Answers In Genesis - Sunday School - Week 3

Good morning. How's everybody doing? Case you can get some coffee if you want. hope you guys had a great week.

In the Lord, we're gonna have a good time this morning, but let's go ahead and pray before we get into the lesson. Lord, we're just, so thankful for the life that you've given us. Every breath that we breathe comes from You, every heartbeat. All of the food that we enjoy.

The friendship, the family, Lord, especially just forgiveness of sins. guilt that has been sent away, because of our Savior Jesus Christ. We thank you that we can have a relationship with you, our God, and call you Father and not just Judge. we ask, Lord, that You would just guide us this morning.

As we look at your word, we thank you that your word does guide us in the truth. And that while we are finite and feeble and prone to error, prone to wonder, we know that as we look at your word and trust your word, that you will be faithful to guide your people. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

All righty. We're gonna, be answering the question behind me, this morning. Is there anything God can't do? You don't necessarily have to answer that right now, but, we are gonna attempt to answer that and for some very good reasons.

this is part of our adult equipment school. We've been doing. The adult equipment school, I think since like '98 or 99, something like that, where we offer a rotation of classes to try to equip our people to basically, we want the purpose is to train our families how to know, live and speak God's word for His glory. So, we want to know God's word, we want to be able to live it, and we're hoping that you'll be able to be more and more equipped to speak it.

this particular class that we're offering up through. I think December is called We Can Trust the Bible out of the Answers Bible Curriculum. And the lesson we're gonna be looking at this morning is God's word guides us. last week, we looked at studying the Bible.

We kicked off the class with God's word as our foundation. And, so this whole class is, is focused on basically what we would call bibliology. We're starting off with our foundation. How is it that we know that the Bible is a good foundation?

we're gonna do a little bit of review, just a little bit of background, and then we're gonna ask the question, what is impossible for God? What is it that God can't do? so, let's just do a little bit of review from the last couple of weeks. what do we mean when we say that the scripture, is sufficient?

What do we mean by that? God Good. Everything that God wants us to know about him is in the scriptures. Good.

At least for salvation, right? All the main issues. can we know some things about God outside of the Bible? Yeah, yeah, God has revealed certain things about Himself in nature.

But we would say that nature is not sufficient to bring us to salvation. I can look at the stars, the sun, the moon, I can go off into the forest and investigate all of the wonders of the universe. I'm never gonna come to the conclusion that Jesus Christ died for my sins, just by looking at nature, right? But the Bible is sufficient from the standpoint that it answers the big worldview questions in life.

Why are we here? Where are we going? What's wrong with the world? How can we fix it?

How can I be saved? Those are the big questions in life and the Bible is sufficient to help us with those big questions. When we say sufficiency, we don't mean that the Bible is gonna help you with your dental problems or how to fix your car, right? What we do mean is that the Bible, that if all you had was your Bible, It would be sufficient to guide you in everything that you need to be saved and go to heaven and live your life here on earth, right?

So you don't have to be Here's where this doctrine can be very encouraging. If God could have set up a system where in order for people to get saved, they needed to study every single religion in the world, had to travel all around the world. If he had just imagined God had hidden his truth all around the world like special diamonds, the kids, they play these video games these days, and you got to travel to every single land and collect the key, right? In order to open some door or something like that.

What if God had left salvation? There was a little bit of truth in this religion, a little bit of truth in that religious text, and you had to travel to India, and you had to travel to Papua New Guinea and all around the world collecting all these truths, and once you assembled all of the keys, then you could be saved. If that were true, the only people that could be saved are people that are rich enough to travel all around the world, study all the different languages, so you'd have to be really smart and really rich.

But the way God has made it is the very simple truths of the gospel are right in the Bible, and it's sufficient to save us and guide us in life.

That's what we mean by sufficiency. What about, what is hermeneutics? And you can just shout it out. OK, good.

The process of understanding what scripture says. Good. Anybody else? Good, good interpreting the Bible.

In light of the Bible, good. So, basic rules for interpretation. what do we mean when we say we read the Bible literally? Yeah, Joe When appropriate Underst Great, great, yeah.

So Joe's saying not, we're not imposing allegory or spiritual understanding on the text when it's meant to be taken naturally. David's saying just take it in natural sense. If it's meant to be historical, it's, if it's meant to be an epistle, if it's meant to be poetry, we take it in that way. when people sometimes scoff at the idea of a literal approach, interpretation, they're scoffing.

Particularly at parts of the Bible that they think are just ridiculous, like Jonah being swallowed by a whale, how in the world can a flood cover the whole earth? How can you have the sun standing still? Clearly, these are meant to be spiritual, spiritual, spiritually interpreted, right? We would say, let's look at what the genre is and read it accordingly, OK?

Let's see, what else did we do? According to last week, is this the right interpretive formula? Right meaning equals Holy Spirit plus original author to me. Is that the right formula that we're suggesting?

Or is there anything missing? Original audience is missing, yeah. So the Holy Spirit, God breathes out through the, right, the original author onto the text, but there's an original audience that we're considering, and then it comes to me. yeah, I was talking to a guy at UCR.

Raise your hand if you went to UCR this week to pass out tracks or do some witnessing. Oh, you were at UCR here all the time. yeah, so that was a lot of fun. We got to go out there for zero week and talk to a lot of students.

Jonathan Langley set it up. It was just a wonderful time. And. I was talking to a young student that was very, broad-minded, intelligent young man and was open to talk, and one of the things he was sharing with me is how that he's convinced that the Bible is just from men because you have things in the Bible that we clearly just don't practice anymore like, there's things about, not shaving your beard in a certain way, not, certain sacrifices and other, other laws.

