The Final Authority

Tom Shrader begins an 11-week series on living as a Christian in a morally confused world. He establishes the Bible as the final authority for all of life, comparing it to a Supreme Court decision that settles disputes. Using 2 Timothy 3:16, he demonstrates that Scripture is God-breathed and sufficient for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, providing the moral compass needed to navigate competing philosophies and cultural confusion.

“The Bible tells us what's right, what's not right, how to get right, how to stay right.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: How to Stay Straight in a Crooked World (2012)

Recorded: September 20, 2012

Duration: 39 min

Themes: authority, truth, guidance, direction, foundation, wisdom, confusion, standards, facing moral confusion, making difficult decisions, new believer, questioning faith, parent, struggling with worldly values, seeking direction, young adult

Scripture: 2 Timothy 3:16, Romans 5:1-10, Romans 5:6, Romans 5:8, Romans 5:10, Genesis 3, Romans 3, Ephesians 2, Matthew 5, Romans 1, Hebrews 4:12

Theological Themes: biblical authority, scripture, inerrancy, sufficiency of scripture, revelation, god breathed, biblical foundation, sola scriptura

Full Transcript

All right, glad that you are here. We had a great summer. We were gone a lot, did a lot of nothing, and everybody says they can do that, but I take nothing to a new level. So we did a lot of nothing. We were in Flag for a while, Coronado for a while, we were up in Cannon Beach, and then we were just home, we were back in Iowa. It's a funky football schedule this year, so we actually back there for two games, saw a tragic loss, and then saw a win, and I saw my mom in the midst of that. It was really just a great time, and kind of rested, and this is the first week back. We got back Sunday, and then right back into work.

Let me deal with this. These are always those awkward things, but I had a lady Monday say to me, "What's wrong with your face?" Let me tell you what's going on. I've had some physical issues, some symptoms for like two years, a variety of different things, and when we did the heart stent, and started then doing kind of overall physical, found a couple of different things doing the blood test. So there's one area, two markers, so they want your number to be less than five. My number was a hundred. They wanted the other number less than ten, and my number was two thousand four hundred and sixty four. So there's some inflammation that I have, and then that caused a bunch of concerns.

The summer was great, but it was filled with a lot of physical challenges. So one of the things they did right away was put me on some steroids. That's why you didn't see me in the Olympics, by the way, because I'd have been there had it not been for that. So that did two things. One, it got rid of a lot of pain. It's migratory joint pain, so it'll be somewhere in the joints and moving around, and the other is fatigue.

When I would be with Susan, and I'd say, "Let's go to the store," and she'd say, "There's no way I could go to the store." And I would go, "How could that be?" And then that's just how some of the summer was. What's been really hard is, I'll feel really good, and then feel really bad pretty quickly. So I said to the doctor, "Listen, I've got to explain this to people. What else should I tell them?" And so he said, "Tell them that your body is attacking your body." So my immune system is attacking good cells as well as bad cells.

So I've been into these other specialists. I'm a good patient. I'm not a good interview in those things on a one to ten, how do you rate pain? I don't know. But the diagnosis at this point, and it's a catch-all, is lupus. Lupus is a disease, primarily women, 18 to 35. So I can't wait for my first support group meeting. I know I don't look good, but I don't feel good either. So it all goes together.

We're in the process, I mean, the prognosis is trying to regulate everything through some medication. So we're working on that. When I was in Cannon Beach teaching, it was very bad. I mean, it was just really hard. So it's impacted a little bit of just endurance and all sorts of other things. So I apologize up front for the clear mistakes that I'm going to make in the next 45 minutes.

It's not a life-threatening thing, but the doctor's been really good and going, "Listen, this is serious stuff. So don't take things for granted." I got a cough in the middle of this and I just blow those things off. And Sandy was saying, "No, we got to go to a doctor." And I said, "I'm not going to a doctor." So anyway, that's what's going on. I appreciate what will be the obvious concerns. And thank you for that. And all of your stories and suggestions. Thanks. It's a little bit like we did with Susan. We got a team that we like, so that's how we're approaching those things.

The Series Overview

Here's what we're going to do. It's going to take 11 weeks. It's a series that I developed about 10-12 years ago. And the title of it is, "How to Stay Straight in a Crooked World." There's 11 weeks. Let me give you the titles and you'll see, maybe hear a progression.

