We have to almost break in the
middle of Paul's thought, but he has a lot to say to young
Timothy about the Word of God, and about sound doctrine, and
about studying it, and about preaching it, standing for it
and such like. So we break in at verse 13, read
to the end of the chapter, 2 Timothy 3, 13 through verse 17 for our
reading of the day. Watch as I read. We come to that
statement in verse 16 and verse 17, the divinely inspired Word
of God. But evil men and seducers shall
wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. but continue
thou in the things which you have learned, and have been assured
of, knowing of whom you have learned them. And that from a
child thou hast known the Holy Scripture, which are able to
make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ
Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect,
truly furnished unto all good works. Now, verse 16 is that
one that's outstanding and that jumps out at us. All Scripture
is given by inspiration of God. Now, there are two great truths
that stand as the foundational bedrock of Christianity. Neither of them can we surrender
or give up or abandon. Else, if we did either one, the
whole system of Christianity would collapse and fall. And
those two bedrocks of the Christian religion or the Christian faith
are as follow. Number one, the existence and
eternality and the being of God. John Gill wrote in his Body of
Divinity that the being of God is the foundation of all religion. In that, if there is no true
and living God who has existed always, who has created, who
guides and directed all things, then religion is worthless, is
vain, and is empty. That there is a God who is Jehovah
is the first principle of the Christian religion. This God
exists in one essence and in three person, which we call the
Trinity. So the foundation of our religion
and worship is the being of God Almighty. Now, the second one
are the Holy Scripture, and they are the inerrant They are the infallible. They are that that is without
fault a sure guide to Christian religion and to the worship of
our God. I was reading Jonathan Edward
this week, and he called the Scriptures, quote, the great
written rule, unquote. The Scripture, the Word of God,
is our great written rule. It is an unchangeable record
of the things of God. It is written and therefore will
never change. For in the Scripture we have
the great gift of God unto His people. By that I mean the Scripture
themselves. And for the regulation of the
faith, For the rule both of worship and of practice in the Christian
religion, we rely only upon the Scripture. The Scriptures are
our infallible guide to these things that are of God. Yea, they are the only guide
that we have to the things of God and to matters that are Christian. Paul wrote to Timothy, in that
16th verse. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God. But notice something else. All
Scripture is profitable for doctrine and for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness. We'll deal with that a little
bit later in our study. God inspired His Word to be written. God inspired certain chosen men
to write the Word of the Lord. God willed and He brought to
pass that His Word is in written form for His people. That's good because it is an
unalterable record. that stands throughout century
after century. And let me say this and consider
it, if you will, that we are actually more profited to have
the divinely written Word than if we had a passel of apostles
and prophets circulating among the churches. The church lost
nothing when the prophets ceased, when the apostles passed away,
for they were the instruments of God to bring us in their place
the written word of the Lord, an infallible record of God on
demand, to be for a guide and a rule to the churches and that
forever and forever on any matter. Any matter whatsoever, any question
that might come up of faith, of doctrine, or of practice,
we need only ask and seek, what saith the word of the Lord? What does the Bible say about
this matter? Concerning the Scripture, by
the way, the word Scripture, graphe, in the text refers to
a written document. It refers to a writing. Words that are written or that
are engraven. They refer to the words and the
verses in the Scripture of the Bible, the Holy Scripture. They're also called the oracles
of God in at least three places that I can remember in the New
Testament. Now the scriptures, which we
call our Bible, were written by some 40 different authors
whom God inspired to write. Not only that, but the writing
was stretched out over a period of from somewhere 1,000 to 1,500
years over the course that these 40 men wrote our wonderful Bible. The various authors had diverse
backgrounds, did not know one another, and did not live as
contemporary, some of them having been shepherds and some of them
having been kings that wrote part of our Bible. Some of them
were prophets. One of them was an ex-Jewish
fanatic. A couple of them were fishermen
whom the Lord called and wrote the scripture. Yes, see how they
agree. 1,500 years time span, 40 different
authors. Now, we generally recognize that
there are two bodies of scripture that make up the entirety or
the whole. They're called the Old Testament
scripture and the New Testament scripture. And they make up what
is called the canon of the scripture. Now the word canon or canonical,
if you may see it sometime, simply means that they are deemed worthy
and recognized as being divinely inspired, the word of God, and
that they possess divine authority and that they are worthy of a
place among the sacred writings. And in the Old Testament Scripture,
there are 39 books, many of them are most of them written in the
Hebrew language. And the Old Testament, the Jews
