7 Jun 2009
God’s inspired words 4U
Pastor Ben
Gods inspired words 4U
Last week we began this series called “text” and if you didn’t have a chance to worship with us last week, I’d invite you to listen to the message on line because it was really foundational to the rest of the series. In a nutshell, here’s what we leaned. In a world that’s filled with communication like cell phones and emails and Facebook and text messages, God also has decided to communicate with us. He communicates with us in a couple of very natural ways. When we look at the complex and beautiful world around, it’s God’s megaphone telling the world, “Hey, wake up! This didn’t happen by accident. There is a god.” And then that little voice inside of us that tells us when we’re doing wrong is God telling us that He’s just and that there’s a standard of right and wrong. But there’s another way that God communicates with the world. The other way is the Bible and it’s the way that the world learns about who the true God is and what He’s done for our forgiveness and salvation. This morning we’re going to take a closer look at how the Bible came to be.
When my son Ezra was 4 and 5 years old he went through this stage where he really enjoyed writing books. Now, this was before the time he knew how to write. So he’d draw pictures and then I’d write down on each page whatever he told me. He had books about Star Wars and Spiderman and one about pigs and foxes. But my favorite one was this one, it’s called, “A Day at the Basketball Game.” I’m not going to read the entire book. I’ll just skip ahead to my favorite part. “Daddy dribbled the ball. He was trying to score a basket. The other team tried to steal the ball, but they couldn’t. Daddy dribbled quickly to the hoop and went in for a slam dunk! 2 points! Daddy could hear all the people cheer loudly – especially his favorite fans: mommy, Ezra and Chloe.” Now that you’ve heard the story, do you believe the author? Do you believe what Ezra wrote? Do you believe that things really happened just like it says? I mean clearly the idea of me slam dunking a basketball is very believable. Or would you clearly put, “A Day at the Basketball Game” on the shelf with other fictitious classics? You might answer that question in a lot of different ways, but one of the things that I’m sure you’d be thinking about is this, “Who’s the author?” In this case: a 4 year old with a big imagination.
This past week I challenged you to open up your Bibles and to read part of John 19. And one of the things that you read in that section is that Jesus died on a cross and then physically rose from the dead three days later. Something that’s infinitely more amazing and more important than a 31 year old white guy dunking a basketball. And the truth is that there are many other places in the Bible where things are described that you’ve never seen or heard before. A huge sea, the Red Sea, being divided so that the Israelites could walk right down the middle. That Moses would tap a rock a few times and water would come out of it to quench the thirst of an entire nation. A man named Jonah being swallowed by a big fish, only later to be spit out alive. Jesus walking on water, calming a sea, feeding 5000 people with a little bit of food, healing the sick and raising the dead. And because the writings in this book are really old, and because we’ve never seen these types of things happen before in our lives, many in the world have become very skeptical as to whether they can really trust this book. Many “Bible scholars” today try to explain things this way, “There might be some Godly truth hidden in there, but you can’t take every story, every detail, every word as true.” And if we were to be honest, there have been times in our minds that we too have sinfully doubted God’s words or failed to trust His promises.
And yet, right now on a Sunday morning, there are 1000’s of people in Minnesota and millions of people across our country who are gathering around this book, the Bible, to be strengthened and encouraged by its words and the good news of Jesus. And so, the question might be, “Are we all just that naïve? Are we all so desperately in need of a “crutch” to get through life that we’ve foolishly decided to believe the ancient writings of some guys who just had really big imaginations?” Or…or is there more to this book and how it came to be?
At the time of Christ there was a man named Peter who one of Jesus’ 12 disciples. He also happened to write a couple letters that are found in the Bible. We’re looking at one of those this morning. In it, Peter is writing to some Christians in the far reaches of the Roman Empire. This was a group of Christians who had become inundated with false teachings all around them and were beginning to become uncertain about what to believe. Peter wants to encourage them about the truth and validity of the Bible. Read vs. 16-18. The things they were hearing and reading from Peter and the other disciples might sound impossible. They might sound unbelievable. But Peter tells them that they were eyewitnesses of these miraculous things. He saw Jesus begin to glow with his own eyes and heard God the Father speak from heaven with his own ears. Read vs. 19. Peter writes that there’s something that they’ve been given that makes the eyewitness accounts of the ancient prophets even more certain. That makes the eyewitness accounts of Peter and the other disciples even more certain than their verbal accounts. It’s the words that have been written down about Jesus Christ, the Light of the world. It’s the words that have been written down on paper for everyone to read. Why are they so certain?
Read vs. 20-21. “Men spoke…” There was definitely a human side to the recording of the Bible. As we read, Peter wrote about how He was an eyewitness of these things that He wrote about. John at the beginning of one of his letters writes, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life” (1 John 1:1). Or how about Luke? He wasn’t one of Jesus’ 12 disciples. He didn’t see all these things like Peter and John. He was a doctor. He writes this at the beginning of his Gospel, “There since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the very beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account…” (Luke 1:3). We see the human side of the Bible as Paul comments about the big letters that he’s using as He writes (Galatians 6:11) Maybe Paul had sloppy hand writing or bad eyes. Or as it’s explained that the prophet Jeremiah dictated the words to a scribe named Baruch (Jeremiah 36:4). The writers of the Bible weren’t men who were in some sort of out-of-body trance where they lost all control of their mental capacities and the ability to act for themselves. They weren’t zombies whom God moved their hands against their will. God used their gifts and talents and hands and experiences and study. But make no mistake…God was miraculously in control of it all.