Week one, establish the Bible as the final authority in your life. Week two, develop a lifelong passion for learning. So now I got the Bible and I'm learning. Week three, to me they flow, make godly decisions. So now I've got to figure out stuff in life. Four, live life confidently, not cocky, but there's a boldness that I have based on who I am in Christ. Week five, integrate your faith. So we try to break down the wall between the idea of sacred and secular and say that though my faith is deeply personal, it's not private.

Then six and seven really go together. Though I've separated them, there's a sense in which as you deal with them, I think they're inseparable. Week six, make the invisible God visible. And then week seven is to speak the truth boldly. So out of Matthew 5, live in such a way that people see your good works, invisible God visible, and glorify your Father in heaven, which they'll never do unless you tell them.

Week eight, this is my wheelhouse, learn to be content. Week nine, rejoice in the freedom that we have in the cross. Ten, expect suffering and grow from it. And then eleven is the rallying summary, thirst for daily renewal. So we'll spend a week on each one of those topics. You could write a book or volumes about any of them, obviously including this very first one, but we'll just try to build this.

The Foundational Assumption

Now how to stay straight? The idea implies staying straight implies that I am on this right path. So let me tell you what the assumption is, yet I know it's a faulty assumption, is that we're all followers of Christ, that we're all Christians. So let me make sure we understand the big picture for us. This is what we try to keep in front of people all the time, that we want to have a transformed heart and an informed mind that results in

a radical life. So in Ephesians 2, we read that as Christians, we were dead, but we're now alive through what Christ did.

Here's a little homework assignment: just read Romans 5 verses 1 through 10. Read it every day. Ask God to speak to you and ask Him to just reveal the depth of His love for you.

Let me give you Romans 5:6, 5:8, and 5:10, where Paul makes essentially the same point. He says, "while we were still helpless" (verse 6), "while we were yet sinners" (verse 8), "while we were enemies" (verse 10). While we were in that state when we not only could not do good (Romans 3), we were an enemy, we were alienated from God—while we were in that condition, Christ died for us. That's the depth of His love for you.

Understanding God's Unconditional Love

There are certain things that I'm going to guess in everybody's life—there's a trigger moment, there's a thought—and I'll get them through studying and something will get in here and then it just sticks for a while. But it's been the love that God has. And it started Good Friday.

Good Friday, I found myself thinking that maybe there's this little faulty notion that's crept into some of our lives. God so quickly moved in Genesis 3—man sins and within verses for us, eight verses, God promises a Redeemer. In our mind, and because He did that, I'm wondering if we don't miss the fact that He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to redeem us.

We deserve hell. We deserve God's wrath, but in spite of us, not because of us, because of His love for His people—this amazing love. It's love different than anything we have.

I'm sorting this out as I'm trying to get to know Sandy and figure out Sandy, and I love her, but I'm still going, I love her, but yet I want to love her unconditionally. I don't know if I talked about it here, but she got her first haircut since we've been married, and she walked in and whatever I thought it was going to be, it was different—not an unusual situation—and I found myself responding, and it really caught me off guard because it made me go, "Wait, is my love for her so fragile that bangs can change it? Is that really what it is?" No is the answer, but there was a moment when now I look to God and I'm going, "Wait, is it the same thing?"

So I think sometimes we fall into the trap of misunderstanding the depths of God's love for you and the unconditional nature of it. I cannot make Him love me more. I cannot cause Him to love me less. You're not on probation with God. He loves you. You're His kid. You've been accepted. That's the depth of His love.

Our Purpose While We Remain Here

He started the relationship. He continues the relationship. But in that relationship, if all He wanted to do is get you to heaven, then He would have taken me March 6th, 1980—He would have taken me—but He left me here for some reason. What is it? And how do I navigate my way through those decades that He leaves me here, and same for you?

So how to stay straight in a crooked world—that's the premise and the idea of it—is that you have a world that's very confusing. My daughter Haley, when she was a senior, had been a cheerleader her sophomore year, her junior year. They won a state cheer championship and all this. And her senior year, she was kind of burnt out. She knew she'd be the captain and the leader, and she wasn't sure she wanted to do it. She was torn.

She had all her friends coming to her saying, "You need to do this," and so on. I remember going into her room one night. Haley's just this tender—she's perfect. She's a Gia kid. All you had to do was add water, and she could raise herself, really. She didn't need me other than a little guidance.

