Great Themes No.2 The Bible

Psalm 119. We shall not be reading it all this evening, though it's a good psalm for all of us to reflect upon. From the 105th verse.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. I have taken an oath and confirmed it that I will follow your righteous laws. I have suffered much.

Renew my life, O Lord, according to your word. Accept, O Lord, the willing praise of my mouth and teach me your laws. Though I constantly take my life in my hands, I will not forget your law.

The wicked have set a snare for me, but I have not strayed from your precepts. Your statutes are my heritage forever. They are the joy of my heart.

My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end. I hate double-minded men, but I love your law. You are my refuge and my shield.

I have put my hope in your word. Away from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commands of my God. Sustain me according to your promise and I shall live.

Do not let my hopes be dashed. Uphold me and I shall be delivered. I shall always have regard for your decrees.

You reject all who stray from your decrees, for their deceitfulness is in vain. All the wicked of the earth you discard like dross. Therefore, I love your statutes.

My flesh trembles in fear of you. I stand in awe of your laws. Well, Psalm 119 and verse 114, the authorized version, says, Thou art my hiding place and my shield.

I hope in thy word. I hope in thy word. I have no hesitation in saying that I am more convinced of the authority, the accuracy, the infallibility of this book, the Bible, now than what I have ever been.

The Bible is a unique book. That means to say there is none other like it. The dictionary gives for the rendering of the word unique, one and only, different from all others.

And that, it seems to me, is a pretty accurate way of describing the Bible, one and only, different from all others. This book has been produced millions and millions of copies and circulated around the world more than any other book. In 1960 alone, don't know what this equivalent statistic is now, in the 1980s, one copy of this book was produced every three seconds by the British and Foreign Bible Society.

It's a book which had such importance that when the Americans reached the moon, they took a mini, a miniature version of it and left it there. And you remember it was from this book that we first heard from space the reading as the astronauts moved towards the moon. This book is quite remarkable, however you look at it, from its contents, from its history, from the effects that it has on people's lives, there is nothing to compare with the Bible.

And happy is that man who has a similar appreciation of this book as the psalmist did, who tells us on many occasions how much he loves the book, how much he delights in the book, how much he rejoiced in the amount of God's Word that he had up to that point in his life, at his time. And we have even more, more of God's Word, the complete revelation of God, locked up between the two covers of the book that we call the Bible, available, accessible to every person in Great Britain. Says Dr. Jim Packer, whose book I've just been recommending to you, his book on God speaking, I know for myself, he says, what it is to enjoy the Bible, that is to be glad at finding God and being found by him in and through reading the Bible.

I'd like to add my own personal testimony. I couldn't compute the number of hours that I've given to the study of this book. It has a fascination for me which no other volume has ever done.

I'm not very gifted at languages indeed, I have no gift at all, but simply because of a desire to want to know this book, I poured hours and hours, perhaps weeks of my time, into getting some idea of the Greek language so that I could go directly to the first language used for the transmission of the New Testament Scriptures, and in so doing, spent many a long hour translating for myself a good deal, not quite all, but a good deal of the New Testament. And though I could not measure the amount of time that I've given to the study of this book, the remarkable thing is that it still has an increasing fascination. I was burning the candle very late last night, and I was up relatively early, more early than the majority probably of you this morning, and the reason that kept me at my desk and got me up from my bed the early hours of today was simply this book, and I don't really understand at a rational level why it should.

I got so excited about the book of James and what James had to teach about the area of Christian discipleship last night, that I hardly have words to describe to you what this book does for me. And I'm only a very insignificant person, and do not rate any accolade of being a scholar or a theologian as much as I would like to have skills in those areas of learning. But for what it's worth, that's my testimony.

It's all enshrined in the words of the psalmist, I hope in thy word. If this book is wrong, then I've lived my life in vain. If this book is wrong, I don't think I want to live life anyway, because I find in this book the answer and the promise of an answer to all the deep questions of life, which otherwise would keep me tossing on my bed at night.

The Bible is unique. But what is this book that we call the Bible? Well, it's a compilation of 66 or so books split into two different categories, which we call the New Testament and the Old Testament. It was written by over 40 different people.

It was originally penned in three different languages. It was written on three different continents. Its beginning and its end, as far as the actual writing is concerned, spanned 1,600 years.