distinguish the Old Testament writing as the Law and the Psalm
and the Prophet. The Law, they call the five books
of Moses. The Psalms, the Prophet, you
see that in Luke 24, 44. In John 1, 45. In Luke 16 and
verse 29, that the division they recognize was the Law, or Moses, and the
Psalms, and the Prophet. The New Testament consists in
27 books that make up the New Testament canon of the Scripture. There are four accounts of the
Gospel in our New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There is the book of history
of the spreading of the church, the book of Acts. There are the
church epistles, many of them written by Paul. Then there are
the general epistles, there are three pastoral epistles, and
such like in our New Testament. Now, in the time when our Lord
appeared and tabernacled among men in the flesh, the Old Testament
had been translated into Greek version that is called the Septuagint. You see that word Septuagint
somewhere? It is the translation of the
Old Testament Scripture into the Greek. One story that I read
was that there were 70 scholars that gathered together, and in
70 days they completed the translation from the Hebrew onto the Greek,
and these were read and used by the Jew in the days of our
Lord upon the earth. Now perhaps this is the time,
before the question pops up in our mind, to say something about
a group of writings that are known as the Apocrypha. Some 13, sometimes 14, sometimes
15 books which were also translated into the Greek. And though some
say that the Jews did not consider them to have any canonical status,
Still, the Apocrypher was, of all, bound up with some of the
versions of the Bible. I agree with John Gill, whom
I admire as a theologian. He said that the inclusion of
the Apocrypher was, quote, to the shame and scandal and disgrace
of the Word of God, unquote. Gil also said something else
with which I can heartily agree, that because the Apocrypha, those
books, contain a mixture of falsehood and of impiety, they cannot by
any means be allowed to have equal standing with the other
canon of the Scripture. Now everything which we believe,
everything which we teach, at least it ought to be so, all
of our preaching, all of our doctrine, all of our practice,
everything we believe about Christ and we preach about salvation,
the manner of justification, Everything that we believe about
sin and depravity, about heaven and about hell, about right and
about wrong, is based for us upon, thus saith the Word of
the Lord. We give chapter and verse for
those things that we believe. We have nothing to preach. We
have nothing to preach but the blessing Holy Scripture. No other
source of scriptural truth. No other guide or rule. And when the matter of teaching
or belief or philosophy or law conflicts with the Holy Scripture,
we take the side of the Scripture each and every time. We abide
by that rule that Paul has laid down in Romans 3 and 4, yea,
let God be true and every man a liar. In this Paul declares,
the unfailing faithfulness of the Word of God. That if every man proves to be
a liar, yet God's every word is true. If every man upon the
earth was a liar, God's Word is true. He cannot lie. He cannot deny Himself. God is
true with every man being a liar. We hang everything spiritual,
upon the Scripture, the Word of God. We do not hunt for the
answer in science or in philosophy on spiritual matters. We hang
it upon the Scripture, which means that we hold the Scriptures
to be indeed the divinely inspired, infallible Word of God. In the Philadelphia Confession,
and some other of the older confessions as well, in the chapter concerning
the Holy Scripture, in the Philadelphia chapter 1, it is stated, and
I quote, the Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain,
and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience."
Unquote. The Word of the Lord. Not even
our creeds in the final end, but the Word of the Lord. Now, if this be so, that all
we believe, all that we preach is and must be based upon the
Holy Scripture, then it behooves us to establish the Scripture
to be the inspired Word of God, to be inerrant. infallible, without
error or any mixture of error, but sure and certain and true. Nor are these the mere writings
of uninspired men, as some are wont to claim in our day. For
though we grant They were written down by men, yet are the Scriptures
the very Word of our God by inspiration. We even grant that the men that
wrote the Scripture that we hold to be inspired were imperfect
men. They were not sinless men in
that sense of the word, nor need they be to give an infallibility
unto the Scripture. Just as the impeccability of
the humanity of Christ did not depend upon the nature or the
holiness of Mary, who in herself was a depraved woman. It was not her virtue that made
Jesus that Holy One, because that which was conceived in her
was by the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit of the God conceived
the humanity of Christ in the womb of the Virgin. Even so,
the Holy Spirit did inspire the Word of God to be written by
some 40 ordinary men. Yet it is indeed the Word of
God, and that for a reason we will show shortly, worthy of
all acceptation. These 40 men have written under
the inspiration of our God the infallible Word of Truth. I want you to see if you would
agree with this. That is what we just referred
to, that both the conception of the humanity of Christ and
the inspiration of the Scriptures are unique one of a kind operation
of the Holy Spirit of God. Both of them are unique, once
for all, never to be repeated again. Abraham Kuyper, in his
book on the Holy Spirit, called this, quote, an operation of
the Holy Spirit. that stands entirely alone."
