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2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (ESV)
We will begin a verse by verse exposition of the great book of Romans in a few weeks, but right now we are doing a five-part series on distinctives we believe are exceedingly important. We want you to be aware that as a church we are utterly committed to these matters. Last week from Isaiah 57:15 we said we are committed to a high view of God – He is sovereign, majestic, eternal and unchanging, holy and merciful. We believe God rules His universe and all human history according to His own eternal plan, that He is sovereign over all time, all people, all circumstances in your life, and particularly over the souls of men.
This morning we’re looking at something just as important, a high view of Scripture. The battle for the Bible rages today as much as ever and it is a battle we must fight. On the morning of October 6, 1536, an Englishman was taken to a prison courtyard near Brussels in Belgium, bound to a post with kindling wood all around his legs, strangled to death, and then burned in the flames. His name was William Tyndale. His crime? He had a high view of the Scriptures and had dedicated his life to getting an English translation of the Bible into the hands of the common people of England. His last words were a prayer, “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.” God answered his prayer soon after when King Henry had a copy of the English Bible placed in every church in England.
Arthur Pink said it well.
It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of the doctrine of the Divine inspiration of Scripture. This is the strategic center of Christian theology, and must be defended at all costs. It is the point at which our satanic enemy is constantly hurling his hellish battalions. (The Divine Inspiration of the Bible)
SATAN’S WAR ON GOD’S WORD
One of the main themes of history is Satan’s efforts to twist, corrupt, and destroy the Word of God. The battle for God’s Word began in the Garden of Eden when Satan challenged Eve with the question, “Has God really said?” Ever since to this moment, the Bible has been under attack from many quarters. Its divine inspiration, inerrancy, authority, and especially its sufficiency and supremacy are rejected, ignored, and mocked. It is ridiculed in the public square and is ignored or twisted even in many churches and “Christian” ministries. Evolution has replaced six-day creation. Same sex marriage has been legitimized, replacing God’s clear standard of marriage between a man and a woman. Eternal hell is denied. The exclusivity of Christ as the only Savior is rejected. Religious hucksters hawk health, wealth, and prosperity. Critical theory blasphemes Scripture as a powerful tool of oppression. Postmodernism even denies that there is absolute truth, thus eviscerating the authority of the Bible.
COMMITMENT TO A HIGH VIEW OF SCRIPTURE
We are committed to a high view of Scripture (sola Scriptura) because Jesus told us we cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from God’s mouth. His prayer to the Father for His people was, “Sanctify them in Your truth; Your Word is truth” (John 17:17). Peter assures us in 2 Peter 1:3-4 that God’s promises and power are sufficient and all we need to grow and glorify God.
No portion of Scripture so elevates the place of God’s Word like Psalm 119. Of the 176 verses, almost every one refers to the Scripture. Luther prized this Psalm so highly he said he would not take the whole world in exchange for one leaf of it. William Wilberforce, the parliamentarian who fought the slave trade in the early 1800s in England, memorized the whole Psalm. Warren Wiersbe said the author’s “love for the Word of God puts today’s believers to shame.” Here are a dozen verses that are well worth memorizing.
Psalms 119:9, How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word.
Psalms 119:10, With all my heart I have sought You; Do not let me wander from Your commandments.
Psalms 119:11, Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You.
Psalms 119:18, Open my eyes, that I may behold, Wonderful things from Your law.
Psalms 119:89, Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven.
Psalms 119:97, O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.
Psalms 119:98, Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, For they are ever mine.
Psalms 119:99, I have more insight than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation.
Psalms 119:100, I understand more than the aged, Because I have observed Your precepts.
Psalms 119:105, Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
Psalms 119:130, The unfolding of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.
Psalms 119:160, The sum of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.
A HIGH VIEW OF SCRIPTURE AND LAST DAYS APOSTASY
Turn to 2 Timothy 3. Along with Romans 1, no Scripture describes our day better than this. Paul warns Timothy that in the last days kalepos – terrible, dangerous, fierce – times will come.
