The Authority of Scripture [A]

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in two different passages this morning, one in 2 Timothy chapter 3 and another in 2 Peter chapter 1, if you want to mark both of those spots, 2 Timothy chapter 3 and 1 Peter chapter 1. We live in a day and age, unfortunately, where people reject, people seem to reject authority and act like it’s a bad thing, or maybe they’ll accept authority if there are consequences, But, for example, the guy who passes you going 90 on the highway because the police aren’t there, but will slow down as soon as he sees the highway patrolman up on the next hill. You know, he’ll respect the authority because of the consequences.

But it seems like we’re getting to a point where people less and less have a respect for authority or see a need for authority. On Monday, I had a student, when I told him to do something, it was Monday morning, I told him to stop talking and do his work. He said, I don’t have to do what you say.

You’re just the teacher. So Monday morning, already I can tell it’s going to be one of those weeks. I said, you do have to listen to what I say because I am your teacher.

Oh, yeah, why? I remember, you can’t take your belt off like you might with your own children. So I made him get his Bible out of his desk, And I made him turn to Romans chapter 13 and begin to read to me out loud why he had to listen to me, where it says, let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for there is no power given.

I’m paraphrasing now, but basically there’s no power but what is ordained of God. I had that verse memorized, and it went out of my head this morning. But I made him read that and the subsequent verses and explain to him what that meant, And also explained to him that if he needed further clarification, then writing that whole chapter a few dozen times might clarify it for him.

But for whatever, I don’t know what led him, I doubt his parents sat him down and said, you don’t have to listen to your teacher. I don’t know where he got the idea, oh, you’re just the teacher. I don’t have to listen to you.

See, I was raised a little bit differently. I was, I mean, other kids got in trouble when I was in school, but I don’t remember anybody acting like that and saying, well, I don’t have to listen to you. Even the kids who were a little out of control when I was a kid didn’t seem to do that.

And somewhere along the way, we’ve gotten to where authority is a dirty word. And I was raised, you don’t talk back to your, I still don’t talk back to my parents. I may joke with them, but if it gets close to the line, I may stop and tell them.

I’m just joking. I’m still a little scared of my parents. I’m probably too big for my dad to take his belt off at this point, but I’m still a little scared of my parents, and that’s the way it should be.

And as a result of that, I grew up learning to respect authority. And when it comes to opinions, when it comes to what somebody teaches or what somebody says, Nobody seems to like someone who speaks with authority until they need it. A great example I think of from this week, I got home early one day when you may have seen on the news, they had that shooting on I-35 in Oklahoma City.

And I got home early, which had me getting home early had nothing to do with that, except I was home to see the news when it started. So when the news first broke, I was at home watching the news. And they were saying, well, there was what appears to have been a shooting.

We’re not sure if shots were fired, how many shots were fired. And then they came back and said, there may or may not have been shots exchanged with the police. Okay, you’re still not saying anything.

This went on for an hour and a half. There may or may not have been two suspects. It may or may not have been the police who shot the woman in the crossfire.

There may or may not have been a hostage situation. I looked at my mother who was in the room and I said, they may or may not be standing next to a highway that may or may not be I-35 at this point. Nobody knows what’s going on.

There’s nobody. Can somebody come and can we just say nothing until someone comes out and can speak with some authority and tell us what’s going on? And it was, you know, thank goodness later on they had a spokesman for the police come out and he didn’t give a lot of information, but he was able to say, no, this is true.

This is not true. Or this is still under investigation. Can we stop speculating and somebody please speak with authority?

You know, for all of people’s disdain for authority, when there are times when they see the value of it, okay, now it matters. But when we speak on things like eternity, when we speak on things like right and wrong, well, who are you to say? And granted, if there is no authority, then it’s just one man’s opinion against another man’s opinion.

If I say that there is an afterlife, there is a heaven and that the only way to get there is through faith in Jesus Christ. And that’s my opinion. And another man says there is no afterlife. There is no God and Jesus Christ, you know, there’s, there’s nowhere for him to take you.

