INTRODUCTION:

1. I am going to preach tonight on the importance of learning and obeying the Word of God.
2. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, "Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the Book widens and deepens with our years."
3. Daniel Webster said, "If there is anything in my thoughts or style to commend, the credit is due to my parents for instilling in me an early love of the Scriptures. If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect the instructions and authority; no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity."
4. We will look at many Scripture verses tonight, but our main text will be Luke 16:17. Our Lord said, “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.”
5. The tittle refers to accents and diacritical points. The meaning is, “not even the minutest part of the law shall perish” (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon).
6. Our Lord said in Luke 21:33 and Matthew 24:35 and Mark 13:31, “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.”
7. But here in Luke 16:17, our Lord says that not only are the words of God preserved, but even the little accent marks and punctuation marks as well.
8. That is why our Lord said in Matthew 5:18, “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”
9. The word “jot” is literally "iota," the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet, and is used figuratively for a very small part of anything.
10. Isaiah 40:8 says, “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.”

 

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.

 

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 towering
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.  – Haldor Lillenas

11. Ungodly men have attacked it, and have ridiculed it, and have attempted to destroy it, but the Bible has been printed in more languages and dialects than any other book ever written (cf. I Peter 1:23-25).
12. There was an English historical and portrait painter by the name of Thomas Jones Barker (perhaps a relative of mine?), who painted a beautiful picture entitled, The Secret of England’s Greatness.
13. This painting depicts Queen Victoria presenting a Bible to a kneeling African prince in the Audience Chamber at Windsor Castle. In the background are her husband, Prince Albert, and a few members of the government.
14. The painting is based on an anecdote where the African Prince asked the queen, “What is the secret of England’s Greatness?” and Queen Victoria said that the Bible was the secret of England’s success. Then she gave the prince a Bible as a gift. It is the greatest gift of all!
15. Abraham Lincoln said the Bible it is “the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.”
16. All of President Lincoln’s biographers have noted that he had read and studied the Bible assiduously since his youth. “I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance by faith, and you will live and die a better man.”

 

I. THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION (II TIMOTHY 3:16)

1. The word “inspired” (II Timothy 3:16) literally means, “God-breathed.”
2. Benjamin B. Warfield said, “The Biblical books are called inspired as the Divinely determined products of inspired men; the Biblical writers are called inspired as breathed into by the Holy Spirit, so that the product of their activities transcends human powers and becomes Divinely authoritative. Inspiration is, therefore, usually defined as a supernatural influence exerted on the sacred writers by the Spirit of God, by virtue of which their writings are given Divine trustworthiness.”
3. Note: “Divine trustworthiness.” The Bible is trustworthy. It is infallible. The Bible is inerrant (without error).
4. When we refer to the inspiration of Scripture, we are not using the word “inspired” the same way people use it to describe Shakespeare or Milton or Handel, et al.
5. Second Peter 1:19-21 explains how God used the (40) human writers to produce the Bible. These “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
6. The term, “holy men of God,” indicates that they were set apart by God for this special ministry.
7. The word “moved” (1:21) suggests the effect of the wind on the sails of a boat, by which the boat is borne along.
8. In Scripture, the Holy Spirit is likened to the wind. Our Lord said in John 3:8, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
9. When the day of Pentecost was fully come, “suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:2).
10. Matthew Henry said, “Esteem and reverence your Bible as a book written by holy men, inspired, influenced, and assisted by the Holy Ghost.”
11. But unfortunately, many people, even many professed Christians, do not “esteem and reverence the Bible.”
12. A few years ago, Steve Green, the president of Hobby Lobby, the large arts and crafts retail chain, hired a premier consumer research and market analysis company called America's Research Group (ARG) and asked them to conduct a study about Bible reading.
13. This company has conducted over 10 million phone interviews over the last 30 years so they know what they’re doing. They put together 100 questions and then surveyed a random sample of 1,000 American adults from all 50 states. To summarize:

• 94% of Americans own a Bible, and most homes have multiple copies.
• 90% of Americans believe it still applies today
• But only half read it weekly (including when at church)
• And only 29% read it weekly outside of church.