And yet when you read Genesis and you read Revelation, you are drawn to the irresistible conclusion that there is an underlying unity in each of the books, be they at the beginning or the end or in the middle. A remarkable book, in which human authors were inspired by God to pen what he had to say, though they be so different in personality. Some were soldiers.

Some were agricultural workers. Some were fishermen. Some, not many, went to the equivalent of a university.

And God brought all these characteristics together as he caused men to author these books, which form the one book which we call the Bible. And the remarkable thing is that they all have the same thing to tell us about God. Well, what does the book tell us? What is the main message of the Bible? Well, it can be summed up in one sentence.

The Bible contains the way in which God reconciles men to himself. That's pretty easy to understand, isn't it? Imagine a broken marriage. Someone comes along, a third party, and they bring the two divided halves together.

They reconcile. And so it's a ministry of God's Word to bring together the author and the reader. I mentioned in my prayer that if you've got any sense and you bought a color television set or any piece of electrical equipment, the first thing you do before you plug in is to check the instructions.

And the reason why the manufacturer gives you instructions is because he wants you to have the best out of his product. He's not a beast. He doesn't tell you to wire up a plug in a certain order so that different colored wires go into different parts before you close the plug and then push it into the socket simply because, well, you know, he's rather fussy.

You try doing it any other way than the way that he suggests and switch on. And you'll never be seeing Wimbledon during next week. So God's Word, the Bible, is the manufacturer's instructions.

It's directed towards you and me who otherwise will live our lives in such a ridiculous fashion that will blow every fuse that there ever was and will descend in decreasing spirals of misery until that day when we're absolutely destroyed in hell. This is the main message of the Bible, the correction of men and women, the reconciliation of sinners to God. Who is its author? Well, as I said, there were over 40 men and women who were used to compile it, but basically their inspiration, therefore the authorship, is traced to one, one being the Godhead.

When you read the Old Testament, you come very quickly to the conclusion that the people who write there, write not on their own behalf, but they write on behalf of God. Thus saith the Lord. When you come into the New Testament, well, first of all, you're confronted with the ministry of Jesus.

He doesn't say, thus saith the Lord. He says, verily, verily, I say unto you, and involved in the declaration of Jesus is the claim to be none other than God personified. So he speaks, ex cathedra, on the behalf, officially for God.

And when you move into the epistles, those are letters written by ordinary men like Peter and Paul and John, you find that they too claim that what they have to say is not the result of their own study. It says, Paul, when he's writing to the Thessalonians, I congratulate you, because when you receive my ministry, when you receive my word, you receive it not as though it was from myself, but rather as though it was from God. And that's right, because he was the author.

It says, Paul, when he's writing to the Corinthians, for I delivered unto you that which first I received from the Lord. Scattered throughout the whole of the Bible, believe me, I would not leave you, lead you astray, if you've not read it for yourself, accept this from the pulpit. Scattered throughout the whole of the Bible are references which indicate that this book, from cover to cover, has the authority of God behind it.

He uses ordinary people. But when they finished their writing, what they have to say is more than ordinary. It's extraordinary.

It's not just natural, it's supernatural. And that's one of the reasons why that book got me out of bed this morning, and kept me late at my studies last night. And not simply because I had the privilege of preaching to people here, but because I tell you, I cannot break the addiction that I have to this book.

I read it in the most unlikely places, in the most difficult circumstances, simply because I can't get enough of it. And if you ask me to explain this, I can't explain it. There is no other book that does this to me, that causes me to come back and buy, I read books, but when I finish with one, then I, I was gonna say I sling it, I don't, I put it in the library, and then it collects dust until someone in the tabernacle borrows it, then I generally never see it again anyway.

But at least it's better than being collecting dust. But this book, if I lose this one, I go and buy another one, because it's got something, some value, that I don't understand, that can only be accountable for the fact that the authorship is in heaven. Well, how did God write it? Does he have typewriters up there? No.

He uses men and women. Artery men and women. But, but can he use men and women without in some way making them robots, making them sort of automatic typewriters down here, so that he speaks up there, and they bash it all out, writing over their personalities and their intellects? No.

The Bible says this, and as it speaks of its own inspiration, in the first letter, for example, there are a number of texts I could pluck out this evening, but I'll keep myself just to one or two. In 2 Peter and chapter 1 and the 21st verse, this prophecy, speaking now of the Old Testament, this prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. It's a very interesting verb, that, moved by the Holy Ghost.

