Fundamental Belief

I need a volunteer, thank you, Matt, for getting a handout.

That will go along with our sermon today, and feel free to find a helper on the other side of the room.

But as you are aware from time to time, I've gone to one of the fundamental belief statements of the church, and I think it's something that we do need to continue to cover those and review why we say what we say, why we believe what we believe. And we realize that we live in a society where, what I would call our satanic forces that have unleashed an all-out attack upon God, Christianity, especially, I think, anything sacred, but certainly Christianity, and the Bible, the Word of God. And I think we can expect this battle to continue and to intensify because of prophetic statements for one where, in Daniel, it says there will be an attempt to wear out the saints of the Most High, and to scatter the power of the Holy People. But also, we find within our own country, there are those who question the founding of our country, those who question the, what to me, are very clear records of founding fathers and their wives who were God-fearing, Bible-believing people. And yet, we have attempts to reconstruct history. And I think, as the people of God, we will be increasingly called into question regarding our belief in the Holy Scriptures.

We have elections that, in a number of states, there were propositions or items to be given a thumbs up or thumbs down, and a number of them, as I think I mentioned. Wow, it's been a long time ago since we've been out. Like September 15th? I mean September. I've been here since then. November 15th.

I mentioned some of the states that had given a thumbs up to the St. Saks marriage.

It's something that can take place in their state, as if marriage can be redefined, because it was defined from the very beginning in Genesis 2 by the Creator. A man and his wife, shall leave father and mother. They too become one. And so, no government, no human being, no individual, no church, no anyone can redefine what God has ordained from the very beginning.

But at the outset of the United Church of God, of course, there were founding documents as well.

And there was a constitution, and there were bylaws that were passed. And in the constitution, there is a listing of 20 specific fundamental statements of belief. And today, as the bulletin mentions, this one is on the Word of God, which is our statement number two. And I've done something similarly in the time passed, where I'll take and wanted you to have a copy where you actually have the exact text of what we say, and then we break it down into some of its parts, to look at the sum total that way. There was a project a number of years ago that was done through, I think it was Ministerial Services, where they went through these 20, put them in a type of an outline order, and gave us some material. And we were, of course, recommended to cover it from time to time. But as we learned in the sermonette, you know, we may have covered this two years ago, and we've already forgotten. We are human, aren't we? We forget. But so anyhow, let's go ahead and read together, first of all, the statement that we have made. Fundamental beliefs. Statement number two, the Word of God. We believe that Scripture, both the Old and the New Testament, is God's revelation and His complete, expressed will to humanity. Scripture is inspired in thought and word, infallible in the original writings, is the supreme and final authority in faith and life, and is the foundation of all truth. That's the statement. And we now begin with number one.

We believe that, number one, Scripture, both the Old and the New Testament, is God's revelation.

Many of us put in a certain amount of time in, say, a Christian fellowship somewhere.

Where that may have largely excluded the Old Testament. When I was a lad, the Gideon Bible Society would come through the schools. You don't have any masks. Is that even allowed anymore for the Giddians to come and pass out Bibles in school?

Nope. The Bible didn't make the cut.

Okay. Northeast Tennessee was a nice little oasis where you can get by with things that you could not get by with in other parts. I think we're in a, you know, this is a Bible belt. And so Denise was saying that in her classroom just a few years ago when the Giddians came and they had their little Bibles they would give out, the children had to leave the classrooms, go down the hall to a certain place where if they chose they could pick up their Bible.

But that Bible was the New Testament with Psalms and I think Proverbs. And you see, the Old Testament didn't make the cut. We have a lot of churches that basically, I mean, the members there may be very familiar with stories from the Gospels but be very largely illiterate as far as the stories of the Old Testament. It is possible. I don't want to over-generalize that but I remember a family member years ago who was beginning to speak in his Protestant church denomination and just mentioned to me how he was discovering there are so many wonderful stories back in the Old Testament.