14. The Scofield Study Bible says, “God wrote the Bible and He used holy men to write down the words” (p. 1213).
15. We should carefully consider the words of the Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Luke 16:17).
16. Our Lord said, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”
17. Our Lord said in John 10:35, “The scripture cannot be broken.”
18. Liberals attack the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, but Jesus affirmed it. To the unbelieving Jews of His day, He said, “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” (John 5:45-47).
19. Liberals mock the book of Jonah. They call it a fish story. But our Lord said, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40).
20. Liberals deny that Daniel made all those incredible prophesies about Media-Persia and Greece and Rome. They do not believe in the book of Daniel, with all of its detailed prophecies about the second coming of Christ.
21. But in His Olivet Discourse, our Lord said, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet…” (Matthew 24:15).
22. Liberals scoff at the idea of a world-wide flood, but our Lord referred to it. He said, “And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:26, 27).
23. Liberals believe in the theory of evolution, and they teach that the early chapters of the book of Genesis should not be taken literally. They say Adam and Eve were not literal people.
24. But Jesus said in Matthew 19:4, “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female.”
25. Not male and male, or female and female, but “male and female!
26. Many other examples could be given. It is plain to see that the Bible is inspired by God, and therefore is inerrant and infallible.
27. John Wesley said, “Nay, if there be any mistakes in the Bible, there may as well be a thousand. If there be one falsehood in that book, it did not come from the God of truth” (Wesley’s Journal).

 

II. THE DOCTRINE OF PRESERVATION (PSALM 119:89).

1. Psalm 12:6, 7 says, “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever.”
2. The doctrine of preservation means that the Lord has kept His Word intact as to its original meaning.
3. Preservation simply means that we can trust the Scriptures because God has sovereignly overseen the process of transmission over the centuries.
4. Inspiration without preservation would be meaningless. Some people teach that God’s Word in the original Hebrew and Greek is inspired and inerrant, but since we do not possess the original manuscripts they say we do not have a trustworthy and infallible Bible today.
5. To me this position is totally unacceptable, and though conservative Christians may teach it, it is really just another form of unbelieving liberalism.
6. Our Lord said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away” (Luke 21:33). Our Lord taught the perfect preservation of the Word of God – even the perfect preservation of all the jots and tittles (Luke 16:17).

 

III. SOME PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS

1. We are saved by the Word of God. We are born again, “not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever” (I Peter 1:23).
2. We are changed by the Word of God. Psalm 119:11 says, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.”
3. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
4. We are cleansed by the Word of God. Psalm 119:9 says, “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.”
5. Our Lord said in John 15:3, “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.”
6. We are guided by the Word of God. Psalm 119:105 says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
7. Psalm 119:130 says, “The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.”
8. Joshua 1:8 says, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”
9. We have victory over the devil by the Word of God. When our Lord was in the wilderness tempted by the devil, He repeatedly quoted Scripture (Matthew 4:1-11).
10. We are built up by the Word of God. The apostle Paul said, “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up…” (Acts 20:32).
11. We should delight in the Word of God. Psalm 1:2 says, “But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”
12. God’s Word is magnified above His name. Psalm 138:2 says, “For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.”
13. God has preserved His Word, and the King James Version is the preserved Word of God. We need to be careful with these newer Bible translations because they are inaccurate and untrustworthy.
14. I could give many, many examples but time will only allow me to give a few.
15. Acts 8:37 is omitted by the modern Bible translations.
16. First Timothy 3:16 reads, “God was manifest in the flesh.” The NIV says, “He appeared in a body.” The ESV says, “He was manifested in the flesh.” The majority of Greek manuscripts say, Theos (God).
17. In Colossians 1:14, the modern versions omit the important phrase “through his blood,” thereby weakening the doctrine of Christ’s atonement.
18. Revelation 22:18, 19 says, “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”

 

CONCLUSION:

1. One hundred years ago, Paul Rader was an influential preacher in Chicago and all over the United States. He was saved here in NYC and went on to become America's first nationwide radio preacher.
2. He was the pastor of several big churches, including D.L. Moody’s church, from 1915 to 1921.
3. Back in 1930, Paul Rader offered $1,000 to anybody who could come up with one single proof that the Bible contradicts itself. He said anything in history, geology, archaeology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, ethnology, etc. Nobody ever claimed the $1,000.00.
4. Voltaire, the French infidel (died in 1778), boasted that within 100 years Christianity would be extinct. However, in 1878 his house in Geneva, Switzerland was being used by the Geneva Bible Society to print Bibles (cf. Matthew 24:35).
5. Over 200 years ago, Thomas Paine published an attack on Christianity called, The Age of Reason. He predicted that in a few years the Bible would be out of print. He boasted, "When I get through, there will not be five Bibles left in America."
6. There are millions of Bibles in America today.
7. “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.”