Thy Word is Truth Part 1 By John McCallum

Jeremiah chapter 36 and beginning at verse 20.
After they put the scroll in the room of Elishama the secretary they went to the king in the courtyard and reported everything to him.
The king sent Jehudah to get the scroll and Jehudah brought it from the room of Elishama the secretary
and read it to the king and all the officials standing beside him.
It was the ninth month and the king was sitting in the winter apartment with a fire burning in the fire pot in front of him.
Whenever Jehudah had read three or four columns of the scroll the king cut them off with the scribes knife
and threw them into the fire pot until the entire scroll was burned in the fire.
The king and all his attendants who heard all these words showed no fear nor did they tear their clothes.
Even though Elnason, Deliah and Jeremiah urged the king not to burn the scroll he would not listen to them.
Instead the king commanded Jeremiah the son of the king, Zeriah son of Asriel and Shelemiah the son of Abdu'l
to arrest Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet. But the Lord had hidden them.
After the king burnt the scroll containing the words that Baruch had written at Jeremiah's dictation
the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. Take another scroll and write on it all the words that were on the first scroll
which Jehoiakim king of Judah burnt up.
Also tell Jehoiakim king of Judah this is what the Lord says.
You burnt that scroll and said why did you write on it that the king of Babylon would certainly come and destroy this land
and cut off both men and animals from it. Therefore this is what the Lord says about Jehoiakim king of Judah.
He will have no one to sit on the throne of David. His body will be thrown out and exposed to the heat by day and the frost by night.
I will punish him and his children and his attendants for their wickedness.
I will bring on them and those living in Jerusalem and the people of Judah every disaster I pronounced against them
because they have not listened. So Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to the scribe Baruch son of Neriah
and as Jeremiah dictated Baruch wrote on it all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire.
And many similar words were added to them. I God bless to ask that reading from his word.
First of all I would like to express my appreciation for the invitation to come to you once again and to share with you in this weekend.
I count it a privilege and a pleasure to come once again.
We are going to be thinking over this weekend God willing concerning the scriptures thy word is truth is the general theme
and that theme as you well know is taken out of text in John chapter 17 verse 17
where the Lord Jesus Christ in his high priestly prayer to the Father is praying that God would sanctify the people of God through the truth
thy word is truth. And in that prayer the Lord is reminding us that the scripture is true and that our growth in grace and our salvation depends
upon knowing that truth, believing it, obeying it and growing in it and that truth is deposited for us according to Christ in the word
what he calls thy word. And we know from another part of the gospel of John that when Christ is saying thy word is truth
he is referring to the written scriptures because in John chapter 10 verse 35 he is reminding us there in one of his confrontations with the Jewish critics
that the word of God has come to them and the scripture cannot be broken and there the Lord is equating the word of God with the scripture
and therefore in John 17 when he says thy word is truth he means in effect the scripture is truth
and so we're going to be trying to analyze some of the Bible's teaching this weekend concerning the Bible
now there are a whole host of things that could be said and I have no way possible to me over six sessions to speak concerning all that could be said about the scripture
the Bible says much more about itself than we might at first imagine
but I do want to deal with such things as this morning session for example to emphasize the battle for the Bible
because I believe that that is the great issue concerning the Christian church today
and then we want to be looking at some of the reasons why people don't believe the Bible, the offense of the scripture
and then Christ's affirmation as to the authority of the scripture
and then God willing to model we hope to be looking at Paul's teaching in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 15 through to 17
where the apostle there is speaking of the holiness of the Bible, the inspiration of scripture and finally the purpose for which the Bible is given to us
now these are not by any means these things are not exhaustive
I preached in my own congregation last year a whole series of sermons about 20 sermons or so on the scripture
and I finally finished after 20 sermons not because the theme was finished but because I thought it was time to pass on to some other subject
but there are a whole host of other things for example I will not be touching particularly on the interpretation of the scripture
the Bible tells us how to interpret itself
I won't be touching particularly on the progressive nature of the revelation that we find in the Bible
the unity and continuity between the Old and New Testaments
there's a whole host of issues related to the actual nature and definition of the scripture
and the Bible has very clear statements concerning its own identity, its own finality
the Bible is a finished revelation and I'll be touching perhaps this weekend on this theme
that today we are in a situation where people in the Christian church who ought to know better
are telling us that it is possible still to receive divine revelation
and if we examine the scripture closely we will find that God has ceased revealing himself to men
because God has spoken to us finally in his Son
so there are all these themes and others that I haven't even mentioned that I can't mention them all
