Lon Solomon Ministries
The Reliability of the Bible Part 1
fall in. I said fall in you slimy words. Put your toes on the edge of the top line. No, Tim. Put. I don't believe what I'm seeing. You're not worthy enough to look your superiors in the eye. Understand. Yes, sir. Every time I say understand, I want the whole group to say yes, sir. Understand. Yes, sir. Understand. Yes, sir. Understand. Yes, sir. Ah, boot camp. What wonderful memories. For many of us here, boot camp brings back all kinds of bad memories. Most people hate boot camp. That is until they go into real combat. And it's amazing how a soldier, how many soldiers change their attitude towards boot camp when suddenly the bullets start whizzing, because that's when they suddenly realize that the lessons they learn in boot camp, the basics they learn in boot camp, is what kept them from becoming a casualty out in the real world of combat. Now friends, what's really interesting when we look in the Bible is how often in the Bible we as followers of Jesus Christ are referred to as soldiers, and how often the Christian experience that we live out as followers of Jesus Christ is referred to as warfare, combat, and friends just as in every other kind of combat, so too in spiritual combat, there are casualties. And I say, what do you mean? I mean, what are you talking about? Spiritual casualties. Well, by talking about spiritual casualties, what I mean is not that we in life have trouble in difficulty and trials and tragedies happen. Oh no, what I mean is that in the midst of living life that we make choices, we make decisions, we make actions that cause us to embarrass ourselves and our families, cause us to disgrace ourselves and our families, and cause us to bring consequences that are painful and disastrous on ourselves and our families. This is what I mean by being a casualty in spiritual combat. When David did his deal with Bathsheba, he became a spiritual casualty. When Cain did his thing with Abel, he became a spiritual casualty. When Judas did his thing with Jesus, he became a spiritual casualty. Friends, God does not want you to become a spiritual casualty. I don't want you to either. And what I've learned in over 20 years of being a pastor now is that most people, in fact to the almost everybody I've ever seen or heard of who became a spiritual casualty did so for one reason. It wasn't because they didn't understand how many angels fit on the head of a pin. It wasn't because they couldn't explain what the seven seals in the book of Revelation meant. Oh no, people who end up as spiritual casualties end up there because of their failure to execute the basics well. Things like Bible study, things like prayer, things like walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, things like resisting temptation in the power of the Spirit, things like obeying God and living under the lordship of Jesus Christ. The basic stuff is what results in us ending up as casualties. And so I want to start today a new series, a short little series entitled spiritual boot camp. And what I want us to do in this series is I want us to go back and go over some basics, some of the very elementary skills and pieces of information that you and I need to know in order to be able to navigate our ship through this thing called life and dock it without a bunch of holes in the side. We have grown so much as a church family over the last four or five years that this summer when I was praying about what we should do when I came back for break, I thought you know what, we really need a few weeks of just going back and reviewing the basics to make sure everybody who's come in here from every different which away and when we all know where we're going and we all know where we stand. So that's what we're going to do. And we want to start today by talking about the reliability of the Bible. I did this series 14 years ago or a series similar to it when we were meeting at Langley High School. How many of you were physically here and heard the series originally? Uh huh, okay that's why we're doing this again. Because once every 14 years is not too often to review the basics. So hang on, we're going to have fun doing this and we're going to learn a lot of really important information to protect and insulate your life from becoming a casualty of war. Now you say, Lon, I understand what you're doing here and but my question is, why are we starting with the Bible? I mean, why don't we start with God? Why don't we start with Jesus? Why don't we start with the creation of the world or the origin of man or the plan of salvation or what Jesus did on the cross? Why are we starting with the Bible? And the answer is very simple my friends. The answer is that everything we know about God, everything we know about Jesus and about the creation of the world and about God's plan for how to get us to heaven, everything we know about all those subjects, guess what? It all comes out of the Bible. If the Bible is not absolutely reliable, then friends we have no real assurance about God, no real understanding about what's on the other side of the grave, and no real assurance about eternity at all. At least we're not sure we have it because we're not sure the Bible's true. Friends, the reliability of the Bible is ground zero for the Christian faith and so it behooves us to start right here to demonstrate to all our satisfaction that this book and what it says about every subject that it covers is absolutely reliable and that's what we want to do over the next couple of weeks. So here we go. Let's start. We want you to take a Bible and let's open it together to 2 Timothy chapter 3. 