in us, shape and fashion us in your likeness. We desperately need you. So speak, oh Lord, we pray. In Christ’s name, amen. Well, one of the many things I love about our church, and there is a whole lot,

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Scripture-Centered Worship

but one of the things I love is how we structure our liturgy. If you’re unfamiliar with what liturgy means, it’s really just an old school way of saying the order of service. Every week, we begin our time together with the prelude, as you saw this morning. A brief time of contemplation to help us set our hearts before we engage in worship. After the prelude, we hear a call to worship, which is always a portion of scripture. Then we sing a few songs together, which are always biblically themed, before moving into a time of corporate confession, where we follow the scripture’s command to confess our sins to one another and to God. After that confession, we immediately hear God’s loving pardon that comes directly from the scriptures to lift us out of any shame that we might experience from our sin-stained week. Next, we have a pastoral prayer

that is always guided by some portion of scripture, whether it’s explicitly stated or not. Then we come to the preaching, which is always centered on God’s word. After the preaching, we typically have a brief time of reflection with music playing to let the message, which is anchored in the scriptures, sink into our hearts. Then we move into covenant renewal, where we corporately recite a historical creed, which basically is a summation of scripture, declaring what we believe as Christians. And then we move into perhaps my most favorite part of the service, communion, or the Lord’s table, where we begin by reminding everyone what the scripture tells us happened on the night Jesus was betrayed, which we get directly from the scriptures. And then we joyfully sing as we walk up to the table to partake of the bread and wine that symbolizes the blood and body of Jesus.

And we do this every week because the scripture tells us to do this as a way to remember what Christ has done for us and what he will do when he comes again. And then finally, we close the service with a benediction, which is always scripture, because we always want to let the Lord have the last word in our worship service together. And brothers and sisters, if you are engaged, if you’re paying attention as we move through our liturgy every week, you will see one guiding principle, the scriptures, God’s word. Scripture is intentionally threaded throughout our worship service by design because we want the Bible to inform our worship together. We don’t just make assumptions about how we might wanna worship or how God wants us to worship. We want to be informed by God himself on how to worship. And the scripture tells us plainly

and specifically how to do that. In fact, so central to our worship service is the scripture that every time there’s a corporate reading of scripture, the individual who finishes the reading always declares, this is the word of the Lord. And then we as an entire congregation respond enthusiastically by saying, thanks be to God. Because we are exceedingly thankful for God and we’re exceedingly thankful for his word. And I love that we do this kind of old school call and response, not just because I come from like a hip hop context, okay? But because it’s true. Brothers and sisters, we do this because we need it. We need to be reminded that the Bible is in fact God’s word to us. Especially because we live in a postmodern progressive age where God’s word is constantly being assaulted and scrutinized, even among professing Christians. In fact, we are in a culture

where it’s becoming increasingly more typical for professing Christians, even those who attend church regularly to believe that the Bible is not really the word of God. While those professing Christians might say that they regard the Bible as some sort of spiritual or sacred text that contains some ideas about God that might be good for humanity, they wholeheartedly and unashamedly believe that the Bible was not given by God, but instead was given to us exclusively by unenlightened and unsophisticated men who record some things about God from a very man-centered perspective, which in our context is very problematic given our mansplaining culture that we live in. Many of these Christians believe that since men are at the center of writing it, it should not be something that we allow to inform or speak to every area of our life. And more than that, it should be reinterpreted

in a more contemporary and open-minded way, taking into account different beliefs, beliefs, cultures, voices, intersections, gender roles, and social identities. So in other words, the parts that work in our more contemporary and sophisticated age, we’re more than happy to keep those. Those are okay. But the parts that are not so much hip to our inclusive, ever-shifting world, we need to throw those out. And what is primarily driving this idea, even among professing Christians, when you break it down to its smallest compound, is an issue of authority. They don’t believe that God is the author of the Bible, so it should not have any authority over us. In their mind, if God were the author of the Bible, then it most certainly would be less constraining, less dogmatic, less exclusive, and less binary. And it would most certainly be more loving, inclusive, and tolerant, because they believe that God is only ever