And I thought, well, it's been there all along too. But I didn't respond in that way. But anyhow, so we've always looked at the Holy Scriptures as being both the Old and the New. In fact, we see it as being unified. Sometimes I think it's unfortunate that there is this kind of this line of demarcation between Old and New rather than viewing it as God beginning there in its dealings with Adam and Eve and it just continues and it builds and it magnifies and it's this ongoing story of God revealing in different ways to different people his way of life and his plan of salvation and then in showing them that the ultimate purpose he has is for humankind to receive eternal life and to become his very spirit sons and daughters for all eternity.

Now, there is a continuity between the Old and the New and there is a connection between the Old and the New. In fact, we'll look here a little later at a scripture from where Satan was tempting Jesus and the first temptation again this is 40 days and 40 nights of fasting and he stated a command that these stones be made in the bread and Jesus answered him each time he answered him by quoting from the scriptures which at that day and age is what you and I would call the Old Testament but he quoted from Deuteronomy 8, man shall not live by bread alone but by everywhere that proceeds from the mouth of God and then another temptation he says you'll not tempt the Lord your God and so there was this connection that Jesus during his ministry made and again a little later we'll look at the place where Paul in writing Timothy mentioned that from a from a child you have known the holy scriptures and of course Timothy as it mentions in one of those books his mother his grandmother and he was a third generation Christian that you have known the holy scriptures that are able to make you wise unto salvation and yet again at that day and age during Christ's ministry and then the initial years of the early church the scriptures were what we would say technically are the Old Testament scriptures in our Bible and yet God wasn't through God was not through different times when Jesus began speaking when he first um began his ministry he went back home to the area of Nazareth remember the story and that would be Luke four he went to the synagogue it was the Sabbath he stood up to read it was a part of their practice to to have different ones read from the scrolls that were there and they gave him the scroll it turns out to be of Isaiah and he read portions from Isaiah 49 and 61 as as we would have it enumerated today and he read part way down through Isaiah 61 those early verses stopped abruptly and said today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing and so he looks back at Isaiah's prophecy and he called him called it scripture and another place during his ministry he said the scripture cannot be broken and we find all the way to the very end that he was concerned about fulfilling every minute detail of what had been prophesied about messiah his sufferings his sacrifice for instance the one account i believe it's Luke's account he asked if anyone had a weapon did he say sword there but anyhow then he was told you know someone said well we've got two swords and he said it's enough and then it mentions that that was for the purpose that he would be seen as being among lawbreakers and give the justification to the religious leaders of that day to arrest him the appearance was that this was a group of rabble rousers looking looking for trouble they were up to no good so let's go to Romans chapter 3 Romans 3 we have a statement here that speaks of how the Jews were given the oversight of the guardianship of the oracles of God and we've understood this and i think most would conclude that this refers to the holy scriptures i don't want to try to force an interpretation in here but it certainly reads that way and the record of history validates that but in Romans 3 verse 1 what advantage then has the Jew or what is the prophet of the circumcision in other words is there any benefit to having been a part of the house of Judah much in every way chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God i didn't look up the actual greek word but the marginal note in my particular bible says the sayings the oracles are the sayings of God or it says the scriptures and again the record of history bears out that fact that the house of Judah was the one where it basically as you of course you there are a lot of pieces of story that we don't have but the first five books the Torah the law genesis exodus through deuteronomy those are called the five books of Moses now Moses didn't i mean Moses may have been the one just collecting it and passing along or rewriting it but he wasn't around when the temptations took place in Genesis 3 he wasn't there with the sin of Cain in chapter 4 of Genesis but there were records maybe it was oral tradition somewhere along line it would be written material and it's passed along Moses got that all together and so this then was passed along and you have excuse me you have other books that would follow of course Joshua judges which was well in the Jewish scrolls you've got 22 we in our bible the way it's divided we have 39 books however in the Jewish reckoning it was 22 Joshua judges was one scroll which makes sense because from Joshua when he dies it goes you know it tells the story as long as the elders lived and then when they began hitting some of the ruts of the road and it ended at a time a bleak time when everyone in Israel was doing as he he or she good will pleased if you would take the book of the kingdoms that there's a reference to that was actually first and second Samuel and first and second kings so and our English bibles there's four different books but it was in one Jewish scroll if you would look at the minor prophets it was just simply called that