And so I just asked him, I said, well, who, who's the original audience of that particular section? And I said, if I wrote a letter to my wife asking her to pick up milk and it was intercepted by two other people before it got to my wife, would I be mad at those other people for not getting me the milk? And he's like, well, maybe. I said, no, if I wrote a letter to my wife saying, could you please pick up milk, she's the intended audience and so I'm not expecting anybody else to get milk except for my wife.

Similarly, a lot of these passages that we're reading in Leviticus and so on and so forth, this is part of Israel's national constitution, right? You would enforce the Constitution of Israel in the United States, would you? unless the Bible clearly said that this Constitution of Israel is to be enforced on every nation, which we, I don't believe we get that. And so, anyway, so you have to take into account the original audience as we're interpreting these various passages, right?

Otherwise you will come up with wacky misunderstandings and even supposedly you would see contradictions. what is ex of Jesus? What is I of Jesus? Which one do we like?

Which one do we prefer, ex of Jesus or I of Jesus? Acts of Jesus, right? We wanna try to pull out of the text what God had intended the author to write to the original audience with the appropriate applications to us. Isa Jesus.

I was talking to another gal at UCR this week. She's, her major is, gender studies, and she was, in her, in her major, she's reading the Bible. She's looking for information in the Bible that would support her particular view of gender studies, which means a rejection of the bin binary system, right? Do you guys know what the binary system is?

The idea that we need to force everybody into male and female, she says that's unnatural. It's unnatural that, that you have to think of everybody in this category of male and female. And so she's reading the Bible. she's looking at all of nature and, and history and science and everything else, but when she comes to the Bible, they're trying to read the Bible in an anti-binary sense, right?

So what can they find in the Bible that either proves that the Christian worldvie is to be rejected because of its binary approach, or is there hints of a nonbinary approach to the scriptures. Right, that's eye of Jesus. You're just opening up the Bible, looking for an anti-binary bias. last week we talked about application.

So we said as, and this is a, a suggested, approach every time you read the Bible is that you're looking for the particular teachings, and you don't just stop with the teachings, but then you allow the teachings to reprove us. And we reprove each other in community, but then we don't just leave each other like, oh, I'm so messed up. Then we try to correct, right? We correct each other, try to fix, mend the wounds, and as we continually do this over and over and over again, we get trained in righteousness.

All right. So this is the application. Approach that we suggested last week. Final review question, what do the letters OIA have to do with last week's lesson?

OIA. Good. Observe, interpret and apply. So, many of you, I'm sure have heard this through various Bible methods, but this is, this is what we're suggesting.

This is the, a literal approach, inductive Bible study as we, we observe the text, we're trying to read it, ask questions of it, who, what, when, where, why, how, right? Then we make interpretive decisions about the text based upon our hermeneutical presuppositions, literal approach, considering the genre, genre, considering the original author, original audience. if you were to take, we offered a course a while back on in hermeneutics. And you can actually go online, see RC Sproll does a really good job with his stuff on Knowing Scripture where he does like a, I think it's like a 7 or 8 week class on hermeneutics where you get into some of the particulars like how do if something's cultural or normative, how do you approach parables, how do you approach like psalms and poetry?

How about things like proverbs or couplets? How should you approach that stuff, historical narrative and so on. so there's, if this were a hermeneutics class, we could get more detailed into that, but hopefully, we're gonna be hitting you guys with hermeneutical principles all throughout. So observe, interpret, and then apply.

We're suggesting following the 2 Timothy 3:16. In 17 model, right? Doctrine, reproof, correction, training and righteousness. Any questions at all about anything we've done up to this point?

Questions, comments, criticisms. Or concerns Now, does anybody need coffee? Lots of coffee back there. Are the lights making you guys tired?

No, are you guys cool? OK. Do we need to do some jumping jacks or? We're good.

OK. All right, so let's talk about just one background question. How do we know the Bible is from God and therefore worthy to be trusted as our guide? This is the question we're going to try to answer.

This is a huge question. This is the question that came up at UCR over and over and over again. How do we know that the Bible is really from God and it's to be trusted? The vast majority of students that I talked to, even students that said they were Christians, said that they did not believe that the Bible was completely from God.

It was partially written by man. Probably a lot of stuff's lost in translation. And there really is, there are no absolutes. The only, the best we can do is what's absolute for you.

I love the survey. I, I don't know who created the surveys, but the very first question that you asked students that walked up is you said, what's 2 + 2, and they say 4, and then you say, do you believe that absolutely? And they say yes. And then the second question is, do you believe in any absolutes?

And then they almost always said no. And then they're like, wait a second. And so then we talk about absolutes. How do if something's absolute or not?

Why do you believe 2 + 2 is 4, but you don't believe in absolutes? And so let me get into other questions. So anyway, this is a huge question. and, and for your Homework for the advanced students, I'm gonna encourage you guys to actually try to develop an answer to this question on your own.

but let's, let's approach it in a couple of different ways. Let's, let's, first of all, let's start by looking at 2 Peter. We're gonna look at 2 Peter chapter 1. And we're going to do some observe, interpret, apply, apply in this text.

2nd Peter. Peter John Jude Revelation. 2 Peter comes after. First Peter.

In case you didn't know. One Wait, I'm in 1 Peter OK, so let's, let's look at verse 19. And well, first, let's ask a couple of questions here. Who is the author, according to this book?

Peter OK, and if you look at verse one, To whom is he writing? Yes, Christians, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us, right? and what literature would you say this is? Yeah, it's a letter.

We call it an epistle. We call it an epistle just to say it's, it's a letter written by an apostle meant to give spiritual instruction and encouragement, right? And so, so it's an epistle. So what does Peter call the readers to heed?