a God of unlimited love, inclusivity, and tolerance. But here’s where things begin to break down. On what basis do they make the claim that God is only ever a loving, inclusive, and tolerant God? On whose authority do they stand to make that claim? Because it’s obviously not the Bible. Well, it’s mostly self-assessed. It’s based on their own personal and subjective spiritual authority. You see, the reason, friends, why the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture is so important is because if God is not the author of the Bible, then these folks would be right. The Bible would not have any authority in our lives to tell us what to do, to tell us who God is, or to instruct us on how we ought to live our lives. So connected is divine authorship to ultimate authority that if you were aiming to rid the world of absolute authority,

to kind of usher in human autonomy, the best place to begin would be to try and kill the credibility of the author of Scripture. This is why, friends, one of Satan’s greatest weapons against the church, the church of God, is to confuse the people of God concerning the credibility of the word of God and his divine authorship. And this isn’t like a new tactic. Satan has been on this tip. When our first parents, Adam and Eve, were first followers of God, were flourishing in the garden, what was it that Satan said to tempt them and to lead them away from God and into human autonomy? Did God really say? It’s a question intended to create confusion concerning God’s clear and explicit words to his creatures. It was confusion over divine authorship. And if the confusion over God’s words worked in the garden, then it most certainly can cause confusion

in our church today. This is why, brothers and sisters, when we read the Scriptures together, we say, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. The repetition is meant to work in our lives like muscle memory for our minds to keep us believing, to keep us tethered, to keep us from confusion, and to keep us from falling away from the faith. This confusion, brothers and sisters, concerning God’s authorship and authority is really the impetus of the vast majority of the deconstruction happening in our world today that is leading to deconversion. It almost always, always begins with confusion concerning God’s word. Did God really say? This is the very reason we are doing this sermon series on the word of God and the people of God so that we might mitigate any confusion concerning the author and the authority of God’s very words.

The Doctrine of Inspiration

And so this morning, we’ll spend our time understanding God’s word by looking in his word to see what it has to say concerning this doctrine of inspiration. And to anchor us this morning, I’ve chosen 2 Timothy 3, verse 16 and 17. Because in this section, we not only get the doctrine of inspiration, but we get the details of how this doctrine plays out in the life of the church. And to hopefully help us along, I hope it’s helpful, I’ve broken up our sermon into five sections. The plenary, the process, the prophet, the purpose, and the proof, okay? So let’s begin with the plenary in verse 16. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes, all scripture is breathed out by God. Now notice first that Paul begins with all scripture. And this is brilliant. Because before Paul begins his defense for the origin and authorship of scripture,

he first qualifies the scope of the authorship he’s referring to. He’s not simply referencing the Pentateuch or certain Old Testament passages or the red letter verses in the New Testament. No, what he means when he references the scriptures is the sum total of it, all of it. From Genesis 1, verse 1, all the way through to Revelation 22, verse 21. Paul is essentially saying that every letter, every word, every period, and every comma contained in our Bibles is scripture. I’ve mentioned this to you before, but when I was in sixth grade, the public school that I was at, they did this thing called religious release. And what that was, I mean the name kind of gives it away, but they would release students to go to a religion class. And so when I was in sixth grade, you could choose between the Catholic one or the Protestant one.

Now I wasn’t a Christian at the time, but I really liked Nikki Schaefer, and I was just drawn to her, and I wanted to hang out with her, so I went to the Protestant one because that’s where Nikki Schaefer was. And so in that religious release class, I learned some pretty cool things, but I walked away having been gifted this little, tiny, orange, New Testament thing. And I was like, oh, that’s cool. I got a free book, and I got to spend time with Nikki Schaefer. So, but family, as cool as it was to get this little orange pocket book of the New Testament, this book only contained half the story. I mean, imagine being gifted any other book on the planet where the first 70% of the book was ripped out, and we were left on our own to try and sort out the beginning of the story.

I mean, imagine that the people that gifted you that book didn’t even think twice about leaving out the beginning of the story. That just seems, at best, unhelpful, and at worst, kind of cruel. But listen, I know why they do that. I know why they do that. Because in their mind, they functionally believe that the Old Testament isn’t nearly as important as the New Testament. After all, the New Testament talks about Jesus. But according to this verse, which just happens to sit in the New Testament, that’s just not true. Now, praise be to God that he still uses those orange little pocket New Testaments to make himself known. It’s been said that if one person read only the book of John or Romans, that could be sufficient for them to understand the gospel and be saved. And I agree. But those two books alone,

