Biblical Reliability
Tom Shrader establishes the Bible as the infallible Word of God, demonstrating that it was written by divine inspiration through human authors using meticulous methods. He examines fulfilled prophecy, eyewitness accounts, and the Bible's unique authority as the owner's manual for life, warning against both adding to and subtracting from Scripture.
“This is the owner's manual for your life, written by the manufacturer Himself, that's going to tell you how to get maximum efficiency out of your life.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Christianity 101 (2004)
Duration: 41 min
Themes: authority, truth, foundation, basics, reliability, scripture, doctrine, faith, new believer, questioning faith, seeking truth, bible student, growing christian, doubting scripture, young adult, spiritual foundation
Scripture: 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20, Luke 1:1-4, 1 John 1:1, Hebrews 2:1-4, 2 Peter 1:16-21, Revelation 22:18-19
Theological Themes: biblical authority, scripture reliability, biblical inspiration, divine revelation, biblical inerrancy, systematic theology, bible doctrine, foundational beliefs
Full Transcript
Today is session two of what should be, I hope, one of those things where the title really does tell you the whole story: Christianity 101. This is back to the basics of the faith. I mentioned this last week. There should be a group of you that as you look at the material are saying, "I'm way beyond this. I know all this stuff. He's not going to say anything new." It should be a group of you that are saying that. There will be some of you, a smaller group, that are saying, "This is way beyond me. I've never heard this stuff. I don't know this. I don't understand it." But in either case, you're wrong.
Those of you that say you're way beyond this, you need to come back. You need to get a hold of these basics. You cannot understand this and become too familiar with this. You have to spend time in this. If you get these eight things wrong that we're going to look at over these eight weeks together, if you get these eight things wrong, you're in real serious trouble.
By the same token, if you're saying this is way beyond me, all we're saying to you is, no it isn't. This is a matter of a little bit of work and a little bit of effort. I think we made this point last week. If you will take that book—and I've got no vested interest here—but if you'll take James Boice's *Foundations of the Faith*, or if you'll take Dr. Grudem's either *Systematic Theology*, which is a little bit long because you're going to get 1,200 or 1,300 pages there, but if you'll take his *Bible Doctrine*, five or six hundred pages, and you read two, three, four pages a day, and you just plug along and you stay steady, I promise you that in one year, you will be in the top ten percent in terms of just knowing theology of Christians in the world. That's not an exaggeration. It's probably really more of a condemnation, but it's not an exaggeration.
Review of Last Week: Doctrine is Important
Here's what we did last week. We spent 45 minutes making one singular point, and it was this: Doctrine is important. Doctrine is important, and we said it about 50 different ways. We also said that you'll have a tendency to reject that idea because of a couple of common myths.
Number one, we all say, "I'm not a doctrine, boring, I'm not a theologian." Yes, you are. You're a theologian not in the trained sense. You're a theologian in the sense that you have a theology. I have never yet met any person, and as I said last week, we'll go test this out. We'll go walking over to Johnny Rockets. We'll sit at Fashion Square. We'll sit there, and I'll let you pick out the person. I don't care. You get that person, and you can pick out a five-year-old. You can pick out somebody that's 100. I don't care. You pick them out. You give us two or three minutes, and I'll show you they've got a theology. It may be whacked and goofy, but they've got a theology. Everybody has a view of something.
I taught junior high high school last night, and we're doing questions all year long. So my question was—and according to the guys who lead it, they said this is the most frequently asked question we have in junior high and high school. You want to take a guess? This will be interesting. Most frequently asked question was this: Why is there 9-11? Why does my grandpa die? Why do babies get sick? Why did somebody in the school have an accident, and now there's two kids that are dead?