scroll was called the 12 um in our bible there's 12 different books hosiah joel amis all the way through to malachi but in the Jewish scroll it was a singular scroll with these 12 messages all on one so that's where we get the difference between 22 and 39 and it was a matter that the Jews preserved these as you have the house of Israel house of Judah separate the Jews of course had Jerusalem they had the temple scrolls and again it's a different story for a different time but you had the great assembly in the days of Ezra and the 400s around 450 BC and the the kind of the final the final stamps being placed on the the 22 scrolls that consisted of the Old Testament scriptures now let's uh let's go to Isaiah 41 a prophecy that is made Isaiah 41 Isaiah 41 beginning in verse 21 verse 21 present your case says the Lord and bring forth your strong reasons it says the king of Jacob let them bring forth and show us what will happen so god here is challenging anyone you come you tell me what is going to happen hereafter let them show the former things what they were we may consider them and know the latter end of them or declare to us things to come show the things that are to come hereafter that we may know that you are god yes do good or do evil that we may be dismayed and see it together the next chapter Isaiah 42 verse 21 is a prophetic statement of the magnification that would take place of the law the Lord is well pleased for his righteousness's sake he now if you go back to in chapter 42 if you go back to chapter or rather verse one it says behold my servant whom i uphold and the next verses make it very clear this is speaking of the servant the messiah who would come and so back to verse 21 he this messiah will exalt the law and make it honorable and of course we see that that happened during the sermon on the mount how many times did jesus say you've heard of old times that it has been said you shall not kill but i say to you and he even went to the point because you don't take human life you you pray for those who are your enemies you pray for those who despitefully use you and then he said you you've heard of old time you shall not commit adultery and then he expanded it to the spiritual intention behind all of that that if a person just looks at someone with lust they have broken that law already he added the spiritual intention behind every word of the letter of the law in the book of daniel we find that daniel was told let me in some cases here i'll just give you a scripture if you want to write it down there there are far too many to really do justice to in in what what i have here but daniel 12 verses nine and excuse me eight and nine daniel 12 verses eight and nine and that's late in the book daniel wanted to understand more and he was just told simply it's not for you it's not for your time it's sealed till the time of the end and so that understanding had to be unlocked it had to be given in god's due time now matthew 24 matthew 24 all of that prophecy but jesus spoke of the fact that heaven and earth will pass but his words will endure forever matthew 24 verse 35 verse 35 heaven and earth will pass away and of course if we go to the the second letter of peter he speaks of a time when the very elements of the universe will be purged by fire but my words will by no means pass away jesus referring to his own teachings and what he was adding to and giving to those disciples at that time while we're here in matthew notice matthew 10 matthew 10 verse 10 there's a statement jesus makes just in passing but we can find later in the new testament where the apostle paul referred back to that and he equated that statement of jesus christ as being a part of scripture okay matthew 10 verse 10 he's sending out disciples and in verse 10 you don't take a bag for your journey nor two tunics nor sandals nor staffs for a worker is worthy of his food the labor is worthy of his hire so essentially he's saying just go and those among whom you work and minister have the obligation to take care of those needs you will have for food for shelter etc now with having read that let's turn over to first timothy five first timothy five and we read verse 18 verse 18 first timothy five for the scripture says you shall not muzzle and ox while it treads as a grain and you may well have a reference back into deuteronomy 25 just the basic consideration that was to be given to those beasts of burden when you stop let them let them graze just a little and he likened that to human beasts of burden if we can connect the two human laborers and then he said and the laborer is worthy of his wages and the marginal note here sends me right back to luke 10 which is the parallel account of what we just read in matthew 10 and that was a statement made by jesus christ and paul years later is calling the words of christ a part of scripture so we see that holy scripture as they may have known it while christ walked the earth was the old testament it wasn't through things were being added let's also look in second peter 3 when we get to the time when peter is writing we're we're looking here at the 60s 80 we're somewhere around three decades after the events of christ's death and resurrection and ascension and we had certain writings of the apostles that were beginning to be disseminated and he here now refers to writings of the apostle paul i think the first letter paul wrote his earlier letters were galatians and first crantians and those are dated somewhere around 55 ad uh don't know if there were any of the gospel accounts around quite yet unless maybe matthews was but specifically paul's and he makes a statement here equating to paul's hard to understand writings as being a part of the scriptures so second peter 3 verse 16 as also in all his epistles now verse 15 referred to our beloved brother paul speaking in them in these letters easy of these things