or the New Testament alone, is insufficient to help baby Christians grow into complete or fully developed Christians. Because we need a whole Bible to become a complete Christian. And this is why, friends, I’m also not a big fan of the red-letter Bibles. Because I think the red letters implicitly communicate that only the words in red, meaning the ones spoken by Jesus, are the words of God, or at least are more important than the rest of the Bible. But this also goes against what Paul is emphasizing here. He begins his defense by saying, all Scripture. And what’s implied here is that all of it is important. Okay? Friends, we cannot, as is very popular in our church today, cherry-pick verses from the Bible that we like or that we agree with or that are palatable for non-Christians. Okay? Or disregard the other ones that we don’t like

that maybe can be confusing to be interpreted in our context or maybe the ones that we feel like aren’t helpful for engaging culture. No, all Scripture must be taken as a whole and every verse must be interpreted in the context of the whole or complete Bible with equal importance. So Paul begins with the scope of the Scriptures, that they are plenary or complete. Okay? But then he gives us what we might call the process by which all Scripture came to us. Paul explains it like this, that all Scripture is breathed out by God. The process by which we receive the total Scripture is that God breathed it out. Now, some translations use the phrase all Scripture is inspired by God, which is the phrase that we use primarily to shape this doctrine of inspiration, that it was all divinely inspired. And what that means is that

it comes first and foremost from God. It’s a declaration of ultimate authorship. Okay? Now, the term inspiration in our context can be a bit confusing to understand, especially because of how we interpret that word today. We often think about inspiration as something that moves us emotionally or persuades us in our creative expression. You often hear this when it comes to songwriters and authors that they were inspired by someone or something to create their own personal creative work. And that makes sense when it comes to the creative process for creatives. I mean, I live in that world. However, when it comes to the Scripture, the word inspiration has less to do with writers being inspired to write something creatively compelling, but more to emphasize the divine origin of the ultimate author’s words. Okay? We can see a bit of this in 2 Peter 1, verse 21,

which kind of gives us a framework for understanding this process. It says,

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. The will of man. Hold for a second. That means that no man on his own kind of creatively thought up this grand idea. Okay? But instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit

— 2 Peter 1

(ESV)

. The process tells us that men were carried along, but a better word could be controlled or constrained by the Spirit of God, and that the words were breathed out by God. In fact, a better word to explain this might be expiration. It’s better than inspiration to describe this process because it came out from the breath of God, meaning he exhaled it out. Just like when we communicate, we must first inhale, and then we begin to speak. And as we’re speaking, we are exhaling at the same time.

And if I continue to speak, I’m gonna have to stop and take another breath. In the same way, Scripture is the product of God’s creative words being exhaled out. Both the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New Testament wrote in total what God exhaled. But just because the divine origin and ultimate authorship comes from God, that doesn’t mean that God didn’t use humans or their agency to create it. It might be helpful to think about a sailboat that is moved to its final destination by the wind that pushes that sail along. And in the same way, there is a dance between human action and divine authorship that work together to create what is written in Scripture with the wind moving the divine words along to its intended destination. Now, you might be wondering, how does that work? How does God, the author of the Bible,

speak through human agents? Was it simply mechanical dictation? Was there agency and personalities overwritten so that God could get across what he wanted? Well, the answer is no. It’s not quite like that. In fact, this process is very, very complicated to understand. And the reason it’s complicated to understand is because the Bible doesn’t tell us precisely the how, only that it was breathed out and was carried along. That’s kind of all we get. But what we can deduce simply by reading the whole of Scripture is that though the origin and the authorship is divine and that God used human agency to author the Scriptures, God chose not to override their style, their tone, their creativity, their personality. He simply guided their choice of words to produce what God perfectly intended to produce. J.C. Ryle, who’s a beast, he writes it this way. He says, I believe that in some marvelous manner

the Holy Spirit made use of the reason, the memory, the intellect, the style of thought, and the particular mental temperament of each writer of the Scriptures. But how and in what manner this was done I can no more explain than I can the union of two natures, God and man, in the person of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Essentially, J.C. Ryle is saying that though it’s hard to comprehend, it’s difficult to explain, it’s not more difficult than explaining how Jesus was fully God and fully man. Well, I would say it’s not more difficult to understand how God spoke creation into existence. You wrap your mind around those realities, we can certainly see how God can use men in the process of his divine authorship. So, God is the author of Scripture, but in the wonderful mystery and creativity of God, he uses human agents and their agency to create it.