We happen to have in our church some kids who were down in Rocky Point a couple of years ago, and they're driving back, and they stopped. When I think Rocky Point and kids, I'm not thinking good thoughts. They stopped to pray. They waited for the car to catch up with them to pray for safe travel on the way back. So they stopped and prayed. The one car took off. They got around, went around the curve. They flipped over. The car landed on these kids. One of the kids, who had just been the most valuable player in the state championship basketball team two weeks before, paralyzed from the neck down. Another kid was there last night. He's got a halo on. Why does this happen? All those. Exactly right. That's the question.
Well, when we get into that whole idea, when you start to say to them, "Well, what do you think, and why do you think that happens," you immediately see a theology. They'll have some view. There's all kinds of views, by the way. The most damaging right now that's really emerging is this idea of open theism, which is the idea that somehow either God didn't know it was going to happen or couldn't stop it or control it. So it's just one more whack at who God really is. You're a theologian. That's why doctrine's important.
Here's the second thing. Doctrine has huge practical implications and we tend to miss it.
A Story About Doctrine's Practical Impact
George Washington Carver was born to slave parents. His dad, he never saw. His mom was taken by slave raiders shortly after his birth. He was born in Diamond Grove, Missouri. He was kind of an odd and a frail little kid, so they kept him inside on the plantation. Worked a lot with plants. Fell in love with plants. He went to Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa in 1890 and then went on to what is now Iowa State University. Graduated from there. First African American to graduate from there with a master's degree. Went down and worked with Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute.
He, speaking of Carver now, developed something like 325 products from the peanut. Hundreds of products from sweet potatoes and other vegetables that he worked with. He was offered in the early 1910s six figure salaries by Thomas Edison or Henry Ford, both to go to work for him. We're talking genius guy here. In 1921, he appeared before a Senate subcommittee and they're just talking. They're gathering information.
Let me give you just a snippet of his testimony. A senator asked him, "How did you learn all these things?" Carver: "From an old book." The senator:
George Washington Carver was once asked by a Senator, "What book did you study to learn so much about peanuts?" Carver replied, "The Bible." The Senator asked, "Does the Bible tell us about peanuts?" Carver answered, "No sir, but it tells me about the God who made the peanut and I asked Him to show me what to do with the peanut and He did." It's the practical implication. I want you to understand this. It's not just for the theologian.
When Life Falls Apart
Let's just take 9-11 or just take that tragic incident. You go ahead. Rather than have me give you an illustration, you pull that tragic incident up in your mind. Yes, I'm going to understand or want to ask the question why. And just so you know, almost always, when you start a question with why, you're not going to get an answer. At least not one that's accurate. You're going to get speculation. But I get this. I develop my theology. It takes some real practical ramifications in my life as this stuff plays itself up.
Here you go. You're in the shower today getting ready to come over here. You're just washing yourself off and all of a sudden you feel something like a little bit of a lump and you go to the doctor. Doctor says, "I don't really think it's much. We'll run a couple of tests, but don't worry about it. You know, call us next week. Call us Tuesday about 3 and we'll have the results." So at 2:59, you're calling and they say, "You know what? Could you come in tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock?"
You're sitting in a situation and all of a sudden you've got this business plan. You've done everything right. Strategic plan. Everything's right. Right piece of equipment. Right product. Right sales staff. And all of a sudden some geek out in the east coast develops some little thing. It's a new way to do what you do even better. And you didn't do anything wrong and virtually overnight you're obsolete.
What do you do in the midst of these? Or all of a sudden, here you are. You've got a kid and that kid says goodbye to you and about an hour later you get a call saying, "Hey, there's been an accident." I've experienced that one. What do you do? They call and say, "Listen, she's in intensive care. You need to get down here." And then on the way in they call back and say, "Listen, she just had a brain seizure." What do you do in the midst of that?
Or that person that you've loved and you've given your life to them. And all of a sudden they say, "I don't love you anymore." And that list goes on and on and on. What do you do in the midst of that? In the midst of this world that's filled with all sorts of what appear to be just chaotic, fluctuating circumstances, how do you find stability? Where do you find answers?