so perhaps some of you will leave this conference disappointed in the sense that I haven't touched on some subject
well I'm aware of what I am omitting in these addresses
but we have to do what we can do in the time allotted to us
so I want to begin this session by emphasizing
the first emphasis I want to make is where in days I would argue that we might well call the battle for the Bible
and the text that I wanted to draw attention to this morning is in Jeremiah chapter 36
and at verses 23 and 24
and I want to use these verses as a starting point for a general principle
and that is that there has always been in a sense a kind of battle over the Bible
in verse 23 we are told
and it came to pass that when Jehudah had read three or four leaves he cut it with a pen knife
and cast it into the fire and he there by the way is King Jehoiakim
so here is this wicked king in Judah
in his hearing the scroll of Jeremiah's assistant secretary scribe as he is called in the old authorized version
and he has written down the words of Jeremiah the prophet
which the Lord gave Jeremiah to speak to the people
Jeremiah himself is imprisoned, he is not able to read the words to the people
but Baruch has been reading these words to the people
and the word of this has come to the ears of the rulers in Jerusalem
they have taken the matter before the king, the scroll, Jeremiah's prophecy
that's the scripture that has come through the prophet Jeremiah
this scripture is being taken by this wicked king Jehoiakim
and he is cutting it up with his pen knife and throwing it into the fire
he is in effect seeking to destroy the word of God
and we are told that he cut it with a pen knife and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth
until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth
yet they were not afraid and here is the king and his courtiers
and they are not afraid in any way to sow, mishandle and seek to destroy the word of God
yet they were not afraid nor rent their garments
neither the king nor any of his servants that heard all these words
now here we have a principle and the principle is very simple
and the principle is that the true word of God as it has been written
has always been rejected and indeed there have always been attempts
as far as I understand the Bible's own teaching and as far as I understand history
there have always been attempts to actually to destroy the word of God
but it's interesting how this particular narrative comes to an end
because we are told that once that whole scroll of Jeremiah had been consumed in the fire
it seemed that the word of God therefore had been destroyed and defeated
but we are told that the Lord said to Jeremiah to speak the same words again
and Baruch the same scribe was commanded to write down once again
exactly the same words that the king Jehoiakim had destroyed in the fire
and then we are told this
and there were added besides unto them many like words
and here we have a principle not only on the one hand that men try to destroy the word of God
but that God preserves his word, he restores his word and he actually adds to his word
until the revelation of scripture is completed
God is going to keep on adding to the word of God
and once all that God has to say has been said
then God is going to close up the book, he is going to add no more
and you and I today are in possession of a completed revelation of God
but I don't want to preempt some things that I might want to say on a further occasion
I want to argue basically for this issue that is facing the church today
the title of our conference is not only taken out of John 17 verse 17
but the late great Edward J. Young who was the professor of Hebrew in the Westminster Theological Seminary
in the 50s and 60s and who died
he in fact wrote a book called Thy Word is Truth
it's a large format paperback book published by the Banner of Truth
I understand it's also in hardback form
I would recommend that book to you because its subtitle is Some Thoughts on the Inspiration of Scripture
and in that book Edward J. Young goes into some very fine distinctions and analyses
concerning the actual inspiration and the authority of the written word of God
because in the book A. J. Young makes the point that the great issue facing the church today
is this issue of the scripture
and if you and I could understand what the problem is that is facing the church
then we might come to understand how to remedy the problem
in medicine for example if you make a wrong prognosis
then the likelihood is that you will give a wrong cure or an attempted cure
you've got to understand the problem
and I believe wholeheartedly that E. J. Young was exactly right
when he was writing in the 50s and the 60s
and saying the great issue, the supreme issue today facing the Christian church
is its attitude to the Bible
and the confusion, the divisions, the backsliding of the Christian community in our day
has to do with a view concerning the Bible
which is not really the Bible's own view concerning the Bible
and so that's the kind of thing that we're wanting to be speaking about
well as we come then to think of this and I'm conscious that time flies by
but as we come to think of this I want to begin our consideration of the battle for the Bible
by emphasizing that in the Christian life
this is the first issue that I want to raise
that in the Christian life conflict is part of the Christian life
and every area of the Christian life and every generation of Christians
has got to face conflict and battle
you remember how, for example, in the epistle of Jude
Jude is writing to these Christians and warning them
against those men who have crept in unawares, he says
and he is writing to these Christian people to remind them
to contend earnestly for the faith which was once and for all
rather literally the once for all delivered unto the saints the faith
in other words, Jude is saying there is a deposit of truth
it has been handed to you, now contend for that truth
