(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

So if you recall last week we started a series that I'm going to be working through called Distinctive Doctrines and I introduced that series last week and basically just made the point that it's important that great truths be repeated, that we need to be reminded of some of the more basic things about our faith, not just for those of us that have been here to be reminded of these things, but also because there's always new people coming through. There's always people that maybe don't know these things, that have never heard the Bible acronym that we're going to be going through and there's also not just those doctrines but I also mentioned there were some other ones that make us distinct as those that would be identified as a new IFB church, people that preach specific doctrines, that there's even some doctrines that would make us more distinct from our old IFB brethren, again not because we're preaching something new, but simply that they have drawn back or moved away from some of these things and left us standing there holding the bag, not in a disparaging way and we're glad to hold these truths, we're glad to toe that line because it's biblical. And one of the first doctrines I want to look at as we work our way through this series is the doctrine of biblical authority and what that means is that the Bible is our final authority in all matters of faith and practice. Everything we do, everything we teach, everything we preach should find its roots in the Bible. Everything that we believe should be found in the Bible, it should be able to be proven from scripture and if there's something we believe that is contrary to scripture or goes against the Bible, we should be willing to change that. That's what we mean by biblical authority, that this book, the Holy King James Bible is the final say-so in everything that we believe and do as people and as a church, that we should always look to the scripture and allow it to establish us in what we believe. And really you say well I don't understand why you have to make the Bible the authority but here's the thing, everybody in life has an authority. I don't care who you are, even the heathen out there, they have something that they're going to say well I believe this is true because X, Y, and Z. Even the unsaved professor out there or whoever it is is going to say I believe that, I don't believe the Bible because I have certain authorities that I appeal to and they hold those authorities and esteem and say well that's why I believe what I believe because somebody, everybody is holding somebody as their authority and the only difference between us and them is that we believe this book and we say that this is our authority, not the book of just a word of some man but also actually the word of God. That's why we believe the Bible is our authority. So we live in a culture today and a world today that promotes this idea of not having an authority, of just being a free thinker, being your own man, going your own way. But here's the thing, nobody is really going their own way. Everybody is being influenced by somebody, everybody is taking their ideas from somewhere and applying them to their lives. Everybody has an authority. Nobody is coming up with anything unique on their own. So we've decided as Christians, as Baptists, that we're going to allow this book to be our authority and that there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that's a great thing to have as your authority. The Bible is a very special thing, it's a very unique thing, and it's a wonderful thing that we have. The Bible says in Psalms 138, I will worship toward thy holy temple and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy truth, for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. David there is praying and saying to the Lord that He will praise Him for His loving kindness. Why? Because thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. The Scripture declares that God has magnified His own word above His own name. That's how wonderful a thing that we have in the Scripture, how unique of a thing, how authoritative it is to us as the people of God that we have this book that is even exalted above the very names of God Himself, and that's not a blasphemous thing to say at all. That's what the Bible declares. It's what God wrote in His book to say that, hey, I've magnified my word above all my name. So the thing is, we have an authority, but we have a very good authority. We have a great authority to look to, and we're going to talk about this morning about why we believe the Bible and why we make it our authority. Number one, because God has exalted it. God has lifted up His word. The fact that we're going to have to choose somebody as our authority, as I was alluding to earlier, everybody is going to accept an authority, and they're going to do it by faith. I'm just going to come right out of the gate and say this, that that's what we do with the Bible. Why do you believe the Bible is the word of God? Because it says it is. Amen. You say, well, that doesn't make any sense. I'm not trying to make sense. I'm not trying to allude to your humanistic reasoning. It's something that's done by faith. It's something that I've experienced, it's something that I know in my heart, it's something that I've felt, it's something that has been proven to me through applying these principles in my life and the power that's in the book. Everyone accepts their authority by faith. As I was talking about the announcements, I'm up there at the Meteor Crater, and they're talking about the millions of years, the billions of years, the trillions of years of space and everything else that's taking place. Were they there? I mean, how did they know? They're just trusting in some professor somewhere. Somebody dug up some bones and made up a fairy tale, and that's what they believe. That's their authority. So I believe a little, I just have a different authority to them, but we're both accepting it by faith. The one who believes in the Big Bang, they can't prove that anymore than I can prove to you that this is the Word of God. But I have