The Character of God's Word

Selected Scriptures

We, as I said earlier, are going to embark this morning on a study of how to study the Bible, how to get the most out of your Bible. And to begin with, I want to ask you to turn to an Old Testament passage which will be a launch point for us, Jeremiah chapter 8...Jeremiah chapter 8 and verse 9. In the ministry of Jeremiah, one of the unhappiest assignments that he had as a prophet was to speak against the leaders of his nation who had misled the people. The prophets had failed, the priests had failed. The scribes had failed. The wise men of the nation had failed in leading them to the truth of God and to righteousness. And I suppose in a sense in Jeremiah 8:9 there's a summation of the tragedy of inept leadership.

Verse 9 says, "The wise men are put to shame. They are dismayed and caught. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord and what kind of wisdom do they have?" What Jeremiah is saying here is you can take all of your leaders, all of the educators, all of the experts on law and ethics and morality, all of those responsible to teach you divine truth and put them into one category and the category is the category of folly because if they had rejected the word of the Lord, what kind of wisdom do they have? The implication is they don't have any. Wisdom comes from God and it comes through His Word. And apart from His Word there is no real spiritual wisdom. When the leaders of a nation, even the nation Israel, reject the word of the Lord there is no wisdom.

Last summer when I was invited over to New Zealand, I had the opportunity to speak to the New Zealand Parliament in the Parliament House. It was a very interesting and wonderful opportunity and they asked me to address this subject. This was the requested subject by the New Zealand Parliament...what happens to a nation that abandons the Bible as an authority or as its authority? They had watched because they know the history of the United States. They had watched the decline of the Scriptures and the Bible in the public realm in our nation and they could see it coming in their own nation, a nation basically established by immigrant people who came from the United Kingdom bringing Christian principles and biblical truth. And they're following the same basic path we're following and they wanted to know what's it like when we give up the Bible as our authority. And the answer is right here in Jeremiah 8:9, what wisdom do they have? What they are left to is voting on morality, polls, opinion polls, call up 800 lines, 900 lines and give your opinion of this and your opinion of that so we can form our morality.

Wisdom with regard to spiritual life, time and eternity is all found in the Word of God. The Bible is the source, and the only source of divine wisdom. And it is a tragic thing to realize that the Bible is under assault from so many, many angles. There are the rationalists with their anti-miracle humanistic atheism who want to deny the existence of God. And if they tolerate God, God is nothing more than Einstein's God who is some kind of impersonal, non-personal force. There are the existentialists who have an anti-reality mentality who say that you basic can create your own reality, you can concoct your own reality, you can form your own reality, and I'm glad for you, whatever your reality is. And then you have the onslaught of not only rationalism and existentialism but egoism which is an anti- authority mentality that says nobody is going to tell me what to believe, nobody is going to tell me what's right and wrong, nobody is going to tell me how to behave, I'm going to determine that for myself. Then you have the relationalistic mind set that basically says what is most important is ego fulfillment, personal fulfillment, solving my personal problems, self-esteem, feeling good about myself. That too is anti-truth, that too is anti-standard, anti-absolute.

Then you have the ritualistic approach which is an anti- knowledge form of religion where religion is not a matter of truth or theology or doctrine, but simply a matter of ritual and routine. Then you have theological liberalism which is anti- Bible, anti-inspiration. Then you have mysticism which is anti- intellectual which just says you sort of feel God and you sort of know He's there and feel somehow the movements of God and you feel the truth.

All of those things contribute in our culture to an anti- authority mentality which contributes to an anti-Bible mentality. The Scripture is depreciated by rationalism, existentialism, egoism, relationalism, ritualism, liberalism, mysticism, probably a few other isms as well. These are the things that are being elevated today. The human glory is on the main forefront, letting man be everything he thinks he wants to be to fulfill himself. That is dominating. There is no authority outside man. Government itself is having a hard time exercising authority because it has given to people so much personal freedom. This approach to religion...the approach to religion that comes in this environment is an existential kind of mystical approach where you're allowed to believe whatever feels good for you, whatever you think God is doing is, no doubt, what He is really doing, whatever you think He's saying is surely what He's really saying. All of these things attack the singular, clear authority of the Word of God.