that's what Jude is saying
and he is warning the people to whom he is writing concerning false preachers
who would come in and who would seek to undermine that once for all faith
given unto the saints of God
now we indeed find this principle right throughout the scriptures
in the Old Testament you find that the people of God had their particular battles to fight
and there were issues of godliness and faithfulness to God
confronting them in their generation
we find it in the New Testament times
we find it right down throughout Christian history
and if you read the Bible and if you read it as the historical narrative
it unfolds and if you read a church history you will find
that the Christian church has always had to contend
against those who would oppose the truth that God had given unto his people
and I can demonstrate this quite easily to you from a church history for example
we are familiar 2000 years later on
we are familiar with the great creeds of Christendom
the Apostles Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Creed of Chalcedon
and the Westminster Confession
and all these creeds and other creeds too
the 39 articles and the Synod of Dort and all these things
and we've got to remember as Christians
that all these great statements of the faith with which we are so well acquainted
that all these statements were formulated in the fires of controversy
the Christian church drew up its creeds
not in order to explain everything because the creeds of Christendom don't explain everything
they are simply summary statements
but as one ancient theologian said, he said
we speak not because we understand it all
he says we speak because we dare not keep silence
and what these creeds were doing were stating the faith in the face of opposition to the faith
and when the Apostles Creed for example which is the earliest of these ancient creeds
was indeed drawn up
the Apostles Creed in many ways is an inadequate creed
it doesn't go into any great depth concerning the Christian faith
but it was written to counteract a heresy and criticism concerning the nature of the Christian faith
and that's why the Creed begins
I believe in God Almighty the maker of heaven and earth
the Father Almighty and in his Son Jesus Christ our Lord
who was born of the Virgin, conceived of the Holy Ghost
suffered under Pontius Pilate and so on and so on
right down to the final statement
I believe in the life everlasting
because these were the tenets of Christian teaching
which were being criticised and undermined by those who would be opposed to the Christian faith
and down through the centuries therefore there has always been those certain issues
that have been the focal point of controversy within the Christian church
and that's why for example in the early Christian centuries you had the great Christological controversy
and that is why in the 4th century the church had to formulate in the Nicaean Creed
the true deity of our Lord Jesus Christ
not simply that he is one who is like God
but that he is exactly like God
not just similar but the identity of God
and that was a great distinction
because in those days there were those who were saying that Christ was just like God
and yet as you and I read the Bible we find that there are passages which seem to indicate that he actually is God
and that there are those statements which would equate him indeed with God
and on the one hand therefore he is represented to us in the scriptures as a divine person
and yet on the other hand there are those passages which clearly teach that he is a real human individual also
and we don't understand these mysteries
but nonetheless we have to say something concerning what the Bible means
and so it is right down through all the centuries there have been those areas of controversy
now when we come to the Reformation times for example
we find that one of the great themes of the Reformation
I'm sure we're all acquainted with this
is this great doctrine of justification by faith
I'm not convinced myself that that is the main thrust or doctrine of the Reformation period
I tend to think actually that the main theme of the Reformation period actually was the priesthood of all believers
where we don't need human priests because we have one heavenly high priest
and every Christian is a priest unto God
but why was it, do you think, that Martin Luther nailed up the church at Wartenberg
why was it that he in fact nailed up his 95 theses
and he was going to discuss certain issues
now why did Martin Luther do that
because these were the issues that were troubling people in those days
these were the issues that men were asking and discussing
there was a great issue which had been going on and increasingly for several centuries
how can we be right with God
what is the way of salvation
because the church in those days was teaching, as you probably know, that if you perform good works
and if you relied upon the merits of the saints
and if you gave money into the coffers of the church and left the rest up to the priests
then all would be well and you would go into heaven
you may have to go through the fires of purgatory
but if you paid enough money and prayed enough to the saints
then you would eventually be saved and go into heaven and see that beatific vision
now that was what the Roman church was teaching
and men were coming to realize this is not really what's being taught in the Bible
because in those days the Bible was becoming familiar to people
the printing press was publishing literature
and the first book ever to be printed was the Bible
and people would begin to read the Bible
and they would begin to see that what the Bible was saying was different to what the church was saying
and so men were beginning to ask questions
and so Martin Luther nailed up 95 Theses for discussion
the very things that people were discussing
and that is why the Reformation has been associated with, indeed, this great controversy concerning the way of justification
now you may say, well, what's all this about?