more evidence, anecdotal evidence, I believe, to believe this is the Word of God than they have to believe in some made up evolutionary fairy tale. And here's the thing, you're there in Hebrews 11, look at verse 6, the Bible says, But without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. So when we come to the Bible and we say, I'm going to make this my authority, we say it not because I have all this evidence as why I should believe it, but we come to it and believe it and make it our authority by faith. And that's the way God's designed it. God wants us to act on faith. God wants us to accept his Word by faith. And without faith, the Bible says it is impossible to please him. That is something that is necessary if we're going to live a life that is pleasing to God. It's going to take faith for you this morning to make the Bible your authority and to allow God to work in your life. The Bible says in John 8.47, you go ahead and turn over to Psalm 119, Psalm 119, we'll say well how do you, how can you just say the Bible is your authority and just do that by faith? How can you just say that by faith you accept the Bible to be what it is, to be what it claims that it is, the Word of God? Because of the fact that when I read it, it speaks to me. Because when I hear it preach, it speaks to me. Because when I do the things that I am instructed to do in my life, I can see my life being made better by it. I can see the Word of God working. You know, we see this so often on soul winning, when somebody gets saved and we open up the Word of God and we start to preach to them and you watch somebody start to understand, you can almost see the Holy Spirit ministering to their heart. And people believe it by faith all the time and accept it. There's just something about it. What it is about it is the fact that it is the Word of God. That's where it's power comes from. It says there, I'll read for you from John 8, it says, He that is of God heareth God's Word, ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God. The unsaved person looks at it and says, well the Bible doesn't speak to me. And you know, there was a time in my life where I tried to read the Bible, I tried to read the book of John. I was unsaved. I got maybe to the third chapter and I said, this doesn't make any sense. It's not a very complicated story, the first two chapters of John. It's very easy to understand. But it just didn't speak to me. I didn't see, well why would anybody sit around and read about a guy in camel's hair shouting out in the wilderness and eating bugs. It didn't make any sense to me. But after having gotten saved, after coming to God by faith and being filled with the Holy Spirit, having the Holy Spirit indwelling me, now I go and read that story and I'm moved. I'm moved that there was a man named John the Baptist who went in the wilderness and was prepared under the coming of Christ and preached repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. I'm impressed by that. I'm moved by that. Why? Because I heareth God's word. Why? Because I am of God. And that's the way it is for every child of God. If we have the Holy Spirit, if we're born again, we're going to read this book and we're going to know that it is God's word because it's going to witness to us. His Spirit will bear witness with our spirit. Now you're there in Psalm 119, look at verse 165. It says, Great peace have they, 119 verse 165, great peace have they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them. You know when we come to the word of God and we love it and we accept it and we say this is my authority, the Bible says we have great peace. You know I say that the word of God is my authority. I believe it is the very written word of God and I'm not ashamed of that and I don't lose any sleep about that. And I don't lose any sleep about anybody that would say oh you're just acting on blind faith. You don't have any concrete physical evidence, you don't have any proof that the Bible is the word of God, how can you prove it? I don't lose any sleep over that. Over the mockers and the scoffers and those that would ridicule that position that I believe the Bible is the word of God that I've made it my authority in my life that I'm going to do what it says. I have great peace in fact because I love this book, because of the things that it teaches me and the things that I'm able to, the way I'm able to live my life because of it. I have great peace. And they say well you don't have any evidence, but what about the resurrection of Christ? I mean just think about it. If you wanted to try to give somebody some kind of proof that this is the word of God, I mean think about, and I've talked about this recently, all the stupid things people write down, all the volumes of literature out there that are just made up, or things that have taken place, all the history that we have recorded of just wars and conquering and just all the different tales of conquest and adventure, just things that actually happened that are written down that people took the time and said hey we need to write this down this is important. I mean if there was a man that came to earth and did the things that Jesus Christ did and then died and was buried and rose again, don't you think somebody would take the time to write that down? Of course they would. Is that really so far fetched that somebody would actually record the things that took place if those things actually took place? Again I can't prove it to you, it's anecdotal, I can't prove to you that that's what happened but I come to it by faith and you know what it gives me? It gives me great peace. Because I love dialogue. You see, we accept the biblical authority as Baptists and what we mean by that is that we believe that yes the Bible is our authority in all matters of faith and practice but why? The reason why is because we believe that the Bible is inspired by God. We believe it is inerrant and we believe that it is the preserved word of God in the King James Version. That's why we accept it as authority because it's inspired, it's inerrant and it's preserved unto us. And that's what I want to talk to you about this morning. Why