The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit, Lesson 37
JD McCulley · Nov 20, 2022
Holy Spirit (2021-23), No. 88
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261929191234

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

OK, well, we're going to jump into Lesson 37. We talked a lot about inspiration and higher criticism and things of that nature last week. I think we wrapped up the majority of the questions there in 36. I feel pretty good about it. And I think we'll cover a few more topics around that this morning.

So in the short amount of time I had to think through this lesson, I thought about just how critical it really is, how critical God's Word being a foundation. And I've been talking to the kids a lot about where do you anchor your soul? Where is your soul ultimately anchored? Because you're going to get a phone call. You're going to get a situation that you run across on the news. You're going to watch a show. You're going to be reminded of something that's out of your control. Where do you anchor your soul?

How does How different is it for a believer to have a final authority and an anchor that brings them back to the ultimate reality of God's Word and His world? So the first question is, and I want to keep that bigger question in mind as we think about the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures, and we're talking about that. We're talking about what is the role of the Holy Spirit in preserving these Scriptures and why is that important?

So the first question is, how would you describe the most dangerous deceiver? I think in mentioning higher criticism, and what we mean by that is, I kind of set it in brief maybe a week or so ago. Basically, you go to college. You deconstruct everything you know down to its bare parts. you look at it, you analyze it, you think about it, and then you reconstruct it for the narrative of the day. That's what higher criticism really does. It gives you the right to take literature and think about it from the perspective of, well, what do I want this to mean? Right. You can do it with any literature whatsoever. And in fact, you know, it doesn't take long to find yourself in just a basic course in college where you're deconstructing the works of you fill in the blank.

What what did they really mean? What were they really going through? How can we apply this to our own cultural setting today? And so God's word is just taken as something that can be mixed and matched with whatever preference, whatever the narrative of the day is. Our narrative today, it's different than it was 20 years ago. But what's interesting about the narrative, that deconstructionism, higher criticism, whatever the fashion sense is, it's going to fit a basic narrative of sin and self. It's going to rethink God's Word in a way that fits your self, your need, your sin. So, they can't even agree with themselves. And in fact, that's kind of the point of higher criticism is that we don't agree. That we can agree to disagree and we can continue to break that down and tear that apart.

Is that how God intended His Word to be viewed? Did he intend it to be laid out, deconstructed, broken down into parts and pieces, and analyzed individually according to your own cultural narrative, your own whatever initiative that you have in your mind for that day? I mean, the answer is no. But how do we see this? How do we see this working out at the street level?

How do we see God's Word constantly being criticized, broken down, And one of the things that is interesting about this question is how do we describe the most dangerous deceiver? I think that's what mankind approaches God's Word with right away is there has to be something foundational at this level that is not true. And I have to understand what that is and reinterpret it. And so the idea of mixing lies with the truth is the very foundation of the sin nature.

That's what we do. That's how we were born. We've been talking a lot about our Thursday night Bible study that Satan, while not actively, probably not actively tempting and attacking you individually, the influences of Satan are very real. And when we think about deception, that's Satan's art. That's his skill set. That's what he has prided himself in literally, I will do this, I will do this, I will make myself like the most high. So ultimately, high criticism and any kind of interpretation of the scripture at this level, has its foundation and mixing truth with lies. That's exactly the nature of Satan himself.

So when we're thinking about approaching God's Word and how the Holy Spirit preserves and actively communicates the truth of it, we have to remember that the sin nature is also active in attempting to introduce lies, confusion, frustrations, and that's a foundational aspect of interpreting the Scripture without the Holy Spirit. We ask for illumination. We ask that the Holy Spirit would bring to life those truths that are actively a part of who we are in Christ. But our sin nature is right there, ready and willing to do the very thing that higher criticism does at an educational perspective. It's there to introduce a little bit of lie. Not a lot, just a little. Just so that you start to doubt.

And once doubt is in the mind, just like doubt was in the mind for that one condition in the garden with Adam and Eve, did God really say? And we can take all these questions and we can add up everything that Rideout is saying here, but I think that we have to understand that our sin nature is actively asking us, did God really say? Did God really say that? Right?