what's all this history lesson all about?
it is all about laying down a basic principle that's going to undergird everything else
that I'm going to say over this weekend, God willing
and that is that there is today an issue
there have always been issues facing the church
there's nothing new about issues
the Lord had his controversial issues
there were the Pharisees and their doctrines and the Sadducees
there have always been those alternatives presented to the people of God as well as the Word of God
and the Christian church has always had to recognize the truth as opposed to error
and the source of truth as opposed to every source of error
and so I've given you that brief, very, very inadequate overview
just to demonstrate that the church has always had those areas of contention
now we come to our century
and what is the area of contention?
the area of contention is the Bible
in the olden days, even up until the Reformation period
there were those times when Roman Catholic theologians and Protestant theologians would meet in discussion
and even the Roman Catholic theologians would acknowledge that the Bible was supreme
they would acknowledge that
and they had added to the scripture of course with the church traditions
and the statements of councils and creeds
but nonetheless even the Roman church would say
yes, the Bible is supreme
and if in those discussions the Protestants could convince these Roman Catholics
sometimes Cardinals and priests
that the Bible was teaching a certain doctrine
what you find, indeed what you would find often
was that some of these Cardinals and priests would become Protestant
and they would begin to preach what Martin Luther and John Calvin and all these other worthies
indeed were preaching out of the Bible
because they had never abandoned the view that the Bible was the Word of God
they were misunderstanding it, they were misapplying it
and they were saying the Bible plus some other things, the creeds and the councils of the church
but nonetheless they agreed that the Bible was actually the living oracles of God
but that's not the situation today
there are churches today and they would say the Bible is not the Word of God
and the Bible is not of authority
and it seems to me as far as I can understand it
that this is the most serious issue that has ever troubled the Christian church
because right down through all the previous centuries
if you could demonstrate your position from the scripture
then that was the last word and there was no more to be said
but that's not the situation today
there are people today in the church
and if you quote to them out of the Bible and say ah the Bible
or if you say well the Apostle Paul says this
ah that was the Apostle Paul
that was his opinion
but we now know today that Paul was wrong
we all know that he was a woman hater
and we all know that he invented Christianity
and that he changed the message of Jesus
and transformed it into something different
to the message of that man of Galilee
and that's the attitude of the Bible today or indeed towards the Bible today
so there is a real battle on our hands
and the battle has infiltrated just about every denomination that I've ever heard of
I can't think of one denomination in existence that I know of
that has not to some degree been infiltrated by this misunderstanding
and a lessening of our attachment to the ultimate authority of the Bible
and I can even remember as a boy in my native Scotland being brought up
and I wasn't brought up as a Christian
but I was aware that there was something called the Bible
and I was aware that in some way everybody in our community
if the Bible said it then somehow or other it must be right
if the Bible said it then it was right
not that we live by it but nonetheless it was there
and it was in some way associated with the final word
but not today
you go into practically any community today
and you begin to speak about the Bible
and they will imagine that you are speaking about something
that is just another of those religious cranky books
and just on the same level as the Qur'an or the Bhagavad Gita
or the Buddhist scriptures or the Dhammapada
or some other such religious writing
it's just an alternative religious writing with no particular authority
and the great tragedy is that that's not only the way that the world thinks about it
but that is the way that many in the Christian church think about it
the relevance of the scripture
they say the scripture belongs to an old age, a patriarchal age
when men dominated women
and they read the Bible in that light
and all those great texts where there are these men of God
say well it was a man's society in those days
but we're now going to move for women's liberation
equality in all things
and they see the Bible in terms of simply old fashioned ideas
and they are not seeing it at all
as being an abiding, relevant, unchangeable corpus of truth
applicable to every age and to every society
and so there is this view
and then there are those who say well
yes in some way the Bible is associated with the word of God
but the Bible contains the word of God
there is a great emphasis today on the humanness of the Bible
and they say well the Bible was written by men
Jeremiah was writing the Bible
and so were all the other prophets and apostles
they were writing the Bible
and of course they were writing the Bible
I'll come to deal with this subject God willing