is it that we accept the biblical authority? Well first of all we accept it because of the fact that the word of God is inspired, we believe that. And again, everything I'm going to tell you this morning is going to come from the word of God. So I'm proving my authority by my authority and people can mock and ridicule that all they want but I'm coming to it by faith as we're instructed to do. If you would turn over to 2 Timothy chapter 3, 2 Timothy chapter 3. We believe this morning that the Bible should be our authority because of the fact that the word of God is inspired, it's inspired by God. The men that wrote the book, they were moved by the Holy Ghost, as we'll read here in a minute. Yes, the Bible was physically penned down by man, but those men were inspired by God to write the things that they wrote. Not only by the things which they had seen and heard but also by the very moving of the Holy Spirit in their heart, bringing to remembrance those things which they had seen and heard, that they might reiterate them. And the Bible just fits together like a book that was just written over thousands and thousands of years. Men that were just separated by generations, foretelling things, and then men reporting those things coming to pass. I mean, there's some proof for you. They can say, well, it's just either the Bible is the word of God or it's the greatest hopes that man has ever played. And it's the most elaborate, deep, longest running conspiracy that it's ever been. And quite frankly, it's probably near impossible to pull that off. I know 9-11 was impressive. They really got the wool over a lot of people's eyes on that one. But this is monumental in scope if it were just some big, vast conspiracy. I mean, it would be impossible to pull it off. When we read about things that are being prophesied about the death of Christ down to the details about how he would die, about the things that he would say, and then them saying, he said it. He did it. That's exactly how it happened, as it was predicted thousands of years earlier. So we believe the Bible is the word of God because it is inspired. The Bible was penned through man, but it was penned by God through man. We try to explain this to the kids sometimes, it would almost be like if you sat down and somebody else just put their hand over yours and kind of told you what to write. I'm not saying that God took over them and just made them into a robot, but he moved through their hearts to write the things that they wrote. It says there, and that's what the Bible clearly declares there, look at 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for proof, for correction, for instruction of righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. So it says there that all scripture is given by what? By inspiration of God. That's why we believe that the Bible is given to us by inspiration because of the fact that it says it is. And I'd like to point out why there in that verse it says all, all scripture is given by God. Maybe it's that all scripture is authoritative and we've got a lot of even Baptists today that want to look at certain passages in the Old Testament and say well you know that doesn't apply anymore or you know that just shouldn't be there. You even have people today that are saying that whole passages there shouldn't even be in the book, saying oh you know those verses shouldn't even exist, that was wrong for them to have written that down, this is misinterpreted. And they want to cast out certain passages, they want to disregard certain passages. But the Bible says right there that all scripture is given by inspiration of God. Even the parts that we don't like are still authoritative. Even the parts that are going to rub the fur the wrong way and are going to chap our hide, they're still given by the inspiration of God. And we're either going to make these things our authority or not. And if we do, the Bible says that it's profitable for doctrine and for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That we might, as the men of God, might be perfect and thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Go ahead and turn over to 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 20. So we have to understand first of all that we believe the Bible, we take, accept the Bible as our authority because we believe the Bible was inspired, it was given to us by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. You're there in 2 Peter chapter 1, look at verse 20. Knowing this verse, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Of course this is alluding to the prophets. I mean the Spirit of the Lord would come upon these men and they would preach and they would prophesy and they would say these things as they were moved by the Holy Ghost and those things that they said were written down, they were recorded and they were preserved for us today. So we have these things because of the fact that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. You know it wasn't just some, you know, just some weirdo, you know, just some bozo getting up and just spouting off in the mouth. These were holy men of God that spake. These were men that loved God. These were men that were used by God as prophets and God would speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. They weren't just making these things up as they went along. And it says there that it's not of any private interpretation and the Bible isn't just something that we can take and make it to say whatever we want. There is a way the Bible has to be taught. There are things that are foundational that have to be interpreted a certain way. People can go to the Bible and they can make it say whatever they want and they can go to certain passages and try to force it to mean something that it doesn't. But that is a private interpretation. That's somebody saying well this is what I believe the Bible says. Well it has to line up with the rest of scripture. You have to compare spiritual things with spiritual things. You know we don't have liberty here to just teach whatever we want from the word of God. That's what we mean by when we say the Bible is our authority. You know I