Scripture’s Profitable Purpose

Okay? And then Paul moves from the process to what I call the prophet. And what I mean by prophet is not so much the prophet where men speak words of God, and I know that’s kind of confusing, but I needed another P, so. And it worked, it was just like perfect, so it is what it is. We see this in the second half of verse 16. Paul says that all Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. So, Paul tells us that not only is God’s word divinely sourced and complete, but it’s also profitable for Christians. And he gives us these four kind of dimensions of its usefulness. Now, before we dive into these dimensions, it’s important for you to know that this list is not exhaustive, but rather it’s a specific template

for pastors who teach God’s divinely inspired word. Not only does God use humans in the process of giving us his words, he uses humans in communicating God’s words. It’s also important to recognize that though this context is speaking specifically to pastors, it’s not limited to pastors alone, okay? Scripture was breathed out by God for pastors and for people to use to help other Christians in general flourish in their Christian life. But in this context, Paul is speaking primarily to pastors, and so I’ll just follow his pattern here. So let’s begin by looking and examining the first dimension, teaching. Pastors are called to be what we call undershepherds of the chief shepherd of the church, the chief shepherd being Jesus himself. And one of the primary roles and responsibilities of a pastor is to teach. This is why it’s one of the qualifications to be a pastor.

I’ve said this before, the qualification for a pastor includes teaching, but that doesn’t necessarily mean preaching. Preaching is but one expression of teaching, and we’ll begin to look at this in greater detail in our sermon series in about a month or so, but what I want you to understand today is that teaching in this verse is not primarily defined by worldly or academic knowledge, although it may include that. It has more to do with teaching what God has said in his word about who God is and how we are to live according to his word. If the job of a pastor is to show people and teach them how to live according to God’s desire and design, then he must devote himself not to worldly resources, but to teaching or preaching the total of scripture because without it, friends, we can’t know God. We can’t know how to live,

and most importantly, we cannot be saved. Let me qualify that. The Bible says, how can they call upon the name of the Lord unless they believe? How can they believe unless they hear? How can they hear unless someone preaches the word, and how can someone preach unless that person is sent? Friends, God does not send angels to preach and teach his gospel. He sends humans, and it’s not just the gospel that we are to teach, but the whole counsel of God. Therefore, it’s fundamentally necessary, and as scripture says, it’s profitable to use God’s word to teach because that’s the only way people will grow in their knowledge of God and in spiritual maturity. So God breathes out his words so that we can teach what it says. The second dimension of profitability is reproof, which we might say rebuke. Now, listen, this word rebuke is a very hard word to swallow in our culture,

and rightfully so. I can understand it given the many examples of spiritually abusive pastors who rebuke congregants in ways that are ungodly and harmful as a means to control or to manipulate. So I can understand it can be a hard word to hear. But brothers and sisters, just because some pastors abuse the concept of rebuke does not make God’s call to rebuke null and void. In fact, I would suggest that one of the reasons why Paul says the scriptures are profitable for rebuke is so that pastors do it in a way that conforms to God’s biblical design. When we are rebuking people, we are to do it in a way that God tells us to do it. Revelation 3

says, ‘Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline.’

What is it that drives the Lord’s rebuke and discipline? His love. We are to speak the truth, even if it’s hard, in love. Pastors are not called by God to simply accept, affirm, or encourage, especially when it’s out of step with God’s words. As pastors, we are called to rebuke Christians who are living in a pattern of sin by using God’s paradigm to address it, His word. And when we do that in the way that God prescribes in His words, then God often uses it as a means of leading Christians to repentance. Brothers and sisters, rebuke is a form of protection and godly alignment. Although it’s never easy, it is necessary because we love you and we want to protect you from the perils of sin. And when we do that, when appropriate, we do that by calling you to repentance. And listen, family, this, in my experience as a pastor,

is the hardest part of pastoral ministry. When I have to call someone in our church to repentance because their sin is crushing them or it’s hurting other Christians in the church, there is no joy in calling someone out who’s made a pattern of sinning against God. But if it happens to you, if you get caught in a pattern of sin and one of the pastors lovingly comes alongside you and calls you to repentance, please receive it as love and care. It’s for you. It’s for your spiritual well-being. And you should interpret the rebuke as an expression of love and receive it by repenting, not by running away. That’s the worst thing you could do, is run from it. God’s Word is profitable for seeing sin for what it is. God’s Word serves as a mirror into our souls. And the most loving way to show someone

who is deep in their sin, the seriousness of their sin, is by showing them the Word. The next dimension Paul emphasizes is correction. The work of correction is in every way connected to rebuke. The two of these are like two sides of the same coin. While rebuke is often dealing with the negative effects of Christian living, correction deals with the positive effects of Christian living. The job of the pastor does not end at rebuke. If it does, you have a bad pastor and you should find a new church. We do not simply call out sin and call it a day. That’s not loving at all. We rebuke with the ultimate aim to restore. This is what Paul’s getting at with that word correction. Galatians 6.1 says,