hopefully tomorrow when I come to think of the inspiration of the scripture
because I want to speak about the way in which God uses different men
with their different talents and researches and experiences
and yet what they write is actually not their own opinions
but the word of God
but there is a great emphasis today on the humanness of the Bible
because there is a great emphasis today on the humanness of everything
man once again today as he was in the ancient Greek world
man is becoming the measure of all things
and if we don't believe it then it's not true
and if it doesn't match up to our expectations then it's not true
we will be the final arbiters today
of what is true and what is not true
that is the philosophy and the ethos that is coloring
practically all the thinking of the world
as far as I can understand it
and it is infiltrating I say right into the Christian church
and there are those neo-orthodox theologians
and they will tell us yes the Bible contains the word of God
but it contains the word of God
there are parts of the Bible which are inspired
and there are parts of the Bible which are not inspired
and these men will tell us yes
but somewhere or other in the scripture we have divine revelation
but also intermingled with this divine revelation
we have human opinions and experiences
and the great problem for us with that kind of philosophy is
well who is to distinguish
how are you and I to know
because what you might regard as the word of God
might not be regarded as the word of God by someone else
it might be simply regarded as a human tradition
and what you might regard as a human tradition
by someone else might be regarded as the word of God
and the great problem with this teaching that the Bible contains the word of God
is that who is to ultimately indeed decide
and E.J. Young touches on this
and he says there's an inherent illogicality
he says that there are those men today
and they teach that everything that is human is tainted with humanism
and therefore is man-centered
and is simply human
and he is arguing against this view that I'm just speaking to you
and he makes the point he says
those who say that the Bible is vicious
it is not totally divine
because it is coming through the medium of human experience
men writing the scriptures and so on
and then he has this wonderful little antidote
to such a way of thinking
he says well the moment that we concede
the moment that we concede that any statement at all
any statement at all in the Bible
is the word of God
why can't we, indeed why can't we apply
that every statement is the word of God
for the simple reason
that every single statement in the Bible
has come through the instrumentality of men
there is nothing written in the Bible that I have ever come across
that hasn't been written by men
and E.J. Young is quite right in his logic
if we say that the Bible has any part of it
which is the word of God
then we must concede the possibility
that it is all the word of God
because it has all come through the instrumentality of men
and he also argues very strongly
and so does B.B. Warfield for example
and other writers
I'm not going to quote all these men
but there are very clear books and good books on this subject
many of you who want to know more about this
just read these wonderful men
they can put it far better than I can
but there are those who say that the Bible is tainted
it cannot be the pure word of God
because men are tainted
we are all failures
and they are fallible
and everything that is tainted with mankind
is therefore fallible
but you see there is an argument to that as well
the argument is the incarnation
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ is true God
and he is true man
and he is a real man
with a true body and a reasonable soul
according to the Holy Scriptures
and yet he is without sin
so here is an example in the Bible
of someone or something
that has come into contact with fallen humanity
and yet is not tainted
remains pure
and our Lord Jesus Christ is the living embodiment
of a great principle
that God can visit this world
and can speak to this world
and come into contact with this world
and yet remain pure and not be tainted
and if that is true concerning the incarnation of his son
how much more can it not be true
concerning the depositing of his word
and again there are those who say
well the Bible is simply the opinions of men
ancient cultures recording their experiences and so on
but again B.B. Warfield uses the illustration
he says supposing there is an architect
and he is planning to build a structure
a church saying
and in it there is to be a stained glass window
and the architect plans and places the various bits of colored glass
in that stained glass window
in such a manner
that when the rays of the sun come through
that stained glass window
and are indeed split up and displayed
they indeed convey the very impression
that the artist or the architect rather
planned that they should display
when he was planning the building of the building
in other words, stained glass
put into the window
it seems so random
but it is all placed in such a way
that the final effect
is not one of confusion
but one of harmony
and the purpose of the great planner is achieved
and that is how B.B. Warfield argues in one place
concerning the fact that God can use fallible men
and these men by themselves are fallen sinful men