Now you say...why are you bringing this up on a series about studying the Bible? Because I've learned one thing through the years, and it's been reiterated to me again and again and again. The diligence with which you approach the study of Scripture which is so critical to the blessing of your life, so critical to your joy, so critical to your usefulness, so critical to the glory of God, the diligence with which you approach this critical study of Scripture is directly correlated to your view of Scripture...directly. If you have a weak view of Scripture, I promise you you will have a weak interest in it. It is the seriousness with which you hold this document that is the initial compelling matter to motivate you in its study.

People ask me often how it is that I can structure my life to spend so much time in the Scripture? How is it that I can discipline myself, they often say, to give so much time to the study of the Word of God, including all the preaching and teaching that I do, all the writing of books, writing of a study Bible, and that really is a fair question and I understand why they ask the question. But may I, and may perhaps surprise you by saying this, the difficult thing for me is not to get the discipline up to study the Bible, the trouble for me is to have the discipline to stop and to attend to other things that need to be attended to.

You say, "Why is that?" Because I understand what this document is, because of the value I place upon it, the weight I place upon it in my life and in your life I am compelled to it. In fact I wrote a little set of notes, just explanatory notes in the front of the study Bible and you can read them when you get one, but it says...I can't remember exactly what I said, but something along the line of the fact that the difficulty for me was not getting up every day and spending the necessary time to write all these notes and to dig into the Word of God, the difficulty for me was not getting to it, the difficulty for me was leaving it. The challenge for me is to leave it because I hold it in such great esteem because I understand its riches and its treasures. And as the psalmist said, "It is more precious than gold and sweeter than honey from the honeycomb." It is your view of Scripture that is the foundation of everything in terms of addressing Scripture with great diligence and care. And so, as we begin to talk about how to get the most out of your Bible and how to study the Bible effectively, we have to start with making sure you understand what this is...the treasure that you hold in your hand.

Now obviously no society can survive without the application of the truth of Scripture, as no individual can survive without the application of the truth of Scripture. Right is not determined by a popularity contest, and it's not determined by a poll, it's determined by what God has said. And God has spoken in the moral and ethical and spiritual realm with very clear terms. No society will survive abandonment of the Bible as its standard. And ours won't anymore than any other. Our society will continue to disintegrate into unbridled iniquity at a rapid rate until and if, and unless I should say, there is a return to the Word of God. It's inevitable.

The Bible claims some amazing things for itself. I'm going to give you seven of them. These are things the Bible claims for itself and this will help you foundationally to understand what you're dealing with. You have in your hand one book and yet divided into two testaments, the first testament divided into 39 separate books, the second into 27, one called the Old Testament, one called the New Testament. You're familiar with that. You're familiar with Genesis to Revelation and places in between. But do you understand this document's supernatural character? This is not a human book, though it was written over a period of about 1500 to 1800 years and there were over 40 different men whose actual pen was placed on the parchment to write down the words, it is singularly authored by God and those men who wrote these various books at various times in various places wrote under the direct inspiration of the Spirit of God who was conveying to them the revelation of God from His mind to that pen so that what was produced was the very word of the living God. This is not a human document, this is a supernatural book.

And it makes some supernatural claims. First of all, it claims for itself to be infallible...infallible. That is to say that everything that it affirms is absolutely true. If it says something about capital punishment, and it does, then what it says is true. If it says something about sodomy and homosexuality, what is says is absolutely true. If it says something about marriage and divorce, what it says is absolutely true. If it says something about worship, that is absolutely true. If it says something Jesus Christ, that is true. If it says something about the nature of man, what it says is absolutely true. If it says something about the history of Tyre or Sidon or the history of Babylon, or if it says something about the future of a coming Babylon, or a beast or an Antichrist, if it says something about a man named Peter, or a man named David, or a man named Paul, or if it says something about a man named Adam who had wife named Eve and they had some children named Cain and Abel and Seth, and it says something about a garden, everything it says is absolutely true. It is infallible. And, of course, that's the testimony it gives for itself summed up in Psalm 19, "The law of the Lord is perfect...the law of the Lord is perfect." It contains no flaw. The prophet said it is like silver tested seven times in a furnace, all that could be imagined to be of dross is burned away and it is absolutely purely true. Everything it says historically is true. Everything it says prophetically is true. Everything it says spiritually is true. Everything it gives us in terms of direction in life is absolutely true. It is infallible. That is why it has always been called the standard for life for faith and practice.