And he wasn’t really God. We can’t both be right. I mean, as much as everybody likes to, uh, to tout today, the idea that, well, your truth works for you and your truth works.

I, that makes my head spin. Your truth, my truth, there, there is truth and you can’t, I mean, even philosophers, that’s a basic principle of philosophy and logic. You can’t have two contradictory ideas both being true.

I can’t say it’s, I can’t say I’m here and I’m not here. That doesn’t, I mean, we know instinctively that doesn’t work. And for me to say on one hand, okay, my truth may be that Jesus Christ died for me and I’ll go to heaven.

And your truth is there is no afterlife and it doesn’t matter. And that works for you. Guys, they can’t both be true.

They’re saying two contradictory things. And if it’s just my opinion versus his opinion, well, who’s to say who’s right and who’s wrong? If we crave someone to come out and speak with authority on a matter like the news, like that shooting, would somebody just come out and tell us what they know to be right?

Can somebody who knows what’s going on just tell us, even if you don’t tell us everything we want to know. Can somebody just clarify this for us? In something like that, if we are willing to listen to an authoritative voice, why is it so offensive to the world around us that there is an authoritative voice when it comes to matters of right and wrong, when it comes to matters of eternity, of death, of sin, of hell, of judgment, of forgiveness?

When there is a voice that claims to speak with authority, why would we not listen to it? And of course, I believe the answer is because the world doesn’t like the answers that that authoritative voice gives. But there is still room, I maintain, for authority.

For someone to speak with an authoritative voice on matters that really matter, on things that really matter, on the things that I mentioned before. What could be more important than whether or not there’s a heaven and a hell and how you get there? First of all, if there’s a hell, if hell is real, I want to know about it, And I want to not go there.

And I want to find out what it takes to not go there. And I don’nt want some speculation. I don’t want to hear what Oprah has to say.

No offense if you like Oprah. I don’t want t know what Dr. Oz or Dr.

Phil have to say. I don’t want to know what the celebrities that are interviewed in the tabloids have to say. I don’t even want to know what the pastor has to say.

I want to know what an authoritative voice says. And folks, the authoritative voice is God’s word. The non-negotiable that we’re going to talk about this morning, the last one in this series of non-negotiables, is the authority of Scripture.

For a Christian, I believe that has to be a non-negotiable. And just with any of these other non-negotiables that we’ve talked about through this series, there are churches that you’d find this morning. I don’t know about in Lindsay, but you’re going to definitely find them because I could name them for you and show you where some of them are.

You’re going to find churches this morning that are meeting, and they may even be talking about the Bible, but they don’t believe in the authority of the Bible. Because they may believe that the Bible’s been changed, or now we’ve grown past this point as a human race, and we know that some of those things are not applicable. And they treat the Bible as though it’s a suggestion.

Okay, so which parts are important and which are not? Then we get back down into man’s opinion. because I might think this part is important.

The liberal church up in Oklahoma City may think, well, this part is important and that part is not. The love thy neighbor thing is important. The homosexuality being wrong part, that’s not important anymore.

Well, that’s just your opinion. What if I said the homosexuality thing is important, but love thy neighbor, he didn’t really mean that. That doesn’t apply to me.

Well, no, no, you can’t do that. Sure I can, if it’s just my opinion. Either scripture, ladies and gentlemen, is authoritative or it’s not.

Either God’s word matters and means what it says and applies to us or it doesn’t. And so I don’t understand how you can proclaim Christianity. The reason this is a non-negotiable is I don’t understand how you can proclaim Christianity and not hold God’s word to be authoritative because either it means what it says and it applies to us or it doesn’t.

If it doesn’t apply to us in its entirety, then why take any of it seriously? Why get together on Sunday and meet and discuss love thy neighbor? Why get together and meet and learn how we can do good to other people?