What, what really it has in mind is a nautical scene, for the, for the verb is more associated with boats and shipping. It's the idea of a yachtsman who has put up his mast, and he set his sail, and he directs his sail to the wind, so that when the wind blows, he'll pick up every ounce of energy, and the boat, the yacht, will be carried along the surface of the ocean. So, holy men of God set their minds, their sails, to the Holy Spirit, and as the Spirit blew in, so they knew what to write.

God didn't ride rushod over their personalities. You read the book of Amos, contrast it with the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament, you'll see that they're very different books. They're saying the same thing, but you know that the men come from different backgrounds.

The one is working-class, the other is high-class, top-class, first-class, whatever class you get to above working-class. Never quite worked it out. He's from royalty.

Amos is just ordinary, but both are extraordinary when the wind of God's Spirit blows in their mind, and they produce what the Lord has to say. To the extent that Amos comes along, and when his credentials as a preacher are checked, are challenged by a man called Amaziah, he says, okay, I never went to theological college, and I haven't got a certificate of ordination, but let me tell you something. The Lord has spoken.

Who can but prophesy? I set my mind to the wind of the Spirit out there in the wilderness of Tekoa, and God spoke, and I'm gonna preach whatever you say. And in the New Testament, the same. Peter, Paul, differing men, differing backgrounds.

The one an academic, the other a successful businessman. They put the wind, the sails of their mind to the wind of the Holy Spirit, and they're born along. And as a result, you get the most wonderful definitions of the Christian faith, practical exhortations as to how believers are to live their lives, having trust Jesus as Lord.

How about this book? You don't really believe that it's historically reliable, do you? I mean, you're not standing there in the tabernacle pulpit, claiming in the 20th century that you believe this book cover to cover, and it's got no errors. What sort of obscurantist are you to believe that? Well, you can pile up your adjectives, and you can describe me in any way that you want, but yes, unashamedly, unblushingly, I believe that this book is utterly, 100% reliable. I remember when I was at college more than one or two years ago now, having to read for the University of London's theological degree some of the most obnoxious criticisms of the Old Testament.

I remember how some of the scholars said that Moses was definitely a lot later, as far as his date was concerned, than the fundamentalists believed, because writing, if you please, was not known in the world at the time when Moses was alive. Therefore, a lot that was claimed to be the product of Moses, his literary work in the first five books of the Old Testament, could not conceivably have been written by that man rescued from the River Nile. That's in black and white.

You can check it in the books written in the 1930s. I wasn't studying in the 1930s, but I did get those books from the library. You can read what they were saying about Moses at the turn of the century, what the German scholars so-called were saying about the whole of the Old Testament and its lack of historicity.

And a great deal of that now has had to be utterly and completely rescinded, as they discovered for starters about Moses, that writing was known centuries before Moses ever lived. And some of the tribes that they reckoned have got into Genesis and were named in Genesis, there by mistake, there as a result of an inaccurate understanding of the primitive tribes and the distribution of the early people of this earth, you now find that they have discovered some of these ancient tribes. That is to say, evidences that once, as the Bible indicates, they were there in the whole Mesopotamian area, that fertile crescent in the Middle East.

The science of archaeology has been a most remarkable one. Listen to this by Professor Burroughs of Yale University, more than one archaeologist has found his respect for the Bible increased by the experience of excavation in Palestine. Listen to Professor Rowley, one time, Manchester University.

He says that the reason why the archaeologists are becoming more conservative, that is more believing in their grasp of the, in their assessment of the Old Testament, is not for any other reason but that the evidence warrants it. Listen to W.F. Albright, perhaps the greatest archaeologist of all time. There can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial authority of the Old Testament tradition.

Now, I'm not particularly overjoyed about what the archaeologists are discovering. I believe that the Word of God stands on its own merit, and where there are still areas of problem, the Word of God eventually will vindicate itself. But it's very interesting to me, and I've lived long enough to see this, a complete swing on the viewpoint of academic, professional theologians in their assessment of the Old Testament.

And I could go on and give you evidence, but time will not allow for it this evening, regarding the new. I'll bet somebody says, my problem is this concerning the Bible, that it was written over 16 generations, no, more than that, over 1,600 years. Surely, as far as the Old Testament's concerned, you have to admit to human error.