Two, it is inerrant. Now we're moving away from the content that it affirms to the specific words. When I say it is inerrant I mean that the Bible in its original autograph, that is to say in the very document written by the inspired writer was without error. Now you've got to know that's a challenge, to write anything without error is a challenge. Sometimes people come up to me and said..."Have you seen this part of your book, there are a lot of errors on this page? How did those get in there?" I don't know whether I made those errors, whether whoever put it in the computer made those errors, whether whoever was the proof reader made those errors, whether somebody was correcting something else and typed in an error where there wasn't one, I don't know. But I know one thing, it is near impossible to write something without error and especially going through this study Bible. I'm telling you, you can't even imagine the proof reading nightmare of 25,000 footnotes, semi-colons, colons, brackets, apostrophes, quotation marks, making sure they're in and out of the right parenthesis, making sure that there is standardization in everything that you do, and this vast volume of say almost 2500 pages of material...it's been proof read, I suppose, by now twelve times and it's being proof read another five or six times by professional people somewhere in Atlanta who are proof reading everything with a fine tooth comb, and even they can't get everything. And when we check what they've done, we find errors. It's very difficult.

But when the Word of God was written it was written without error as the Spirit of God superintended it. Proverbs 30 verses 5 and 6, "Every word of God is pure." Every word of God is pure. "Add thou not unto His words lest He reprove thee and thou be found a liar." You know, the scribes in the early years at the time of Ezra and before were so devoted to not putting an error in the Scriptures that they would copy the Scriptures with such fastidiousness it's just beyond belief. Some scribes, you'll find this hard to believe, would write one letter, take a bath, change their clothes, get a new pen, write another letter, take a bath, change their clothes, get a pen, write another letter. They didn't get a lot done but what they got done was correct. There was this tremendous fastidiousness to this completion of the inerrant text and its preservation. That's why the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is so important because we had scrolls say from the eight or ninth century A.D. and we were basing much on those copies, copies and copies and copies, you know, the Bible has been copied and copied. The original autographs don't exist anymore, or if they do we don't know where they are. So copies were made and copies were made.

People would say, "Well surely there are many, many changes, many, many mistakes that have come in." And then we found the Dead Sea Scrolls which were somewhere around 450 years before Christ, B.C., and they verified with exact accuracy the current manuscripts that are being used for the translations of the Bible. And we saw that not only were they inerrant...were the originals inerrant but the superintending work of the Holy Spirit as well as the careful diligence of the scribes had preserved that Scripture through all those centuries. In its origins it is inerrant, and that's why it says also in Proverbs 30 verse 6 you're not to add to it lest you be reproved and found a liar, it is inerrant. In fact, in Revelation it tells us you're not to add anything to it or shall be added to you the plagues that are written in this book, you're not to take anything away from it or your name will be taken out of the Book of Life. This is an inerrant Scripture.

Thirdly, it is complete...it is complete. That is to say this is all God wanted to inspire, this is it. From Genesis to Revelation, all these 66 books, sums it up. Deuteronomy 4:2, "You shall not add to the Word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it." That's very similar to Revelation 22. And Jude 3 says it became the faith once for all delivered to the saints. The content once for all delivered to the saints. The canon of Scripture, called a canon because that's the word for standard, a word for a reed which was used as a measuring rod. And this is the standard. It is the standard, it is complete. Nothing needs to be added. When John wrote Revelation in 96 A.D. on the island of Patmos was God was revealing it to him, it was 30 years after most of the completion of the New Testament and this was the final, this was the end, this was the last bit of revelation called the book of Revelation to close out the canon of Scripture which had begun with Genesis. It is comprehensive and complete. Everything necessary for life and godliness and spiritual knowledge is in here. This is a complete Scripture, does not need Science and Health and Key to the Scriptures. Does not need the Book of Mormon and the Doctrines and the Covenants. Does not need the writings of Madame Levansky(?), Judge Rutherford, Annie Besant(?), or anybody else. This is the complete Word of God, there is no more inspired revelation beyond this. This is God's once-for-all-delivered-to-the-saints faith. And all Scripture is inspired by God, right? According to 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16. Second Peter 1:21, "Holy men were moved by the Spirit of God as they wrote this," and it is not of any private origin, it came from God. It is infallible, inerrant and complete.