as a preacher just can't get up and say well I know the Bible says this and it's commonly been taught that the Bible means this but you know what I'm going to give you my own take on what that means. I'm going to give you my own take on repentance and tell you what I think it means. That it means you have to turn from all your sin and turn over a new leaf and live a good life. You know it has to line up all your doctrine with the rest of the word of God. Otherwise you have a private interpretation and the Bible says that it is not of any private interpretation. We don't have liberty with the word of God to just say whatever we want with it. We have to make sure that it all lines up. You know all of our doctrine, all the practices we do as a church, they have to find their source in the Bible to be considered legitimate. You know well why do we baptize by immersion? Because of the fact the Bible teaches baptism is by immersion. Why do we baptize people after they get saved? Because the Bible teaches you to baptize people after they get saved. If they told me to do it some other way or at some other point in a person's life, that's how I'd do it. Because the Bible is my authority and I believe it's inspired and I believe that's how we are to do things. Everything that we do and everything that we believe has to find its source here in the word of God. And with that being said, that's why we have to be really careful about outside sources. People want to start going to, they don't want to study the book, they want to study books about the book. You know they don't want to study the Bible, they want to pull some other book off the shelf to tell them what the Bible means. The best way to study the Bible is by reading the Bible and picking up and letting it speak to you. You know you have no need that any man teacheth you but the anointing that you have teaches you of all things. You know the Spirit will guide you into all truth if you just pick up and read it. There's nothing in the Bible that you can't as a believer that has the Holy Ghost that you can't pick this book up and learn on your own. It might take you a little bit longer and that's why we're thankful for preachers who have also learned from other preachers and we're being taught things that have been passed down from generation to generation. The things that I'm going to teach and preach up here are things that I've been taught and heard preached myself. And the person that taught me through their preaching learned from somebody else. And there's no new thing under the sun, we're not making this up. Well everything that we believe has to come from this book. And anything that we're going to pull off the shelf, any outside source that we're going to read about the Bible or try to get doctrine from has to line up with this book. And if that were the philosophy that a lot of people had there would be a lot of books going in the garbage. Because there's a lot of outside sources today, there's a lot of footnotes in a lot of people's Bibles today that are complete heresy. The Schofield Bible, I highly recommend not reading that. There was a time when every Baptist in America had that, where every Bible, the Bible colleges were handing it out saying you've got to read it. People have been indoctrinated with the lies that are in that book. All these people that have the volumes of Peter Ruckman on their shelves should take them and throw them away and just start reading the book. And they probably might even need to get saved in this understanding of that. There's so many people that want to write books about the Bible. They want to write their encyclopedias and their concordances and their commentaries and a lot of those things that they're writing are contrary to what we actually find in the scripture and they need to be dismissed. Because again, my final authority is not some man's commentary. My final authority is not the teaching of some Bible college somewhere. My final authority is this book. And I don't care who it is. If they're contrary to this book, they're wrong and they need to get it right. It says there that the prophecy is of no private interpretation for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man. It wasn't the will of man that just decided to make the Bible. It was God who said, I want there to be a book. He's the one that decided that he was going to have his words written down and available for us so that we could know the very mind of God. People are always saying, I wish God would speak to me. If God were right here, I'd believe him. Guess what? God's right here. God's speaking to you in this book. Because God designed it that way. God gave us this book not by the will of man. That's not how we came to be in our possession today. It came because of the fact that it was inspired by God. Those prophets spake and what they said was reported and written down and preserved for us. People say, well I don't know if I can accept that. That sounds pretty far-fetched, that God would write a book. Well if you don't think God can write a book, you must not have a very powerful God. You must have a pretty small God. I remember after I'd gotten saved, I got a little mixed up in some false doctrine with this sacred name movement. They were trying to tell me that Jesus wasn't the right name, that it's this Yeshua, Yahuah, whatever it is now. I don't know, this was almost 20 years ago that was probably a different pronunciation back then than it is today of the sacred name crowd. But it got me really mixed up and it got me kind of doubting the word of God. I said, well this is the Bible. I mean how could that be? How could the name Jesus be wrong? You know they have all these big long explanations of how the letter J exists back there. It's not very scholastic. It's not very educated kind of stuff, but it's the kind of stuff you run into when you spend a little too much time on the internet, in the public library, getting your nose in the book, which was the problem that I had. So I got a little mixed up and I remember it only went on for a little while, maybe a few weeks. It brought me to the place where I had to say, you know what, I