The Scriptures
The Baptist Faith & Message • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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The Scriptures
The Scriptures
The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.
Exodus 24:4; Deuteronomy 4:1-2; 17:19; Joshua 8:34; Psalms 19:7-10; 119:11,89,105,140; Isaiah 34:16; 40:8; Jeremiah 15:16; 36:1-32; Matthew 5:17-18; 22:29; Luke 21:33; 24:44-46; John 5:39; 16:13-15; 17:17; Acts 2:16ff.; 17:11; Romans 15:4; 16:25-26; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; Hebrews 1:1-2; 4:12; 1 Peter 1:25; 2 Peter 1:19-21.
All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
God’s Revelation
God’s Revelation
Baptists, especially Southern Baptists, are known as people of the Book. The Book: The Bible.
When we speak of the Bible, we speak of 66 books between the Old and New Testament.
This book is not a collection of human thoughts about God, but is God’s own Word.
This is why the Bible, the Holy Scripture, is called the Word of God.
General Revelation: God’s making known His nature and purpose through nature and history.
Special Revelation: God’s making known His nature and purpose through the written Word and His Son Jesus Christ.
The Bible is Special Revelation. It is one of God’s most precious gifts to us. God took the initiative to reveal Himself to us in a very real and understandable way; one that has transcended time, language, culture; it has overcome every obstacle imaginable.
The Bible does acknowledge that God has revealed Himself to all humanity through creation.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands.
So the Word of God is Special Revelation, but this Psalm speaks of God’s GENERAL Revelation through Creation.
We know, by God’s Word, that every molecule of creation is part of God’s General Revelation. All of it declares the Glory of God.
Part of this creation is the reality that we have a Moral Conscience. We have an undeniable knowledge that there is good and evil, right and wrong. Now this may be different between cultures, but the reality that it exists points us to the perfect moral character of our Creator.
The only source that we have that can truly reveal the nature of God, is the Word of God. Without the Word of God we would be left scratching for answers in the dark and each person would have their own understanding.
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
General or Special Revelation
The beauty of Creation - General
The Conscience within - General
The Bible - Special
The Book of Isaiah - Special
Mountains and Rivers - General
John 3:16 - Special
For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.
Based on this Scripture, what 2 things can we learn about God from what He has created?
God’s divine nature
the power of God
If God has revealed certain things generally, through general revelation, why do we need the Bible?
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.
Paul makes it clear that we, as humans, are blinded by sin and because of our sin, we cannot grasp a full understanding of God’s revelation of himself in nature and our conscience.
Sin distorts our spiritual vision so much that we love the lie and hate the truth.
God’s Special Revelation is graciously provided to teach us more about His nature, His redemptive purpose, and His will for our lives.
God for its Author
God for its Author
Charles Spurgeon
This volume is the writing of the living God. … everywhere I find God speaking: it is God’s voice, not man’s; the words are God’s words, the words of the Eternal, Invisible, the Almighty, the Jehovah of this earth. The Bible is God’s Bible; and when I see it, I seem to hear a voice springing up from it, saying, “I am the book of God: man, read me.”
You will notice in the opening lives of the BF&M 2K, that it says:
The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired…
Inspiration means the breathing of God’s Spirit on human speech and writing to produce the text of the Bible.
Inspiration, Biblical inspiration is not like William Shakespeare, R.L. Stein, or some singer who was ‘inspired’ to write.
When we state that the Bible is the Inspired Word of God, we mean that every single word came from God THROUGH man, not man ABOUT God. The Bible is not the product of elevated human conscience. The Bible is not sporadically inspired, meaning some parts more than others (that is what is taught about the Quran in Islam).
Every single WORD! Which means that we are not the judge of Scripture; Scripture is the rubric! We do not pick and choose, we cling to the whole!
Basil Manly Jr
The Bible, as a whole, is the Word of God, so that in every part of Scripture there is both infallible truth and divine authority.
This is called verbal plenary.
Verbal because every WORD is inspired.
Plenary means FULL.
Thus we affirm that every word of the Bible is inspired and that every Word is FULLY inspired!
All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Inspiration means God-breathed!
And the initiative and will of giving us Scripture all belong to God!
because no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
What does this mean? It answers a BIG question. It SQUASHES social media lies!
We have exactly the Bible God intends for us to have.
Nothing is missing.
Nothing is included that should not be there.
The Bible IS the Word of God. It does not CONTAIN the Word of God, it IS the Word of God.
John Dagg (1794-1884)
The men who soke and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit were the instruments that God used to speak and write His word. Their peculiarities of thought, feeling, an style had no more effect to prevent what they spoke and wrote from being the word of God, that their peculiarities of voice or of chirography (penmanship). The question, whether inspiration extended to the very words of revelation, as well as to their thoughts and reasons, is answered by Paul: ‘ We preach, not in the WORDS which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches’.