but God uses them in such a way, their experience
in such a way that what they write
is not the opinions of fallible men
but is the inspired and unadulterated words of God
all the words of God are pure
according to the scriptures
it is all true according to the scriptures
and so there is nothing new in a sense
in the Christian church
having to make a contention
to contend for the faith
once delivered unto the saints
according to what is written in the word of God
so there is something else I want to emphasize too
and it is this
that the rejection of the Bible
that is just about so rampant
and almost universal today
the rejection, and I am going to touch in the next sermon
about reasons why it is that men reject the Bible
what kind of arguments do people use
as to why they don't believe the Bible
but we will leave that for the next time
but I want to say this that there is rejection
in the Bible
a rejection by men of the Bible
it is a rejection of truth
but the fact of the matter is
that in the scriptures we find
not only is the truth rejected by men
as it was by King Jehoiakim
but we find that God's people are commanded
to reject the errors
that men would level against the Bible
and against the word of God
the people of God, you and I in our generation
there are those who say we've got to be positive
yes we've got to be positive
and there are those who say well we mustn't be negative
and we must always be positive
well that is true but it's not the whole truth
we have to be positive, of course we have to be positive
but there are things that we've got to be negative about
there are things that we've got to reject
and we in being positive for Christ
are to be negative in regards to the criticisms against the Bible
the fact of the matter is this
you and I cannot be Christians if we don't believe the Bible
you and I cannot live a Godly life
the moment that we lose our confidence in the Bible
we are losing in fact our confidence in the God of the Bible
because the Bible as it is written, as we have it
and we have to take the Bible as we have it
there are things in the Bible which are difficult to understand
there are things in the Bible which are difficult to apply
there are hard sayings in the Bible
but the fact of the matter is that God has given us a Bible
in which there are things that are hard to understand
and that means that God doesn't intend his whole revelation
to be easily understood
and we ought not to be dismayed or discouraged
just because we don't understand all that the Bible says
about all that it speaks about
the apostle Peter says concerning Paul's epistles
there are some things in them hard to be understood
but that's the fact of the matter
that's the kind of Bible that God has given to us
and the moment that we lose confidence in the Bible
in reality what we are saying is that this Bible is not the infallible word of God
and we are in fact losing confidence in the God who speaks what is written in the Bible
you and I have to be rejecting certain things
we must if we are Christians in the light of the Bible's teaching
we are to be rejecting atheism
we are to be rejecting agnosticism
there are people in this world who say there is no God
now you and I believe in God not because we've seen him
or because we've thought up an original idea
I don't believe in God because one day I came to consider the matter
and sat down and thought it through and said there must be a God
I never came to believe in God in that way
and neither did you
you came to believe in God because someone taught you out of the Bible about God
and you came to believe what the Bible says
if you believe in God this morning
it's because you believe what the Bible says about God
and likewise with Christ
you and I as Christians, we're not Christians
because we suddenly thought that it would be a good thing to believe that a man lived 2,000 years ago
and died for our sins on the cross of Calvary
and rose again from the dead on the third day
no, we believe those things because it's written down
and if we hadn't heard of those things we wouldn't be Christians
in other words what I'm saying is we've got to reject everything
that is atheistic, agnostic, all the man-centered scientism of our day
and all the man-centered pessimism of our day
and all the man-centered religiousism of our day
and all the man-centered optimism of our day
now what am I saying when I say all that?
have you ever considered that we live in a very pessimistic world?
you switch on your news and your television screen
and the likelihood is that there will be at least one slot in it
in which you find wars and rumors of wars
and hungry naked little children
and dead slaughtered bodies around the world
and you hear of it day by day
and the world is gloomy, how can people do that one to another?
what's wrong with the world?
well if we would read the Bible we would soon find out what's wrong with the world
the Bible explains to us what lies behind those poor little starving children
and men and armies fighting one another and slaughtering one another
and man's inhumanity to man
the Bible explains it all
we're living in a very pessimistic world
and why is the world so pessimistic?
why is it that there are politicians throughout the world
and philosophers in our centers of learning
and those wise thinkers of our age
why is it that they're gloomy as they look into the future?