and which are some things hard to understand i'm glad peter wrote that because i go to areas of palatians and romans and that kind of things still kind of bounce around in there um the apostle paul was brilliant an absolutely brilliant individual and he was writing far more scholarly intelligent way than you know some of the others were who were great at telling stories and narratives but the paul could make the most brilliant arguments which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction as they do also the rest of the scriptures so he's looking referring here to paul's epistles and some people twist them just like they do the other parts of the scriptures so here he already is referring to some of paul's writings as being a part of holy scripture now i with there are a lot of pieces of the puzzle that are missing i would love to know so much more about the canonization or the means by which first the old testament scrolls were all brought together collected some were rejected and some were kept and then especially the story of the new testament writings because there were a lot more around a lot of spurious writings and they were rejected but it would appear that certain ones were in circulation so paul says some of or peter says some of paul's writings were scripture isaiah 8 verse 16 isaiah 8 verse 16 the prophetic statement here isaiah 8 verse 16 bind up the testimony seal the law among my disciples seal the law to seal something you have a a stamp of completion stamp of finality that is placed on it again i don't want to try to force an interpretation here but it's generally been understood that this prophesies of a of the fact that those of the early church are going to have certain documents that continue to be in the process of of being filtered through and accepted and approved for the final canon or grouping of books that we know today as the bible and of course then with the apostle john who was the last living of the original apostles uh you get the very end of last few verses of revelation 22 he pronounced the curse upon anyone who would add to or take from the words of this prophecy and some have questioned well was he referring only to that book of revelation or was he referring to his five books the gospel free epistles and revelation or was he or was he is it possible he's placing kind of a final stamp on the the entirety of the bible or maybe just the new testament scroll manuscripts so from this we see Paul told Timothy known the holy scripture from time you were a child Peter looked at some of Paul's writings and said they're part of the scriptures it's interesting let me just give you a scripture here 2 Timothy 4 verse 13 2 Timothy 4 verse 13 i'm not going to turn there but he it's just a statement made in passing where Paul is in prison the second time he has been condemned to be executed he's writing Timothy telling him you know i want you to come to me and when you come bring the books for the parchments with you and it's been speculated i think it's a it's interesting to consider that there may have been manuscripts being gathered together and maybe those needed to come to Paul for him to add his part or to approve some of his own writings and then they go on to somebody else and that then maybe John was the one that kind of kind of put the final stamp on it later on again a lot of a lot of pieces of the puzzle missing when we when we get here i had a personal correspondence question that was sent to me recently and the person had been on our website and on the topic of the trinity we we have statements as far as kind of the history of the trinity teaching and it was two three hundred years down the line after the events of the new testament two three hundred years down the line before you come across this teaching of father son holy spirit three and one um you can find it in the bible and we make that point that you do not find the teaching in the bible in fact you don't even find the word trinity in the bible now this this fellow this uh this last week he he said well by that reasoning since the word bible is not in the bible then there's not a bible and that kind of hit my limited brain is still kind of bouncing around in there um so i tried to respectfully reply well yes the bible is in the bible because our word bible comes from three different greek words you have biblion you have biblia books and you have biblos when jesus stood up to read from the scriptures in nazareth that sabbath he was handed the scroll of isaiah and the word biblion appears when john ends revelation and he says if you add to or take from anything written in his book then you know these curses will be added to you and that's biblos and so i mentioned you know from those words we translated into english and we have our word bible and i'm waiting to hear his reply but anyhow so um but the bible you know our first part of our statement i know i'm spending more time on this one i'll go faster on the next parts of our statement but the bible is is one old and new test perfect unified interrelated it's an interrelated whole it's a complete unit it is the perfect revealed word of god broken into different parts there are parts in the old testament jesus there at the end of luke luke 24 he referred to the things written in the law and the prophets and the songs or the writings you did have those three main divisions the new testament has major divisions as well you have four gospels you had then the standalone book of acts actually in the way they were originally arranged you had them the seven generally epistles next and then you had the writings of paul followed by revelation so so seven different breakdowns in the new testament but um in my answer to this man i also just for his information because he said something about don't you know that the catholic church canonized the new testament and i replied