The Bible is an amazing book.
It is written in three different languages - Hebrew, Aramaic, and a
Greek - and across three different continents - Europe, Africa, and Asia. It was written over a period at least 1500
years by over 40 different people. It
has 66 books, 29 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament.
The chapters system we now know and rely on to navigate this
library of books were first added in 1205, in total there are 1189 chapters in
the Bible. The verse numbers were only
added in 1556 - all 31,173 of them! The
shortest of these verses in England is John 11.35 which simply and powerfully
reads "Jesus wept." Psalm 119
is by far the longest chapter. There are
five books that only have a single chapter: Obadiah, Philemon, 2 John, 3 John
and Jude. Of these 3 John is the
shortest.
"Every Christian ought to study this book because
it is the whole truth" - John Wycliffe
All that information aside, of which exact knowledge means
little to salvation, it is to my mind good to begin this sermon with two fantastic
quotations from Bishop J.C. Ryle to set the scene.
"Inspiration, in short is the very keel and foundation
of Christianity. If Christians have no
divine book to turn to to warrant their doctrine and practice, they have no
solid ground for present peace or hope, and no right to claim the attention of
mankind. They are building on a
quicksand, and their faith is in vain.
We ought to be able to say boldly: 'We are what we are, we do what we do
because we have here a book which we believe to be the Word of God.'"
"If the Bible is not the Word of God and inspired, the
whole of Christendom for 1800 years has been under immense delusion, half of
the human race has been cheated and deceived, and churches are monuments of
folly. If the Bible IS the Word of God
and Inspired, all who refuse to believe it are in fearful danger, they are living
on the brink of misery. No man, in his sober senses, can fail to see that the
whole subject demands serious attention."
What powerful sentences, cutting clear through the darkness
and showing plainly the truth and importance of our sermon today.
Scripturally the best place to begin when considering the
Scriptures is our gospel reading: Luke 18.10-14
" 10 Two men went up to the temple complex to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax
collector. 11 collector The Pharisee took his stand and was praying like this: 'God, I thank You that I'm not like other people - greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week: I give a tenth of everything I get.'
13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even raise his eyes to heaven but kept striking his chest and saying, ‘God, turn Your wrath from me—a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this one went down to his house justified rather than the other; because everyone who exalts
himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."
Imagine a bishop all pomped out in his robes and
colours, his ecclesiastical bling and silly pointed hat, and hanging around
with all the eucharistic toys he can find at the Lord's Table. He is there in a great and powerful
cathedral, and as he lifts up some monstrosity of a monstrance he looks at his
massive Bishops Ring with its immense gem stone. He has made it in life, he has reached the
top, he is the man. And he lifts up his hands from beneath his chasuble
and thanks God saying 'How awesome I am to have got here God, thank you for
making me so wonderful and clever and intelligent and bishop like! I deserved
all this and you gave it to me'
At the back of church there is a young man, his hair
is dyed black as a tar pit, it hasn't been washed in a few days at least. He is
wearing a black t-shirt that just says "Death Metal is LIFE" and has
black leather combat boots on (with red shoelaces of course!) On his arms are spiked bracelets and around
his waist are no less than six belts all arrayed with spikes and studs and
chains. On his arms are tattoos of naked
women and skulls with snakes in their eyes.
His eyes have black eyeliner and his beard has food kept in it for
later. He dare not even go to the pews
let alone the front, he hides behind a big pillar and just falls on the skin of
his knees because his jeans have rips in.
He looks at the floor, not thinking himself worthy to even look upward
to heaven and begs God, whoever that may be, to forgive him.
Here we see the two fundamental attitudes of the human
heart, the two attitudes that human nature can take. One is arrogance and the
other humility. One is certain in his
own strength, trusting his own righteousness, he stands tall before the Holy
God, looks on others as lesser beings.
The other is on his knees, full of repentance, seeking mercy he knows he
doesn't deserve, accepting of all God will command, seeing himself as nothing,
as but dust and ashes before a Holy God.
" How dare you, how dare you even entertain the
thought that you know better than God!"
Which are you when you approach God's Holy
Scriptures? Are you humble? Are you
filled with awesome wonder that God would give such a gift to the likes of
you? Do you get on your knees and
recognise its authority over all of your life and say "not I but your will
be done"?