got saved through this book and either this is the word of God or it isn't. Either this book is the final authority or it isn't. Either Jesus is the name given under heaven, given among men by which all men must be saved. Either that is the name or it isn't. And if it isn't the name, then this book isn't right and I can't trust this book. If there's one thing wrong with this book, then I can't trust any of it. How can you trust any of it? If you think there's even one thing that's wrong with it. So I got, and it just brought me to the place of thinking, well, is it so far-fetched to think that God could write a book? And if God could write a book, clearly God has the ability to preserve a book. I mean, God can stretch the heavens out and His hand spans the universe. And we look at those skies and we can see the heavens and we see all those stars and God knows them all by name. Is it so far-fetched to think that God could write, put 66 books between two pieces of leather and have them put in your hands? No, not at all. That's very easy for God. It's just hard for man to accept that often. So we believe, first of all, that the Bible is our authority because of the fact that it is inspired. And if it's inspired by God, that means this, that it is without error. It is inerrant. Now I used to think, you know, the word inerrant just meant that there's no errors in it. But that word inerrant is actually a little bit more specific. It means it is incapable of being wrong. Not just that it is not wrong, but that actually it is impossible for something to be wrong. If I were to say, you know, I am inerrant, it would mean that it's impossible for me to be wrong. You know, ask my wife about that and she'll tell you that I am in fact not inerrant, right? And neither is she. Neither is me. You do. Okay? So this is a clear fight. Right? But that would be a very proud and boastful statement for me to say such a thing as a man. To say that I am impossible, it's impossible for me to be wrong. But that's what we mean when we say that about the word of God, when we say it is inerrant. Not only is it not wrong, not only is it 100% correct, it's impossible for it to be wrong. Because remember who the author is. Holy men of old speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Because God ultimately is the author of the Bible, it cannot have error in it. Because God doesn't make mistakes. Now sure, you can read the Bible and there can be printing, there can be typos, and I've seen them. And I've heard Scorby, you know, slip up here and there when I've listened to the Bible and audio. But that's man messing it up, right? I say that God, that the Bible is inerrant, it means there's not going to be anything in there that isn't true. There are no lies in this book. Anything that it says happened, happened just the way it said it happened. So we believe the Bible is inspired and we believe that the Bible is inerrant, being incapable of being wrong. And we believe that because of the fact of its source of authorship. Because it was God that wrote it, it's impossible for this book to be wrong. Go ahead and turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2 while you're turning there I'm going to read to you from Titus chapter 1. In Titus chapter 1 the Bible says, Paul, a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the faith of God's elect, in the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness and hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. The Bible says that God cannot lie, and we know that's true because who is the father of lies? And he's a liar, and he's the father of lies in the Bible says. So lying is not in God's nature, it's incapable of, God cannot lie in the Bible says. So that means this, that everything that God wrote in this book, when we say, we accept the fact that it is inspired, now we can say, okay, since it's inspired by God, now I can accept the fact that it's perfect, because now I understand who its author is. And now that I understand who its author is, I can now accept the fact that there's nothing wrong with this book, that there are no lies in it, that there are no errors in it. The Bible says in 2 Peter, I'll read to you, grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord, according as divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. So we see that the scripture, it claims to be inspired, why? So that we can be thoroughly furnished, as we read earlier, that we can be thoroughly furnished. So if we're given, if we're told to accept the scripture, and that the scripture is given by inspiration for the purpose of making us profitable, for doctrine, for proof, for being thoroughly furnished, that would mean that it has to be without error. I mean if this book is what we're relying on to make us, you know, perfect in every way and make us whole, then it has to have everything that we need in it, and it has to be without error. And there's a lot of people out there that want to try and point out a lot of, they say well there's errors in the Bible, there's contradictions in the Bible, they'll say. They'll say well you know, you Christians are so foolish to just believe the Bible to be the word of God because it's just so filled with error. And you know, we don't really have the time, maybe another interesting series, or sermon at least, to go through and try and debunk those, and other preachers have done that. It's kind of outside the scope of this, you know, that's not the main point, trying to debunk these errors. But you will run across people that will say there's errors in the word of God. And to that, you know, we have to answer, well a lot of the times when you get down to it, you find out they believe these things to be an error because of the fact that they're unsaved. Because they don't understand the Bible. You know, it's like the people that are always trying to say oh, are you wearing a mixed garment? You know, is that cotton and nylon? You know, well, you shouldn't be doing that, you know, you're not allowed to do that. The Bible says you shouldn't wear a mixed garment. We're not allowed to wear linen and cloth together, you know, there's