because what do they see?
they see increasing problems
they see increasing pollution
and all the rest of it, I won't go into it
I won't give you a diatribe on all the glooms
all the sort of gloomy forecasts
but why are they so pessimistic?
they are so pessimistic because they don't look into the Bible
and see the hope for this world that the Bible speaks about
and then on the other hand there are those who are so optimistic
not so long ago, you perhaps remember
a very famous Australian Prime Minister
said that by the year 2000 there'd be no hungry children in Australia
you see he was demonstrated to be a false prophet
optimistic, we'll sort your problems
no they won't, they won't solve the problems
until the end of time there's going to be wars and rumors of wars
why do I believe that?
I believe because the Bible says so
you see our Christian faith is the rejection
of a world view that is centered on other things from the Bible
and our Christian faith is faith based upon what the Bible says
and the great confusion, and I'm conscious of the passing of time
the great confusions of our day are based upon
even in the church, are based upon
the presupposition that the Bible does not give us final directives
as to what to believe, how to live, how to worship
what kind of God God is, what kind of God is
we'll deal with that next session
you see, Christian faith is based
not upon feelings or experiences
principally, it's based upon facts
and we are moving away in the church in many areas
moving away from the objective revelation
that God has given to the subjective experience
that's why charismatic writers today say
who cares for the creed when you've had the experience
that's the way they speak, that's how they write
and that's what all these TV evangelists with their fancy sermons
and their false doctrines, and their false miracles
they're moving away from the Bible
back to the old man centered religion
me, my feelings, my world view
do you feel happy with it, does it feel right
that's the whole philosophy that is governing us today
and that philosophy says no to the Bible
because we come with a message written down in the Bible
and then turn from it
there's something about the message of the Bible that inherently they just do not like
and so there's nothing new in the Christian church contending for the faith
but where is the issue of contention
the issue in the church today is not the issue of how to administer baptism
or whether women should wear hats or not in church
or whether clergymen should be, that's not the issue
the issue is what is our understanding as to the very nature
and identity of the writings contained in this book that we call the Bible
what actually is it that we are handling when we handle this book
and read those words, what actually are we looking at
and the Bible is very clear
despite what men will say, Voltaire said
before he died
and he died a terrible death according to the nurse who attended his death
she says I never want to attend another death bed thing like that
he was sweating and he was moaning and he was going because he was an atheist
well there are no true atheists
but he knew that death was coming and he knew in some way that death wasn't the end
but he said that within a hundred years, I think it was a hundred years he said
there'll be no more Bibles in the world
because the age of enlightenment in which he lived was going to once and for all demonstrate that all this
believing in God, believing that it was all bangkum
no God, no Bible, no resurrection, no heaven, no hell
materialism rules
he was like Jehoiachin
seeking to destroy the word of God
I'm told by the way in a humorous little anecdote
I have been told, I don't know if it's true or not
but I have heard that many of his own books dealing with philosophy
were selling and so they were popped up and Bibles were made out of them
I don't know whether that's right or wrong but if it is true, I like it
and if it's not true, well it's a good story anyway
because it makes the point I think that it's worth making
you see Jeremiah and Baruch were commanded to speak again and write again
and God added even more words than previously in Jehoiachin
thy word shall not depart
my word shall not depart out of my mouth it shall always accomplish that which I please
and God will not allow men to dismiss his Bible as an irrelevancy
he will not allow his word to be taken from the face of the earth
the church is to contend, today I quote to you as Christian
we have a certain standard to raise up
and the standard is not denominationalism
women in the ministry or in the eldership or deaconate
or church administration
the great issue today is what does the Bible say on certain issues
and are we convinced and clear in our mind that what the Bible says God says
that is what the issue is facing the church today
there are many who say no, what the Bible says God does not say
and God can speak to me apart from the Bible
but if you and I understand the Bible our right as Christ says
the word of God and the scripture are the two and the one thing
and God has nothing to say to us apart from what is written in scripture
and what is written in the Bible is God saying to us
his view, his opinion, his requirements, his warnings
we are in a day for the battle for the Bible
now I'm going to stop at that point, it's half past ten
that's just a sort of overview
a foundation of stone has been laid, that's all
that's all, we're going to look at more detail in the following five addresses, God willing
thank you, thank you for your attention