The Bible Is the Infallible Word of God
I said last week 45 minutes was spent to prove one point to you and that is doctrine is important. I'm going to give you the point up front. Please don't leave now. I'm going to give you the point up front. We'll make it again and again and again.
This book, this Bible, is the infallible Word of God. Wait a minute. You're saying it doesn't have any errors in it. I'm saying something stronger than that. Infallible says not that it doesn't have errors. It says it cannot err. And that's the point that we want to make to you today.
A Weekend of Broken Things
I was driving back. I was doing a men's retreat down in Tucson. And I'm coming back and I stop to get some bottle of water or something and something to eat and I call Susan and you could just hear in her voice some stress. And that's really unusual because it's pretty difficult to rattle. She just doesn't get down. She's pretty calm, pretty flat liner.
I said, "What's wrong?" She said, "It's not been, I left Friday and this is now Sunday coming back. It hasn't been a good couple of days." I said, "What's the problem?" She said, "Well the garbage disposal broke on Friday and it won't work and there's junk everywhere. The hot water heater isn't working. I got nothing but cold water. And when you pull up to the garage, what you'll notice is that the door will be at an angle like this because it won't go down."
I said, "Well, don't worry. I'll be home in about an hour." She said, "I don't see how that can possibly help in any of these areas. I know you. It isn't going to make any difference."
So I got in and I thought, you know, I got to be sensitive. I'm thinking. It's like when she goes to get her hair done. I know I'm practicing all the way home. "Oh my, that looks nice." I mean, I really work at this stuff. "Oh, that looks great. Oh, I've always dreamt of you having hair like that." So I'm practicing.
All the way home, I'm going, "Look, she's had a hard three days. Be sensitive, be sensitive, be sensitive. Just hold her. That's all she wants. She just wants to be held. Just non-sexual touching." Oxymoron to me, but I'm going to give her this. If she wants it, she wants this, she can have this. I'm going to be sensitive to her.
The Owner's Manual
So I walk in the door and I'm looking for this, you know, and she's laughing. I said, "Boy, you got over that fast." She said, "Stupid Tom. It's just, I'm stupid." And I said, "I don't think so, sweetie. You know, I'll give you a hug here." I said, "How'd you get over that so fast?"
And this will sound maybe silly to you, but she said, "All of a sudden I realized that the hot water heater of the godly and the ungodly break. The garbage disposal of the godly and the ungodly break. The garage door opener of the godly and the ungodly break." See, all of a sudden, this stuff of life comes out, and we think we're the exception. We say all along, "Don't you expect, because you're a Christian, to have your path streamed with roses." Yet the minute there's a problem, they're saying, "Oh, what's wrong with God?"
Two or three days later, she's in there, and there's some envelopes that she's mailing, because we have a new garbage disposal and hot water heater and garage door opener, and she's mailing in the warranty. And it dawned on me at that moment that this is what this Bible is. That every one of these products that we bought came with an owner's
manual that told me how to get maximum efficiency out of that garage door opener. And written by the manufacturer himself. This is the owner's manual for your life. Written by the manufacturer himself, that's going to tell you how to get maximum efficiency out of your life.
And you know what those owner's manuals had? They had an 800 number that you could call. This has an 800 number called prayer. You need to understand this. This is not just an ancient book with a bunch of cute tales for a bunch of primitive minds to demonstrate and illustrate these magnificent, compound, profound truths. This is God's Word. This is different.
You can go over to Barnes & Noble this morning, and I have no idea how many books are in a Barnes & Noble. Let's say there's 300,000 titles. There are 299,999 that are all the same, and there's one different one, and it's this one, because this is God's book.
The Bible Was Given to Mankind by God
Let's look at the six points you have, and we'll get you out of here. Here's the first point, and it's 2 Timothy 3, verse 16. The Bible was given to mankind by God. Here's what Paul writes. Paul's writing to Timothy.
Let me remind you, wherever you see Timothy, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Paul writing to his protege, Timothy, a special love and relationship between these two guys. Timothy left in charge of Paul's, I think, favorite church, the church at Ephesus. It's a church where He spent three years. Very important church, very important position.
If you're trying to figure out what church is all about, how should church run, what should church be about, you need to read 1 and 2 Timothy, because that's where Paul's telling Timothy how to run this church. You know what you're going to be surprised by? How little specific information there is there. Doesn't say anything about drums. Doesn't say anything about a collection. Doesn't say anything about young, old, robes. Says a lot about what the leadership should be.
All Scripture is God-Breathed
Paul writes, and he said, here's what you need to know, Timothy. All Scripture is God-breathed. Literally, not inspired, it's expired. God exhaled. God spoke into these men. All Scripture is written by man under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Paul adds this, too, and I'm going to, even though this doesn't directly deal with the point we're making today, I want you to see it. Paul says this, all Scripture is inspired by God, and it's useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.
So here's what we understand. Forty authors wrote this book, different books, different guys, forty guys over centuries, different points in life. You got shepherds, you got kings, you got physicians, you got slaves writing this book, and yet in the midst of this, not one contradiction, not one error.
Addressing Claims of Biblical Errors
I have been on both the giving and receiving end of the discussion where somebody says the Bible's filled with errors. I've had people say it to me. You know, when I was a non-believer, I had somebody say to me, you know, the Bible's filled with errors. Or I would say to them, the Bible's filled with errors, and they'd say, well, go find them, come back. I've said that to guys. The Bible's filled with errors. Go find them, bring them back. Nobody ever comes back. You know why? There aren't any.
You know why you say that, typically? Not because you've read the book and found errors, but somebody along the way, Oprah, Phil Donahue, Rush, somebody, said the Bible's filled with errors, and you said, boy, that works for me, and you wrote that down, put it on your hard drive, and you were prepared for the first time that conversation came up. But you have absolutely no experience to support that. And the reason is very simple. There are no errors in it. God breathed it.
The Four Benefits of Scripture
And it's beneficial. Do you see the four things? Teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training? Let me give it to you. The Bible tells us, here's how we remember it. The Bible tells us what's right. That's teaching. Teaching's not just this act, it's the doctrine, it's the body of what we teach. The Bible tells us what's right.
The Bible tells us what's not right. That is the idea of rebuking. It's the idea of reproof. Especially rebuke for wrong behavior, wrong belief.
Then it's good for correction. The Bible tells us what's right. The Bible tells us what's not right. The Bible tells us how to get right. Correction. In Greek literature, if I were to have a vase up here, and that vase is knocked over, when I took that vase and I placed it back in its stand, in its proper position, that's the English word that's translated here, correction. It's the only time that that word appears in the New Testament. It's the idea of restoring.
So the Bible tells me what's right, what's not right, how to get right. And then the idea of instruction for righteousness, or how to stay right.
The Bible as Life's Ultimate Guide
So I don't really particularly care what the issue is in your life. If it's raising kids, or finding a spouse, or running a business, the best book you're ever going to get on that topic is right here. In your personal life, the Bible tells you what's right, what's not right, how to get right, how to stay right. You know what the Bible says? Those of you who read this and don't implement it in your life, you're a fool.
I had a lady, I was teaching on marriage one day, and I was teaching what is obviously everybody at least in our culture wants to argue about, but it's God's plan for marriage. You know, wives, submit to your husbands, husbands love your wives. And I've been in this discussion 48,000 times, and every time we get into this discussion, I will have a gal who will say, well that's submission, that's locked in space and time, that dealt with 2,000 years ago, I want it out.
And I'll always say to them, if we're going to extract that, let's extract husbands love your wives. I don't understand why no one wants to attack that idea. I don't understand why we're willing
The Bible's Practical Wisdom for Everyday Life
So I'm done teaching on marriage, and this couple comes up. They've been married 60 years. I say, typically stupid, I say to the gal, "How did it work? Why did it work? Sixty years—that's incredible." And she said, "You just taught on it."
