Major Bible Themes
Mike Doyle · Jan 9, 2011
Major Bible Themes (2011), No. 02
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926223142280

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

Okay, we're working on chapter one. I don't know if you've actually taken out the book and spent some time reading it, but you'll notice at the end of every chapter are a series of questions. And the questions pertain to, obviously, the information. I've been kind of spending time on the questions, and I don't hesitate to write in these books. I think that any kind of a book like this, you should write in it. scribble on it, put notes in it. And what I've been doing, and I should have done a slide for it. What I've been doing is when I start the chapter, I read the questions first. And then as I read the chapter, I put the I keep referring back and forth to the questions and I put the number of the question by the paragraph so that I can link them up.

And you'll find that if you do that, It covers every topic in the chapter and it helps you understand what he's talking about. So the first section that we're going to deal with, the first four chapters, which we should be able to cover in a month or in four weeks, has to do with the Word of God.

Now it seems in a place like Holly Hills, it seems like we don't have to emphasize the Word of God, but I have to tell you, I think we do. Because what happens in discussions with believers, especially when they have questions, is that if you don't go to the Word of God to see what the Word of God has to say about something, then you're stuck with your opinion. And so the first thing we're going to talk about is, is the Bible actually the Word of God? What do you think? How many of you, without lying, think it is the Word of God? Yeah, it is. Alright, let's see how I do this thing. Well, it tells you right here also. Well, what am I doing wrong with this? Red button. No, that's the pointer just getting in line. Is it on the side? No, it's not on. It helps to have it on.

Okay, so if you've read the chapter you'll find that there are two basic lines of evidence about the Bible. By the way, what's the word Bible mean? Basic instructions before leaving earth. It says book, the book. Yeah, it just means book. And it's interesting that the author would start with that premise because the Bible seems to be It's actually 66 books, written over 1600 years as we're going to see, and we would think that it was just a bunch of letters stuck together that didn't really make a book, but it does make a book, and it's comprehensive. And the issue is today, is it the Word of God? And how do you prove that the Bible is the Word of God?

According to the author, there are two lines of proof. One is internal and the other is external. The internal Bible does in fact claim to be God's Word and we'll look at some of those verses as we go forth. Not only does it declare it, but in places it just assumes that it is. And then the external facts of the Bible, which I like what what Hal put right here, it's not extra biblical but observations about the facts that are given in scripture.

I was watching a guy on a news program last week and he had made some reference to the Bible because of this Palestinian thing that's been going on and water cannons and all this stuff that they're doing that the Bible probably is not very accurate. because that land belongs to the Palestinians. And I thought to myself, well, why don't you buy a copy and read it? So, there's a continuity of the Bible, there's the extent of the Bible's revelation, the influence and publication of the Bible, and we'll see. I read a book that Art Lather gave me about the history of the English Bible, which is really kind of an interesting book, and how those guys that first were publishing it were being murdered because they were doing it. The Bible is literature, is it in fact literature?

And what happened? Are you on time-out mode? Oh, I am. I think my computer just went to sleep. You said it is literature. Yeah, it is. It just stopped. It helps turn the power on. I've got one of those batteries that only lasts about four seconds. Donald unplugs it and hands it to me and says, look at this. She better hurry up. It's going to have to boot up again.

Let's talk a little bit about the internal evidences. There's a bunch of scriptures there on the bottom. Let's look up the first two of the Old Testament and see what they say. And that will give me breathing room. See what they say that the Bible says internally about itself. Anybody got them? The first one? It's right at the bottom of the first page. It's right there.

These commandments that I give to you today are to be born upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. So those commandments, there's an assumption there that those commandments were given by God and there's a command there to not only learn them but to teach your children.

Is that your backyard? Actually, I don't want to tell you where that is. You might visit it. Where do you think it is? Hawaii. That's right, it's the backyard of the house we stayed in. It's a block up from ours. Where are the chickens? You know, there was a fence. There should have been chickens. What part of Hawaii? What's that? What part of Hawaii? Kauai. The south shore port food. That's where you're going again, right? Alright, the second one.