2 Timothy 3:1-5, But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.
Our world is free falling into this godlessness, spiraling down into mental and moral chaos. Doug Wilson recently commented on a conversation between Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin (who thinks he is married to another male): “When you remove Christ, society plunges into chaos.” We are certainly witnessing that. There was a day when teachers of grade school children began the day with prayer and the Ten Commandments were openly posted in the classroom. Today we have schools promoting Drag Queen hour.
Along with this come all kinds of sentimental, emotional teaching that frankly sounds like The View.
2 Timothy 3:6-7, For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Add to this a campaign of lies and deception and rank apostasy. The truth of God is being buried under deadly humanistic philosophy – think Darwinism and the lies of evolution, Marxism and the lies of atheistic materialism and revolution, Freudianism and the lies of pop psychology, and now the lies of postmodern relativism where there is no absolute truth and life’s purpose is self-fulfillment.
2 Timothy 3:13, But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
In a day when good is called evil and evil is called good, darkness is called light and light called darkness, when we don’t even know what a woman is or whether men can have babies, we need a source of truth. We need an answer for these last days of chaos and deception. A source of truth is exactly what Paul tells Timothy we have in the Word of God.
Paul doesn’t have some secret spiritual weapon or mystical experiences for Timothy in these kalepos, dangerous, and deceptive days. After calling Timothy to follow his example as he followed Christ in verses 10-12, Paul says, “Continue in what you are convinced of.” Here is the high view of Scripture.
2 Timothy 3:14-15, You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
You young people heading into this moral, mental, and spiritual chaos, get this. Your mom and dad have taught you God’s Word just like Timothy’s mother and grandmother taught him the sacred Scriptures (2 Timothy 1:5). Through the Scriptures alone you learn how to be saved. Through the Scriptures alone you learn how to grow spiritually and please and serve your God. Continue in the Word; make the Bible your source and foundation for truth. Don’t swerve, drift, defect, deconstruct, quit, change, re-invent. Continue in this high view of Scripture. Hold fast to what you know. The Bible is God’s means of saving His people. You must have and know the Scriptures to demolish all the false ideas, all the strongholds in your sinful hearts so you can understand creation, the fall, the law, Jesus coming to live a perfect life, to die a substitutionary death for sinners, the call to repentance and faith alone, not faith plus works, faith alone. Faith in what? In Christ alone! Sola fide and solus Christus. And then Paul gives the clearest and most important statement in the Bible about the nature and purpose of the Bible.
A HIGH VIEW OF OUR GOD-BREATHED BOOK
2 Timothy 3:16-17, All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (ESV)
Your Bible is “theo-pnuestos” or God-breathed! When you read the Bible or hear it taught, you are hearing the very voice of God. You don’t need visions, mystical experiences, dreams, or new messages from God. Just open this book and start reading His words. Everything He wants you to know is in this book. Thomas Watson said, “Read the Bible with reverence. Think in every line you read that God is speaking to you.” Watson also said, “There is majesty sparkling in every line.” That even includes all those genealogies in 1 Chronicles 1-9. God put them there for a reason.
The fact that your Bible is God-breathed means it is infallible – it will never fail in anything it says. It is inerrant – without error. They said the Bible was wrong about Tiglath Pileser and the Hittites, until archeologists found bricks with the name Tiglath Pileser and the great Hittite empire in Asia Minor with a king named Shuppiluliuma. While I was studying Old Testament backgrounds in seminary, the name of that Hittite king was fun to say and stuck with me. So when we got a little black curly-haired Cockapoo puppy about that time, guess what we called him? Yep, Shuppiluliuma, Shuppi for short.
The Bible is God-breathed – it is authoritative over all of life, including each of us. Read it and listen to it. When you fail to open and listen to God’s Word, you are effectively gagging God.
The Bible is sufficient – it is all you need for faith and practice. It is also effective – it changes people’s lives.
1 Thessalonians 2:13, And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.
The Bible is living and powerful.