So, I think when it comes to Our true faith, our true belief in the infallible inspiration of the Word of God, you are being attacked by a foundation of lies. Every unbeliever, every believer is being attacked by the introduction of those lies. Just because this is an educational pursuit that we're talking about in this instance, I think it happens at a very street level as well. We have a real sincerity and we have an earnestness in taking God's word and breaking it down and trying to understand it.

But is that what God intended? Or did he intend it to work together as a system? Not a system of a reformed system or the dispensational system. As much as we might find value in certain systems, doctrinal systems, how did God intend us to keep the Word of God consistent with itself to prevent those lies from being introduced?

Any thoughts there? I was just going to say a thought that came to mind is that it's so dangerous because once you introduce this very thought that the truth is dependent on me rather than dependent on God's Word, you very quickly spiral into a place where you've got no truth whatsoever.

I don't know if anyone is my age to remember a musical group called The Postal Service, but this guy, an unbeliever, he has a lyric in there that says, he's an unbeliever, he says, I want so badly to believe that there's love, or that there's truth, that love is real. And it's a love song. You know, I found that really, really interesting. He had this desperate desire to know that there was such a thing as truth, and that's kind of where you find yourself, I think, at the end of that path, is if there's, you know, you start to deconstruct the source of truth, and now you've got no truth, and it's very hopeless. I think that's interesting.

The result is no truth. You mix in a little lie, The kids are doing science experiments, mixing yeast with different chemicals in order to see what the impact is. The moment you mix a little yeast, it changes the entire chemical makeup. And I think we've got some biblical examples of, even in the Mosaic Law, of illustrations of mixing truth with lies. Just a little, even just a little.

I think that, you know, one of the things that it's hard to get through initially, for me it was, as an early believer who was going into the Bible bookstore, and Mardell's was what it was called in Texas, and huge bookstore, I mean, just really cool. And it smelled great. There's all kinds of... You guys are remembering your own experiences there. It's a great store and you can find yourself just perusing the aisles for hours looking for the right kind of self-help. How do I get through? Am I smarter than these guys? No, I'm relying on these guys. What's the author I'm looking for? What's the book? I'm asking the bookstore clerks. What is the most purchased book in this section? Where is the good stuff? I didn't know.

But what I found myself is realizing that every book that I read was earnest. It was sincere. It wasn't written with the intention of lying to me. It was written from a critical perspective of, I think that you can lose your salvation, or I think that there is only one nature, and what's my problem? I've got this sin nature, and you're telling me I don't have a sin nature, but you're way smarter than me. There's a lot of sincerity and earnest.

But the point that Rideout makes as far as the answer to this question, how would you describe the most dangerous deceiver? He says, a deceiver who is also self-deceived is the most dangerous of all deceivers. Actually, this morning, when I was reading this morning in 2 Peter, just also as your beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, it's also in his letter speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort. As they do also in the rest of the scriptures, to their own destruction. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

You know, I think the warning was there from Peter right at the onset that people who are, you know, unprincipled men will just distort. you know, we're going to just totally reverse it. We're just going to distort it enough. It's like, you know, you deflect a ship a little bit off course and it's totally off course. Total destination change. It just takes a little bit to get it off course. And I think that's what, you know, Unprincipled Man, just distort it enough. Like I said, a little bit of a lie mixed with the truth. How can they be unprincipled if they're so smart and they have all the degrees and all the studies?

But you know the other isn't it and that's why the end of this growing the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ That was the the answer is They are they? growing in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, you know, is that where their distortion comes from, is they don't have the knowledge. I think you're right. You know, and it's like, you know, I go on for being with the Brethren for years and not really knowing the identification truths that well, or not at all really, I mean, and then How did we get away with that? And then, you know, all the different books, the self-help books that you say very earnestly, but they're not.

They're from unprincipled, not unprincipled, but just uneducated. Uneducated. And that's where this just enough, but the way this passage just distorts it. You don't need a lot. You don't need to be like crisis, you know, whatever. Just distorted enough where you're off track. And we use that illustration. Good morning, Doyles. Love you. Glad you're here. Good to see your face. Sort of halfway. See it. Yeah.

So I think we're talking about just this. how would you describe the most dangerous deceiver? The way it was explained early on when it came to this issue of inspiration and the biblical authenticity of how God preserved his word and so forth is that there is an attempt to counterfeit. I think that word is interesting because the illustration is very accurate. A counterfeit is as close to the original as possibly can be. Otherwise, it would not pass. It wouldn't pass the counterfeit test.