Fourth, it is authoritative...it is authoritative. That is to say that when it speaks you better listen. It is not a book of suggestions. It is not a book to be put alongside other books. It is not a book to be compared with the writings of Confucius or Buddha or somebody else, Muhammad. It is not a book to be compared with the writings of other ethicists through the years. It is not a book to be compared with other religious musings and writings or put beside Aristotle and Plato, or the writings of some other philosopher. It alone is authoritative. Isaiah 1:2 says, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken." You better listen, God has spoken. Psalm 119:89, "Forever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven." Forever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven. This is an authoritative book. It comes as commands, as we noted in Psalm 19.

Fifthly, it is sufficient...it is sufficient. It is all God wanted to say. It is all God said by way of revelation through inspiration. And it is all we need. Again, back to 2 Timothy 3, "All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for instruction, for correction, for reproof, for training in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." It is sufficient. Nothing more is needed for spiritual life than this word.

Now we need to understand this Word and many books help us to understand it, but all spiritual truth necessary for life and godliness is found in this book. Sometimes I hear people say, "Well, there are people who have such severe psychological problems they can't start the sanctification process until they get some psychological help." That's folly. The Bible does not wait for human wisdom to jump start it. It is sufficient that the man of God may be perfect, completely furnished for all good works.

Sixth, it is effective...it is effective. In other words, it is powerful but effective sort of is a little more direct. What do I mean by that? I mean it impacts lives. It accomplishes divine purpose. Isaiah 55:11 and 12, "So shall My Word be that goes forth. It shall not return unto Me void but shall accomplish what I please." The word never returns void, it always accomplishes the purpose for which God sends it. Throughout Scripture God says I will accomplish all My good purpose. Who is going to stop Me? Who is going to prevent Me from fulfilling My Word? In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, "Heaven and earth will pass away but Thy Word will not pass away." Jesus came even Himself to say I have come to fulfill the Word, not to set it aside. It is effective. Wherever it goes it penetrates powerfully. It is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow as a discerner the thoughts and intents of the heart. It just penetrates the heart. It cuts deep. It is effective. To some it is a saver of life to life, to others a saver of death to death. But it comes with power, it achieves God's purpose sometimes for grace and sometimes for judgment. What God says will come to pass. His Word will always be fulfilled.

Finally, it is determinative. It is infallible, inerrant, complete, authoritative, sufficient, effective and determinative. What do I mean by that? It is the Word of God that separates men and women. It is the Word of God that becomes the dividing line between those who are in the Kingdom of God and those who are out of it. It is the Word of God that distinguishes between the saved and the lost. It is the Word of God that distinguishes between those who will go to heaven and those who will spend eternity in hell. It is the Word of God that separates those who are God's children from those who are Satan's children. The Word of God is the determining factor.

You say, "What do you mean?" Listen to the words of Jesus. John 8:47. "He that is of God hears God's words. You therefore hear them not because you are not of God." Indifference to the Bible is a dead giveaway. Diffidence toward scriptural truth is a dead giveaway that one does not belong to God. If you belong to God you hear God's Word. Jesus put it this way, "My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me." It is natural for a human being to seek oxygen. It is natural for a new creation in Christ to seek truth, the truth of God. A person may claim to be a Christian but if they have no interest in Scripture you have a right to question the claim because attitude toward the Word of God is a determinative reality. This is God's Word. In the Old Testament alone there are over two thousand claims made by the Scripture that say this is the Word of God. And the New Testament adds to that, this is God's Word. As such, it is the determining factor. If you hear God's Word, you belong to Him. If you don't hear His Word, you don't belong to Him.

In fact, if you can't understand the Bible, its a lost book to you, its a maze and a fog, then you're a natural man who understandeth not the things of God because they're spiritually discerned. But if the Word of God enlightens your heart and opens your mind and brings joy to your heart, as the psalmist pointed out, and takes your simplicity and turns it into wisdom, then the Spirit is alive in you, you belong to God and you're hearing His Word.