Must there not have been some copying mistakes? After all, if you've ever passed a message from one mouth to another mouth to another mouth, from one ear to another ear, and so forth, it gets a little bit garbled in the retelling. I'm amazed sometimes, when it gets back to me, why I'm supposed to have preached on a certain subject, as it's gone all the way around certain churches, and then comes back eventually to me at the tab. Now, doesn't the same obtain, as far as copying is concerned? Are there not errors in Scripture because of that? Well, it's a very interesting study to realize how reverently Jewish copyists used to make their own new versions of the Scriptures.

You see, we have easy access to the Bible. Most of you here have two or three copies, if not more. But that, of course, didn't used to be the case.

The Word of God was in scrolls. The ordinary person couldn't afford it. There were no printing presses.

It was impossible for you to get your own copy. So there were a relative few scrolls available. And so there were specific men who had as their task the copying of the Scriptures and the retention, or the bringing up to date, not so much of the words, but of the copy of God's Word, so that if a scroll had become a little bit worn, it would be replaced by another, and therefore the Word would remain uncorrupted.

Listen to the way that these Jewish copyists, called the Masoretes, went around about doing their work. They numbered the verses, words, and letters of every book. They calculated the middle words and the middle letter of each.

They enumerated verses which contained all the letters of the alphabet, or a certain number of them, and so on. These trivialities, as we may rightly consider them, had yet the effect of securing minute attention to the precise transmission of the text, and they are but an excessive manifestation of a respect for the sacred Scriptures, which in itself deserves nothing but praise. The Masoretes were indeed anxious that not one jot, nor tittle, nor one smallest letter, nor one tiny part of a letter of the law of the Old Testament should pass away, or be lost.

Do you remember the story of the Dead Sea Scrolls? You don't? Well, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947 by a young shepherd boy whose name was Muhammad. He was playing in some caves, at least he was looking after his father's goats, and one had gone astray, and he was trying to find it. And he took a stone, and he threw that stone into a cave, wondering if the goat was there, whether it would startle it, and the goat would come out.

Instead of that happening, that is a goat coming out, he heard the noise of pottery breaking, and he went inside, and he found there some jars of pottery. And when he looked inside, there were leather scrolls wrapped in linen cloth. They'd been in those caves for 1,900 years.

And the incredible thing about the scrolls was this, that they happened to contain virtually the whole of the book of Isaiah. And when those scrolls were checked, and they were compared with scrolls that have been written hundreds of years before, it was discovered, for example, in Isaiah 53, that there was only the difference of three, not words, three letters between the scrolls found in the cave, written, as I say, in the year AD 68, and scrolls which had been written hundreds of years before. Incredible accuracy, because that was part of the genius of the Jews, as they recorded and made extra copies of Old Testament scriptures, preserving their accuracy.

I could go on and give you more and more information about the Oriental mind, how it was trained in memory, how it was trained in carefulness, how it would scrutinize everything that was done to ensure that there was no inaccuracy at all. But as I say, I mustn't stay with this subject, fascinating though I consider it to be. Let's put up another question.

But is this book relevant today? Indeed it is, my friend. That's why I say that that 114th verse of Psalm 119, it expresses my testimony. I hope in thy word.

Why do I hope in a word that was written centuries before? Because it speaks to my soul. It speaks to every sensitive man and woman who will read its contents today. Because God's Word, you see, is not just historical, it is present in as much as it's contemporary.

Very often when you read in the New Testament quotations from the Old, it's cast in this form. Scripture says, God says. You come across this, for example, in Hebrews chapter 3 and verse 7. Wherefore as the Holy Ghost says today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, and so forth.

What is the point? Well, that God has written this word, caused it to be written years ago, and yet it still speaks today. It's relevant today. It's the manufacturer's instructions that are as necessary in your life in the 20th century as it was necessary for the Hebrews in Old Testament times and the early Christians in the first century of the church.

It speaks to us today. It's very true, says Dr. Packer, a great theologian, that the devotional maxim, that one should read the scriptures as one would read a personal letter from one's best friend, rests not on pious fancy but on hard theological fact. God has determined that in this book he will speak to ordinary people.

He will never speak beyond this book. God who in sunry times and in divers manners, says Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 1, spoke to the prophets in times gone by, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. God will never speak again in addition to this book.

He will underline this book. He will use men of God to preach this book, to explain this book, but God has no more to say. His letter is final.

His letter is complete and it's a contemporary letter. It spoke to the Christians of the first century, the fifth century, the 15th century, and it speaks to men and women today in the 20th century. Then why don't people believe it? Because they've got intellectual argument? Well, without questioning anyone's sincerity, my answer is I very much doubt it.