Why get together and learn what Jesus taught at all if he didn’t speak with authority? And you know what? When Jesus spoke with authority, those things in the red letters, he also affirmed the authority of the rest of scripture.

And so if Jesus’ teaching is authoritative, the whole thing is authoritative. And if we can cut any page out of our Bible and throw it out this morning, then we might as well throw the whole thing out. But before you go home and take an exacto knife to your Bible or throw the whole thing away, let’s talk a little bit about the authority of Scripture and why it matters.

First of all, let’s look at 2 Timothy chapter 3. We’re going to start in verse 12 and go through the end of the chapter. Timothy is writing to, or I’m sorry, Paul is writing to Timothy in a time where he’s about to suffer persecution, probably already had been suffering persecution, certainly was dealing with false teachers.

And the way that he was going to hold his church together and the way he was going to remain firm in the faith was to stick with what he had already received, what he had already learned from God’s word, that being at that time the Old Testament scriptures and what he had learned from Christ and from the apostles, which were going to become the cornerstone of the New Testament as well. And he says in verse 12, Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.

He said, so while the churches, while God’s people are going to come to a point where they’re going to be persecuted, and all who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution, not just those who are in Christ Jesus, but especially those who live godly in Christ Jesus are going to suffer persecution. And he says all here. Now, that was true in Timothy’s day.

They were going to suffer persecution. Many of them were going to lose their lives, but that’s not the only persecution there is. Some of them survived the persecution because they went underground.

Some of them survived persecution because they went on the run. I mean, when I say survived, I don’t mean they escaped it. I mean they made it through with their lives, but it doesn’t mean that there was no persecution.

Today we’re going to suffer persecution as well for living godly lives in Christ Jesus. Now I don’t want to minimize or trivialize what anybody else is going through because today in the world there are people who are thrown in forced labor camps for the rest of their lives in North Korea for simply owning a page of the Bible. There are people who are tortured to death for leading other people to Christ in North Korea.

I don’t know how widespread it is, but one story that stuck vividly in my mind that I’ve remembered for about 10 years is just within the last 10 years, there have been people in Vietnam, and again, I don’t know how widespread it is, who were forced to drink boiling water for being Christians. There are people all over the world who are losing their lives, who are being subjected to terrible punishments and torture, either from the government or from society around them. There are places in the world where Christianity is not illegal, but whether it’s your tribe, whether it’s the Muslim religion, whatever it is, where society, even though it’s legal, the government will allow you to do it, society will punish you and put you through these things for being a Christian.

Folks, I don’t want to trivialize that at all and whine and say, and we suffer persecution here too. Oh my goodness. We do suffer persecution, but it’s nothing for us to whine about.

It’s not right, but it’s nothing for us to whine about. There are still people who lose their lives today for the cause of Christ. But there is the promise that we will suffer persecution if we live godly in Christ Jesus. And today we’re maligned and we’re mocked in the popular culture and sometimes people lose their jobs for their faith, even though that’s supposed to be illegal. Nowadays you express an opinion on right and wrong that’s based on the Bible and you’re going to be run out of any number of occupations.

Now, is it right? No. It’s persecution.

Is it anywhere near as bad as what other people are suffering or have suffered? No. But it’s still persecution.

And he says, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Instead of whining about it, we need to expect it. And we need to, as hard as it is, thank God for it because it’s a sign that we’re doing something right and ask for him to strengthen us in the midst of it.

And he says, in contrast, evil men and seducers are going to wax worse and worse. This word wax, I would have no idea what it means when the Bible says this all the time, waxing this or that, or you’ve waxed cold. Other than, when I was in elementary school, we were taught the phases of the moon.

And the waxing moon means when it’s getting bigger. It goes from the new moon where it’s totally dark to the full moon where it’s totally bright. And when it’s in that phase for half the month where it’s getting bigger, it’s said to be waxing.

And then it’s waning when it’s getting smaller. And so only because of that, y’all didn’t need that explanation, but a little peek into how my mind works, I guess. Because of that, I know that to mean they’re growing, they’re increasing worse and worse.