Let's start, let's go ahead and read verse 1920, and 21. I'm reading from the New King James and so we have the prophetic word confirmed. Which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place. Until the day dawns, the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation.

For prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. one translation says we have a more sure prophetic word in verse 19. And so let's ask some questions of this text. What does Peter, tell his readers to heed, first of all.

In verse 19, Yeah, the prophetic word. So you have the prophetic word confirmed which you do well to heed or listen to or obey. What word or idea is repeated in this passage? What word or idea do you see happening?

Quite a bit Prophecy, yeah? Yes, we have prophetic word in verse 19, we have prophecy in 20, we have prophecy in 21. So there's a good chance that prophecy is a big theme right here, right? to what would readers equate the reference to prophecy?

So what we're asking is the original audience, when they hear the word prophecy, what do you think they're thinking about? What's, how are they interpreting that? Yeah, they're probably thinking about Old Testament passages, especially when we see that the way Peter is further expanding on the term in verse 20 he says, knowing this first that no prophecy of what? In verse 20, prophecy of scripture.

So the expanded term in, in verse 19, he says prophetic word. In 20, he says prophecy of scripture. So he's, he's talking about the prophetic words in scripture. At this time, the scriptures that are available to the believers or most available to believers is the Old Testament, right?

So, so we're, we're actually making an interpretation now. Probably more than just an observation. Who are the holy men of God? Verse 21.

Yeah, prophets, probably. So the prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke. so if it's true that we're talking about the prophecy of Scripture, i.e. Old Testament, and the holy men of God would seem to be the prophets of the Old Testament.

Does that make sense? OK, that seems like a legitimate interpretation to me. in verses 20 and 22, there's two untrue qualities of the prophecies that are given. What are they?

So, 20 and 21, let's go back to that. knowing this first, no prophecy of scripture is of any what? Private interpretation. I think some translations say private origin.

OK, and then, prophecy never came by what? The will of man. So it seems like, the two untrue qualities would be prophets did not record their personal ideas about God, so we're not just, they're not giving their own private interpretations, and the prophecies were not from their own human will, right? They're not just saying, here's my ideas, and it's all coming from the prophet himself.

Does that seem legit? So two things that are untrue. It's not just private interpretation. It's not just coming from their will.

were men involved in the writing of scripture. According to this, this passage, yeah, Mitch. Right. long.

Yeah. Right, yeah, yeah, I would say so. they would probably respond saying no, no, he got the plates from God and Muhammad, no, he was spoken to by Gabriel. Right.

Right, right. That's good. Were men involved in the writing of scripture according to this passage? Yeah, yes, they, yes, they were, no, say it again, yeah, holy men.

Yeah, so holy men of God spoke as they were moved. And I've already let the cat out of the bag, but how, how were they involved? Yeah, so they're being moved, by the Holy Spirit. It seems.

Was God involved in the writing of Scripture? Yes, how was God involved? Yeah, from God and so the Holy Spirit is the one that's doing the movie. So they're from God.

They're speaking from God. So. This is more getting into interpretation, but just the other day I was, I was explaining to someone or to our, one of our classes. That what you have here is, clearly human beings, prophets in this case, and God are both involved in the formulation of scripture.

And the Holy Spirit is moving them along. This term, the Greek behind this term is the same term that's used of wind that would move a ship, moving through the sails of a ship to move a ship. And so, the prophets are like the ship, and the wind is the Holy Spirit. So, the Holy Spirit fills the sails and the ship moves.

Clearly, the ship is moving. It's not just the wind, but it's wind that moves the ship. And so you have the Holy Spirit that is coming and moving individuals to prophesy, and then prophecies become scripture. So let's talk about some applications.

What are the sources of scripture? What does this passage reveal about the source of scripture? Where does the scripture come from? OK, it comes from God.

Does it only come from God? OK, so, yeah, there's a dual answer. It comes from God and man. We'll flesh that out a little more here in a second.

If the Holy Spirit is the primary mover and author of Scripture, would we expect it to contain errors? No, we wouldn't. So, even though human beings are involved, because God is primary, this verse is telling us that these aren't private, just private interpretations or origin from the originating from the prophets. It's ultimately not coming from the will of men.

It's ultimately, so primary in, in, in the in the process is the spirit. And so we would not expect errors to come from the spirit. And so what do you guys think the main point of this passage is? Based upon our observation and interpretation, what's the main point?

Yeah, we can trust the Bible. Why? It's OK. So God is the ultimate source.

God does use humans, but it's ultimately from God, so we can trust it. Scripture is not simply a product of man, but God through men, right? So this is This is part of the answer to our question is, can we really trust the Bible as a guide for life? From this passage, we would argue yes, because what the Bible is telling us about itself is that the prophetic word, when we talk about prophecy, we're talking about People being filled with thus says the Lord's speech, right?

In the most basic sense, prophecy is someone who speaks thus says the Lord, right? The Holy Spirit fills a person. They give words that come from the Lord, that have thus says the Lord value. That's why you see thus says the Lord over 2000 times, or something like that, something like that phrase in the Old Testament.

So, and then verse 20 tells us that what Peter's talking about is not just verbal prophecies that were forgotten, but these are verbal prophecies that came into scripture, right? They were written down. Knowing this, that no prophecy of scripture, the Greek word behind here, scriptures graphe. This is talking about holy writ.

So we are clearly talking about the Old Testament is of any private interpretation. This isn't like people reading it, interpreting it. This is people who are giving the prophecy itself. And so we have God speaking through holy men of God, moving them along like a ship, wind in a ship.