Brothers and sisters, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him or her in a spirit of gentleness

— Galatians 6

(ESV)

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Everybody trips up in their walk and correction helps them to recover well and get back up and persevere in the faith. God’s Word is the most profitable instrument to correct because God’s Word shows us the character of God, the way our life is to be modeled after. Finally, we come to the fourth dimension, training and righteousness. Paul commends all Scripture for training, but the training he has in mind is specific to godly and holy living, the pattern or reflection of God’s character. In the same way that training is required for growth in physical health and strength, I need to hear that, training is also required for growing in spiritual health and strength. The primary means for this training and spiritual growth is the Bible. The Bible is the most profitable workout plan for your spiritual training and maturity. First Timothy 4.8 says, for while bodily training is of some value,

godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. Hebrews 12.11, for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Amen? Another way to frame this training would be discipleship. When you disciple someone, you are spiritually training them and your discipleship manual should be the Bible. After outlining the profitability of God’s word in these four dimensions, Paul moves to the purpose. The reason God’s breathed out words are beneficial and profitable is in verse 17. That the man of God, or the woman of God, may be complete, equipped for every good work. Here, Paul moves from the origin of Scripture to the wonderful outcome of Scripture. And Paul here makes this kind of shift in focus

from how all Scripture is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and in training. And again, he’s speaking primarily to the pastor, but here he tells us what those things produce. Mature Christians. The Christians are the recipients of that benefit. Mature Christians fully equipped for every good work. What is the work that the word equips us for? That could be a whole lot of things. Well, Ephesians 4, 11, and 12 helps us to understand this a bit more.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers for, or to, equip the saints for the work of ministry. What is that work? Building up the body of Christ

— Ephesians 4

(ESV)

. Building up the body of Christ. Building up the body of Christ. When pastors understand God’s breathe out words and teach these words accurately to the congregation, the congregation not only flourishes as Christians,

but it also equips them for the ministry of the church. To build one another up. To encourage one another. To fight against false teaching that might make its way into the church. To love one another. To preserve the unity. To believe one another. And most importantly, to point people to Jesus. Ultimately, it’s to make other Christians mature. Or in Paul’s words, complete. So, the pastors use the word to mature and equip the members of the church so that the members of the church can help to mature and equip other members of the church. You see how that works? This is why it’s essential for you to be a part of a local church. This is why membership is such a priority. And if you’re not a member of a local church, you can come and find us and we can help you plug in. If you feel like this is not the church for you, it’s all good.

There’s about 15 gospel churches in the greater Pacific Northwest. We can help you get plugged in. Okay? Listen, those two things, that equipping and that completing, those things work together. In order for the Christian to be complete or mature, he must be equipped, she must be equipped for ministry because maturity has nothing to do with information. It has everything to do with serving others. And the way we are equipped for the ministry of serving others is by understanding the complete word of God. In fact, did you notice Paul’s creative bookends in these two verses? I mean, this is just but one expression of how God uses creativity in human agency to communicate his word. He begins in verse 16 by saying, all scripture, meaning the complete Bible, is breathed out by God. And he ends verse 17 by saying that the purpose for this complete Bible

is to make men and women complete. In other words, Paul’s essentially saying that we need a complete Bible to have complete Christians. Complete Christians, okay? Maturity or completeness, friends, is connected to all of scripture. This is why Charles Spurgeon said that a Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t. Now, that might not make sense to us in our smartphone age with our Bible apps, but the point remains the same. A person whose life is given to the consistent reading of God’s entire word is usually pretty stable and spiritually mature. So maybe a better way to think about that is an iPhone whose thumbprints are all greasy because they’re just reading the Bible on their phone or the app that keeps crashing. I don’t know how that works, but you know, you gotta, you know, context. Immature Christians, incomplete Christians, exist because they functionally treat the Bible

as if it’s not the word of God. And because they don’t functionally believe it is the word of God, they do not let the word of God have authority over them. In other words, they do not take in authoritatively what God breathed out supernaturally. And this really, sadly, is the ever-increasing disposition among many Christians in our culture. The more enlightened and sophisticated we become, the more that book seems out of pocket, out of touch, irrelevant, disconnected. Trinity Church, may this never be the case with us. May we be the kind of Christians who are lovers of God’s breathed-out words. May we be lovers of the entire scripture, all of it, the Old Testament and the New Testament, lovers of not just the easy parts, the friendly parts, but the very hard parts, the ones that make you feel, oh, that’s, that, I don’t know what to do with that.