to him and i said well it's a record of history that in 397 ad there was the senate of karthish and at that senate the catholic church merely accepted the 27 books of the new testament they didn't piece them together and decide which ones go in and which ones go out and they recognized in that senate that these have been in use for three centuries among the churches so anyhow fascinating study again a lot of pieces of the puzzle missing but let's go to our belief statement regarding the word of god part number two and his complete expressed will to humanity is complete expressed will to humanity and so the bible we're saying here is the creator's instruction book to the created it is the guidebook by which humanity is to live now let's go to matthew four and read verse four matthew four verse four the temptations by the devil the tempter after a lengthy period of fasting if you are the son of god command at these stones become bread verse three verse four but he answered and said it is written and so he is answering and you'll see each time he answers from the scriptures it is written and then he begins a quotation you'll probably have a marginal note that will take you to deuteronomy eight as moses was summarizing the 40 years of wandering and how and why and wherefores of how god led them through the wilderness all of those years to humble them and to teach them and then as a part of his answer he said that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of god and so the same is true for us today the just shall live by faith is another phrase john 17 verse 17 your word is truth john 17 17 as he prayed that night before he was betrayed your word is truth we live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of god let's also notice isaiah 8 verse 20 because in isaiah's day you had those who were turning and going to the soothsayers and the the wizards of the world around them the mediums isaiah 8 verse 20 to the law and to the testimony if they do not speak according to this word it is because there is no light in them and that's true for us today we have to filter through a lot of things coming at us in this society we have to filter through a lot of attitudes we have an all-out assault again against god christianity bible but our that's where we have to be students of the word of god as peter wrote to be ready to give an answer of those who ask of the hope that what that dwells within us so the bible the word of god is he has complete expressed will to humanity whatever the question we can find it at least in principle here back in what was it lividicus it said that as far as the word of god that we shall live in them it is an outline of a way of life all right number three number three scripture is inspired in thought and word infallible in the original writings now the challenge is that what we have are not in the original writings it is by inspiration thought and word there were times say the many books written by paul uh we don't have anything that tells us that god appeared to him he said you need to write this letter to rome and here's what you write but what he writes the arguments he makes god uses the personality he uses the the vocabulary the style the intellect of the one who was writing there are other times where you have individuals who were told like john they're on patmas you know those early verses of revelation you know you're you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna be recording some of the things that you're gonna see you know he revelation four he's there he sees this throne and sight like it to an emerald a sea of glass it's thrown around about it like a rainbow and he wrote down and tried to describe the things that he saw but then there were times when he or daniel or others were told okay i want you jeremiah jeremiah was told okay taking you write it in this scroll and then it got destroyed and he was told write it again so in thought and in word now let's go to second timothy three second timothy three and there's a word here i fail to look up the the greek word it's the only place it appears in the bible but it's uh it's the word that's translated here the the inspiration of god second timothy three verse 15 let's start there and from childhood you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in christ jesus and that one that one backs up our our second statement that the the the holy scriptures encapsulate the the complete expressed will of god to the human family verse 16 all scripture is given by inspiration of god and that's that's where there's this one greek word that's translated inspiration of god and it it paints this word picture of god breathing life into us that as we partake of the holy scriptures as we day in and day out renew the inner the inner person and one way to do that is through bible study god is breathing life in a spiritual sense into us and the word picture would hearken back to genesis 2 where god formed adam out of the elements of the earth and then at that point god breathed life into him in that sense in a physical way physical life and a parallel here god breathes life into us spiritually through his scripture all scripture is given by inspiration of god and is is profitable for doctrine and so that's where as we go to doctoral matters we heavily rely upon what do these scriptures say on this topic for reproof because we all start bearing off course we can go out there and be lone rangers and you know we're going to get out there and get some quirky ideas that happens to every one of us we need to remain a part of the body of believers where god you know the the church is the pillar and stay of the truth and for correction and for instruction in righteousness that the man of god may be complete thoroughly equipped for every good work and so as we read we we learn we we learn how to live in the way jesus christ lived faith comes by hearing hearing by the word of god we hear stories read stories in the bible we hear other people's stories and it has a strengthening effect upon us as well and so scripture is inspired in thought and word infallible in the original writing and i'm going to come back to that a little bit later because you know part of the problem we run into is with translations and yet we've got some good ones available we have i mean there i've got a computer program where it has a young's literal translation and then there are what are called inter inter-linears where they take the hebrew and greek and just just immediately below it they translate it into the english but you have translations that are in the category called the word for word translations and the old king james and of course this new king james is based on that kind of corrected some of the problems of the old king james and cleaned up the language force for modern times and the the church has as a standard we quote from the new king james unless we make a note otherwise but these are word for word in other words you have say in saying hebrews excuse me i'm not genesis one one it starts out by receipt bara elohim so the receipt in the beginning bara has to do with created or created elohim god et hashan i am can't believe i remember this it's been too long the heavens and the earth so it takes it hebrew word for hebrew word and translates it into the english equivalent we have the greatest safety with word for word translations then we have meaning for meaning and the challenge there now one of your more familiar ones there would be the new international version one of the challenges there is that you have the wherewithal for translators to begin telling us what it means which scares me new international version most parts of the bible great the flow is i like the flow doctrinal areas be very very careful be very careful paraphrases there are paraphrases i remember back in the 70s that by little individual volumes you first began to have the living bible come out and then it was bound together the living bible i still have one you know there's a good news bible there are other there are other paraphrases but we need to realize that these are attempts of human beings tell us what the bible says and the further we get away from the word for word translation so that's why we say infallible and the original writings and a little bit i think you'll find it just stunning to realize how many checks and balances there have been i read a book few years ago sander and loaned it to me up in king's port on the the procedure behind the translation of the king james bible and how they gathered the greatest heber and greek scholars and and and and group them in the groups of nine and they had different sections and all the checks and balances and then it went up to this advisory level and the checks and balances and and there's a lot of safety in that way all right um inspired in thought and word so again i think i come in on that the author's personality would come through his or her own style and and intellect and vocabulary would be reflected all right point number four as far as again the word of god is the supreme and final authority in faith and life the supreme and final authority in faith and life and you know the way our society is going this is this is this is a sad reality once upon a time you see bumper stickers the bible says that i believe it i haven't seen one of those a long time you know we're moving in the wrong direction as a society we we as a society were we had um you look at the declaration of independence david barton um is a historian who has some fascinating information looking into the background of each one of those what is it 55 56 signers and this this overwhelming number were not only bible believing claiming to be christian but they were ministers and they were well educated and you know there are those who say and begin to question and try to rewrite the fact that we had we had god-fearing people who came to this country to try to get a chance to start all over and to have religious freedom but tolerance so anyhow let's look at second corinthians 5 verse 7 second corinthians 5 verse 7 and here it just simply says for we walk by faith not by sight and i think that speaks to the bible the bible teaches us of faith the bible tells us stories that enhance our faith if we let them and the bible leads us down that path toward eternal life which is taking a lot of steps based upon faith in john 5 let's look at john 5 on 5 verses 38 and 39 38 and 39 jesus speaking here but you do not have his word abiding in you he's speaking to the jewish leaders of that day some of the jews of that day because whom he sent him you do not believe because this father this god they were speaking of is the one who sent jesus christ and christ was standing right there in front of their faces and they didn't recognize him you searched the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life and these are they which testify of me the scriptures testified of jesus christ and they didn't see it let me just give you one other reference here just to make a note of psalm 119 verse 105 psalm 119 verse 105 of course that psalm repeatedly glorifies the word of god but it says there your word is a lamp unto my feet a lamp to my feet so if you're out at night you have a flashlight you can see where you're supposed to step you can see rocks roots um critters things that you might not want to step on and the word of god in a spiritual sense opens our eyes and allows us to see where we are to take steps in life and moving toward the kingdom of god so the holy scriptures are the foundation for faith for life for knowledge for truth it is this that jesus christ used he repeatedly would go back he would quote from the scriptures the early apostles continued in that