And so God's word can be trusted because it ultimately comes from God, not men. and so what we, what we call this is we call this the doctrine of inspiration. All right? In fact, we could talk about dual inspiration, the theory of dual authorship, dual authorship is, is the Bible was clearly produced through a product of God and man, God being the primary mover, but God using human beings to get his word out, all right?

So dual authorship theory of inspiration. When we say inspiration, do we mean inspiration like a poet gets inspired to write a poem? No, where John Lennon got inspired to write his songs. No.

We're talking about literally is God breathed out, he exhaled his word through the author onto the page of scripture, right? That's inspiration and it's the text itself that gets inspired and it's ultimately a product of God through this process of what we call dual authorship. Now, in the process of dual authorship, as you guys investigate the different prophets and the different writers of scripture, God, does God just give them automatic writing? Is that what happens?

God says, sit down, close your eyes, and I'm gonna automatically write through you? No, more often than not, that's not what we hear. What we'll see is God saying, go and speak to so and so, thus says the Lord. And then it gets put into scripture.

at times, he'll actually tell Jeremiah, sit down and write this. And so sometimes he will dictate, I want you to write this, but it's still happening through a very human process. And so we see in our, in our, in our doctrine of inspiration, The human personality is still maintained and yet God's will is established. And so you have a guy like John, whose first language is what?

The apostle John, what do you think his first language was? Greek or Hebrew? Hebrew. He's, he's a, he's a Jew.

And so his first language is Hebrew and so when he's writing in Greek, which he does in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John and the Gospel of John, his Greek is not overly complex. In fact, it's one of the reasons why new students of Greek, they start with 1 John. Why? Because it's very easy, relatively speaking, because he's not a native, Greek speaker and so he's giving you nice easy words, right?

So you're reading through first John in Greek and you feel so smart. Like, wow, I know Greek, right? No, Greek at the level that John knew Greek, right? But then they move you over to Luke, right?

And you start reading through the book of Acts or you're trying to read through the book of Luke and you have, I have no idea what's going on. You have no clue. Because this guy is a native Greek speaker, right? He's speaking more, he's not just speaking Coin Greek, he's speaking more of an academic Greek.

And so he's, he's tougher. and so it's, it's like the Holy Spirit will pick up, a pencil and he's writing his truth through John and then he picks up a calligraphy pen and he's writing his truth through Luke. It's still his word. It's still true, but the characteristics of his word are gonna be different depending upon the particular instrument that's being used.

Does that make sense? I'll tell you, one of the AT Robertsons tells us that one of the greatest proofs of the doctrine of inspiration is this. One proof of inspiration in the Bible is that it's withstood so much poor preaching. I just think that's, that's an incredible point to make.

So much poor preaching over 2000 years, and yet the Bible has survived. Hopefully, that's not entirely true here. no, we're doing great, right? Lord willing, praise the Lord.

studying God's word. let's complete the impossible for God worksheet. Actually, we're not gonna do it with a partner. I'm gonna be your partner.

I'm gonna be everybody's partner. So let's work through it together. There's on the back table, there's a worksheet that says impossible for God. Right?

So we've established, I hope, from We've established from 2 Peter, this concept that the Bible can be trusted because it comes from God, not just from men. But before you look at this worksheet, there's a big question that that begs. I've asked you guys, can we trust the Bible? And then I answered the question by going to the Bible.

What is the problem with that? They're saying circular reasoning bacteria. Yeah, circular reasoning, right? I've, how can I prove the Bible by going back to the Bible?

That's a problem, right? If I'm trying to prove to you that a logical consistency is the ultimate standard for truth, And you ask me, well, how do that? And I say, it's just logical. That's, that's a problem, right?

Or if I say empiricism is the ultimate standard for truth, and you say, well, how do that? And you say, because I haven't seen any other proof otherwise. That's a problem. Don't you think?

circular reasoning. And so we're, we're, we've gone to the Bible to prove the Bible, there's a problem. And I want to try to actually dispel that problem with this, starting with this worksheet. So opening thoughts, do you guys believe there is anything that God cannot do?

If so, list them here. So what are some things that you guys would say God cannot do? He can't lie. OK, so you guys raise your hand if you agree that God cannot lie.

I would agree with that. OK, who, somebody else had something else? Say it again. God cannot learn.

That's an excellent one. Yeah, if we understand what the, what omniscience means, God knows everything infinitely. He is never learning. Right.

He's like, he's, you're never gonna come up to God in eternity and be like, hey, God, I got something for you. And he's like, whoa, I never knew that. That's amazing. OK, something else.

What, what Good. God does not sleep. He does not change. He can't be tempted.

Can't die. Can't go out of existence. He can't sin. God cannot do evil.

OK, good. Now, how do we know any of that? OK, the Bible tells us. What, what else?

Yeah, Duncan. I Well So Oh OK, so we, we get, we attribute certain things of God when we have the idea of God, right? We have this, it seems like as humans, we have a certain idea of God. And our, in our idea of God, it just doesn't seem possible that God could just not be God, right?

That was actually one of Thomas Aquinas's arguments for the existence of God, right? We have this idea of God. Our idea of God does not allow for the idea of not God. And so therefore, he must exist.

Yes OK, good. OK, so God has proven Himself in how he's worked in our lives. OK, good. OK, excellent.

Good. OK, so I think It seems like the, the specific knowledge that we have of God can't lie, he can't do evil. That seems to come from a, a source of revelation. The idea of God's existence, we could grant that people outside of the Bible have an idea of God's existence and God cannot be not God.

But theoretically, God could exist and still be a really terrible guy, right? He could be just really evil, right? In fact, I told you guys the story of the the one who formed our fingers. Did I tell you guys that?

So you got our, the one of the missionaries, we support the McCulloughs who are associating, with the Browns. They spent 27 years up in the hills. he finds out the story of the man and the snake. Yeah, he didn't even know what the story means at first.