2 Timothy chapter 3, if you didn't bring a Bible today, please borrow our copy of the Bible. You'll find it on the back of the seat in front of you. We're going to be on page 843 page, 843 of our copy, 2 Timothy chapter 3 in your copy. Before we start talking about whether or not the Bible is reliable, why don't we talk first about what it is that the Bible claims to be? Because I think that even among people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, there is some very disturbing confusion about this. There is some waffling about this that is really scary. So let's make sure we understand first what the Bible claims to be. 2 Timothy chapter 3, look at verse 16. 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16. All scripture the Bible says is some versions will translate it inspired. The NIV translates it is God breathed. Now what does it mean to say that the Bible is the inspired God breathed word of God? Well, first of all, let me tell you what it doesn't mean. When we say the Bible is inspired, we do not mean first of all, that the Bible is the result of some superhuman achievement of man. You know, we say Beethoven was inspired when he wrote his symphonies. Shakespeare was inspired when he wrote Hamlet. Now I don't think so, I think Hamlet's kind of stupid myself, but a lot of people really love this thing and they say he was inspired when he wrote this thing. That's not what we're talking about here. We're not talking about some man or woman rising to some enormous level of human profundity and writing the Bible. It's not what we're talking about. Second of all, we're not talking about, when we say the Bible is inspired, about God giving the writers of the Bible the general idea, the broad concept, and then letting the people who wrote the Bible just kind of write it down and flesh it out for themselves. So the Bible says Exodus 24 verse 4 that Moses wrote down the words that the Lord spoke to him. And Jesus said, Matthew chapter 24, my words will never pass away. He didn't say my general concepts will never pass away. He didn't say Moses wrote down the general concepts that God gave him, but the words, inspiration friends, goes beyond the broad concepts of the Bible. And inspiration involves each and every word in the Bible. And third and finally, when we talk about inspiration, we are not talking about God inspiring me as I read the Bible. See, there's a lot of theologians around the day who will say that God's work in inspiration was not that God produced a perfect book, but rather that when I pick up this imperfect book and I read it, God zaps a verse to me. God inspires a verse to me. I read a verse and I go, wow, look at that. I'll get a shiver down my backbone. And then, okay, God just inspired that verse to me. But the danger of that view is they will also say that doesn't mean when anybody else reads the verse, God inspires it to them, which means the verses of the Bible have no real universal authority. They only have authority for the people God inspires it to. That isn't what the Bible says. Look right here, 2 Timothy 3, 16, all scripture is inspired. Is God breathed not just the ones that give you goosebumps, okay? So you say, well, if long, if that's not what inspiration means, what does it mean? Well, I'll tell you. The answer is found right here in the Word, God breathed. All scripture is God breathed, meaning that the exact words that God wanted written in the Bible, God breathed those very words through the writers of the Bible and down onto the paper that the Bible was written on. 2 Peter, chapter 1, verse 20. Peter said, no part of scripture ever came about by the writer's own origination. They never came out of the writer's own mind, the writer's own imagination. But look at this, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. When these men were in the process of writing the Bible, Peter tells us, God enveloped them in a supernatural spiritual condition. A spiritual condition called in the Bible being carried along by the Holy Spirit. And you say, well, long, what did that look like? What were they like? Were they like in a twilight zone? Were they like in a trance? Friends, I don't know. Nobody knows. We have no idea exactly what this spiritual condition looked like, but what we do know is what the result was. And the result was this book that we call the B-I-B-L-E. When they were done writing it, they had written down the exact words God wanted written. And so let's summarize. What have we learned so far? Inspiration means that God caused the exact words He wanted to be written down on the pages of the Bible. Inspiration means that if Jesus Christ Himself had sat down at a desk in Nazareth and personally written