When we're talking about deception, we know that Satan is the ultimate deceiver. He is the father of lies. It's his language. When we talk about deception with the kids and just amongst ourselves, We talk about the fact that this is the language of the deceiver himself.

And one of his ultimate intentions is to introduce doubt into the authenticity of God's Word, just a little. Remember, it's just that counterfeit. It's that thing you have to get that microscope down deep and figure out, oh, there's just this little tittle, this little jot that's a little different. And therefore, it doesn't match up to the one true word of God.

But I thought it was interesting that in order to deceive, you have an element of deception in your own life. So what was Satan's first deception? He could be like the Most High. He introduced it to himself. Therefore, He communicated and propagated and built out deception consistently towards God's creation of mankind, those that were created in his image and his likeness. That's where he went after. He said, I've deceived myself. To whatever degree he acknowledges that, I don't think that he does, but he introduces continual deception into the Word of God.

So in question number two, It says, according to Romans 4.23, and we'll read these passages. There's a Romans, first Corinthians. We want to look into why was the Old Testament written? Why was the Old Testament written?

So let's read Romans 4.22 through 25. So Paul's talking about here in Romans chapter four, he's talking about Abraham and he's referring back to Genesis chapter 15. And five and six specifically this is where Abraham was justified in verse 22 It says and Paul's quoting therefore it was also credited to him being Abraham as righteousness Why is Paul quoting the Old Testament here? He goes on in verse 23 now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him that meaning his righteousness because of his faith and then verse 24 is really the kicker here and He says, but for our sake also. But for our sake also.

To whom it will be credited. Was it credited to you as righteousness? Just like it was Abraham when you believed? It was. It will be credited as those who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He who was delivered over because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification. So what we want to notice here is that the purpose of the Spirit of God in writing in the book of Genesis, chapter 15, is that Abraham was justified. And this is being recorded and communicated by Paul for your sake.

For sin's sake. For everyone who would come to hear the word of God and believe. Right. It's a simple thing, right? This isn't a complex deal. He's writing it. He's preserving his word for your sake. Emrin, Ingrid, all of us. It was communicated for our sake so that we would believe.

So why, when we read the scripture, Do we allow certain doubt to creep in and miscommunicate and take us off course so easily? I used the example a few lessons ago about God's Word was intended to fly in formation, just like a B-52 bomber squadron, right? Maybe that's not the right terminology. But the moment that formation is broken, you get one doctrine of God's Word out on its own, You get this higher criticism that comes in and it's like, we're going to take that plane out.

We're going to decommission it for a while. We're going to break all of its parts and pieces down. We're going to get every engineer that we can possibly imagine to come in and explain how this whole thing works. And we're going to understand how a B-52 works.

But the point is that that plane was meant to fly in conjunction with other planes and is not meant to exist on its own. It's not meant to defend itself by being separated from the formation. God's Word is complete and it is meant to function together.

I don't know how many of you, this is a little bit of a throwback for us, but The Stranger on the Otomeus is a book and a resource that we've been using for years. It was a big part of the ministry that Les and I were involved with in Goodseed while we were in Canada. I thought it was really interesting some of the things that it talks about when communicating what the Bible is. And one of the things that I ask people sometimes is, do you know what the title on that book means? It says Holy Bible. Do you know what that means? What does holy mean?

It means set apart. Okay. Thanks Cheryl. Yeah. So set apart. unique, one of a kind, holy, unique unto itself. And what does Bible mean? It's Latin for book. So really we're talking about a unique book. What makes it so unique, right? I like how John Cross talks about it when he introduces this concept and it's written to one who may not have any scriptural background whatsoever. He says, there's no doubt it's a unique book. It's actually a collection of books, 66 in all. One author in writing of the Bible's uniqueness put it in this way. Here's a book first written over a 1,500 year span, written over 40 generations, written by more than 40 authors from every walk of life, including kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, and even more than that.

Moses, who was a political leader trained in the universities of Egypt, studied guy, right? Political leader. Peter, a fisherman. Amos, a herdsman. Joshua, a military general. Nehemiah, a cupbearer. Daniel, a prime minister. Luke, a doctor. Solomon, a king. Matthew, a tax collector. Paul, a rabbi.