I have great respect for Bertrand Russell. I was very much helped by a very thick volume of his own philosophy, which I'm not recommend anyone else to read unless you're particularly interested in that academic discipline. But when you read through his book, Why I Am Not a Christian, you wonder did the man ever read the Bible in the first instance? When you come across men like Huxley, who have rejected the testimony of Christianity and influenced others, you have to ask yourself after you've finished reading what they've said, did they ever consider the Bible itself? Did they ever read it? Listen to Huxley in a very honest passage toward the end of, toward the close of his life.

In a book called Ends and Means, he said this, I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning, consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without difficulty to find satisfactory reasons for this assumption. And he goes on, for myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness, the philosophy that God does not exist, was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political. One of the reasons my friend, and perhaps the major reason why people don't accept this book, is if they did, they'd have to come under its disciplines.

They'd have to recognize that the manufacturer of the world, so to speak, is God, and here is his manual. And if you're going to get the best out of life, then you have to bring your life under the control of this book. One of the saddest moments in my life, I think I can say this without exaggeration, was concluding a mission at the University of Kent at Canterbury some years ago.

It was a mini-mission, we had meetings for three days, arranged by the InterVarsity Fellowship, and I'd done the major part of the speaking. And I can still see them now, some students from Malaysia and Singapore, they came to every meeting, despite the fact that the Students' Union were competing by putting a disco on the same night as our final evangelistic gathering. And I labored God's Word for a long time, I preached as best I know how to preach, and explained as simply and as logically as I could.

And the hour got to 10 o'clock, and I saw those fellows, and I was asking that God in His grace would bring them to a knowledge of Himself. And I went up to them, and they said, thanks for sharing with us over these days, we've listened to what you have to say. And I said, why aren't you Christian? The answer was this, it's not because we disagree with what you say, but if we accepted it, we'd have to change the way that we live our lives in this university.

Full marks for their honesty. Their problem was not one of intellectual doubt, their problem was a lack of moral stamina and fiber. They realized accurately that this message contained within the Bible is tailor-made for sinners.

But God does not allow men and women to continue on the road of sin and be reconciled to Him. He says, I'll meet you at the cross, I'll meet you as a sinner, I'll meet you in the person of my Son, but you'll have to let go of your old sinful way of life. You'll have to do an about-turn, you open your heart to the infilling of my Spirit, and you'll live by my commands, and you'll read this book, you saturate your mind in this book, you'll like to control and condition your whole personality.

I wouldn't be unfair to Bertrand Russell, but I would say, not having an intellect that comes within a mile of that man, that that was what he was afraid to do, to bring himself under the controls of this book. And the same goes with Huxley and many, many more. I am not minimizing the fact that there have been intellectual problems and the part of some concerning this book, but as time has gone by, they have been reduced almost to a minimum.

And the problems that I myself still find, I believe that time and certainly eternity will resolve. I accept it by faith. It changes my life.

It becomes the only reason for living, because as I read this book, I meet God there. And I'm not the only one. Thousands of people, tens of thousands, millions around the world have been transformed because of this book.

So I put it to you. What is it in your evaluation? Have you read it? The Gospels? Have you committed your life to Jesus? Younger friends, older people, are you reading this book day by day? It's possible for you to be a Christian and to neglect feeding your soul on this book. I'm not prepared to argue the toss as to which version, modern or ancient, you read.

That I think is almost beside the point, almost an unacceptable question when there are hundreds of tribes in this world that haven't even got one copy of Scripture, be it ever so impure. But I ask you this, whatever copies available to you, whether it's King James or the NIV or the Living Bible, are you reading it? Are you taking it in a little bit, day by day, feeding yourself on the Word of God, meeting God here? Because God speaks to us through his Word. It's a contemporary Word and he'll not speak to us beyond his Word.

So you can throw the Moonies away and the Mormons away and the Jehovah's Witness away as far as their teachings are concerned. It's shipwrecked on that text from Hebrews 1-1. God only through this book.

He's got nothing else to say and what's more, we don't need him to say anything else because he speaks eloquently of a Son who died on the cross to save us. I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God, and even more, I commend this book to you, the Word of God optimism and enable us to share what we have received from your hand with others who have not been so well endowed, for Jesus' sake. Amen.