every word in the Bible, what we would have from the hand of Jesus is exactly what we have today because, oh, by the way, Jesus did write the Bible. It's just He wrote it through the instrumentation of human beings. Now, there's one other thing about this that we need to add, and that is that the Bible not only claims to be inspired, it also claims to be inherent, meaning that there are no errors in it, period. Psalms 19, verse 7, "The law of the Lord is perfect." And this makes sense because if a perfect God writes a book, what would we expect the book to look like except to be a perfect, flawless book? A perfect God can't write a messed up book, makes no sense. And so friends, inerrancy means that the Bible, even though it's not a history book, it's not a geology book, it's not a geometry book, it's not an astronomy book, it's not a history book, but nonetheless when the Bible speaks to issues of geography, geology, science, astronomy, cosmology, history, as well as to issues of religion, the Bible is right. You say, when I law and you know, modern science doesn't agree that the Bible is right about all these things, I know. But when I'm telling you is that inerrancy demands, we put our confidence in what the Bible says and let science catch up. Now, John Wesley commented on this, you know, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, he'd roll over in his grave today if he could see what some of his followers are teaching, but here's what John Wesley said. He said, and I quote, "If there be any mistakes in the Bible, there may as well be a thousand. If there is one falsehood in that book, it did not come from the God of truth." End of quote. And folks, inerrancy is the linchpin of biblical Christianity, John Wesley understood that. He understood, robbed the Bible of inerrancy and all of what we call Christianity crumbles, because if the story of Jonah and the fish isn't true, then how can we be sure that the story of the resurrection of Jesus was true? If what the Bible says about Adam and Eve is wrong, how do we know that what the Bible says about heaven and hell isn't wrong? Inerrancy is the linchpin of biblical Christianity. You say, "Well, on, I hear what you're saying. I do." But you know, I mean, aren't you reading an awful lot into one word? I mean, you pulled all that out of one word. I mean, you're trying to make one word walk on all fours here, son. Do you really, I mean, does anybody else, any other place in the Bible who support that? Yes, it does. And I want to show you very, very strongly that Jesus himself saw the Bible exactly the same way we're describing. Flip back, if you would with me, to the first book in the New Testament, the Gospel according to Matthew, Matthew chapter 22. If you're using our copy of the Bible, it's page 699, page 699 in our copy, Matthew 22. And here in Matthew chapter 22, a group of religious leaders in Israel come to Jesus. They come to Jesus with a Bible stumper for him. Their name were Sadducees. This was a very prestigious religious group, mostly rabbis and priests. And they come to Jesus, verse 23. And the Bible tells us that this was a sect of people who say that there is no resurrection, no life after the grave, no afterlife, no heaven, no nothing. It's just fade to black, blow the candle out. That's it. And they come to Jesus and they got a question. Here's their question. Teacher, they say. Moses told us, verse 24, that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him. This comes out of the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 25, where an ordinance for Israel was, if you had a brother and your brother died and had no children, you were to take your brother's widow and give her children so that your brother's name would not perish from the face of the earth. That's what they're talking about. So they say, here comes our stumper. There were seven brothers among us. And the first one married this lady and died and he had no children by her, so he left his wife to his brother. And the same thing happened to brother number two. He married the woman, had no children, he died. And then to number three, married the woman, had no children. He died all the way down to number seven. All seven married to her, had no children. All seven brothers died. Finally, the woman died. Man, talk about a woman with bad karma. I mean, I wouldn't marry this woman in the afterlife. You understand what I'm saying? Can you imagine being brother number seven and seeing this thing heading your way? Man, I changed my name. That's all I got to say. So anyway, that, and here comes their question. Here it is, Bible stumper, verse 28, now, at the resurrection in heaven, in the afterlife, whose wife will she be? Which one of the seven gets her? Because she was married to all of them. And they thought they really had him. Well, I love what Jesus did. He did two things. First, he answered the question that they asked. And then he went on to answer the question they didn't ask, but they should have asked, which is, is our view of the afterlife correct? Is it really just fade to black? Is it really just blow the candle out and you're gone? That's the question they should have