I said, "Well, I'm looking for the secret." She said, "You just gave us the secret. He loves me most of the time, and I submit to him most of the time. I've watched him do a lot of stupid things, and I love him in the midst of it. He saw me in times of rebellion, and he's loved me anyway—that's the secret." She walked away, and I'm laughing to myself thinking, we don't need these huge books on marriage.
It's kind of like raising kids. The Bible doesn't say, especially in the New Testament, a whole lot about raising kids. It kind of says this: children obey your parents, dads don't exasperate your kids, live this out before them. Best book you're going to read on child rearing? Right here. How to run a business? Right here. How to live life? Right here. Why? It's the owner's manual. It's God who created you.
You understand that, don't you? I hope you understand that. This whole earth and universe and your life isn't just a crapshoot where God kind of wound it up and then lets it go, or that just cosmic forces came together and created this in some giant big bang explosion with no intelligent design. That just makes no sense at all. God began this. All Scripture is inspired by God.
The Bible Wasn't Written by Human Initiative
Here's the second point: The Bible wasn't written by human initiative. Second Peter 1, verse 20: "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about on the prophet's own interpretation, for the prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God."
So if I say to you, "Who wrote the book of Romans?"—and some of you have been around this a long time—I say to you, "Who wrote the book of Romans?" Well, you can't even answer that question. We've got two different answers: "Well, Paul wrote it," and "The Holy Spirit wrote it. Paul wrote it down. God wrote it."
What we're understanding is this: Paul's moving the pencil, but it's not under his own initiative. It's the Holy Spirit prompting him to write using his own personality and his own illustrations. Who wrote the book of Romans? Well, Paul wrote it with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. That's why we come back and say this is God's Word.
Everything—this is absolutely essential—everything God wants you to know about Himself, about life, about man, everything God wants you to know is right here. If you've got a question and it's not answered here, then God is saying either our brain is too puny to comprehend it, or it's not that important.
The Bible Was Written Using Meticulous Methods
Here's the third point: The Bible was written using meticulous methods. Luke chapter 1. In fact, if you have Bibles, turn to Luke chapter 1, and it's important.
In terms of volume—and most people, I don't think, if I said in terms of volume, just size, the most prolific author in the New Testament—if I just gave you the opportunity to guess, most would guess Paul. Paul wrote 13 books with 87 chapters and 2,000 verses. Then you'd say John probably. John wrote 5 books: Gospel of John, First, Second, Third John, the book of Revelation—50 chapters, 1,400 verses.
In terms of volume, the most prolific writer in the New Testament is Luke. Luke wrote only 2 books: He wrote the Gospel that bears his name and the book of Acts—52 chapters, 2,100 verses.
Luke: The Physician Historian
Now here's what we know about Luke. Tell me what we know about Luke. Doctor—he's a physician. He's Greek. He's the only Greek author in the New Testament. He is a historian with an artistic bent.
Get this picture now: You have this physician historian with a Greek mind. What you have is somebody that's into details, specificity. When Luke writes, he demonstrates that. Here's what he says:
"Many have undertaken to draw an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us"—what's he talking about? He's talking about the life of Christ here—"just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good to me to write down an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you might know the certainty of the things that you've been taught."
The idea here is that Matthew and Mark have already written their Gospels. Luke is at the end of that trail. He said, "Here's what I did. I'm the Woodward and Bernstein of my day. I'm not writing anything that isn't verified by eyewitness source."
Best source I can have? Best source I can have in a court of law? Absolute best testimony I can give? Eyewitness. He did his work.
The Question of Theophilus
He's writing to a guy, and there are two schools of thought on Theophilus. The first is that he isn't a real character, kind of like Deep Throat, where some believe he's a composite of seven or eight guys. That Theophilus is kind of this generic guy, and Luke's just writing to him.