And it doesn’t put a time limit on it and say, and then they begin to wane again halfway through the month. No, they continuously wax worse and worse. And that’s why we see the things that we see around us today.

Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse. It says deceiving and being deceived. And I look at people who teach false doctrines.

I look at people in the Mormon church. I look at people among the Jehovah’s Witnesses. And sorry if this offends you, I look at people in the Catholic church.

And guys, I love Mormons. I love Catholics. I love Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I don’t appreciate their church, but I love them as individuals. So if I can clarify that before you think, well, the preacher is teaching us to hate Catholics. No, I love every Catholic I’ve ever met.

I just don’t appreciate what their church teaches. But I listen to the things that are taught by these churches, and I have to wonder, okay, there are some deceptive things being taught, some things that do not square with God’s word. Who among them, and you can’t really tell always, who among them believed these things, and who was it who started it at the beginning and knew it was wrong and taught it anyway?

Always at the beginning of some new religious doctrine is somebody who knows it’s wrong and teaches it anyway. And there are some who are deceived and some who are deceiving. There are some who spread lies and there are some people who are good, well-meaning people and believe the lie, believe the false doctrine, not realizing it’s false and teach it anyway.

But he says you’re going to see this worse and worse. And same thing with sin. Not to throw those three religious groups that I mentioned into this category because a lot of them are good moral people.

Most of the ones I’ve ever met are good moral people. But when it comes to sin, our society tells us today that everything is normal. Everything you want to do is okay. There’s no such thing as right and wrong.

There’s no black and white. It’s all just gray areas. And there are some people that you’ve got to know.

They know better and they’re teaching it anyway. And they’re leading people astray and saying it’s okay to salve their own consciences. And then there are some people who bought into the lie and they’re the ones who are deceived.

And that’s why they propagate this idea that everything is okay. whatever you want to do, whatever sin is fine. And so there are some people who are deceiving because they know better.

And then there are some people who are being deceived and neither one is a good situation. And we could very easily, folks, I’m one of you. I’m one of the cranky Christians that they portray in such negative light on TV.

I’m right there with you. It is easy to fall into the trap that so many people in the world fall into. They’re different from us and we need to hate them.

And we wouldn’t say that in those words, but we feel that sometimes. We feel like, I don’n’t like that person because they’re gay, or I don’t like That Person because they’re Catholic, or I don’t like That Person because they’re engaging in adultery, or I don’t like that. .

. And we start to feel this hate because we feel superior. That is not right at all, and we’ve got to fight against that.

We can look at these evil men and seducers who wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, and we can hate them. Folks, we need to take pity on them. Now, that doesn’t mean we give anything to them.

a quarter to what they’re teaching and leading other people into. Folks, we need to pray for them. When we see the false teachers around us, when we see the Mormon missionaries walking down the street and I drive past them, I shouldn’t think about running them over with my car.

I should stop and pray. I’m not saying I did that. I’m just saying I shouldn’t do that.

I should pray for them. When I see somebody mouthing off on the TV news about how, you know, there’s no such thing as right and wrong and it’s all what you want. And, oh, you disgust me.

No, I should pray for him and love him because these people are deceived and being deceived. He says, but you, verse 14, instead, you continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of. Continue in the things that you’ve learned.

Other people are going to be deceived. Other people are going to be led astray. He says, but you, Timothy, continue thou in the things which thou has learned and been assured of.

Learned and been assured of from where? What has he learned? What has he been assured of?

He says here at the end of verse 14, knowing of whom thou has learned them. And that from a child thou has known what? The holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Jesus Christ or in Christ Jesus.

He said, stick to the scriptures. you know what the scriptures teach you know what God’s word says you know who you’ve heard these things from and I don’t believe he’s speaking of himself and saying you’ve heard it straight from Paul and so you know it’s got to be good because I would never say well I’ve taught you this before and so you know that’s right I might say I might say to someone who’s doing something they’re not supposed to I’ve taught on this and I know you know better but only become it because it comes from God’s word. I would never say, I’ve taught you this doctrine, so you need to believe it because I said so.