asked. We answered that too. Watch. First the question they asked. Jesus said, verse 29, you are in error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God. Can you imagine telling these guys this? These are the rabbis of Israel. The leaders of the country said, you guys don't know the Bible and you don't know the power of God. You don't know anything. And he says to him, because here's the answer, at the resurrection, in the afterlife, in heaven, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. They'll be like the angels in heaven. There's your answer. See, angels, they don't marry. There's no sex in heaven. There's no procreation in heaven because angels don't die. You don't need to make new baby angels because the big ones don't die. And so Jesus said, in heaven, we're going to be just like the angels. There's not going to be any marriage. There's not going to be any procreation. There's not going to be any sex. There's not going to be any romance. It's not going to be any dating because we're not going to die either. There's not going to be any need to reproduce to keep the human race going. So the answer to your question is, whose wife will she be in heaven? Answer, nobody's. There's not going to be anybody's wife. Now he goes on to answer the question they should have asked. He says, verse 31, "But about the resurrection from the dead, about your view of the afterlife, let me tell you this. Did you not read what God said in the Bible? Where God said, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." You say, Lon, I don't get it. How does that in any way answer their issue? Well, now think about it. Do you know when God said, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? He said it to Moses from the burning bush. Now here's the issue. When God said, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to Moses, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead for 500 years or more. They'd been in the grave for 500 years or more. And so God didn't say, I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They're dead. They're gone. They're blown out like a candle. So I was there, God. What did God say? Five hundred years after those people's bodies went in the grave, God said, I still am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Why? Because Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still alive. They're still living in the afterlife with me. God is not the God of the dead. These people aren't dead. Jesus said 500 years later. They're still alive. That's why God used the present tense instead of the past. I still am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And when the crowd heard this for a 33, they were amazed at his teaching, astonished. Jesus said, of course there's an afterlife. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were there 500 years later in the afterlife. That's why God used the present tense. Of course there's an afterlife. What's wrong with you people? My safety is that if you're here and you've never trusted Jesus in a real and personal way, that this is important information for you to have. Because there's a lot of people in our world today that are modern Sadducees. They want you to believe there's nothing on the other side of the grave. No continued life. No settling of accounts. No nothing. You just fade to dark. You're gone. Well, I'm here to tell you that Jesus said that's not the way it is at all. If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were still alive 500 years later, guess what? You're going to be too. And smart people who know that, they don't try to ignore that information. They try to take advantage of that information to get prepared for the afterlife, to make sure they're ready to go into the afterlife. Friends, that's why Jesus came and died on the cross, is so you and I could be ready so we could have the assurance to face the afterlife without fear, with confidence. If you're here and you've never trusted Jesus in a real and personal way, don't be silly. Jesus said you're going to be alive. Don't ignore that. Get ready for it. Make sure you're prepared. Something to think about. Now, for those of us who've already done that, for our purposes this morning, what we're really interested in here is the way Jesus regarded the Bible. What God had said to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, would you notice that in teaching on the afterlife, Jesus faced his entire theological position, his whole argument on the afterlife, on the tenths of the verb. He has no argument if the verb is past tense. It's only because the verb was present tense. Do you see that? In other words, Jesus believed that God not only breathed every word in the Bible, Jesus believed that God breathed every tenths of every word in the Bible. And down to the very deepest level imaginable, Jesus accepted the fact that even the tenths of the verb were from God and were authoritative. And you could base theological understanding on them. Jesus staked his entire credibility as the Son of God on the fact that the Bible is utterly true down to the minutest detail, even the tenths of the verbs. And let me tell you why that's