Or do you stand tall and stiff-necked, full of
arrogance and pride before God's gift and Word? Believe me when I say that God
is not a liar, He tells us time and again that all his words are true, trustworthy, sure, certain, and pure, yet
you believe you know better than God? You have the sheet audacity to disagree
with the creator of the whole universe!?
You point to this and that and say "no" or "not today in
modern Britain" or "I don't believe that is true." How prideful and arrogant! How dare you, how
dare you even entertain the thought that you know better than God! You dare to look down on those 'poor
misguided people' who insist that Scripture is Holy, inspired, perfect - who
live their lives on its foundation?
Those are the only two attitudes to God and
Scripture. Humble obedience, acceptance and
faith, or arrogance, pride, and faith not in God but in human intellect and
folly.
" If the Bible IS the Word of God and
Inspired,
all who refuse to believe it are in fearful danger"
J.C. Ryle
Bear all of this in mind as we look at 2 Timothy 3
beginning with verse 14.
" But as for you, continue in what you have learned and
firmly believed. You know those who taught you"
Paul says "continue in" -
oh how we have deviated from the faith of the apostles today! In the middle ages it was men like John
Wycliffe and Martin Luther, John Calvin and Thomas Cranmer who rescued the
church from idolatry and heresy. Who
will stand up today? Will the real
Christians please stand up? those great
men of the past used on sure and certain foundation to shake the world to its
sense and the dark ash of deceit from the tree of life: Scripture and Scripture
alone. We thank them for returning us to
the Gospel, but do we thank them for how they did it? Or do we look down on them presuming we know
better? Do we think their faith that the
Scriptures could be understood as truthful on face value in all times and
places naïve?
Let us continue on through this
passage to verse 15:
" and you know that from childhood you have known the holy
Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for the salvation through faith in Christ Jesus"
Hear what Paul says, "from
childhood" - do we raise our children in the Scriptures? Do we use all the resources available to us
for family and private Bible Study? Personally
I cannot state enough how important I think it is for every family to have a good
and solid Study Bible - I would recommend the HCSB Study Version or the ESV
Study Bible, both are mighty fine works though the former is more accessible
for families to my mind. I have a super large Bible, bigger than a rugby players
chest, that was designed as a family Bible, it has illustrations and the text
of Scripture and beneath each page short notes by Matthew Henry, the greatest
of Biblical commentators, on each chapter - we would do well to emulate history
and continue such family devotional times each and every day.
"The Holy Scriptures" -
here we are clearly and plainly told that the Scriptures are holy, they are
sacred. the Scriptures are above
reproach, they are something set apart by God, they are above and beyond all
other writings. Do we treat the Bible as
Holy? Do we recognise the immensity of
what we hold in our hands? Do we cherish
it as something it is our duty and our joy to read and learn?
Verse 16, the crucial verse,
" All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness"
The phrase "inspired by
God" or more literally "breathed out by God" teaches that the
Scriptures are the very words of God, from his own lips, expelled from, as it
were, the breath in His chest. It is channelled
by His Holy Spirit through the bodies and lives of His servants and whilst
bearing their mark preserves its impeccable and impeachable holiness and
inspired inerrant nature. Do you accept
and believe the Bible is no merely human book?
Do you believe the very words of the Bible are chosen and destined by
our Heavenly Father, by the God of all truth and love? Many I
am sure would say "Yes, I do" but wait, what is this? I missed out the first, inspired, God
breathed, word of this verse of Scripture - "ALL"
ALL - ALL of Scripture is divinely
inspired by a God who does not know lies or error, for whom the word 'wrong'
can never, ever, apply. Do you believe
that ALL, ALL of the Bible is God's Holy Word?
Do you believe that not one joy or tittle, line or sentence shall be
changed but stands eternal as truth itself?
Is ALL of the Bible inspired, without error, filled with eternal
truth? I am sure many who said "I
do" before would now look down at their shoes and mumble under their
breath "I don't."
"Do you accept and
believe the Bible is no merely human book?
Do you believe the very words of the Bible are chosen and destined by
our Heavenly Father, by the God of all truth and love?"