after that model the phillip came across the ethiopian and he was reading in the scroll of isaiah and he asked him do you understand what you are reading and he started right there expounding to him jesus and him crucifying he took him to the scriptures and many many times in paul's writings he would say for as it is written and then quotation from back in the old testament all right number five number five the word of god and is the foundation of all truth it is the foundation of all truth now hebrews chapter four hebrews 4 and let's read verse 12 speaks here of the word of god and there probably is room for a dual application because the word word comes from logos in the greek same word was used in john 1 in the beginning was the word word is with god word was god same word is used here this spokesman spokesperson hebrews 4 verse 12 for the word of god is living you know the bible is a living book it was written so long ago and yet how applicable is it any situation we run into is living and powerful and sharper than any two-headed sword piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of the joints and morrow and as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart there's no creature hidden from his sight which would seem to imply more so jesus christ himself as the word but i think we certainly have to include the written word in this statement as well because we all have occasions when we have before god opened the bible and we have read and it strikes us right between the eyes we see something we didn't see before in ourselves but once again paul would ask what does the scripture say or he would say the scripture says and he used that as the very foundation for truth let's look at first timothy three first timothy um let's see yes first 15 first timothy three verse 15 all writing timothy planning to come by where timothy was but realize that he might be delayed verse 15 but if i am delayed i write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of god which is the church of the living god the pillar and ground of the truth a pillar we have a building here we have load-bearing walls we have probably we well we may have pipes or posts that are covered up by sheetrock or we have studded walls because they bear everything up above denise's parents house you have above you have a basement and down the center of the basement all the way through you can see there's this row of these these posts these pipes and these are the pillars that support everything up above and the church is to be a pillar that which holds up that which supports if you go back as far as the church of god tradition for a long long time you go back and there have been statements of belief we believe this about god we believe this about the law we believe this about the bible or the sabbath or holy days or tithing and so there have been those statements of belief in our attempt to try to be those pillars or that that body that is a pillar and holding up the truth the pillar and the ground or the stay the margin says the foundation or the mainstay of the truth and so in the church the jesus christ established we have cherished the truth we want to fully understand it and we want to preach it we want to follow it with god's help we want to see others also see the importance and go and do likewise so anyhow i want to go back a little bit here this would go back to the earlier statement as far as the word being infallible in the original writings and i might mention that you can you can go back if you've got the hard copies this is the july august 2004 good news magazine the the battle over the bible you got a lot of good material there so july august 2004 and here's a here's an article in the middle ken graham wrote has the bible been preserved accurately you've got next couple of pages this box at the bottom how did we get the bible so a lot of a lot of wonderful material there far too much to try to go through here at this point but i ran across some information as far as how the old testament scriptures were preserved we had of course different different story for another time but i mentioned a while ago in passing you know moses had books he passed on you had you had others who would have written different books and and it appears when the days of ezra you know 400 bc that there was this great assembly that gathered together the 22 scrolls that are in our bibles it's 39 books that we know but these were preserved as we read at the beginning roman's three these oracles these sayings these writings were given into the jews to take care of or given to them to take care of and let me mention here just some of the way because as as they had the holy scriptures as they understood the old testament and they were transcribing they were making copies they had a lot of checks and balances so if we look at the era from 70 ad when the temple fell and you know the jews were dispersed 70 ad until 8500 a synagogue roll must be written on the skins of clean animals you see there were some um um parchments like papyrus that didn't last forever but a skin of an animal but you know by this it had to be clean animal so possum is out and um pig and horse and things like that had to be cattle sheep etc so use those skins and they had particulars on on the length of each column and then the breadth was 30 letters no word or letter could be copied and again we're talking about the scribes who were copying the scripture no word or even letter could be copied from memory now if you and i we're going to write out some scriptures here and then let's see i'm here in first emily four verse seven it says but reject profane and old wives fables and exercise yourself for godliness i might read exercise yourself for godliness and i'm writing over here exercise yourself godliness you know skip a word forget a word write a different word they had checks and