Proof of Divine Authorship

Take it in. May we be the kind of people that receive God’s word in authoritative way, letting it move us, letting it master us, equip us and complete us for every good work, which is the work, friends, of building up the body of Christ. It’s the ever-member ministry that happens in the life of a church. Amen? Amen. Now, I know that when we dive into this doctrine of the inspiration of scripture, when I say that the Bible was authored by God, that’s a pretty radical claim to make without proof. Anyone could make that claim, right? In fact, many people have made this claim with their particular religious texts. But I would submit to you, all of them have failed to produce the sufficient data to back up their claim. So this morning in close, I wanna give you just a bit of proof to back up the Bible’s claims

that it is in fact authored and inspired by God. Not that we need to do it, not that we need to do it, but just for your own edification, let’s just look at some proof. There are many proofs. In fact, we could spend hours talking about these proofs. And if you have questions about proof and you wanna know, come see me after church. I have a lot of resources I can send your way. But just for the sake of time, I wanna showcase briefly just a few proofs of divine authorship, beginning first with fulfilled prophecy. In the Bible, there are thousands of prophetic predictions, things that were predicted in written form from the past that actually came about in the future. And just by way of example, let’s just take some of the prophecies concerning the coming of Jesus, His birth and His earthly ministry, okay?

We’ll just look at those prophecies in the Old Testament to see how incredibly accurate the Bible is, okay? Some 700 years before the birth of Jesus, the book of Micah was written. Chapter 5, verse 2 prophesied that the ruler of Israel would be born in Bethlehem and Jesus, friends, the ruler of Israel, was born in Bethlehem. That’s like my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather who lived in Italy making a prediction that I would be born in a small suburb of Chicago. It would be humanly impossible to know or predict that with any sense of accuracy. 500 years before Jesus rides into Jerusalem in His triumphal entry on a donkey, the book of Zechariah, chapter nine, verse nine, prophesied that the king would come into Jerusalem riding on a donkey. Psalm 22, 16 prophesied that Jesus’ hands and feet would be pierced.

Psalm 41, nine says that He would be betrayed by a friend. Isaiah 53, five, He would be wounded by His enemies. Zechariah 11

, He would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. Isaiah 50, He would be spit upon and beaten. Isaiah 53, seven, He would be silent before His accusers. Isaiah 53, 12, He would be crucified with thieves. Psalm 22, eight, people would gamble for His clothes. Zechariah 12, 10, His side would be pierced. Psalm 34, 20, none of His bones would be broken. Isaiah 53, nine, that He would be buried in a rich man’s tomb. Friends, these types of prophecies concerning the birth and life of Jesus go on and on and on with perfect accuracy and all of them fulfilled in one man, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is incomprehensible from a human standpoint. Christian apologist Peter Stoner provides calculations

to demonstrate the probability of any one person fulfilling just eight of these prophecies. He says the probability is one in one quadrillion. Okay, so that’s like million, billion, trillion, and then quadrillion, okay? And if that’s too hard to understand, just imagine one with 15 zeros after it. Okay, that’s a lot. Josh McDowell, another Christian apologist who wrote the book Evidence That Demands a Verdict, which radically shaped my life, shares the following explanation concerning Stoner’s calculations. He says, and I’ll paraphrase it a bit, to help us visually comprehend the staggering odds of this probability, suppose we fill the entire state of Texas with two feet deep of silver dollars. Now mark one of those silver dollars, then stir up the pot, mix it all up, okay? Then blindfold an enthusiastic volunteer, tell him he can travel anywhere he wants across the state of Texas, but that he must pick out the one marked silver dollar.