So, beloved, we start at this point with an understanding of what we're dealing with. We're dealing with a supernatural document that is absolutely true in all that it affirms, that is inerrant in every word, that is complete, that is nothing is missing, you don't need anything beyond this to have the inspired revelation of God, it is authoritative, that is it speaks as commands, it is sufficient, it contains everything you need for all issues of spiritual life. It is effective, that is to say wherever it is unleashed it comes with power and impact and it always accomplishes what God wants it to accomplish. And finally, it is the determining matter when it comes to where you belong or in what kingdom you exist. God's people listen to His Word. You can do a little heart examination on where you are with that regard.

Summing up just those things, Joshua 1:8, one of the great Old Testament passages that exalts the Scripture, says, "This book of the law...referring to Scripture...shall not depart from your mouth," that is it should be the constant topic of your conversation. Why? "Because you shall meditate on it day and night." Now whatever you're thinking about all day and thinking about all night will show up in your conversation. So he's saying you ought to be dominated by the Word of God. It is the dominant thing in your life. Meditatively it becomes the dominating thing in your life conversationally. Then it's into action that he speaks so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. You meditate on it, you talk about it and pretty soon you begin to live it out. Then you will make your way prosperous, then you will have success. But you need to do according to all that is written in it. There are many Christians who can't do according to all that is written in it because they don't understand it. And that's why it's incumbent upon us to study the Scripture so that we can understand it so that we can do it so that we can be blessed and prosperous and have good success.

Here we are then, committed to this as Christians, absolutely committed to it in a world of people who are not only indifferent but frankly in our culture outright hostile to the Bible. It is not a standard that this world wants to accept. It is not a standard that our nation wants to accept. And that's tragic.

In order to deny the Bible they have to behave in a schizophrenic way. I'll show you what I mean. Most all of our life is built on fixed laws. I mean, we just operate that way all the time. Take the scientific field itself which is behind so much of our life, it's behind what we eat, it's behind what we wear, it's behind what we drive, it's behind what we live in. It's behind all the health service involvement that we engage in to fix ourselves, or to keep ourselves well. Science is behind all of this. Science simply is a means by which we deal with the physical world, the physical environment. And all those scientific dealings that go on within the physical realm are related to fixed points of fact, non-varying realities whether you're talking about biology, anatomy, botany, physiology, astronomy, I don't care what you're talking about, whether you're talking about engineering in terms of architectural engineering, mechanical engineering, any kind of...any kind of function in the physical realm with any physical properties is based upon unalterable fixed and dependable laws right down to the most minute kind of surgery which is predicated upon the knowledge that the body has the ability to respond in a certain way to this kind of invasion if it's cared for in a certain manner...all the way to the macro kind of thing where we're spinning things up into space with people in them knowing full well exactly what they will do and how they will behave and how they will return to a fixed point on this earth because there are inviolable laws that operate in the universe in an unvarying manner. And they operate without aberrations. And so our world is devoted to the fixed character of the physical world.

But, it moves over to the moral realm and is content with chaos and commits a kind of immediate schizophrenia in which it says we live in an utterly unalterable fixed order physically but morally...ah, you can do whatever you want. And they choose chaos and reject absolutes. Any ethical system that's comfortable with you, you can do whatever you want, be whatever you want, behave however you want and remain at harmony in your life...no you can't. You break scientific laws in the physical world and you get results that are negative. You break moral laws in the spiritual world and you're going to get negative results as well. There is a morality built into this world that is fixed, just like the...just like there are laws in the physical world that are fixed and that if they are violated bring serious consequences, there are laws in the moral world that are fixed and if violated bring far more serious consequences. Better, Jesus said, better you should destroy your body that your...what?...your soul. Fear not those who destroy the body, but fear Him who destroys the soul.