Hebrews 4:12, For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
The Bible is not a dead book. It is living, powerful, penetrating, and piercing. It cuts into our hearts and exposes our sin so we can understand our sin, our God, and our accountability to God. It’s living and turns on the light of truth for us. Ever gone spelunking way back into the inner recesses of a cave and then turn out all the lights? What do you see? Nothing! That’s this world without the Bible. Left to ourselves we can’t see and don’t even want to see. But thank God for His Word and His Spirit who shadows His Word and turns on the light of truth and gives us eyes to see our sin and pride and defensiveness and covering and hiding. It shines so we see our need of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.
A HIGH VIEW OF THE PURPOSE OF SCRIPTURE
2 Timothy 3:16-17, All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Whatever else you do, says Paul to all of us individually and as a church in these last days, be utterly committed to this God-breathed book. It is profitable. That’s a great word meaning it is useful for your daily spiritual growth, for your progressive sanctification. It isn’t just a Sunday morning book. It’s a life book. It’s a book you take with you right into Thursday and Friday and even on vacation. There are four steps in God’s growth process for His people. I like to picture these four steps like this.
- The Bible is God’s Classroom – teaching. God has all kinds of stuff to teach us – how we got here, how we became a sinners, how God provided a Savior in Christ and who we are in Christ, that the Spirit of Christ is in us, how we can please Christ, and that Christ is coming back.
- The Bible is God’s Courtroom – reproof. God uses His book to convict us, to show us where we’re wrong and what we need to put off. It cuts through all our excuses and blame-shifting and exposes our sin so we can repent. Jeremiah 23:29 says God’s Word is fire and a hammer. It can melt and break hard hearts.
- The Bible is God’s Hospital Room – correction. God doesn’t just knock us down with reproof. He picks us up and corrects us so we can stand straight again. He tells us what to put on. Replace your selfishness with esteeming others above ourselves. Get rid of bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, malice and put on kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness.
- The Bible is God’s Gymnasium – training. The word for training is “paideia,” meaning disciplined training. God uses His Word to discipline and train us in godliness. As we develop godly habits, we grow and become more like Jesus Christ.
Verse 17 says the result of this spiritual growth process is so we become equipped for a spiritual walk and warfare. Untrained men are not sent into battle. They must be trained so they are ready for the conflict. And so God’s Word equips and trains us to serve the Lord and minister to others, whether in the nursery or cleaning up the kitchen or leading a Bible study or simply giving preference to the needs of others.
This is a high view of the Scripture. In the very next verses, 2 Timothy 4:1-5, Paul charges, no, solemnly charges, Timothy to preach the Word. A church with a high view of Scripture will be constantly preaching the Word of God, whether people like it or not. But the amazing thing is that even in these perilous times, God has His people who hunger for God’s Word and will be satisfied with nothing less than the preaching of the Word. They have the heart of Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 15:16, Your words were found and I ate them, And Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; For I have been called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts.
SO WHAT?
I hope that this living, powerful, God-breathed Word has pierced your darkness, demolished your strongholds against the truth, and brought you to the truth of Christ. Love it, prize it, read it, study it, memorize it, meditate on it, value it, pray it, and most importantly, obey it. Listen to this tribute to God’s Word by Halder Lillenas, written in 1917, entitled “The Bible Stands.”
- The Bible stands like a rock undaunted
’Mid the raging storms of time;
Its pages burn with the truth eternal,
And they glow with a light sublime.
Refrain:
The Bible stands though the hills may tumble,
It will firmly stand when the earth shall crumble;
I will plant my feet on its firm foundation,
For the Bible stands.
- The Bible stands like a mountain tow’ring
Far above the works of men;
Its truth by none ever was refuted,
And destroy it they never can. - The Bible stands and it will forever,
When the world has passed away;
By inspiration it has been given,
All its precepts I will obey. - The Bible stands every test we give it,
For its Author is divine;
By grace alone I expect to live it,
And to prove and to make it mine.
Refrain:
The Bible stands though the hills may tumble,
It will firmly stand when the earth shall crumble;
I will plant my feet on its firm foundation,
For the Bible stands.