That would be the conception of the humanity of Christ and
the inspiration of the Word of God. He then called the inspiration
of the Scripture as follows, and I'm quoting, that all comprehensive
operation of the Holy Spirit, whereby He bestowed upon the
churches a complete and infallible document." The Word of the Lord. Now, consider what Paul wrote
in our text under Timothy. II Timothy chapter 3 and verse
16. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God. How much that says, we'll try
to open it up better a little bit later. All along in this
section of the second epistle to Timothy, Paul is alternating
between two thoughts in instructing Timothy in performing the work
of the ministry. Timothy is young, he has been
schooled under Paul in the principles of the Word and of the Gospel. And he alternates back and forth
between two things in instructing Timothy. Number one, there are
warnings. Warnings over and over to Timothy
in this epistle. Warnings against false teachers
and false doctrine. For example, in chapter 3 and
verse 13, evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving
and being deceived. There will be those who will
not endure sound doctrine, who would turn their ears away from
the truth and be turned to fables. That's in chapter 4 and verse
3 and 4. So he warns Timothy, that there
would come heresy, much heresy, many false teachers. Secondly,
the second exhortation to Timothy is that he hold fast to the word
that Paul had taught him, chapter 1 and verse 13, and which the
Holy Spirit had imparted to him, chapter 1 and verse 14. that
he rightly study and divide the word of God rightly in chapter
2 and verse 15, that he continue in what he had learned and what
he had been convinced of that he had heard. That's in chapter
3 and verse 14. So let us see a contrast now
from chapter 3, 13 to verse 14. Evil men, seducers, impostors,
will get worse and worse. They will go from bad to worse.
Deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, O Timothy, my
brother and my son in the faith, evil men will come in like a
flood. But as for you, you, O Timothy,
continue in the things that you have learned and have believed. And to enforce the admonition
to Timothy that it might take root in his heart, soul, and
mind, look at verse 15. That is that Timothy had been
raised under the influence of the Scripture. from early childhood. He had been taught them the Word,
the Scripture, I believe, chapter 1 and verse 5, from his mother
and his grandmother, Lois and Eunice. See how Paul highly commends
the Scripture, that only in and by them is there a way of salvation. And they are they which testify
of Christ. The Old Testament Scripture,
as the Lord said in John chapter 5 and verse 39, Search them,
He said, they are they which testify of Me. In Acts 18 and
verse 28, where there Paul showed by the Scripture being the Old
Testament Scripture, that Jesus was the Christ, that Jesus matched
what was said about Messiah in the Old Testament Scripture.
Then coming to verse 16 here in 2 Timothy chapter 3, It is
as Calvin wrote, quote, he explains more fully his brief commendation
of the Scripture under Timothy, end quote, of the Holy Scripture. And that Scripture has two accounts. to highly commend them unto Timothy
and unto others. The first being its divine origin. Does not this commend the Word
of God to us, that it is of divine origin? Paul says again, all
Scripture is given by inspiration of God. This is the one and the
only place where this particular Greek word appears anywhere in
the New Testament. No other author in the New Testament,
in any other epistle, uses the same word. And I'm told that
the word is not even to be found in classical Greek. And that's
the word inspiration. All scripture is given by inspiration. When we look at it, we see that
it is a compound word. It is two words that are put
together. And that the first word is the
word Theos, or the word or the name God. This is a common name
for the Father in the New Testament. It's used hundreds and hundreds
of times to refer to God. Theos. in our New Testament. And it is true that this word
can be used, sometimes was used, in the description of a magistrate
who was over the people. Yet the authors here in the New
Testament use it in referring to the supreme, holy, and only
God. the Creator of all things, the
Father of our Lord and of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Now the second word, which I
probably will mispronounce, is the word pneo, meaning literally
to blow. It can mean a breeze, or it means
sometimes to breathe hard, to breathe out hard. I found it
described by one, I liked it so well, I share it with you,
quote, a forcible respiration, unquote. The Word of God is by
inspiration. Seven times The King James translators
rendered the word pineo as wind or to blow in the New Testament. And in some of those seven times,
it refers to a wind with force. One, not a gentle breeze, but
a wind with force. As in John 6 and verse 18, it
describes a great wind that blew. That's our word here in 2 Timothy. And the meaning of the word in
2 Timothy 3 and verse 16 is literally, God-breed. The word inspiration. God-breed. Some of the translations
or the version will have it as that in the text. Paul said,