That, friends, is how difficult it would be for one man to fulfill just eight of these prophecies, unless, of course, he did so because of divine appointment. Friends, based on these calculations, it would take far more faith to not believe in the divine authorship of Scripture. No human could possibly string these words and, you know, stretched out through human history with this kind of prophetic precision. Another way to prove divine authorship is through what we might call the harmony or cohesiveness of Scripture. Let’s think about this for a second. The Bible is a remarkable collection of 66 different books, so it really is more like a library of texts that span over 1,500 years to complete. It was penned by over 40 different authors, all with different personalities, cultural backgrounds from every different walk of life, some kings, some leaders, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, tax collectors, poets, musicians,

scholars, and shepherds. The Bible’s composition spanned across numerous locations in different times, taking place across different continents. It was written in two distinct languages and composed in a variety of literary styles, including prose, poetry, historical narrative, romance, law, biography, parable, allegory, and prophecy. And the Bible was written progressively in space and time with many of these writers never even knowing who the other author was. That’s a whole lot of complex diversity. But despite the Bible’s incredible diversity, in all of its pages throughout all the ages, it presents one unified, continuous story of one promised redeemer, Jesus Christ, who came to rescue people from sin, Satan, and death while never once contradicting itself. Brothers and sisters, it is completely impossible for all of this complex diversity to contain this much unity without one divine, transcendent author and, I would suggest, perfect project manager. It’s too complicated to be coincidence.

It’s too specific to be accidentally accurate. It’s too perfect to not be inspired by a perfect God. No human being, no collective of human beings throughout that much time and space and culture could conjure up something like this without messing it all up. Friends, the proof is there if you’re looking for it with honest eyes. But here’s the reality. No matter how much proof we have that the Bible is indeed God’s breathed-out words to humanity, the proof is insufficient to persuade people. Even if the proof is objectively conceded, the Bible tells us that men and women suppress the truth in unrighteousness. That means they suppress the proof in unrighteousness. Sin is so pervasive that it affects even man’s ability to see what is so plain and obvious. If you are here this morning and you are not a Christian, we wanna tell you this morning

what you really need is not proof. What you need is a new heart. What you need is new eyes and new ears to see and hear the Scriptures for what they truly are, God’s divinely-inspired words. What you need is faith. In order to believe the truth and see the proof, you must be born again. Friends, if that’s what you want, God tells us in his word that all you need to do is repent and believe, and he will give you what you need. Take Jesus by faith. Believe that he is who his word that was written through 1,500 years says he is, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, and he will make himself known to you, and he will save you. And listen, if you have questions about that, ask anyone in this room after the service, ask the person next to you,

hey, are you a Christian? If they say yes, ask them to help you figure this out. They will gladly cancel their lunch plans to talk to you about Jesus, amen? Okay. Brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters, this is why we pray not that people would be convinced of the proof, but that God would open up their eyes because they’re spiritually blind, that God would open up their ears because they’re spiritually deaf. The proof is never sufficient to persuade. Christianity is not an intellectual ascent to proof. It is a supernatural move of God that makes spiritually dead people come to life. The same way God supernaturally spoke and worked to bring all of his divine words together, he must supernaturally work to raise spiritually dead people to life because spiritually dead people don’t care about proof. And here’s what’s amazing. When we, the recipients of God’s grace,

who have been equipped for every good work, when we declare the word of God to a lost world, friends, God saves people. He saves people. Not only is his word divinely inspired and authoritative, but it’s also transformative and it’s powerful to save. And listen, Pastor Greg will unpack this next week. God will use his word to transform you and powerfully save people. That is incredible. That just speaks to the supernatural reality of his words. And so friends, I’ll close with this morning. God is the author of life. He is the author and finisher of our faith. He is the author of his breathed out words to make us complete and to give us life. So brothers and sisters, let us be zealous to take in and live by every word that comes from the mouth of God because every single word of it was breathed out for our benefit as a church.

Amen? Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you. We thank you. We thank you for your word. We thank you that you have not left us alone to figure things out. We thank you that we don’t have half the story, but we have the full story of how you created us, how you redeemed us, and how you will make all things new because we know that you will make all things new and because we have been redeemed, we stake every confidence and every hope and trust in you. God, we pray that you would help us to receive your divine words and we pray that those words would so radically shape us into the people that you have called us to be, lovers of your word, lovers of your people, equipped to grow each other in godliness and maturity. We need your word to do that

and so we pray, God, create in us a culture of people who abide by the very words of God. We pray these things in the name of our Lord and Savior who is the word made flesh. Amen.