When he says, and knowing of whom you’ve learned it, I believe he’s talking about God. Because ultimately, it doesn’t matter what I teach. I mean, it matters, but it doesn’t, it’s, the significant thing is not that I taught it and you heard it from Jared.

It’s that it came from God’s word. And if I’m going to, I’m going to tell you this, I hope you hear this from every preacher you ever listen to, everybody who’s teaching you ever sit under. But if what Jared tells you doesn’t square with what God tells you, then you disregard what Jared told you.

In this message this morning, if there’s anything I tell you, I don’t think there will be, but you check it for yourself against God’s word. And if there’s anything that I say that doesn’t square with God’s word, you throw out what I said and you listen to God’s word. But he says, continue in the things which you’ve learned and been assured of, knowing of whom thou has learned them, knowing that you’ve learned what God has said, and that from child, you’ve known the Holy Scriptures.

You’ve known the Bible. You know what it teaches. You know what God expects, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

And that in and of itself, that verse 15, the end there, is incredible to me because we can look at it and say, yes, of course, it points to salvation through Jesus Christ. You know, we can read through the Gospels. Romans is very clear. Guys, they didn’t have Romans written out.

They didn’t have at this time. Well, he’s in the process of writing 2 Timothy. They might have had parts of the New Testament that were circulating as individual letters.

They didn’t have the New Testament yet while they’re writing the New Testament. As we think of it today, a set collection of books, they’re referring to the Old Testament. And even the Old Testament scriptures, ladies and gentlemen, can make you wise unto salvation in Christ Jesus.

You read them and you understand them the way God intended them to be understood, and you will see Jesus Christ on every page. You will see some indication pointing forward to Jesus Christ in every book. I love the song.

I would have no hope of remembering the lyrics and still can’t. But I’ve heard it sung at church camp where they talk about in Genesis, he’s this. In Exodus, he’s this.

In Leviticus, he’s this. A couple weeks ago, I was so excited to get to teach this in our morning Bible lesson, talking about the 10th plague in Egypt and talking about the angel of death and the first Passover and that if they would put the blood on the door frames, the lamb’s blood on the door frames, that the angel of death would pass over them and got to explain to the kids and I hope it sunk in because I’ve told you a lot of the kids in my class don’t go to church and may never have heard this before and may never hear it again. But that if they were under the blood, they would be scared, not scared, well they’d be scared too.

I’m sure it was scary. Wow, way to ruin a point there. That if they were under the blood, they would be spared from the wrath of God and got to talk to them about how that was a picture of Jesus Christ and that today, if we’re under the blood, we’re spared from the wrath of God on sin.

It’s an incredible point that God put there in the, not an incredible point for me, but God nestled it right there in the book of Exodus. 1,500 years before Jesus, that took place and he was pointing people already to Jesus Christ and the perfect sacrificial lamb that would come all those years later. And you read about Moses and you read about Joshua and their roles as deliverer.

And it points to Jesus being a deliverer. All the way back in Genesis chapter 3, it talks about the man crushing the serpent’s head and the serpent bruising his heel. He was talking about Jesus.

And I’ve said before, when the animal had to die for God to make coverings of skins for them to wear because they’d sinned, This is the first instance of the innocent dying for the guilty. And it points to Jesus. And you can read through every book of the Old Testament and it points to Jesus and who he was going to be and what he was going to do.

And the scriptures make us wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. Where am I going with this? What does this have to do with authority?

I promise it ties into the whole message, but we may not have time to finish the whole message and all the points again this morning. Sometimes I get excited about what I’m talking about and don’t have time to finish everything. but you know would you rather have a preacher who’s excited about what he’s talking about or doesn’t care because if he doesn’t care why should you care then we get to verse 16 and he says after he’s told him stick with what you’ve already learned from the scriptures from God’s word he says in verse 16 all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction and righteousness that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

He tells him because the scriptures are given by inspiration of God. And I understand what they’re trying to say there. And I believe, please understand, I believe in the doctrine of inspiration of scripture.