all scripture is given by inspiration. That is, all scripture is God
breathe. There's a question among some
good expositors as to how the order of the words ought to be
in that verse, whether it should say every scripture is given
by inspiration and is therefore profitable, or whether it should
be like this. Every Scripture given by inspiration
of God is profitable. And they say that there's no
difference between the two. But the sure point is this. The Holy Scriptures are holy
and infallible because they were given by God in a most unique
way. They are God breathed. Get that word in our vocabulary. They are, we might say, the very
words of God. The very words that God would
have spoken had He spoken them orally or written had He appeared
them to appear on paper. But it was not that God did dictate
to the authors like a boss does to a secretary, Ms. Jones, take a letter. Not like
that. But in producing the holy writings,
God did make use of ordinary men. And they wrote so under
the divine influence and under the divine control that what
they wrote is the God-breathed words of our God. Whether the
authors were aware at the time that they were under such a divine
influence, I am not worthy to say. But one thing is certain,
that as they wrote these books that we call the Bible, the Scripture,
as one author said this, the men employed in this work were
so controlled and so directed by the Holy Spirit in all their
thinking, in all their selection of words, writings, that their
final product possessed a perfect warrant of a divine and absolute
authority." That indeed is true. We regard these writings as the
Word of God. They are the written Word of
God, but they are the inspired written Word of God with full
authority. They are the truth of God. We might grant that the all-wise,
that the all-powerful God might have given the Scriptures orally,
as he did the law. He might have written them with
his own finger, as he did the law, on the tables of stone. He might have sent a chief angel
from his presence to tell men what to write. Or he might have
caused the words to appear miraculously upon the scripts. And yet the
manner in which God used human instrument in producing the scripture
gives the same authority to them as if they had been given in
these other ways. They are no less true because
they are written down, and written down by men. This is an argument
we often hear. This is one argument against
the Bible and against Christianity. I can hear now men telling me,
all men wrote that Bible. There's just men that wrote the
Bible and wrote it down, and they discount the inspiration
that these men were under. to which we reply to those men. God's finger wrote the law on
those tables of stone. Exodus 31 and verse 18. Deuteronomy 9 and verse 10. So I ask you, Mr. Doubter, do you more reverence
the law because it was written by the finger of God? Do we not read in Hebrews chapter
1 verses 1 and 2, that in former days, in olden times, God did
speak unto the forefathers in, quote, diverse manners, unquote,
or literally different kinds of ways. God of old spoke in
different kinds of ways to the people of God, some by the prophet,
some by the seers, dreams, visions, angels appearing, God speaking,
or just some of the manner. But then, please hear me carefully. The canon of Scripture now being
complete. All the Scripture we'll ever
have inspired is inspired and in our possession. The written
Scriptures do supersede all other means of revelation to the people
of God. The written scripture supersedes
that. We have no prophets. We have
no apostles who have accompanied with the Lord Jesus or been called
up into the third heaven to come back and tell us the wonderful
thing that they saw there. We don't have those things. There
are not prophets among us today, or apostles among us today, not
by God's design. But we have no loss by that. We have the Holy, Holy Scripture. God has put them put in them
all of the revelation that is necessary to supply the people
of God in their godly living and the practice of Christianity. By them, I mean the Scripture,
we are at no loss. We have no need to go beyond
them because they are adequate. John Owen, an old-time Puritan,
wrote this word, quote, the scripture is now become. the only external
means of divine supernatural illumination, because it is the
only repository of all divine supernatural revelation." Remember
what was told to the rich man in the Gospel of Luke, is it
chapter 16? Remember what was told to the
rich man when he asked for a miracle to turn his brothers off of their
sinful way, lest they also fall down into hell? How did Abraham
answer that man? Quote, they have Moses and the
prophets, meaning they have the Scripture. Let them hear them. Luke 16 and verse 29. And then
the man argued, oh, but if one went from the dead, they would
believe. And Abraham's answer to that
was, if they will not hear Moses and the prophet, if they will
not hear the scripture, neither will they be persuaded though
one rose again from the dead. We can say, as did Paul, Acts
24 and verse 14, I believe all things that are written in the
law and in the prophet. Many today have little confidence
in the Scripture. And that includes preachers.