The other thought—and it's stimulated by the idea of the title "Most Excellent"—is that he's probably a Roman, probably a Roman that had some level of success and significance, converted to Christianity. What you need to know is the authorship and distribution of this letter would probably mean a death sentence for this guy, or at least could. Certainly would mean punishment. Certainly he's running contrary to his Roman background and the system around him. So he's probably a real guy, and Luke said, "I'm writing this."
It's meticulous. It's firsthand. I didn't just pass along some story that I heard when I was sitting one night in an inn.
What's interesting to me is when Luke says, "I'm doing this firsthand." As you work your way through the first and second chapters of the Gospel of Luke, you will have there an account you won't find anywhere else—an account of this conversation between an angel and Zacharias and Elizabeth. You'll have the conversation of the angel. In fact, in Luke chapter 1, I think we see the first time that the virgin birth is questioned. The angel appears to Mary and says, "You're going to have a baby." And Mary says, "Hang on here. How can that be? I've never been with a man. I don't know much, but I know this. I know how babies are made, and I've never been with a man. That's impossible."
Then Luke goes on and records this magnificent prayer that Mary has as she responds to the announcement and pronouncement of the angel. I think it's reasonable to speculate that the reason Luke has that is because he sat down with Mary and said, "Tell me this story. Tell me how this happened." He's the one that has the story of going to Bethlehem. He's the one that has the story of those early days. And I think that's why. Meticulously written.
We see the same thing in John. In 1 John chapter 1, John makes exactly the same point as John's talking about his writing. He said this: "What was from the beginning, what we've heard, what we've seen with our eyes, what we've beheld with our hands, what we've handled concerning Christ. The life was manifested. We have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life which the Father was manifested to us. What we have seen, what we have heard, that we give this to you so we can have fellowship with you." Eyewitness account. Meticulous account.
The Bible Was Written by Credible Sources
Four, the Bible was written by credible sources. It's an expansion of what we just looked at. The author of Hebrews writes this: "We must pay more careful attention therefore to what we have heard so that we would not drift away. This salvation which was first announced by the Lord was confirmed to us by those who heard Him. God has testified to it by signs and wonders and miracles, gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His will."
Peter writes the same thing in 2 Peter chapter 1, talking about being mindful of these things, that these are things that are recorded by us by credible sources.
The Bible Is Validated by Fulfilled Prophecy
Two more things, and they probably are the most relevant points. The fifth one: the Bible is validated by fulfilled prophecy. This book contains 2,500 prophecies, written hundreds of years before their fulfillment or occurrence. Of the 2,500, 2,000 of them have already been fulfilled to the letter of the law, perfectly, without fail. The other 500 are in a process of time.
Just on Jesus Christ alone, there are 61 specific prophecies concerning the Messiah. One author—and I like reading this stuff even though I don't understand it—Peter Stoner, writing in Science Speaks, writes this: he took not 61 but 48 prophecies, 48 prophecies perfectly fulfilled in the life of Christ. Many of those prophecies were prophecies He couldn't control, where He'd be born, those type of things.
Stoner writes this: "Consider 48 prophecies being fulfilled in Christ, we find that any one man fulfilling all 48 prophecies would be in 1 to 10 to the 157th power. That is really a large number and it represents a small chance. We need a small object. The electron is about as small an object as we know of. It's so small it'll take 2.5 times 10 to the 15th power of them laid side by side to make a line single file one inch long."
I'm lost, but let's keep going. "If we were to count the electrons on that line, that one inch line, and we counted 250 of them each minute, and if we counted day and night, it would take us 19 million years to count just one inch line of electrons. If we had a cubic inch of these electrons and we tried to count them, 250 a minute, it would take us 19 million times 19 million times 19 million years, or 6.9 times 10 to the 21st power in years. With this introduction, let's go back to our chance of 1 in 10 to the 157th power. Let us suppose that we were taking the number of electrons, marking one, thoroughly stirring Him up the whole mass, blindfolding a man, then asking him to pick the right one out of the pile. It's virtually inconceivable."