important. It's important because if you and I are followers of Jesus Christ, and if we believe that Jesus was God himself wrapped in human flesh who knew everything about everything in the universe because he's God, then friends, if this is how Jesus regarded the Bible, as the inspired and errant word of God down to the very tenths of the verbs, then I maintain that if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, there is no room for you and me to regard the Bible any other way. There's no room to waffle on this. No room to fudge on this is how Jesus saw the Bible. This is how you and me have to see the Bible. So if you've got a Bible teacher who regards it differently than Jesus did, my suggestion to you is get a new Bible teacher. If you've got a book you're reading along with the Bible to comment on it that regards the inerrancy of the Scripture differently than Jesus, my advice to you is get a new commentary. But friends, there is no room to go anywhere on this as followers of Christ, but where Jesus went, this is the inspired and errant word of God down to the deepest imaginable level. They say, "Well, so what you're asking me to do is to accept the Bible as the inspired word of God." Right? Right. What you're asking me to do is accept the fact that even in the face of scientific disagreement, the Bible is an errant in everything it says. Right? Right. You're asking me to base my entire eternal destiny on the fact this book is utterly reliable, right? Right. You say, "Well, not long." Is there any proof you've got? I mean, I know what the Bible says about itself, but is there any external proof, any external verification that you can give me that will give me the confidence the Bible really stands the test, the Bible really is what it claims to be absolutely, and if you come next week, that's exactly what we're going to do. No, there is, because I'm out of time. I don't have any more time to do it this week, but that's what we're going to do next week. Next week, the whole message is going to be about giving you external verification to shore up your confidence, shore up your trustworthiness in the veracity and the truthfulness of the word of God. Over the next two weeks, I want you to walk out of here with a deeper trust, a deeper confidence in the Bible than you walked in here with today. That's what we're going to do next week. But before we quit, we have one very important question to ask, and you know what it is. We're talking about bootcamp. So you got to get ready to do this now. Ready? Take a deep breath. One, two, three. All right. That was awesome. That's great. Now, you say, "Long, so what?" You know, I heard what you said. We just done a great theological study. We understand the inspiration of the Bible, but I'm not a theologian, Lon. What difference does this make to me Monday to Saturday? In my life, the fact that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Well, let me see if I can explain that to you in a couple minutes I got left. You know, I was out at Hume Lake. This Hume Lake Christian camps this past summer speaking. It's up in the Sierra Nevada. It's about 6,000 feet just near Fresno, California. Man, I'll tell you, on a really humid day, it's about 18% relative humidity up there. I thought about you guys all summer. Not yet. I'd get the paper. I'd read about the weather back in Washington in mid-July, and I'd sit out there on the deck, and I'd go, "God bless those wonderful people." But you know another great thing about Hume Lake is the stars. See, there's no lights up there. It's not like here with all this light pollution. And you, I've never seen stars like this before. And one night after one of the meetings, my friend Dan McKinnon and I were walking back to our rooms together and looking at the stars. And he's an old Navy guy, and he said to me, "Do you know how to find the North Star?" And I went, "No." And he showed me about the big dipper and how to find this thing. And I said to him, "Well, Dan, you know, I've always wanted to ask somebody about this. What is the big wolf about the North Star?" I mean, I don't understand what is the big deal about this star. And he said, "Oh, if you're anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere and you're lost, you look up and find the North Star, and wherever it is, that's due North. So it keeps you from getting completely turned around, getting completely disoriented, getting yourself into a disaster. You can always find the true North if you can find the North Star." I thought, "Well, what happens if it's cloudy?" But then I didn't want to ask that. So I thought, "Okay, well, we won't go there." But the point is, that was pretty cool information. So I went back to my room and I was getting ready for bed and I thought, "You know, isn't it true that in life everybody needs a North Star?" I mean, isn't it true that in all the information coming our way, the confusion coming our way, isn't it true that in all of the disorientation that this world is dealing with, isn't it true that we need something, that when we look at it, we can always identify which way true North is, that we can stay on course, stay off the rocks, keep