He's just recording it because he doesn't know Saluan. They've got this ancient story that's been in the village for hundreds and hundreds of years. Finally, he learns the language, he starts hearing it, and they're talking about there was a man who was put in the garden by the one who formed our fingers and he said, you can eat of any tree. And, and then the snake comes along and says, no, you can just, oh no, God tells them, or the one who formed her fingers, don't eat of that tree.

Snake says, no, it's OK, you can eat of that tree, you're not gonna die. It's exactly what we see in Genesis, and these guys have had it in their oral tradition for hundreds and hundreds of years. And And so, but in their concept, while they did believe in the one who formed our fingers, when Bob asked them, is he good or evil? They said, we don't know because he brought death.

And so therefore, because he brought death, they, the question was up for grabs. They, their inclination was, is that he was evil, because he's the one who brought death. Right, but we at least, we would, we would say there's certain things that are impossible for God. Let's ask another question.

let's see. Now, let's, let's, let's stick with the worksheet. is it reasonable to use the Bible to make an argument to support the Bible? Is it reasonable to use the Bible to support the Bible?

Yeah, right, right back here. Good. OK. Tell me your first name again, Barbara.

OK, so Barbara says that, most people are probably gonna say no, you can't use the Bible to support the Bible, but she's saying, I believe that you can because everybody starts their first arguments or their entering arguments, with some assumption, and our starting assumption is the Bible's true. And, and that's a great point. And actually, you just let the cat out of the bag of where we're rolling. That's, that's, that's the argument that we're going to be making here.

Turn to Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 6, and some of you guys probably remember this line of reasoning from last year. But I just want to establish it again. Let's look at Hebrews 6, starting in verse 13.

When a person takes an oath, he swears by something greater than himself, right? So this, this particular passage, the writer of Hebrews is trying to establish a line of reasoning. If, if, if we take an oath, we swear, we don't swear by ourselves, we swear by something greater than ourselves. Right?

And so the question he's gonna ask in this text is what does God swear by? If God takes an oath, what does he appeal to you? And so let's, let's, in light of that, let's look at the text. for verse 13, for when God made a promise to Abraham, Am I starting in the right spot?

Yeah, 13. Because he could swear by no one greater, he swore by whom. Himself saying surely blessing, I will bless you and multiplying, I will multiply you. And so after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise, for indeed, for men indeed swear by the greater and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all disputes.

for God determining to know, to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise, the immutability of his counsel and, confirmed it by an oath that by two immutable things which it is impossible for God to lie. We might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, in which enters the presence behind the veil. OK, so let's, I went one verse too long.

OK, so here's what's, what's the rationale here? What is the The author arguing, human beings, when we take oaths, we swear by one who is greater. God, when he takes an oath, he swears by what? By whom?

Himself, why? Because there is no one greater. If God were to swear by something greater, what would that say about God? Then he's not God.

There's something or someone greater or some system, some maybe some impersonal thing out there. If God were to swear by logical consistency, then logical consistency would be above God. If God were to swear by empiricism or swear by some other philosophical starting point, then that philosophical starting point would be greater than God. And so, Titus 2 says, we serve a God.

Titus 1 verse 2 says, we serve a God who cannot lie. All right? So God cannot lie. And when he makes a promise, he swears by himself.

In verse 18, we see that it is impossible for God to lie, right? So let's connect the dots. How do we know about God? How do we know about God and His will and decrees?

How do we know anything about what God wants, and about what he decrees? Through His word. Yeah, God has to tell us if, God, there's 3 things that are required for us to have any information from God. First, God must exist.

Secondly, God must have created people who have the ability to receive information. Thirdly, he must communicate information, right? If any of those threes breaks down, then you have no, no, no data from God, no decrees, no will, no idea what God wants. If God doesn't exist, obviously, it doesn't matter, right?

If God communicates information to us, but we aren't made in His image, and we have no capacity to pick up the signal, it doesn't matter. And if he gives us the capacity to receive the signal, but he chooses not to communicate, then all bets are off. But all three of those do exist. God does exist.

He's made us in His image. We have the capacity to understand language. God has communicated to us through the prophets, and their words have been preserved for us in the scriptures. And so we ultimately know about God, because he has chosen to reveal Himself through the prophets that have come down to us through the scriptures.

And we've been made in the image of God, and we have the capacity to understand and know language. Right? There's other things that would form our epistemology, but that's the basis of it. If God wrote the Bible, as 2 Peter says, is there any standard greater than the Bible?

No, there's not. If God, if the, if God can't sway, swear by anything higher than himself, then there is no higher authority than God's words in our lives. If it is true, as for 2 Peter says, that that there is no prophecy of Scripture, that is of a private origin, but God has moved people along. By the Spirit, then the highest authority that we have in our lives is the Word of God.

If God cannot lie, and God wrote the Bible, what can we conclude about the contents of the Bible? It's true. The Bible is true. And so we can say with the scriptures, let God be true and every man a liar.

So is it reasonable for God to swear by Himself? Yes. Why? There is no higher authority.

There's no higher authority than God Himself. Why can't we do the same? Why can't I, I, I, I'm gonna make you a promise, you guys. I swear by the name of Mike Berry that I'm gonna fulfill this promise.

Why does that not work? Say it again, Alan. I'm not infallible. I'm not all powerful.

I am not a good starting point, right? I'm not a starting point for knowledge. I'm a creature. I'm finite.

Once you get to the where things stop, once you stop with the infinite, once you stop with the starting point, there's no other place to appeal. And so all arguments for starting points are of necessity circular, just like Barbara was saying. You must start with a circular argument when you're talking about ultimate authorities. Because if you appeal to anything else outside of that authority, you've now ruined your ultimate starting point.