certain things that we can't, there's a specific mixture, it's not nylon and anything else, you know, it's not every mixed fabric. And those things are done away in Christ anyway. But they don't understand that. They just turn to something and they say oh, you know, there's a contradiction, or there's something you're not doing, but the thing is, we have this, we're thoroughly furnished with all good works. Because we have a book that's inspired and it's inerrant. And we understand the word of God, and when you come across these people that want to point out some kind of a contradiction, what you'll find is that it's coming from a place of misunderstanding. It's somebody coming from a place of misunderstanding or a misapplication of scripture. If you're there in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, we're going to look at, beginning there in verse 1, the Bible says, And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God, for I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching was not with the enticing words of man's wisdom, but a demonstration of the spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. How be it we speak wisdom among them that are perfect. You know, the preaching of the word of God is for those that are perfect. Now the word perfect there is not saying people without flaws, we understand the word perfect today. He's saying people that are whole, people that are complete, people that are made complete in Christ, people that are saved, that's what it's talking about, those that are perfect in Christ that have been made complete in Him. And that's who we speak wisdom among. You know, things that we preach and teach to God's people, we don't care if the world understands it or not. We don't care if the world gets it or not. We don't care if they look at it and they can't. They scratch their heads and they say, well I don't get it, I don't understand. How can that be? It doesn't bother us, because we're speaking these words among them that are perfect. It goes on and says, yet not the wisdom of this world nor the princes of this world that come to naught, but we speak the wisdom of God even in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom. So there are certain things in the word of God that we're going to speak, the Bible says, that are a mystery and that it's hidden wisdom. Now who's it hidden from? Who is it a mystery to? To the unsaved. To those who would look at it and they can't understand it, they don't know why you would even believe it. To them it's a mystery, to them it's hidden. Which God ordained before the world unto our glory. Which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known that they would have not crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. That's the key right there. That's why they don't get it. That's why the world can't understand it. That's why they say, oh there's mis, there's contradictions, there's errors. Because they don't have the Spirit to discern the word of God, to pick it up and to understand what it's saying and how to apply it correctly in their lives. And God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. It takes the Spirit of God to understand God. It takes the Spirit of God to understand the book that God has written. That's what it goes on and says here in verse 12. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. The Bible's available to everybody. Anybody can go down to the dollar store and pick up a Bible today. People can walk into most churches and get a copy of the Bible. You know the Bible's not hard to come by, it's freely given to us, but we're given the Spirit of God that we might know the things. It's one thing to just pick up the book, it's another thing to actually know what it means and to understand it. And that's why we have the Spirit of God. It takes the Spirit of God to know the word of God. He says in verse 13, which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Verse 14, but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. The Bible's showing us that it takes the Spirit of God to understand this book, and that the reason the world looks at it and says there's errors, there's contradictions, the reason why they misapply it is because they don't have the Spirit of God. They don't have it. It's not there. They can't read the book, they can't understand it, they can't apply it correctly because there is no light in them. They read it as the Jews do, they have the veil over their face that remaineth unto this day. Just like when I was lost and I picked up and tried to read the book of John, I was just like, why? It doesn't make any sense. Or try to go read through Numbers, Deuteronomy, or Leviticus, and say, what was the point of that? You know, as an unsaved man, when you have the Spirit of God, now you can go back and read those books, and you can say, well I can see Christ here, and I can see the picture of Jesus, I can see the examples of faith, I can understand why God did the things that he did. Why is it? What's the difference? It's not because I went to some school somewhere and somebody taught me how to understand the Bible, it's because they got the Spirit of God. And that's why the world doesn't understand it, because they have not the Spirit of God. So we believe the Bible is our authority because of the fact that it is inspired. We believe the Bible is our authority because of the fact that it is inerrant, that it is without error, and that it is incapable of error. And that's a really good principle for us when we read the Bible. When we come across something that doesn't make sense to us, or it seems to contradict, you have to just come to God by faith, and as long as you're coming from the place of saying, I know the Bible is true, God said it, I believe it, that's good enough for me. Even if there's something difficult that I don't understand, or seems to contradict something, I just have to say, well you know what, I know the Bible is true. I know the Bible is inspired, I know who wrote it, I know that who wrote it is perfect, I know that God wrote it, and that He cannot lie, and that He doesn't make any mistakes, so obviously the