from stepping on the landmines. And friends, that's what the Bible is. God gave us the Bible for three reasons. Number one, to tell us is the human race, how we got in trouble. Number two, to tell us is the human race, how Jesus thought on the cross to get us out of trouble. And number three, then to give those of us who decide to follow Jesus, a road map, a navigating tool so we don't punch holes in the side of our boat and sink before we get to the harbor. That's what the Bible is for. And it seems to me that if you and I will make the Bible our North Star, if you and I will make the Bible the road map, the set of directions for our life, that this would be the wisest decision you'll ever make. Friends, I maintain that if you make the Bible your North Star and your road map, you may have trouble in life, you may have difficulty in life, you may even face tragedy in life, but you can get through all of those and dock without holes in your boat if you'll keep the Bible as your North Star. It'll keep you on track. It'll keep you from getting disoriented. It'll keep you headed towards true North. That's why Psalm 19 says this, look what it says. It says the law of the Lord as found in the Bible is perfect, reviving the soul, the statutes of the Lord as found in the Bible are trustworthy making wise the simple, the precepts of the Lord as found in the Bible are right, giving joy to the heart, the commands of the Lord as found in the Bible are radiant given light to the eyes, the fear of the Lord as described to us in the Bible is pure enduring forever. The ordinances of the Lord recorded in the Bible are sure and all together righteous, verse 11, by them. God's ordinances, God's precepts, God's commands, God's statutes recorded in the Bible by them, your servant is warned, warned about what? Well, warned about where the landmines are, warned about where the alligators are, warned about where the rocks are on the side of the channel. And by keeping them, look at this, in keeping them, there is great reward. What's the soul what of what we've learned today, the soul what is friends, that if you and I will make the Bible the authority for what we do in life, the choices we make, the decisions we make, the worldview we have, not what Madison Avenue tells you, not what some professor in some university tells you, not what the media tells you, and not even what you feel like doing. But if you will make what God says in the Bible, the road map for your life, I maintain it is impossible and I'll say that categorically, it is impossible for you to become a spiritual casualty. You cannot, you may have trouble, but you will not be a casualty if you will make the Bible the road map for your life. And everybody I've ever met or heard of that got shot out the saddle as a spiritual casualty. You know what, you can trace it back to some area of their life where they decided to make something else the road map for their life than what God said, never seen it any different. So that's why God gave us the Bible, one of the reasons, and this is what God wants you to walk away with today, the so what, Monday to Saturday, take this book, make it the North Star, make it the road map, make decisions based on what it tells you, not what you feel like doing. And I'm telling you, you'll pull in with the Apostle Paul and be able to say, I fought the fight, I ran the race, I finished the course, and look, I've got no holes in the boat, and now is laid up for me a crown in heaven. I didn't self-destruct because I had the right road map. That's what he said to Joshua, let's read this in closing, Joshua chapter 1, verse 7, Be careful to obey all the law that my servant Moses gave you from me. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, Joshua. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do, not just to read, but to do everything written in the Bible because then look at this, you will be prosperous and then you will have good success. You make this book, you're a north star, my friends, and you will never, ever go wrong. You can't. May God help us do that in the spring. Lord Jesus, thanks for talking to us today, and you know, you know the real state of every one of us here. You know there are lots of us here, Lord, who even though we've committed our life to you. There are areas of our life that we are not running with the Bible as our north star. Areas of our life where we've made a decision to do it some other way than you tell us. And my prayer is that you would grab a hold of us today and impress upon us the authority of this book, The Inspired Word of God, to the degree that we would be willing to go back to these areas of our lives and make course correction to bring them into conformity with the authoritative Word of God. Lord, thanks for giving us the Bible as our north star. Help us use it that way. Give us the wisdom to bow our lives in surrender under the authority of the precepts and teachings that you give us in this book because that's our defense against the rocks, the land minds and the alligators. Help us use it, God. Make us wise. And we pray these things in Jesus name Amen. All right, fall out. God bless you. [BLANK_AUDIO]