Peter writes, “Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (vs. 21). Imagine a small sailboat on Lake Marion. The water’s like glass. There’s not a ripple. Now imagine a wind picking up and blowing that sailboat across the lake. The word that the Greeks would use in that picture to describe the wind pushing the sailboat, is the same Greek word used here for “carried.” There might have been a human side to the writing down of Scripture, but make no mistake…these words are from God. Not just the basic thoughts. Not just the general concepts. Every word was guided and directed by the Holy Spirit through these men. Paul calls them “words taught by the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:13). Paul also writes in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is God-breathed.” This miraculous work of the Holy Spirit in the writing of Scripture is something that we call “Verbal Inspiration.” And because the Holy Spirit was involved, we can be guaranteed that everything in the Bible is true. We can be guaranteed that Peter and John didn’t misremember some details about what they saw when they were with Jesus. We can be guaranteed that what Luke wrote down after his investigation was accurate and true. He didn’t have to guess to fill in some gaps or finish the book. Peter writes to these Christians that Scripture is more certain than the verbal accounts of the prophets. He encourages them in the truth by telling them that the Bible is like no other book. The Holy Spirit was actively carrying the writers along and guiding every single word of it.
Now, for some of you, the words “Verbal Inspiration” might be a phrase that you’re hearing for the very first time. Or maybe it’s a phrase that’s kind of back there in the cobwebs of your mind from Basics or confirmation class years ago. However familiar you might be with the phrase…here’s the reality: Verbal Inspiration is so important and absolutely, 100% vital to our faith. You see, if you believe and gain peace from the words, “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16), you believe in the Verbal Inspiration of Scripture.
As we hear the clear conviction of Scripture that you’re a sinner and so am I. That you deserve punishment in hell and so do I. As we hear the Good News found in these pages that all of our sins have been paid for by Christ. That the closing papers for our eternal home in heaven were signed with Jesus’ blood and sealed by His resurrection on Easter. When a young person, a middle age person, an elderly person is assured by their pastor of eternal life in heaven through Jesus, they might not realize it, they might not be thinking about it. But their happiness and peace and confidence at that moment is connected to verbal inspiration. Otherwise the pastors words are just words. That hope along with every other article of faith, rests on the objective certainty of Verbal Inspiration and God’s infallible word.
To deny Verbal Inspiration. To say that “God’s truth” is sort of sprinkled throughout the pages of the Bible along with mistakes and “fictitious” fish stories. The Bible says that’s like removing the foundation on which our faith rests. Every teaching and promise that we believe and hold dear from the Bible…crumbles. No longer can we speak with conviction and say, “Thus says the Lord,” because that might not be a passage He inspired. No longer can a pastor say, “Blessed are they who hear the word of God and obey it,” because we can’t be quite sure what part is God Word. And on and on and on. The matter is very simple, either it’s all true and from God, or we can’t trust any of it. Either it’s all true or we have no foundation. And God makes it clear that it’s all true, all inspired, all from the Holy Spirit. The truth is that verbal inspiration is something that we ultimately we need to believe by faith. But on the other hand, as former Seminary professor Siegbert Becker once wrote, “it’s something that we believe by faith, but God did not leave the infallibility and inspiration of the Bible without support.” What did he mean by that?
Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, claimed that her 1875 book, “Science and Health” was inspired by God. She then proceeded to put out a revised and improved edition (shall we say, “more inspired”) every few years. And yet, here we have the Bible. It’s never needed updating or revision. In fact, it’s never been proved wrong by any fact of science or discovery of archeology. Here we have the Bible, it was written down by 40 men over the span of 1500 years and yet it never contradicts itself. All these men, over all these years write about God and faith and God’s plan of salvation through Jesus and they all agree with each other. I suppose someone could say that this is just the most ironic coincidence that the world has ever seen. Or a much simpler explanation is this, “Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” They are God’s word. It’s God’s book about Jesus. Although He used human vessels, God’s behind it all. We, who have gathered around this book today, are not naïve or foolishly grasping for some fictitious “crutch.” These words that we are so fortunate to have in our homes and in our church and on our computer and on the internet are words that have come to us through the miracle of inspiration. They are God’s words that we are privileged to read. It is God’s voice that we have the privilege to listen to and be strengthened by.
Are there ever certain voices that you enjoy listening to? About 10 years ago my grandfather died. And for a really long time my grandma kept his voice on the answering machine message. Four, five, six years later when I’d call the house and grandma wasn’t home, I’d hear grandpa’s voice on the answering machine. She liked hearing his voice. Who’s voice do you like listening to? The psalmist writes this about God’s voice as found in His word, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth” (vs. 119:103). Here’s my question, are you content to hear and be strengthened by those words just once a week? God’s given you His words, are you content to have someone else with Pastor before their names read it for you? Study it for you? One of the perks of being a pastor is that I get to read and study God’s inspired Word everyday as my job. And when it comes to sharing God’s Word in a sermon, I pray that it comforts and encourages and strengthens your faith. But the truth is that every weekas I write and preach a sermon, there is so much more that I learn and read than I could ever share with you in 20 minutes (ok, I’ll admit it…25 minutes). Some of you may have noticed that I’m often carrying around a pad of yellow paper. Most weeks it’s filled with 6, 7, 8 pages of handwritten notes and thoughts.
The point is not that everyone should go out and buy a pad of yellow paper. The point is not that my Bible study habits have no room for improvement. The point is that there’s much more strength and encouragement that God wants to share with us than what can be heard in the span of one weekly sermon. There’s more encouragement for the difficult days, more strength for the times that we have doubts and worries, more comfort when we receive that bad medical report or someone we love is very sick. Pastors were never meant to read God’s inspired Word on behalf of the congregation. We are here to help guide and shepherd you as we all take time to study God’s inspired, infallible, miraculous word on our own. “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.”