Let's, so the Bible is the word of God because it says it is. We don't stop there, and it allows us to make sense of the world. So we, we start with the Bible, he says, the Bible is the word of God because it says it is. And as we look out into the world, we've, we, we see that it's making sense of the world.

The Bible is true as it says is, any other explanation for the universe's existence ultimately breaks down. Let's establish this a little bit more. How are we doing on time? We got 13 minutes.

OK, so I'm gonna give you a just a brief, this is gonna be a crash course in the authority of Scripture. We've already given you the introduction on this. I'm gonna fly by this stuff and I'm gonna post all these notes on CCC so you don't have to worry about trying to write and scramble and all this. What do we mean by the authority of Scripture?

Here's what we mean. The authority of Scripture means that all the words in the scripture are God's words in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God. That's what we mean. All the words of scripture.

That are in the Bible, that's double statement, are God's words in such a way that if we disbelieve or disobey any word of scripture, we disbelieve or disobey God. One of the questions I have on the quiz, is anybody in the Doctor Matters class on Wednesday morning? All right, I'll, I'll give it. Ben will get the answer to this question.

So one of the questions is, if Paul gives us a command, Is that have the weight of a command from God or something like that? Or if you if you disobey a command from Paul in Scripture, are you disobeying God? Answer. Yes.

Right, because that comes from God. So, if it's properly interpreted following our hermeneutical process, right? We have the Holy Spirit writing through an original author, original document, original audience down to us, that gets a little trickier, right? We're talking about if we have the proper interpretation, then we come, we understand, and let's, let's just set that aside.

Even if, even if you and I misinterpret the Bible, the Bible is still God's word and true. Whatever it means in God's mind, it is true and it is to be believed and obeyed. Now, you and I can come up with wrong interpretations, and I can stand up here and preach the wrong interpretation. And are you obligated to obey and, and believe my wrong interpretation of the scripture?

No, No, you're not. That's why even the Breans would go and research Paul's teachings and say whether these things were of the Lord. Once they were inscripturated, guess what? We know they're from the Lord, right?

And you must believe and obey those. And so So there is a difference between what's actually on the page of Scripture and then what we may be interpreting. so the words of Scripture are ultimately self-attesting. This is from Wayne Gruden.

The words of Scripture cannot be proved to be God's word by appeal to any higher authority. For if an appeal to some higher authority, say historical accuracy, logical consistency were used to prove the Bible is God's word, Then the Bible itself would not be our highest absolute authority. It would be subordinate in authority to the thing to which we appealed to prove it to be God's word. Is, is Gruden and making such an argument saying that there are no historical facts that demonstrate the reliability of scriptures as what he's saying?

No. Is he saying the Bible is illogical? No, what he's arguing is, is you cannot prove absolutely that the Bible is God's word by an appeal to another authority. The only way that you can come to absolute certainty that the Bible is the word of God is by believing that the Bible is the word of God because it is the highest authority.

It claims it is. However, because the Bible is true, it will prove itself to be historically accurate and logically consistent if we're understanding the world around us through the proper lenses. You see the complexity of our epistemology? Because I can appeal to historical accuracy and I can appeal to logical consistency and my friends over at UCR are gonna say, you're not, you're ridiculous.

I don't believe your view of history and I don't believe your view of logical consistency. And they'll reject what I'm telling them about the Bible. And so, I don't spend a ton of time. I'll spend a little bit of time sometimes if somebody's just got, they've been confused or they've bought into the Dan Brown version of history of the church and all that stuff.

I'll, I'll sometimes try to give them some information. But I'm not under any illusion that me giving them historical accuracy arguments or logical consistency arguments is suddenly going to clear things up for people. Because that's not the average person's problem. The average person's problem is that they've been taken captive by the devil to do his will, according to 1 Timothy 2, is that, is it 1 Timothy or 2 Timothy?

2 Timothy. And so we're patient and we're teaching in gentleness, waiting for the Lord to grant repentance as we use the powerful tool of what? The gospel. Yeah.

It's the gospel that is the power of God unto salvation, right? Historical accuracy is not the power of God under salvation, right? Archaeological research is not the power of God unto salvation. Those things, I don't mind using those types of arguments once in a while.

What's the power of God unto salvation that's gonna really open up somebody's eyes and deliver them from the clutches of the devil so that now they can repent, have a change of mind and come to faith in Christ. It's the gospel. And so I try to get back to the gospel as fast as I can after I've answered, try to answer some of their objections about dinosaurs and aliens and whatever else they're hearing about, binary. binary approach to sexuality and stuff, anti-binary.

All right, a couple of other quick things here. so objections to this should be clear by now. All arguments for an absolute authority must ultimately appeal to that authority for proof, otherwise, the authority would not be the absolute and highest authority. Everyone either implicitly or explicitly uses some circular argument when defending his or her ultimate authority.

So reason is the ultimate authority. Why? Because it's reasonable. Logical consistency is the ultimate authority.

Why? Because it's logical. The senses are my authority because my senses have never discovered another one. There can be no ultimate authority because I don't know of any such authority.

So when I'm talking to some of our, our university students, they say, oh, I don't believe in absolute authority. I, everybody basically has their own truth. I said, everybody has their own truth? Yes.

You don't believe in any authority, with any absolutes at all? No. Are you sure about that? Yes.

So you absolutely don't believe in any authorities. I, let me see. Let me think about that. So you're making an absolute statement that you don't believe in any absolutes.

Yeah, Kevin OK. Right. So, Kevin's ultimate question is, is it, is, as we look at the Bible itself, there seems to be an appeal beyond just the Bible to demonstrate the word of God. So, for instance, you have prophecies that are being fulfilled and they'll say, hey, when this happens, then you will know.