book is perfect, and I just keep reading. And you know what, when you come back across it again, maybe we'll learn a little bit more and it'll make sense. Or maybe you'll hear somebody preach something and say, oh now I understand that. But don't ever come to it and say, oh there's something that I don't understand, the Bible must not be true. No child of God will ever come to that conclusion, because they probably were never born again to begin with. No one's going to pick up this book and say, well I only believe certain parts of it, and claim to be a Christian. You know, you either hear His words or you don't, and if you don't hear His words, and if you don't believe them, you're not of God. That's what Jesus said perfectly clear in John, you know, you hear them not because ye are not of God. And if there's ever a time when we find ourselves reading the Bible and saying, well I don't believe that, you know, you better really search your heart and see whether or not you're in the faith. And I don't believe that any truly born-again Christian is ever going to say that, is ever going to come across some action in the Bible, so that's not true. Because you have to believe the Bible is the word of God to even get saved, to understand that these things are written that you might believe. See the Bible is inerrant, it does not need to be corrected, you know, that's why we have the King James Bible, that's why we'll always use the King James Bible, because this book is preserved, it's inerrant, and it does not need to be altered. Why would God go through all the trouble of inspiring His word, and then making sure that we understood it was perfect and inerrant, and then saying, yeah but, you know, we got to keep constantly revising it, going over it, correcting things and changing things. That's not an inerrant word. That's a word that constantly needs to be corrected, that's not a perfect word. We have the whole word of God, we have the perfect word of God, and we have it for us in the King James Bible, and really, as amazing as all those things are, the fact that God would inspire people, and that God would give us a perfect word of God, as amazing as those things are, what's really amazing is the fact that God gave us a preserved word of God. Not only did He inspire, but the fact that He actually preserved it. Now I don't believe that God inspired the exact English words that are in this book, but I believe that it is a perfect translation preserved to us from the original manuscripts. That's what I mean by that. Is that these English words mean the exact same thing as they do in the Greek or the Hebrew. And that's why I don't need to go read, learn Greek, and I don't need to go learn Hebrew to understand this book. Because God wants me to know what it says, so it only makes sense that He would preserve for me an English copy. And again, we don't have time to go into the whole scope of how you receive the King James Bible, I mean that's a long subject, to summarize it, probably wouldn't do it justice, but there's a film over there called New World Order Bible Versions, and if it's something you're interested in, all those things over there on the shelf are free, take them as many as you'd like and watch them, and you know, watch New World Order Bible Versions, it's kind of a mouthful, and you'll kind of understand a little bit more about why we believe the King James Bible is the Word of God. And the reason why we believe that is because the Word of God is preserved for us today. If God can inspire His Word, if God can record it without error, then it's not much of a leap to say that He can preserve it unto all generations. And this is really the dearest of promises that we have in the Word of God, because if we don't have a preserved and perfect Word of God, then our faith is built on nothing, then we're building our faith on the shifting sands of man's wisdom, of man just telling us, well this part is the Word of God, this part isn't. And man changes all the time, and man ends up just being tossed to and fro. If you would, turn over to Psalm, go to Psalm 119, Psalm 119, the Bible says in Proverbs verse 30, every word of God is pure, Proverbs chapter 30 verse 5, it says that. That was one of the first verses I ever memorized, and it's when I was first saved. Every word of God is pure, He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him. You know, when we just say, when we come to this and say, I believe this book is God's Word by faith, it's my authority, you know what it becomes to you? It becomes a shield. And it can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, you have something to stand behind and to guard yourself with, it becomes a shield to you. He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him. I mean, what a great thing to have a book that, when life is coming at us, we can go to and say, well what does the Bible say about it? And we can receive clear answers about what we ought to do and what we ought not to do. It becomes a shield unto us. He goes on and says, add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, that thou be found a liar. And there's a lot of people today that are trying to add to and take away the things that are written in this book, and they're wicked people, and they're going to be damned for it. Their names will be taken out of the book of life, the Bible says. So the Bible is preserved for us today, and Jesus said that there, and I'll read to you from Matthew 24, he said, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Well, you know, maybe the Bible does have some errors, maybe there's some things in there that were added, or maybe there's some things that are missing, right, that's another one here today. But what about the Gospel of Thomas? What about Enoch? What about the Apocrypha? We've got to add these other books, these things got lost, these things have been hidden somewhere, and we're just coming across them. Well, you just called Jesus a liar, and he said, his words shall not pass away. He said, heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one jot or one tittle shall in any wise depart from the law, that we have the whole word of God this morning, either we do or we don't, either we have that promise from Jesus Christ or we don't, that every word of God is here for us, that everything we need pertaining to life and godliness is given to us in this book, it's preserved for us today, and it's really the dearest of all promises because every other promise in the book relies upon that, that everything we need is here or it isn't. You're there in Psalm 119, look at verse 89. The Bible says in Psalm 119, should I just say that earlier, Psalm 119 verse 89, forever O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. I love that verse, it's short, but it's got a lot in it, that verse says a lot doesn't it? Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. So when we come to the Bible and say, I'm going to make the Bible my authority, I believe the Bible is my authority, we have to understand why it is that we make it our authority, because it's inspired, because it's inherent, and because it's preserved. We have to ask ourselves, whose word is this? Is this just man's word? Is this just a collection of stories? Or is it actually what it claims to be, the very word of God? And I believe that's what it is, that it is God's word. Whose word is it? Thy word is settled in heaven, O Lord, thy word. So that's what we believe about the Bible, that's why it's our authority, because we believe it is not just the words of men, but it is the very words of God. I'll read to you from 2 Peter, it says, for we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made unknown unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who were eyewitnesses of his majesty. So people want to cast doubt on the word of God. Are they saying that the things that Jesus Christ, the coming of his majesty, was just made up? That it didn't really happen, or that it was a misunderstanding? It says there that it's God's word. Thy word is settled in heaven. Where is it settled? It's settled in heaven, where the translators of these modern versions, they can't reach up there and change things up there. Those words are settled in heaven forever. You know, I thought about that verse for a while, and I thought it was just really interesting that it settled in heaven. I believe that God knew the things that were going to be written down before they were ever written down, that they were preserved in heaven, that he already knew what was going to take place, and that this book was already there, and already in the mind of God before we ever had it in our hands. It's been settled forever in heaven. So really, of course, it can be kind of a bit of a dry topic to go over why we believe the Bible sometimes for some people, and sometimes even as a preacher, I'll be perfectly honest, it's hard to get excited about preaching a sermon like that, but we have to stop when we stop and think about what it is that we have in our hands, because we've all heard the sermons, and we've even preached the sermons, and there's a lot of other things we like to hear preached, and a lot of other things we want to preach, because a lot of us already understand this and believe that, and we know that the Bible is what it is, but when we consider all this, when we consider the fact that it is inspired, that it is inerrant, and that it is preserved, we have to really stop and think about what it is we really have in our hands, and be put in remembrance of these things that we have in our hands today, a word that is settled in heaven, that we have a shield for our faith, that we have a shield from every snare and every fiery dart of the wicked, that we have the very word of God in our hands when we read it. So the challenge to this, of course, we always want to make application with these sermons, is, you know, I don't doubt that everybody in this room, I don't think anyone's going to come up to me after the sermon and go, well I don't believe the Bible is the word of God. You know, if that's in your hard mind, please don't, you know, or do, so you can know where you're coming from, but I don't think anyone's going to go to you and say, hey brother Corbin, you know that whole part about the Bible being inspired? I don't believe that. No one's going to come to me and say that. But here's the thing, we all believe that, but what are we doing with it? What are we doing with it? When we have the word, we say, oh I have the word of God, yep there it is. Are we doing anything with it? Are we applying it to our lives? Are we living by its principles? Are we doing the things that it tells us to do? And you know, there's a lot there. There's a lot there that it's telling us. It's telling us there's a lot of do's and don'ts in here, and we have to figure them out and understand what they say. And that's why it's important to be in church for the preaching of the word of God. That's why it's important for us to be reading the Bible on our own and understanding what it says and applying these things to our lives. The Bible says, but be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. Don't just be somebody who hears the word of God and says, oh that's the word of God, I heard it. Yep, he's right. Yep, that's what the Bible says, that's right. I believe that, you know, I've got the inherent, I've got the preserved word of God there, for me it's perfect in every way, God gave me this book, and then just set it on the shelf and not do anything with it. Read these words, understanding, knowing who wrote them, and why we have them today, but then do something with them. Put them to practice in your life. Otherwise, they might as well just be words. They might as well just be another book that you collected over the years, that you might have read a little bit once. You know, what's the difference at that point if you're not going to put it into practice. So we have an authority in our life in the word of God. We have an inherent, inspired, and preserved word of God that is the authority in our life, or at least it should be. It's authoritative, make no mistake about it, but is it our authority? We'll know whether or not it is if we're doing the things which we hear from it. Let's go ahead and pray.