And that's why they're always preaching on philosophy. That's
why they're always preaching psychology to the people. And
things like that. That's why they're always depending
on counselors to get us straight because they have little or no
confidence in the written scripture, the inspired word of God. Have you considered this question
down in your heart? Why do any believe the written
Scriptures to be the Word of God? Why do we believe that to
be so? When do we believe it? How do
we come to believe that the Scripture are the Word of God? And I believe
the answer is simple, that as soon as the Spirit of God quickens
us, as soon as He works in us, as soon as God quickens us and
creates in us saving faith. The Scriptures, right then and
there, we count the Word of our God. Right then and there is
a great conversion. We might have been one of those
scoffers who said in time past, oh, these are just something
that men wrote down. But the minute we are in Christ
and have faith and are quickened to life, the Scripture we no
longer argue against, they are the Word of God. One cannot believe
under the saving of the soul, but he will believe the Scripture
is the Word of God. For as a good expositor did write,
quote, it is the work of the Holy Spirit to enable us to believe
the Scripture to be the Word of God, unquote. And this enabling
is necessary not only to believing the scripture, but also to a
proper worship and serving of our God in a proper way. No doubt some might challenge
us upon a particular ground. Some would say to us, and some
have, wait a minute, hold on. You are taking the Scripture's
testimony about itself. You are letting the Scripture
testify. You are accepting the Bible upon
its own witness. We reply, we accept the Bible's
testimony on all matters. on God, on the Son of God, even
ourself, since it is God-breed, all that it teaches is true and
without error. We therefore preach the Scripture
to be God-breed because they testify, some might call it verbal
inspiration, and not partial inspiration. Some say that God
only gave the authors the thought and left them to fill it in or
to flesh out the skeleton. That God simply put a thought
and then they finished it from there. But in the providence
of God, He had inspired these men to write. And then someone
says, well, what about all these different translations? How do
we know we have a reliable account? Because we believe that in the
providence of God, He has raised up some that are capable of translating
the scripture into various languages that we might have a reliable
word of the Lord. Here we can say, it is a great
sin to do as some do and deprive the people of the Scripture. It is a sin to deprive the people
of the Scripture lest they be kept in dark and be deceived
by false teachers and leaders. Oh, let the people hear the Word
of God. Preach it to them. Ever preach
it to them. Preach nothing but the Scriptures
unto them. I think those who would keep
the Scripture back from the people have something devious to hide
and are a dangerous leader. Let the people have the Scripture. Now, in closing, going back to
our text in 2 Timothy 3, notice two more things there which Paul
says about the God-breathed Scripture, and they are in verse 16 and
verse 17. We'll just look at them quickly
and then be done. Number one, because the Scripture
is God-breathed, because it's inspired, because it is in truth,
the Word of God, notice, it is profitable. It is profitable
in teaching, it is useful in correction, it is good for instruction
in righteousness, it is a correct source of doctrine. It is a good
source of knowing the rule of life. The scriptures are profitable
for instruction on everything pertaining to Christianity and
the Christian life. They are a reliable guide. We never have to go outside of
them on any matter concerning the Christian religion. the person
of Christ, the person of God, the church or salvation, and
so forth, because Scripture is inspired, it therefore is greatly
profitable and valuable in these things. In fact, it's the only
thing that is. The second thing that we notice
in verse 17, is because the Scriptures are inspired of God, because
they're God-breed, they therefore equip the man of God for the
work of the ministry. Verse 17, He wields the sword
of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Ephesians 6 and 17. They give a minister a readiness
to do the work of the ministry. A preacher without the Scripture
is like a soldier on the battlefield without his weapons. A preacher
without the Scripture is like a physician without his medicine
or means of surgery. And Paul said to Timothy, study. Study to show yourself approved
unto God, rightly dividing the Word of God. A workman Not a
shame, rightly dividing the Word of God. So in closing, let us
remember what Paul said. The Scripture is inspired of
God. It is God-breed. God breathed
it out in a wonderful but inscrutable way that we can neither understand
nor describe. But the Scriptures are the infallible,
inspired Word of God. And if the Scripture says it,
that settles it for the child of God. They are the God-breathed
Scripture.