His point is this: Prophecy fulfilled tells us the Bible is the infallible word of God. There's a magnificent moment in Luke chapter 4, and time's going to stop us from turning there. Luke records that Jesus comes into His hometown. He goes to the synagogue. He opens the scroll. He reads from Isaiah, prophesying about the Messiah that would come. He rolls up the scroll, and He says to this, "Today, this prophecy has been fulfilled." Here you are. You've been waiting 100 and 100 and 100 and 100 and hundreds of years for this. To this day, they're still waiting, the nation of Israel. And Jesus is saying it's fulfilled. You run through these prophecies—no flaw, nowhere.
Hugh Ross, remember Hugh, the astrophysicist? When he was 19 years old, he was convinced that if there's a God, that God probably communicated to us in some written word. This is when he was at Cal Berkeley. He got all the sacred writings of all the religions together, and he sat them down, and he said, "If God wrote it, then I should be able to find a flaw in it. If God wrote it, there should be flaw-less. If man wrote it, it will have flaws in it of some sort, some mistake."
So he just started with the books. He just took them. And he said some of them, it took literally 60 seconds to just blow it out. Wrong. He saved the Bible to last. He got to the Bible. He said he spent three years. He said on the first page, there were 30 things that he could look at and prove through science. And after three
years, he concluded this: The Bible is flawless. Why? Well, it's written by God, as He inspires men. Meticulous recording, first-hand accounts.
And as you look at prophecy, you don't say, "Here you go." All you got to do is take a book of Mormon. All you got to do is look at it. Joseph Smith says this is going to happen. It doesn't happen. This is not hard stuff. All you got to do is look at these writings. And if the prophecies are wrong, then God didn't write them. I'm not being judgmental. That's just a matter of fact. You come to the Bible, and you find no errors.
The Divine Directive
Here's the last point. It's the sixth point on your outline. The Bible was concluded with a divine directive. Here's the directive: "I warn everyone who hears the words of this prophecy, if anyone adds to them, God will add to them the plagues of this book. And if anyone takes away from this prophecy, God will take away from them."
Let me spend a second here. We are really good at spotting the adders. You know what I'm saying? If somebody comes along and says, "Hey, I'm watching TV the other night. Here's this couple. Very attractive couple. Got little kids. They're sitting around. It's everything that every family, normal person, I think, would like to have. Looks like they're sitting around playing a little Scrabble, hanging out. And then it comes on and it says this: 'You have the Bible. Now you need another testament of Jesus Christ. Dial 1-800-HERESY.'"
Well, here we go. And again, that's not a cheap shot. Here's what we're saying. What we've got is an adder, right? So if somebody comes along to you and says, "Okay, yeah, I know you've got the Bible, but we've got this book. But we've got this writing. We've got this guy. We've got this tradition that supersedes this." The adders, they're easy to spot, aren't they? That's not hard.
The Subtle Danger of Takers Away
Here's the tough one: the takers away. That's a little more difficult. Because it can be so subtle. It's a matter of just editing the Scripture. That's why Paul, when he's saying goodbye to the Ephesian elders, says this: "I taught you the whole counsel of God."
Let me give you a great example. Here's how you spot a taker away. Here's what they'll say: "Our God is a God of love. Love, love, love. All you need is love. Love is all you need. What the world needs now is love. Love, love, love." It's like a jukebox. This guy's playing like a jukebox in front of you. "Love, love, love, love, love. That's all you need." Well, what about sin and hell? "Oh, God's a God of love. All right?"
Watch this. Is God a God of love? Sure. Obviously. God's a God of love. But if all I talk about is God's love, I've got a one-dimensional view of God. Is God a God of wrath? And a God of judgment? And a God of anger? Sure. A God of justice? A God of mercy? See, that's the takers away. And man, I'm telling you, they're deadly.
The adders are easy to spot. That's just not tough. All of a sudden, he's quoting something, and you're trying to pick out where he's quoting it, and you're saying, "What book's it in?" And he gives you some other book. You go, "That's easy." But now this guy's up there, and he's saying, "You know, God's a God of love. And He loves you. Loves you so much. Just really loves you." In fact, isn't that the question you get? "How could a God of love send anyone to hell?"