I believe in what we call in our doctrinal statement, the plenary verbal inspiration of scripture, that God inspired the very words, God inspired the concepts, that everything that’s in there is inspired from God. It’s God’s word. And I say that to preface this so you don’t think I’m a heretic when I say, I don’t like the word inspiration here as a translation for this word.

It’s not that I’m against the doctrine of inspiration. But inspiration doesn’t tell the whole story. This word, I believe in Greek, is theodonoustos, which means God breathed.

I love that explanation of it. Because some people take the doctrine of inspiration and think, Because, okay, we could look at painters like Van Gogh or Picasso and say, well, they were inspired. It doesn’t mean the same thing.

It’s not that these human authors had a spark of brilliance that God gave them and then they went with it. Inspiration, biblically, means that God breathed out the whole thing. They were God’s words.

It’s not that God lit the spark and the other men ran with it and did their own thing, as we would mean if we were talking about a painter. But to be inspired by God means he breathed out the very words. as surely as I’m breathing out the words that I’m saying even now.

God breathed out the words of the Bible. They’re not man’s invention. So I wanted to preface that before I said I don’t like the word inspiration because I wanted you to understand what I mean.

I think the word inspired the way we understand it doesn’t tell the whole story of inspiration. The words were God breathed. He breathed them out.

They’re his words and they’re profitable. They’re good for us. For doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

Doctrine means what’s true and what’s not true. Reproof means you’re doing this wrong. Here’s where you’re wrong, let me tell you.

Here’s where I’m wrong. Can’t tell you how many times I look at something in the Bible and then remember, oh, wait, what did I just do yesterday? Oh, that was wrong.

And God reproves me through the scriptures. Correction says, yeah, you were wrong, but let’s not leave it that way. How do you fix it?

And instruction in righteousness says, now how do you go on to grow spiritually from that point? It’s profitable. It’s good for us.

It’s to our benefit. God wrote the scriptures to tell of his son and to glorify himself, but also they were written for our benefit. As we try to grow closer to him and try to please him and try to glorify him, the way we know how to do that is because he has breathed out the words that explain to us how that’s to take place.

And what’s true and what’s not true. And the one who knows everything spoke with authority on those matters. that the man of God may be perfect.

Are we going to be sinless on this side of eternity? No, no, that’s not what the word perfect means here. It means complete.

It will be lacking nothing. And God’s word gives us everything we need to know, not everything we want to know. You’re going to have, in just a few months, I’m already dreading it.

In just a few months, it’s going to be time to start trying to figure out taxes again. And as much as I hate paying the taxes, I know we’re supposed to and I do it because, you know, we’re in the under seizure. But as much as I hate doing that, I hate even worse trying to figure it out.

Really, just tell me what I owe, even if it’s more. Just don’t make me jump through all these hoops. And if you’re like me, you’re going to go, I need to find an answer.

The IRS website is no help. This, I don’t understand what, is this even English? Can you go to the scriptures and find the answer you need on that?

Probably not. If you can, let me know. Probably not.

But everything that we need to know when it comes to salvation, spiritual truth, and godly living is revealed in the pages of this book. Everything we need to know. Are the kids at school going to find the answers to their math tests in the Bible only if they cheated and wrote the answers in there beforehand?

Are you going to find out how to do your taxes from the Bible? No. Is it going to tell me what so-and-so’s name was that we were just talking about this morning?

No. But everything I need to know about how to get saved, how to please God, and how to live because I’ve been saved is revealed in this book. Everything I need to know.

And sometimes there are questions that come up that the Bible doesn’t directly address, but you know what? There are principles that are addressed in this book that apply to every situation. So how do I need to act?

God