But I said, "Honey, let's just make a decision." And she said, "I don't want to do the wrong thing." It was a great moment for me with her to stop and say, "I'm going to give you a life lesson here, babe. This is a big deal. That word 'wrong' implies a right-wrong or kind of a moral attitude. It's a wisdom issue, not a right-wrong."

Well, how do I know? Here's all these things, all this conflicting data that's coming at you. How do I know? Where's my moral compass? So for us, it's the Scripture.

The Need for Final Authority

When I was back in Iowa—and it's brutal—but when I was back there, I saw a bumper sticker that said, "Re-elect Al Gore." So they're still fighting the 2000 election. Well, if you remember that election, there was this moment where Gore came out, conceded, then came back and said, "No, I really didn't lose." And then that started everything. Hanging chads. We went to this court, then this court, then this court.

There was no resolution, because the minute you got a decision, you went to a next court, until you reach the Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court said, "No, it's this," as bitter as this person with a bumper sticker might be, everybody said, "All right, that settles it."

Here's what we're saying—and this is the simple point. You're going to walk away going, "Boy, we heard the same thing over and over again for 45 minutes today," and you did. It is the equivalent of that Supreme Court final authority in our life: the Bible. So in all these competing moralities and philosophies, where do I find that moral compass?

The Compass Illustration

I was teaching at Forrest's home, and we're there. The opening night, the guy had everybody—had all the men stand up. He said, "I'm going to count to three. When I count to three, point north." So we're up on the mountain: one, two, three. And there's hands pointing everywhere.

Then he said, "Open your packet." In their packet was this little instrument. He had them set it in their hand. It was a compass. He said, "Let it rest for a minute." Then he said, "All right, I'm going to count to three. Everybody point north: one, two, three." And every hand went in the same direction.

So how in this world that's very foggy, very confused, where do we go for truth? Where do we go for answers? There was a mayor in a large city who got one of his administrative...

assistants pregnant. In the interview I saw with him, they said, "Will this hurt you politically?" He said, "No. This is a celebration of motherhood."

Well, what has happened is that where we look to for moral leadership, there's moral confusion. We're gone. Since the end of the war, we're gone.

I watched a lot of television during the conventions—gavel to gavel coverage all over. Clinton was really good. I don't know if you saw him, but he was really, really good. Like him or not, he was really good. Brett Hume had the best comment afterwards. He said, "I've always said, if I needed somebody to defend me, especially if I was guilty, I would want this guy to defend me."

I don't know if you remember when he left office, they were going to disbar him. He struck a deal. He paid a fine. He had Paula Jones to deal with, Monica Lewinsky. When he left office, he issued a press release announcing the deal that he had struck. I listened to it and said, "That can't be right." So I went on the internet. Sure enough, this is what he said.

The Moral Confusion of Leadership

These are his words, not mine. They're not taken out of context. This is just what he said: "I have had occasion frequently to reflect on the Jones case, the Paula Jones case. In this consent order, I acknowledge having knowingly violated judge rights discovery orders in my deposition in that case."

Here's the quote now: "I tried to walk a line between acting lawfully and testifying falsely. But I now recognize that I did not fully accomplish that goal." So he said, "Here was my goal. I'm going to act lawfully, testify falsely."

I don't know how much we can make fun of it, but we dealt with a lot of high school kids when all that was going on. When the president was saying, "I didn't have sex, she had sex, I didn't have sex"—I don't know how that works. "This is what she did. This is what happened." We just had a lot of kids confused. What is this? What's that confusion?

So we have to say, I made a whole list. You see the same thing in business. You see it in academics all the time—just a big scandal at Harvard. Athletics, the Hall of Fame ballot on the Baseball Hall of Fame for the next however many years is going to be, "Did he juice? Did he not juice?" Celebrities. Where do I go?

A Cry for Guidance from a Generation

I kept this Ann Landers column from 1989, and I love this. I've always kind of kept it close, pull it out every now and then. I'll edit it a little bit, but you'll get the sense of it.

"Dear Ann, I'm a 23-year-old college graduate, business major. I don't presume to speak for my generation, but I know what I feel. People wonder about us. They say we're materialistic, that we're out for ourselves. They say we're apathetic. It goes deeper than that. Teens are committing suicide in record numbers. What's wrong? Just look around."