And it was written in different places. Moses in the wilderness, Jeremiah in a dungeon, Daniel on a hillside and in a palace, Paul, and in this case what we're talking about now, in a prison, not necessarily this verse, but Paul himself inside of prison many times, Luke while traveling, John on the Isle of Patmos, others in the rigors of a military campaign. It was written at different times, David in times of war, Solomon in times of peace, written in different moods, some writing from the heights of joy and others from the depths of sorrow and despair. Are you at the heights of joy? Are you at the depths of sorrow and despair?

So are many other writers of the scripture, written on three continents, Asia, Africa, Europe, three languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. And then finally, the subject matter includes hundreds of controversial topics. Yet, the biblical authors spoke with harmony and continuity from Genesis to Revelation.

There's one unfolding story. And guess what? That story is about you and for you. It's his love letter specifically to you. All of that to get to you. And we know that scripture is God-breathed. We know that it is infallible and we know that it was meant to fly in formation. God preserved his word. Romans 15, 4 says, for whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction. What is he referring to there? Earlier times? We just talked about Abraham and how his faith was credited to him as righteousness. That's for you. That's for your sake. That's for your instruction. And I think that this is really important at the end of Romans 15, 4. And I almost want to highlight and circle this.

Addie loves to write in her Bible. She's probably one of the most amazing artists when it comes to interacting with God's Word. I know I'm making you feel uncomfortable, but you open up her Bible, it is just beautiful. There's so much connection and how she's made it her own.

But I love how it says, that Paul talks about this in verse four, 15, four, for whatever's written in earlier times was written for our instructions. Circle that, right? We highlight that part, underline it, bold it. So that through perseverance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.

That's really where this all is pointing to. It's not just that he's instructing you. If it was just instruction, then yeah, let's find all the imperatives, let's figure out what we've got to do, and let's get on it. We know how to follow instructions, unless we go to Ikea, and maybe we try to figure it out on our own. Oh, those instructions. But this last part really is, I think, the kicker here.

Through perseverance and the encouragement of the scriptures that we might have hope. Do you need some hope in your life? struggling with some not so good things in life that are just out of your control, the Scripture is written precisely for that, for your hope in those circumstances, whatever they may be. And I'm finding more and more that the youth and I don't know all the reasons, other than the fact that we have a deceiver that's actively influencing our world constantly to rob us of the hope that can be found in the continuity of the Scriptures. But young people these days do not find hope in the Scripture. Where do I find hope? I don't know. I have no idea. I cannot find it. I'm looking around this corner. I'm looking around that corner. And it's not just the young people of this day. It's the young people. It's the people of all time.

If we can break down the trust in the scripture as a whole, then we can break down your hope. And guess where we want your hope to be? In the government? In a one world thought process? Socialists? I don't know. But it's designed, this whole mixing of the scripture, this counterfeit attempt is meant to rob you of the hope that is found in the complete Word of God.

All scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. Why? Not just for our instruction, but for our hope. When I think about why we have the Old Testament, I go back to the Galatians 3. 24 and 25 Therefore the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith Then the second part is but now that faith has come we are no longer under a tutor I think all of the old scripture was pointing to Christ That's that's you know, we look at this and it was all pointing towards the Savior and that's you know, but now that Christ has come it's now by faith and And so why the Old Testament and why all that?

It was all pointed towards Christ and His coming. So that's why I look at the Old Testament and all the books. They all point to Him, ultimately a sacrifice. Isaiah, all the different ones, point to Christ. And then when he came, now we have him, we know him, and now we do it by faith. We look to him by faith, not by the past and all that. But it pointed to him, all of scripture, the Old Testament pointed to him. It's funny, that verse and that concept is one of the things we've been dealing with on Monday nights. And just pulled up my notes here real quick, I asked the question to the crew, maybe last week or the week before, and I think it ties in.

What is the place of law with grace or faith or life? What's the place of law? We're talking about a lot of what the Old Testament consisted of. Not all of it, but a lot of it. Well, I should say all of it, either by commandment or by principle. That's a study on its own. But what is the place of law with grace or faith or life? What's the place of it?

The answer is, the law can have nothing to do with grace, or faith, or life. The law is a tutor, just like Courtney was talking about. The purpose of the law, and the principle of the law, was just what we see in Galatians 3. No man is justified by the law in the sight of God. The just shall live by faith, and the law is not of faith. It has nothing to do with faith. So what do we need the Old Testament for?