Yet here it is written clear as day - all of Scripture
is inspired. And so we return to our
Gospel reading. We all want to say that
we are the tax-collector, who humbly accepts the word and authority of
God. But look closer and we see that we
are all Pharisees, standing in judgement over the Bible in pride rather than it
standing over us in judgement with us bring humble slaves of Jesus Christ.
I am not claiming that it is easy to accept ALL of the
Scripture, there are difficulties, but these should not keep us from accepting
the truth. Many years ago astronomers
were faced with a similar difficulty.
They observed that the planet Uranus seemed to defy the very laws of
gravity in how it moved, it made no sense.
Some scientists felt this difficulty meant the Laws of Newton, the
foundation of all physics, chemistry, and science, must be wrong. In response a French scientist declared that
it was wrong to give up a principle that has so much merit for the sake of one
difficulty, he said that whilst they might not at present be able to explain
Uranus's orbit of the Sun, the Laws of Gravity should be assumed correct and in
the future something will be revealed to vindicate this. Four years later Neptune was discovered by
astronomers and it explained everything.
I have no doubt in my mind that when we come face to
face with God, He will easily answer all the questions and difficulties with
the Bible and its alleged contradictions and errors. We
will see that every single word of the Bible, when it was first written, was
100% true and sure as the Laws of Gravity or that the Earth orbits around the
Sun or Jesus Christ is Lord.
"I have no doubt in my mind that when we come face
to face with God, He will easily answer all our questions about the alleged
contradictions and errors in the Bible"
So where does this leave us?
ALL of Scripture is perfect and inspired by God, it is our bounden duty
and joy to accept every word as true and an authority on every aspect of our
lives. Not only is all of the Bible
inspired, it is also united in being a witness to Jesus Christ and His death on
the cross for our sins. Jesus is the
centre of history, the universe, and Scripture - all of which exist to point to
Him as the only way to salvation and eternal life in heaven.
If this is true - and it is - then we were given Scripture not
just to know how to live, but, more importantly, who it is we live for. If you want to deepen your relationship with
God, to know Him better, to have greater intimacy with Him, you will find it
all in the prayerful reading of the Bible.
As John Wycliffe said:
"To ignore the Scriptures is to ignore Christ." Wycliffe translated the Bible into English
because in his own words "every Christian ought to study this book because
it is the whole truth."
Are you a Christian?
Then daily pick up your Bible and read, study it, soak yourself in its
pages that you might know more of God and who He is and what He has, will, and
does do. As Archbishop Cranmer wrote in his famous Collect Prayer for the
second Sunday in advent:
"Blessed
Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant
that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest
them, that by patience, and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever
hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which though hast given us in
our Saviour Jesus Christ"
The best way to understand the Scriptures is merely
humble faith - our Timothy reading told us that knowledge of the Bible becomes
wisdom through faith in Jesus Christ.
John Wycliffe said it best "The learner of Scripture does not
acquire the wealth of wisdom unless with contrition he becomes humble."
"The learner of Scripture does not acquire the
wealth of wisdom
unless with contrition he becomes humble"
- John Wycliffe
My prayer for you all is twofold:
- Firstly that
you would each day pick up your Bible and read it prayerfully.
- Secondly,
that you would not be like the Pharisee, arrogant and prideful, but be like the
tax-collector, humble and accepting.
I pray that you would have the faith and courage to accept
all you read as God's Holy Word, if you read something you dislike, or think
should no longer apply even though the Bible says it does, if you read
something modern society disagrees with or finds vile, do not ignore it or deny
it but get on your knees and repent of your desire to insult God's goodness and
honesty, pray for help from the Holy Spirit that He would change your heart
from one of stone, closed to God's truth like an unloving servant, to one of
flesh that beats in time with the heart of Jesus, that He would take your mind
with all its human pride, arrogance, and boasting, and He would show you why and how what He wrote in
Scripture is true,
Perhaps the greatest threat to Christianity today, as it
always was, is the denial of Scripture, on which we base all of our life and
through which we can trust we know both Jesus and the heart of God.
Never compromise the faith, or the truth of Scripture,
because of pressure from an allegedly 'progressive' society.
"To ignore the Scriptures is to ignore Christ"
- John Wycliffe
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