Well, if all you have is love, you have to ask that question. Here you go. I'll give you a question. How could a God of wrath and judgment send anybody to heaven? That's a way better question. How could a God who has been sinned against by man, and has told us that sin deserves death, how can that God, that God of wrath and justice, send anybody to heaven? Well, He's also a God of mercy. Do you see this? The takers away are really tough.
When Scripture Gets Compromised
And what they're going to do is mess around with this word. So I'm watching the other day, and they're installing this Episcopal Bishop guy. And I'm thinking, how do you do this? How can this take place? How can this happen? And I'm listening afterwards, they're interviewing the guy, he's saying, "I think this is good for the church." They're talking to people and they're saying, "This brings us into the century. This makes us relevant." You know what it did? It made him entirely irrelevant. They're no different than the Elks at this point. That's all they are. I mean this, and I'm serious, and I mean this in love. It's a joke.
How do you get there? I'm saying, look, in our church, and we're not homophobic, I mean, pick a sin or we'll do the same thing. We don't sit around, because homosexuality seems to be so volatile. If we've got a guy, and this guy's shacking up. He's married, and he's sleeping with his secretary. We're not trying to figure out how to make him a leader. I don't get it. We're not trying to say, "Oh man, how can we elevate this?" We're saying, "Look, pal, knock it off. And if you don't knock it off, you're going to be out of here. And we're going to go through a process, and it's going to take a while, but in a short period of time, if you don't repent, we're going to bring it into the church, and tell them who you are, and tell them what's going on."
I mean, why would we do that? Well, that's what the Bible says. But when you start to take it away, when you say it's not God's Word, when you say, "Here you go, here's another way." When you hear this phrase, I want you to hear in your head, "Ah, ah, ah, ah." When somebody says to you, "The Bible contains some truth," you've got to run. Because here's what they're saying: there's some truth in it.
Well, what's that? Here you go. That raises one question. What's the question? How do I know what's true? Is that it? It's all true. If we're saying some truth...
You know what we've done? We are now back to what you think, what I feel, what I believe. Forty-five minutes last week to make one point. Doctrine's important. Forty-five minutes this week to make one point. The Bible's the infallible Word of God. We cannot get away from that.
When we started last time, it was really interesting when I came in to the kids. First song they sang was, speaking of God, my ways are higher than your ways, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts. You've got to understand that.
The Foundation for Everything Else
Now, with those things in place, now we can talk about who is God. Because now we can say, we've got the ground rules. The Bible's going to tell us. It's the final authority.
Remember in that presidential election we had in 2000? All of a sudden, this guy would say this, and then this court would say this, and then this court would say this. But finally, the United States Supreme Court spoke, and when they spoke, that was the end of it. You have to have the equivalent of that in your life, and that's this Word. This is the final authority.
Living Under Biblical Authority
If God says, do it, you do it. If He says, avoid it, you avoid it. And in most areas, He's going to give you great preference. And you live within those areas, and you're within God's will.
How do I know God's will? If He tells you to do it, do it. If He tells you to avoid it, avoid it. The rest of the stuff, if those are in place, do whatever you want to do. You've got great freedom in the midst of that. This is God's Word.
What Comes Next
With that in place, we can talk about who's God, who's Jesus, who's the Holy Spirit. Here's a big one we'll talk about in a couple weeks. Who's man? Is he basically good? What is he? We don't know that. I don't care what Stanford says in a report. What do I care? I want to know what God says.
So now we've got the basis. We spent an hour and a half. Doctrine is important. The Bible is true. Pick up right there next time we're together.
Father, thank You for this truth. Let it change our lives, the way we live, how we think. And we love You because You first loved us. You gave this Word to us. Let us follow it. We pray that to You in Christ's name. Amen. Have a great week.