Then she begins to line list. Whatever she wrote in 1989 is exponentially higher now. So here's how she closes: "It sounds hopeless, but I love this country, and I think there's hope. I don't believe my generation is apathetic. We just don't know where to start. Waiting for guidance in California."

Ann Landers, most of you know that name. It's an illustration that doesn't work so well anymore. Ann Landers was someone who millions of people every day would read for guidance, for insight, for wisdom.

When Wisdom Offers No Answers

Here's her response: "You're waiting in California. I see no sign of apathy or resignation in your letter. In fact, I sense that you are deeply concerned. I, too, refuse to accept the fact that we are doomed."

Now, the kind of priestess of wisdom, rather than giving an answer, asks two questions. Question one: "But what is going to save us?" Question two: "Any answers out there?"

Whenever we start studies like this, we inevitably have some of you who join us for the very first time. So let me make this pronouncement, and it's important: you've come to a place that has answers, not because we're so smart, but because we know where to look.

God Has Communicated to Us

God has communicated to us through creation. I got started early today, so I was driving a long route through Scottsdale and around. The sun's coming up in the mountains, and you look at it. What Romans 1 tells us is that tells us there's a God. You just look around and say, "There has to be something that created this."

But God then communicated to us through Jesus, and then left us this lasting record through His word. So when I'm trying to figure out marriage—what's the design for marriage?—I don't need a professor from Harvard or a study from Pepperdine or a state government to tell me what the structure of marriage is. One man, one woman, permanently, monogamously, linked together, because God designed it.

Voting and Living by God's Principles

That's what, again, the whole voting thing—because I wish we could just vote today and get it over with. But it's like, "Who should I vote for?" I don't think that's the question. It's "How should I vote?" I should vote in line with what I perceive God's kingdom would be.

Does God speak to all those issues? No, but I can draw principles and make conclusions. I'm going to be—and let's acknowledge this—there are going to be conflicting views at the end. Take the Constitution. Here's this document. Nine justices interpret it. Five say this, four say that.

So am I going to get some conflict in Scripture? Sure, but at least we can resolve that this is the basis for the discussion. If you pull the Scripture away, you have no basis for conversation.

The Jefferson Bible: A Cautionary Tale

I've mentioned to you before, you can go online and get it. You can go online and download, I think you can download the whole thing, the Jefferson Bible. Thomas Jefferson took the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John—and cut me slack, but he pulled out the stuff he didn't like or didn't understand because it was supernatural. So the Jefferson Bible begins with

The Hollow Gospel of Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson pronounces it, and this is really important. Jefferson is all excited that this is the greatest moral teaching that the earth has ever seen. It's the teaching of Jesus, the model of Jesus. Mickey Mantle's a role model; Jesus is a savior. So we've got that great teaching. That's what Gandhi said, right? "I follow the teaching of Jesus, I read the Gospels every day, but I refuse to believe that Jesus or anyone else could die for me."

When we get to our core, what makes us Christians is what we believe—that doctrine. Where does it come from? What's the source? It's the scripture. It's the Bible. It's the final authority in our life.

The Battle for Biblical Authority

I was talking with a lady, and my assumption is that she will never hear this and get the tape. But she was amazing, and she had two or three earned PhDs. It's not like Christian television where it's "Dr. so-and-so" and he got his PhD online. She had written a book on trying to resolve evolution and creation, and she had two or three other issues that we talked about. For me to battle her intellectually was a waste of time—she had more degrees than a thermometer and was fifteen times smarter than me.

But I kept saying, "How did you get there? How did you get there? Here's what the Bible says." And what she had to do was take the Bible and dismiss it, lay certain parts aside. Someone asked W.C. Fields once, "Do you ever read the Bible?" and he said, "Only for loopholes."

The Tragic Cost of Selective Scripture

Remember Marla Maples? She was in between some of Donald Trump's marriages. There's an article in the paper, and I would never really read it except the headline said, "You Can't Take the Bible Literally." Marla unpacks this amazing episode of her life, talking about her storybook life. Her dad was this incredible athlete, her mom is this beautiful woman, and they get married. She's the only child.

Here's what she tells. She tells a story when she was sixteen. Dad came in my room and said, "Your mom and I really need to separate because we're not getting along." Dad had built their dream house and was buried in bills paying for it. Mom was turning forty, feeling lonely, wanting him home more. And I said, "Dad, the Bible says that you cannot inherit the kingdom of God if you're divorced." But the marriage was killing him.