If the law has nothing to do with faith, if we're characterizing the Old Testament as the law, both in principle and in command, Paul goes on to say in Galatians 3.23, but before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith, which should afterwards be revealed.

That's where we are. Right? Verse 24, therefore, the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith and not by law. So the law is absolutely a tutor. That's one of its major functions, and it has nothing to do with grace or faith or life.

1 Corinthians 10, 11 says, now these things, the things of the Old Testament, happened as an example. Okay, so now we've got some different information. And they were written for our instruction. There's for our sake, for our instruction, for our hope, all of these things that God intended to fly in formation together, the life of Moses, the life of David, Nehemiah, whomever, all of these stories in the scripture are recorded and preserved as an example and written for our instruction.

You don't have to make the same mistake that David did, JD. Well, how does that affect me today? I was thinking about this, and I'm going to take a little bit of a detour in this last five, four minutes. Question number three says, why should this principle be applied as broad as possible when reading the Word? Meaning, how do we have assurance and instruction and admonition from God's Word, even in the Old Testament? James, while not having the full progressive revelation of what Paul had wrote in chapter 1 verse 6.

He says, but you must ask in faith without any doubting. Like, oh my gosh, how am I supposed to ask without any doubting? What does doubt have to do with faith? Ask without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. I think What we're talking about here is that higher criticism and interpretation of scripture is all meant to introduce a small amount of doubt like Courtney was talking about. It's that one little counterfeit lie that pollutes the entire system.

One of the things that we learned early on as a couple was what has been referred to as the faith rest drill. And the first thing I thought about that title was, what does a drill have to do with faith? But I think for our structure, the idea is that the first stage is instead of mixing doubt with faith, you mix promises with your faith. And those promises can stand on the Old Testament because they did for Paul and we're told they're written for our instruction, for our example, for our hope.

So you enter into a situation where your doubt is maybe a little bit doubting. Your faith is doubting. How do you alleviate that doubt in your faith? You find a promise. You go to God's word. You mix in those promises with your faith and all of a sudden your faith is founded and anchored on truth as opposed to doubt. What does God's word have to say about fear? What does God's word have to say about a lack of hope, no purpose, aging, loss? Did the men of scripture, men and women of scripture have to deal with those things too? God's Word is very real to life. Not only the positive outcomes of men and women who walked by faith, but also those that didn't. And some of those are the same people.

So we recall a doctrine, we recall a promise, or a fragment of scripture, we anchor our minds instantly to God's Word. And it could have to do with Paul says, or it could have to do with what Abraham was dealing with. And he looked to the Lord as the one with the answer in the same way that Paul did, and it was credited to him as righteousness because of his faith. Abraham walked by faith.

Where am I in that? What instruction do I glean from that? So I recall a doctrine, a fragment, a story, some truth. And that's what starts to pollinate the doubt in my faith, and it starts to eradicate. As I concentrate on the truth of God's Word, wherever that is, I start to get clarity on the fact that God intends for my instruction for me to understand this. And I like this example, I squeeze like a sponge to get the truths until you have enough truth to encompass the problem. I thought that was really cool. You squeeze God's Word like a sponge until you get enough truth and promise to encompass the problem.

And then we talk to God and choose to trust Him to stand behind His truth about the situation. See, that's where faith ends up. You said it. I trust it. That settles it. That's another way of saying the faith rest rule. Let's pray. Father, how we thank you that your Word is so all-encompassing to every situation, those that we're dealing with now and those that we'll be dealing with tomorrow. Lord, you have not left us without instruction or example, and I thank you that in your Word we can find that truth, that we can grab that truth, and we can hold on to the truth of your Word, the truth of what you did in the lives of men like Abraham and Moses and Paul, And Lord, we can talk to you about those and we can squeeze out those truths to encompass the problem that we're dealing with. And I pray that we find ourselves focused on your word and not our feelings, that we would stand behind the truth that you said to us and allow that to be settled in our heart. And we thank you for the grace and the love that encompasses us as the person of the Lord Jesus, that you are conforming us to your very image through this process. And we thank you for it and we rest on it. We just, by faith, are anchored in it. It's your name we pray. Amen.