We take such tremendous care to operate within the scientific laws to preserve the body. We build these buildings, these massive skyscraper buildings with all of the science of architecture so that they don't collapse and crush all the people in them. We build great ships that go out in the ocean in the great depths, built according to standards of navigation and standards of floatation and all those kinds of things to preserve the life of those people with tremendous care, and yet we live in total moral relativity which is just contrary to everything we know about the operation of the universe. Why do men do that? Because they love their sin, that's why. That's the only reason. Not because it's logical.

You know, it amazes me. I'm watching this massive movement against smoking that's going on in our country. You've been watching that? It's motivated by two things. One, it's motivated by the left to hate the corporate...the corporate world and they hate these conglomerates that have so much money, like the Reynolds Tobacco Company and these others who are multi- faceted corporations and have many different enterprises. But the left hates them because they represent the capitalistic establishment so they want to bring them down. Many of them aren't so concerned about the smoking, they're just concerned to wreck these great institutions.

But there are those who are very conscious of the fact that smoking is bad for your health, and I certainly agree with that. I don't think, as I've said, smoking is a sin, but I've been watching how these commercials have become more and more graphic. And I saw one the other day that was so graphic it was just really a very sickening thing to see. There was a lady, they put a kind of a light on her that made her look near dead and black and white instead of color and she talked with this growly gravely scratchy voice about smoking and then she took a puff through a hole in her tracheotomy, through a hole in her trachea and puffed her cigarette here because she had rotted out everything up here and then it went on to say...You know, this is what smoking does to you. I understand all that. And so there's this massive, massive move to stop people from smoking because it effects your health physically.

At the same time there is a concurrent and equally aggressive escalation of the normalization of homosexuality which has produced a disease which has massacred people all over the world. Well how can they do that? How can they commit that kind of schizophrenia? Because they love their sin. Bottom line. And when they decide they're going to work in a fixed world in the physical realm and they're going to work in a random world in the moral realm, they are committing spiritual suicide. That's what they're doing.

You see the same thing in high schools. All these posters everywhere trying to prevent drugs, and alongside of them where you can pick up your condom. If you...if you have your choice in sin, I th forget the drugs. This kind of schizophrenia is because we are unwilling to live in a fixed moral realm. And that is precisely what God has designed and He's revealed it here. There is a morality built by God into the world that is fixed and when violated it brings tragic results. And the Scripture has laid that out for us...absolute laws.

This is an incredible book. As we get into this book we say, "Well, yeah, but it's only a spiritual book." Well let me cross that line a little bit. The same God who ordered science wrote this book. And whenever it talks about scientific things or matters in the physical world, it speaks with accuracy. Remember I told you earlier everything it says is infallible. It is not just a book about spiritual things, it's a book about a lot of things...a lot of things. In fact, this book, this supernaturally written book authored by God and passed through inspired writers who wrote down every word without error under His supervision by the Holy Spirit, this supernatural book written by God to deal with spiritual issues, every time it deals with science is absolutely accurate because God knows that world as well as He knows the spiritual one, right? It presents the only viable explanation for the universe...creation, catastrophism, the instantaneous creation in six days, the Noahic flood, reshuffling the surface of the earth, explains all the fossil record, explains all the strata in the rocks, explains everything. That's all you need to explain it. It's absolutely scientifically accurate.

The Bible affirms one of the basic laws of science which is called the first law of thermodynamics...the first law of thermodynamics is the conservation of mass and energy. That is to say all mass and energy that exists is perpetuated. In other words, from an evolutionary standpoint they would say...well once there was this little piece of mass and this little piece of energy and it just kept going and going and going and going and going and going and going. What science knows, however, if it's honest with its data is that there is mass and energy and it is conserved at the same amount at the same amount. It came into existence at that amount and it remains at that amount. That can be explained by the creation. That can be explained in the Scripture. Energy doesn't go out of existence. Mass doesn't go out of existence. It alters its forms, but it doesn't go out of existence.

Listen to what Isaiah said, Isaiah the prophet. Verse 26 of chapter 40, "Behold, who has created these things? He calls them all by names by the greatness of His might for He is strong in power, not one of them fails." There's the conservation of mass and energy, the first law of thermodynamics. Nehemiah 9:6, "Thou hast made heaven, the earth and all things therein, the seas and all things therein and Thou preservest them all." Ecclesiastes 1:10, "Is there anything of which it may be said...See, this is new? No, it has alread