At first I blocked out the pain. For a Bible-fearing girl, I had to rethink my whole faith. Here's her final line: "I learned you can't take the Bible literally and be happy." What I've learned is unless you take the Bible literally, you'll never experience real joy.

The Moving Target of the American Dream

Everything else is kind of a moving target. That's the American dream. I mean, I'm tired of hearing about the American dream. Both conventions—it's this thing I still don't know what it is. It's something material, and whatever it is, when you get it, it's redefined to be something else.

I watch House Hunters. Do you ever watch that show? Great show to look at what people want. Here's this young couple, and every house they walk into—it's their first home, they don't have any money—and they walk in and immediately they get in the kitchen and they go, "These countertops, I want..." What do they want? Granite. "Look at the appliances, I want..." What do they want? Stainless. That's because they've never had it, by the way. They want stainless steel. "This house isn't big enough." It's more and more and more and more and more. There's no definition to it.

Scripture's Self-Testimony

Where do I find that definition? Well, when we look at the scripture, we're going to look at the scripture itself. We can apply some external and internal application to it, but the bottom line is the Bible claims to be the Word of God.

It seems weird we're talking about Bible and we don't have them open, huh? Second Timothy—Paul's writing to Timothy, his beloved son. It's a mentor writing to his protégé. Paul understands that he's at the end of his life or near it, that it could end at any time, and he is giving some instruction to this young man Timothy.

He says at the beginning of chapter three that in the last days people will be lovers of self, and then he begins to tell you what that starts to look like. There'll be lovers of money, lovers of self, all the things that go with that. What do you do in the midst of all of that? What do you do when you have—and that's really what I think Second Timothy 3 describes, the world we live in. How do you navigate your way through that?

God's Inspired Word for Life's Direction

Second Timothy chapter 3 verse 16 he says, "All scripture is God-breathed, every part of scripture God-breathed and useful one way or another." So when you are in the New American Standard, for example, "All scripture is inspired by God," and it is good for four things you'll see there: for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

In this world where I'm looking for direction, the Bible says you have the mind of God here. It's good for teaching—that's not what we're doing in terms of just the oral presentation. It speaks to the content, tells us what to teach. It's good for reproof.

The Power of Biblical Reproof and Correction

I was in a meeting the other day. We're dealing with a person who's engaged in something, and we're confronting them on it. I don't know how many of those you've been in your life, but they don't typically go well, especially initially. The first flinch of the person that's on the other side of the table is to do one of two things: it's to say either "Who made you God?" or "You think you're perfect?"

So here's the deal: no one made me God, no I'm not perfect. What we're dealing with right now is this behavior, and God calls it sin. It's reproof. How do I know what's right? How do I know what's wrong? And correction—that Greek word, it's the only time it appears...

In the New Testament, it would be this: if I came in and this chair were sitting on the floor and I simply took it and set it up and then sat on it, that would be restoration—to restore it to its proper use. Then training in righteousness is to give us direction. Here's how we say it all the time, really simple: the Bible tells us what's right, what's not right, how to get right, how to stay right.

Well why? So that the man of God may be adequate and equipped for every good work. Now I know how to live. God has redeemed His people, saved you, but He hasn't left you without instruction. Here it is—that's why that Bible is so important to us.

When I'm trying to make a decision in life, sometimes I can go to this Word of God and it will simply say do this, don't do this. I think you can derive from this principles to try to figure out who to marry, who not to marry, where to live, where to work.

The Bible as More Than Good Advice

That's why we had a guy who was in this study and he'd been here like three or four times. He came up and said this is all new to me, but he said, "You guys are really hung up on the Bible." We had that tendency to react to that, but you need to understand—for the vast majority of people this is just like Aesop's fables, like some helpful advice.

The lady that I was talking to that had the PhDs, her answer was, "The Bible contains truth." It's Thomas Jefferson—he boasts that he was able to pull out the part that Jesus really spoke. How do you know that?

Here's what we know: the Bible is the infallible Word of God. One of the great arguments for that are the fulfilled prophecies.

Hugh Ross and the Mathematical Proof

Years ago I got a call from a friend, Bob Shanks. Some of you know Bob. He said a friend of mine is going to be in Phoenix next Wednesday—do you want him to speak at your study? I said not really. He said, "His name is Hugh Ross."