We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people.
W. A. Criswell (1909-2002)
I know the Bible isn’t always easy to understand, but I will never end up treating the Bible like any other book. It is the Word of God. The universe is sustained by His Word. We are convicted and converted through it. The Word keeps us from sin. We walk by it, live by it, and one day we will die by it. Out assurance of heaven is only through the Word. Understand it all or not, like it all or not, the Word is the foundation of life, and without it our souls wither up and die.
This I believe and this I proclaim: God’s Word is perfect, literal, inerrant, infallible, and totally trustworthy.
Salvation for its End.
Salvation for its End.
Because the Bible is the uniquely inspired Word of God, it is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. Every word is to be trusted and obeyed. God gave us His Word so that we could have life and be faithful to Him.
“This is the command—the statutes and ordinances—the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, so that you may follow them in the land you are about to enter and possess. Do this so that you may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life by keeping all his statutes and commands I am giving you, your son, and your grandson, and so that you may have a long life.
Repeatedly God instructs His people to obey His word, and that in doing so there will be blessing, it is for their good. Obedience to God’s Word leads to life and blessing; disobedience leads to catastrophe!
Just a few verses later God would tell them how they should surround themselves with His word!
“Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates.
Mezuzah
Your word is a lamp for my feet
and a light on my path.
A TRUE Christian loves the Word of God and demonstrates this love by obeying it and by being faithful in personal Bible study.
A Church demonstrates a hunger for the Bible by its desire and support for true Biblical preaching and teaching.
NOTHING LESS WILL DO!
No substitution can satisfy our hunger for the Word of God!
The Bible is our guide to God’s truth and is the foundation on which we build our lives and stake our hopes!
The Word of God is fully able to accomplish all God intends for it to do.
For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
so my word that comes from my mouth
will not return to me empty,
but it will accomplish what I please
and will prosper in what I send it to do.”
God promises to work through His Word to accomplish what He desires.
All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
God’s Word is able to accomplish all this and more.
The ultimate goal, or primary purpose, of the Bible is simple: tell how to be saved!
I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
The Bible fulfills God’s redemptive goal by pointing us to Jesus Christ, the Word incarnate.
You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me.
Jesus is the ultimate focus of every verse of Scripture!
Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God, but without the Bible we would have no authoritative knowledge of Him.
Christ is honored when the Bible is taught, preached, and believed.
Truth, without an mixture of Error
Truth, without an mixture of Error
Adrian Rogers (1931-2005)
If you read the Old Testament, you will find phrases like ‘the Word of the Lord’ or ‘the Word of God’ or ‘God spoke’ used 3,808 times. If the Bible is not the Word of God, it is the biggest bundle of lies that has ever come to planet earth. The Bible is truth, absolutely.
The instruction of the Lord is perfect,
renewing one’s life;
the testimony of the Lord is trustworthy,
making the inexperienced wise.
The Bible is authoritative
The Bible is authoritative
We recognize the Bible’s authority because we recognize God as its author. Since God is the author, every word bears His authority; which means that we have no authority to dismiss or call to question why something is in Scripture. Yes we can question as to developing an understanding; but we cannot question as to attempt to devalue any part of Scripture.
The Bible, ALONE, Sola Scriptura, is the rule for our faith and life.
The Bible is infallible.
The Bible is infallible.
God never fails, and neither does His word. As stated previously in Isaiah 55: 11, we can trust the Bible to accomplish God’s purposes.
In the hands of a believer, it is the strongest weapon we have. (Eph 6:17)
The Bible is inerrant.
The Bible is inerrant.
The Bible is TRUTH, all truth, and contains no errors. ZERO!
J.M. Frost (1848-1916)
We accept the Scriptures as an all-sufficient and infallible rule of faith and practice, and insist upon the absolute inerrancy and authority of the Word of God.
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
B.H. Carroll (1843-1914)
When I was a boy i thought I had found a thousand contradictions in the Bible… I do not see them now; they are not there. There are perhaps, a half dozen in the Bible that I cannot explain satisfactorily to myself. Since i have seen 994 out of a thousand coalesce and harmonize like two streams mingling, i am disposed to think that if I had more sense I could harmonize the other 6.
Inerrancy means that when the Bible speaks, God speaks!
The Bible is Sufficient
The Bible is Sufficient
We cannot add to or subtract from the Bible. We do not need additional books.
You must not add anything to what I command you or take anything away from it, so that you may keep the commands of the Lord your God I am giving you.
The Bible is eternal
The Bible is eternal
This is simply true because God is eternal.
For
All flesh is like grass,
and all its glory like a flower of the grass.
The grass withers, and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord endures forever.
And this word is the gospel that was proclaimed to you.