That, that this came from God or, even like Moses, right? So Moses is given various miracles they can do with his leprosy arm, throw a snake down, then you will know that Moses is a prophet from the Lord, right? That's the basic idea. Yeah, in making an argument for ultimate truth or the first starting points, in no way is Gruden or any of the presuppositionalists, which is what we're talking about, presuppositional apologetics.

In no way are they saying that there are no other evidences that demonstrate the truth of the Bible. And in no way are they saying that we can never make an appeal to miracles, to fulfill prophecy, to historical logic. What we're, what we're talking about though is what is our foundational starting point. So would we say that fulfilled prophecy is the highest starting point to demonstrate the truth of God's word?

So would we say my very, the very foundational starting point for me is the reason I believe the Bible is because this prophecy has been fulfilled. And that's my starting point because fulfilled prophecy, I believe the scriptures. I would argue that if, if fulfilled prophecy is your starting point, People, people will easily reject that. Daniel has all kinds of prophecy, and what do they do is they late date Daniel to the 2nd, a 2nd century BC document.

Jesus Christ prophesized the destruction of 70 of Jerusalem in 70 AD. So what do they do with Jesus' prophecies? They late date those writings to 90 AD. any type of prophecy argument you can make, people can come up with reasons to reject it, and And Jesus Christ did all kinds of miracles to demonstrate that he was Jesus Christ, and they killed him.

It's, so what we're talking about, we're not talking about that evidence never enters into the discussion. We're start, we're talking about epistemologically, what is your starting point? If our starting point is, is, What's the, what's the philosophical of the senses? What do we call empiricism?

And really by an appeal to fulfilled prophecy or miracles, that's ultimately empiricism. If we're saying empiricism is my starting point, then empiricism is a higher authority than God or His word is what I would argue. God appeals to himself as the highest, he swears by himself. And yes, he displays his majesty through many different ways, but he, he doesn't appeal to anything above himself when he's for his ultimate starting points.

And so part of what we're arguing is, is there's no reason to be ashamed of the idea of going to people and saying, what, I believe that the Bible is the word of God. And they say, well, why do you believe that? Well, can I, can I show you some passages in the Bible that give me a rational reason for why I believe the Bible is the word of God? Sure.

And I can take them to passages right in the Bible where the Bible explains how the Bible came into being. That it wasn't just made up by men, but it was actually God inspiring people. what, I can't prove that scientifically. I can't prove to someone that prophets were moved by the Spirit, and that those prophecies became scripture.

But I can show them in the Bible that the Bible argues that that's what's true about itself. I can show them that the Bible says thus says the Lord in the Old Testament. I can show them that the New Testament writers quoted from the Old Testament, and Jesus quoted from the Old Testament as the Word of God. I can show them that Jesus pre-authenticated the apostles and said, I'm gonna bring all truth back.

I'm gonna guide you in all truth, and I'm gonna bring all things back to your memory, memory. I can show them that Peter quotes Paul's words as scripture. He says, they twist things as they do Paul, Paul and the rest of the scriptures. I can show how that Luke's words are quoted by Paul as scripture.

I can demonstrate how that Jesus or the New Testament authors never quote from the Apocrypha but they quote from the Old Testament all over the place. These are all internal arguments from the Bible itself, right, I think we can establish a biblical worldview of the scriptures. And then if they want to ask me about outside questions, and I, and I can't appeal, I can, I can say, hey, Isaiah gives me all these prophecies, 22 different prophecies that are fulfilled in the New Testament.

I'm gonna, I want, I'd like you to believe with me that Isaiah is a, a document that's at least 56, 700 years before Christ.

And so we're not arguing against evidences, but we're start, we're arguing for ultimate starting points. But I, I think the question that, that Kevin is raising is, is an excellent question, and it does bring out the debate. What we're talking about here is presuppositional apologetics. Yeah, Mitch.

The cycles Yeah, they said he's raised from the dead. Unless I see what Right, right. Yeah, and he says, blessed is the one who has believed and yet not seen. Yeah, Duncan.

be right to say that yes we have lots of we But in the core of every. Yeah, I don't know. I, I don't like, right. Yeah, totally.

Yeah, faith is, has to absolutely be part of our doctrine because we're dealing with matters that cannot be confined to a laboratory. there, we're, we're talking about things that you can't, you can't measure them, you can't repeat them, right? They don't fit the scientific method. How are you gonna take the Trinity and demonstrate it through the scientific method?

It's not gonna happen. But you can demonstrate if you believe in the Bible, right? And you believe the Bible is the word of God. Then you can demonstrate the Trinity, right?

You can look at nature and try to come up with analogies for the Trinity, but almost every analogy out there about the Trinity proves some heresy. Just about everyone. and so the Trinity is, it's something that you would just never arrive at without the Bible. The, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the fact that Christ is both God and man, you would never arrive at that without the Bible.

There's just, you wouldn't come up with it. And that, and those, and all of us in this room, none of you, I assume, none of you have met Jesus Christ face to face. All of Jesus Christ because you have come into contact with him through the Bible, either written or preached. That's how we know Jesus.

And so the Bible is our ultimate authority. And so, how, so we're, we're gonna leave this for you guys as follow up for homework cause we're getting pretty much out of time, but I'll, I'll post this on CCC. The big idea is we don't want you guys to be embarrassed about using the Bible to answer people's questions. Here's a real, we gotta end here in a second.