Some of you know that name Hugh Ross. I at that point had never heard of Hugh Ross. Hugh Ross shows up just about when we're ready to start, so I introduce him: "Our speaker today is Hugh Ross."

This is exactly what he did—this is not hyperbole or exaggeration. He came to the platform and he said, "My name is Hugh Ross. Since I was seven years old I've wanted to be an astrophysicist."

I'm sitting with a friend of mine and he said, "What'd he say?" I said, "I'm not really sure." He said, "I think he said he invented astroturf." I said, "I don't think he said that. I think this guy's really smart."

So he spoke from 7 to 7:45, but he said, "I will stick around. I don't have to be anywhere right away for Q&A." We were still there—now these are guys that when I say amen they're out the door—at 11:30 there's still two-thirds of them there. They're asking these questions and they would say, "Dr. Ross, so-and-so seems to contradict you in his work such-and-such on page 235." Ross said, "That's exactly right, but on page 267..." I mean this went on and on.

"How did Jesus pass through the wall?" "Well we operate in three dimensions, He operates in 11." When it's all done I said, "Listen, we got to go, they need the room, but let me ask two questions—and these are not joke questions, I'm serious. Number one: what don't you know? When's the last time you said I don't know? Number two: if you were going to drive to Yuma, what would you think about?" He said, "I'd have to think about that."

The Mathematical Probability of Fulfilled Prophecy

Ross left all these books and all this stuff that I'm never going to slug through, but he left one handout that I love: "Fulfilled Prophecy Evidence for the Reliability of Scripture." Basically what he says is there's 2,500 prophecies that we find in the scripture—2,000 already fulfilled. But he focuses on 13 of them, 13 of them speaking specifically about Jesus.

Then he gives us his conclusion. If you disagree with this conclusion, by the way, you don't need to come up and talk to me. I don't have any firepower. All I can do is say I've talked to other people who seem very comfortable with this.

Let me give you this conclusion: "Since these 13—remember there were 2,500—since these 13 prophecies cover mostly separate and independent events, the probability of chance occurrence of all 13 is about 1 in 10 to the 138th power."

"For the sake of putting the figure into perspective, this probability can be compared to the statistical chance that the second law of thermodynamics will be reversed in a given situation. For example, that a gasoline engine will refrigerate itself during its combustion cycle or heat will flow from a cold body to a hot body—that chance is 1 in 10 to the 80th power."

Stating it simply—which seems like a good time for that right there—"Based on these 13 prophecies alone, the Bible record may be said to be vastly more reliable than the second law of thermodynamics."

Now here's my favorite sentence: "Each reader should feel free to make their own reasonable estimates of the probability of the chance fulfillment of the prophecies cited herein."

The Precision of Biblical Prophecy

Sandy and I got back early and so we went to church Sunday. As Tim was teaching, one of the things he was just going through was some prophecies about the Messiah and pointing out how they're fulfilled. Perfect, obscure places, being killed this way, born in this place in this time.

Here you go. Here's the bottom line—we gave it to you at the beginning, we give it to you now: The Bible is the Word of God, the infallible Word of God. If you want to figure out life, you're never going to figure it out apart from this Word.

There were days I couldn't do anything. I would put that against a vacation that we took years ago. The girls were younger. It started in San Diego. Susan and the girls flew over. I had to work and they went to the zoo and they went to Sea World, and then I joined them and then we drove up the coast and we saw Phantom of the Opera. We went up to Sea Ranch for like three weeks, but in the middle of this, we went to Knott's Berry Farm.

I'd only been to Knott's Berry Farm one time. They had this human maze. You walk into this and it's a maze. It's however high and you can't figure out how to get out of it, but they had this observation deck. This is where I spent my time. You could go in and watch these people. There's this little kid that gets in there and he's down over here. He's incredibly frustrated and now he's afraid. Unbeknownst to me, his mom was standing next to me. His mom started yelling, "John, Johnny, Johnny. Here, go left, go left, go left. Go right, right, right, right, now. Go now. Turn real quickly," and it took her 30 seconds to get him out of there.

God's Higher Perspective

What God says in the scripture is "My thoughts are not your thoughts. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts." I can get in this maze very quickly about life and how to live and what's right. Even as a follower of Christ. Let's stipulate. Scottsdale Bible, a good church. Jamie, a good teacher. You've been there for 30 years so you've heard all this a thousand times and you believe it.