balances were not even an individual letter even the tiniest letter the god remember how jesus sir around the mount said that no jot or tittle no no little tiny marking of the scripture was passed the whole things are fulfilled so the yacht is that that little one looks like an apostrophe no word or letter not even a yacht could be written from memory then between every consonant they didn't want the letters running together between every consonant a space of a hair or a thread must enter me from one letter to the next all right between each book they had to skip three lines so if you had a scribe who was copying say the twelve the minor prophets when he would get to the end of hosea he had to leave this period of this area space before he could start with joel so between books three lines now after the area after the time 500 ad you have the era era of the mazaretes 500 to 916 ad you had the mazaretes were a group of scribes copying the bible and they had a listing of all kinds of rules and checks and balances called the mazora the mazora is called a fence to the scriptures because it locked all words and letters into specific places it recorded the number of times letters occurred in the bible if you can imagine you had to count in the old testament scriptures how many times the say the letter bet would appear and then when a copy is completed you had to count all of those letters and if it didn't match up that scroll was rejected and buried it recorded the number of times letters occurred in the bible the number of words in the bible or in the in the scripture it it made note of the middle word of sentences all this was for the set purpose of preventing the loss or the misplacement of even a single letter or word they calculated and checked each copy according to the middle letter phrases were numbered counted so for instance house of israel as a phrase was counted and when the copy was complete they had to have x number of times where house of israel as a phrase appeared so he had all of these checks and balances now when we talk about the new testament i have a couple of books here this is the this one says tacitas on the spline and he was a roman historian and you have the annals and the histories of tacitas and let's see right at right at 300 pages of some pretty fine writing how many manuscripts do you suppose human beings have their hands on from which we can translate into english and have a history of facets well we have two two manuscripts i don't hear anybody questioning well was this one translated right and the oldest one is dated 800 years after the time tacitas lived eight hundred years of a lot of time for a lot of things to go well questionable things that happen i also have well this actually has the writings of harada system also lucidity lucidity's uh greek historian it's last third he writes several i think nine books on the peloponnesa battles back and forth parthen and Athens we've got more manuscripts for for the writings of lucidity again i don't know of anyone who questions how accurate this translation english is but we have eight manuscripts that give us this history the oldest one was written 1300 years after lucidity now file that away and let's talk about the manuscripts of the new testament there are latin and then there are three manuscripts the latin vulgate translation was made there are eight thousand manuscripts of the latin vulgate there are an estimated one thousand earlier latin versions eight thousand one thousand we're at nine already then if you add in the greek now the greek language is more precise the greek language is well for a lot of it that was the original language and hence tends to be trusted more so in greek language we have four thousand manuscripts and some place that almost up to five thousand so if you add all those together at least thirteen thousand manuscripts some of them a lot of them are the entire new testament many are of individual books or portions of the new testament or portions of books thirteen thousand plus manuscripts that were copied by the mazaretes under extremely stringent checks and balances now i think it's also interesting i ran across something else you've got a lot of your early church writers a lot of the early theologians quoted at will from the scriptures they quoted so much from the new testament that sir david dalrymple years ago decided i'm going to take all these writings of iran s augustin some pronounce that augustine uh other writers tritullian he took all of these writings and they quote from different parts of the new testament so much he wanted he wanted to see how much if we lost all of the new testament manuscripts how much could we reconstruct from quotations of it from the early writers and he pieced together the entire new testament except for 11 verses 11 verses so it gets to be a fascinating story um just depending on how much an individual wants to to look into it but once again from our statement of belief we believe in scripture both old and new testament is god's revelation and his complete expressed will to humanity scripture is inspired in thought and word infallible in the original writings is the supreme and final authority in faith and life and is the foundation of all truth let's close in ephiegians 5 ephiegians 5 the section where paul addresses the married state wives submit husband's love he drew the parallel between husband and wife and the relationship there between christ and the church he has just instructed wives husbands to love your wives as christ loved the church and gave herself himself for her verse 26 that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word the bible serves as an essential tool in our individual relationship with god it establishes doctrine it refutes error it administers correction and it shows us the steps we must take in walking down the road toward eternal life