Here's a real simple way that I'm training our students how to do this. several of our students that are taking apologetics, one of the things that they're supposed to do in all of their cards or in their speeches is they have to presume an unsympathetic audience. So even if they're speaking to a bunch of homeschool moms, we're all Christians, they all believe in the Bible, they're supposed to assume an unsympathetic audience. And one of the ways I tell them to do this is you just say in your introduction, you say, now judges, I know that several, several of you may not believe that the Bible is the word of God.

But I'm a Christian and I want to answer today's question from a biblical worldview. So would you just be patient with me and listen for the next 6 minutes as I try to show you from the Bible, what I believe is the answer to this question. And a part of their answer, they will appeal to the scriptures. And then in part of their answer, they'll appeal to like archaeology or some scientific research or whatever, but I try to get the kids to always go to the Bible in every single question and, and they don't necessarily have to give a full, they don't have time to give a full complete apologetic of why they're going to the Bible.

Just say, I know you don't believe the Bible is the word of God, but I do. Would you allow me to appeal to it for a moment? And as you appeal to it, the Bible's the Word of God, even if they don't believe it. And if they don't believe it, it doesn't matter.

Because the Holy Spirit, as Steve Smith says, the Holy Spirit is attacking people. And you're looking for the people that the Holy Spirit is attacking. And if you, if you lead with the gospel, then the Holy Spirit's gonna open up the eyes of the people he's attacking, right? 11 final analogy, and I'm way over time, you guys can beat me later.

Do we want some people use the in their gospel presentations or as they're talking to people about the word of God, they'll, they'll leave the gospel for the putter in their bag, right? As they're playing, golf, right? So you're playing golf and somebody, a lot of people, the way they approach it is they're talking to people and they bring out their driver and what they're gonna do is, OK, I wanna hit this guy with some good archaeology. Boom.

And then they get out their next club and now I'm gonna give you some logical consistency. Boom. Now, I'm gonna show you that Christians are just the best people in the whole world and we're always really loving and really kind, and we do the most good works, right? Right?

Boom! And you, so you, you're, you're going through and then you get to the very end and the ball's about this far away from the cup and you bring out the gospel. By the way, Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. You knock it in.

That's not what, that's not what Paul says. The power of God unto salvation is, you get the driver out, and that's the gospel. You lead with the gospel. Hey, let me tell you, Jesus Christ and Him crucified, raised from the dead, as soon as bam, you, you go right out and you hit 300 yards right out the gate with the gospel.

And then you allow the Holy Spirit to help figure out whether this person's being opened or not to the Lord. You did just what like what what Jesus did at the well with the woman at the well, right? He's talking to the world as well. Yeah.

hey, you get me some water? And, and so she gets some water, they're talking a little bit, and before it, boom, they're into a gospel interchange and he's talking about sin. Why don't you go get your five husbands. She's trying to sidetrack with some theological conversation.

Before it, this woman's saved and she's going to get other people. And this is what they're doing in Islamic countries all around the world right now. This big revival that's going on in Indonesia and other places. Why are they, why are they seeing so many people come to know Christ?

Because people in a very loving, non-threatening, non-confrontational way, confrontational way, are just leading with the gospel and letting the Holy Spirit determine whether people are open or not. And if people aren't open, they just say, hey, thank you very much. And then move, talk about whatever else and then move on to the next person. So does that make sense?

OK, here's your homework. This is our section on internal evidences and external evidences, which we didn't get to. So I don't want you to think that we're never ever appealing to external evidences. There's lots of good because the Bible is true.

There's tons of external evidence that we can appeal to. I'll put this on CCC. we'll talk about application on CCC. And here's your homework.

Ask one unbeliever this week, do you think the Bible is written by God or just people? If you don't do anything else, this is your homework. And you don't even have to answer the question, just ask it. You don't have to answer it.

Go to one unbeliever. Hey, all my little kids, like 1112, 1314, they all did it this week, right? You can do it. Go to one unbeliever.

It can be email, it can be text, better face to face. Say, hey, I was just wondering, do you think the Bible is written by just men or is it written by God? And then see where it goes. And if it doesn't go anywhere else, at least you asked the question.

Does that make sense? Reality is, it's probably gonna go somewhere else. But I want to get you guys in the habit of, of thinking about asking this, these questions. We were in the Subway two nights ago with my son.

This lady starts talking. She's going on and on about how crazy things are in the neighborhood. I'm just like, man, why do you think it's so evil? She, she gives her opinion.

Hey, you go to church anywhere? Oh yeah, I used to, and within just 2 seconds, we're talking about the gospel. Right? Finish the lesson this week.

read some stuff for next week. I'll post on CCC. We got the psalm. Advanced students, here's your homework.

Write your own response to the question, How can the Bible be written by men but also written by God? I'm gonna send you a link on Dropbox, or you can try to type all that in if you want right now. I'm gonna send you this link on Dropbox that'll give you helps to answer that question. How can the Bible be written by men but also written by God?

you decide in your own mind whether you think you're advanced or not. Yes, I will. No, I'm, I'm thinking of as advanced students as those who were already took the course last year and they're like, oh, I already took this last year. Like, oh yeah, I'm gonna give you extra work.

Does that make sense? All right. All right, let's go ahead and pray and then I'll be up here for other questions. Great questions, you guys.

Always keep those rolling. That makes it a lot more fun. Lord, we thank you so much for your, goodness to us. we thank you for just the way that your word guides us, the way your spirit guides us.

We thank you that, for just, the confidence that we can have in using your word because it is true. And, we thank you that because it is true that it comports with reality. And so we can point to evidences, all around us as we're interpreting those evidences properly through the proper lens. they, support, our contentions, that the Bible is the word of God.

We ask Lord that you be with us this week as we seek to minister to unbelieving, friends and family. help us to answer their questions, guide us by your spirit. We pray that you'd awaken many to salvation. In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.