All of a sudden, there's this moment in your life where something comes and you're going, "Do I really? Am I the exception to that?" Doubt can creep in. All of a sudden, here's what happens. As I begin to distrust God, if you never say it, I would go all the way back to Genesis 3 and say, that's part of what's going on in Adam and Eve. It's really when the serpent came and said, "Did God really say that?" All of a sudden, they began to really distrust God.

Can you trust Him? Yes. He hasn't left you as an orphan. That's what Jesus said. "I'm not going to leave you as an orphan. I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit," and what the Spirit's going to do is the Spirit's going to take this word for us. This word and open it up. Not just give you wisdom randomly.

Competing Voices and Authority

So often, and I can do this real quickly, we had a discussion the other night on biblical politics and it was interesting in this discussion, how often we wanted to bring in perspectives, but then we go and say, "Now, can the scripture support that?" So you may have all of these things, including visions about God, that you get from Rush or Hannity or Oprah or Chris Matthews, or whoever it might be.

I have a friend who came in one day and he was talking to his mom and they're in this fairly heated discussion. And his mom said, "Well, you know, the Bible says," and he said, "First of all, my mom doesn't know Bible." But he said, "Really mom? The Bible says where?" And she stopped and she said, "No, that was Paul Harvey." Well, we get a lot of Paul Harvey in there.

Listen to language. "This is what I think. This is what I feel." You've heard me say this a thousand times. When somebody says, "My God would never..." Voltaire, the philosopher says this: "God made man in His own image and man has been returning the favor ever since."

"My God would not send someone to hell. He's a God of love." Well, He's a God of love, but He's a God of wrath. How do I know that? The scripture tells me that. If I want to know God, I have to know His word. Here you go. Like a bumper sticker: We study the word of God to know the God of the word.

Knowing God Through His Word

R.C. Sproul writes this: "If you wish to know God, you must know His word. If you wish to perceive His power, you must see how He works through His word. If you wish to know His purpose before it comes to pass, you can only discover it in His word."

Let me go back to something you just said casually. And again, some of you are going, "Boy, we talk about this a lot." Life is an open book test. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12, the author of Hebrews tells us that the word of God is sharper than any two edged sword and separates bone and marrow and it can judge the thoughts and the intents.

You've had that moment, many of you, maybe all of you, where you're reading that scripture. It's like, "This was written just for me." Yes, it was. Again, you as a human were created by God and that's the operation manual telling you how to get the maximum efficiency out of life. What's right, what's wrong, what's true, what's real?

The Wisdom of Age and Scripture

Isn't so much of it? And that's the beauty about this thing. Some of you are really old. So by this point, you understand that a lot of what you look at in life is a mirage. The beauty of dealing with you is you've sat around and you go, "I've done that." I was just talking to somebody before we started. We were talking about the advantage of being a little older in life and you sit in these meetings and you go, "I got that we have a problem. I got that there's 10 solutions, but we know eight of these aren't going to work. I've seen this movie, not my first rodeo."

The Bible comes along and says, "Here's what you think. You think that will make you happy? It won't." Book of Ecclesiastes, I'm just working my way back through that. And what Solomon's saying over and over again, it resonates with me, certainly resonates with our culture. Man, our culture and let's forget our human nature says, "If I have that, I'll be happy. If I have her, I'll be happy. If I have that thing, that person, that place, that house."

I remember a friend of mine was up in Jackson Hole and he was just, it's probably what happens every time. He all of a sudden said, "Gee, I need to live here." And so he was going, he got a real estate agent and they go in and look at this house, a beautiful house. And he said, "We really, we have a motivated seller here. They're going through a divorce." This happened on the first three houses he looked at. And finally he said to the agent, "What's..."

The deal here? Is there something in the water? He says no, these are all people who live somewhere else. They came here. They thought if they got to Jackson Hole, they'd be happy. No person, place, or thing will make you happy other than Jesus. The Bible tells us that over and over again.

Now, if the Bible is the word of God, then we need to study it. We need to commit ourselves to a lifelong process of learning. We'll look at that next week.

Father, thank You for this truth. Thank You that You didn't leave us alone. Thank You that we can find truth in You alone. Thank You for Your word. Let us read it, study it, let it change our lives. God, I pray that Your Spirit would apply Your word to our heart and our minds, that our hearts would be transformed, that our minds would be informed, and that our lives would be radically changed. God, only You could do that. Would You do it, please? We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.