What's the second scripture? This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth. But you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. So do you see how the Bible just assumes that it's from God and it's for you? Probably the New Testament verse I like the best is Romans 10, I think it's 19. Let me look that up. I will make you envious by those who are not a nation. I will make you angry by a nation who has no understanding. That's not it.

Yeah, it's 17. So 10.17 is so faith comes from hearing and enduring by the word of Christ. Okay, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Hearing what? The word. The word of Christ or the word of God. What is the word of God? The gift of salvation. It's the words themselves.

OK. You find it? I hope we do better in the future. Is this an example of how technology speeds up? This is an example that the technology is way out ahead of the user. All right. Can you have multiple pages? There it is. How do I get rid of that thing? Boy, now I know how difficult it is for the guys to do the weather.

Okay, Hebrews 1 and verse 1 and 2, that's another example that the Bible itself claims to be the word of God. to God after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways. In these last days has spoken to us and his son from the appointed era of all things through whom also he made the world. So don't you find it interesting that the God of the universe has decided to talk to us, tell us some things about himself and about what he's doing and he uses the word of God via in the Old Testament he used the prophets and many other ways to to communicate who he was to us and it was written down. Now in the now in which Hebrews talks about now he decides he's going to speak to us how? Through his son.

So the two things I think that it makes a connection here is one is that the word of God is written but it's also alive, it's a person. Because Christ, in John 1, is called the Lagos of God. He is the Word of God. He is the one person of the Godhead that reveals God to the earth, to the world, I guess is a better way to say it. He is the full expression of who God is. Without Him, how do you know who God is? Is there any way you would know God? No. No, I don't think so.

First Thessalonians 2.13, the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God. So Paul in Thessalonians tells the Thessalonians, who by the way are under severe persecution because of their faith, that the word of God they heard from him and his his band of married men that hung out with him and went to Thessalonica to evangelize the place, he even knew that what he was teaching was the word of God. How do you know that? How do you know that?

Because he got direct revelation from Christ himself in Arabia over three years and continued to get revelation from him as time went on. How would you not consider it to be the Word of God. The external facts of the Bible that have to do with this, it's proof that it is the Word of God, is the continuity of the Bible.

There are 40 authors that wrote over a period of 1600 years. Isn't that interesting? And because they wrote, they don't contradict each other. The Bible is one single book. It's not, you know, it's a collection of 66 books, but when you put it all together it is one book. One book. And the human authors that wrote in there were from every walk of life. Kings, minstrels, farmers, soldiers.

The other thing about it is that it's in historical sequence. I'm always amazed when I watch a news program and somebody has discovered something that's a big discovery to them and guess what, it was already revealed in the Word of God but it's news to them, you know.

So the Word of God, how do I say this right, the discoveries, historical and anthropological discoveries that men make, the honest ones, find out that it's already was revealed to them in the word of God if they would just have read it. So that brings more Christians. What's that? Right? I mean that brings more people to God because they need to see the proof and they see it in the archeological finds. Sometimes it does. With certain people it does. With other people they reject it. You know. They would reject it even then? Yeah, sure. They don't buy empirical evidence.

It lays out the doctrinal themes about who God is and who man is and actually a lot of the themes we're going to talk about and plus the programs of God. What's he going to do? What's he have in mind? Why did he create? And over the last 8 or 9 or 10,000 years, what's his agenda?

The only place you're going to find that out is in the Word of God. When he says, those of you who read it, when he says it's like a telescope, a microscope, and a stereoscope, what do you think he means by that? Zoom out, zoom in, and listen. Huh? Zoom out, zoom in, and listen. Well, what's a telescope do? You see far away. Yeah, you pick up far away things. And what's a microscope do? Get really, really detailed. Very minute things. And what's a stereoscope do?

So the interesting thing is that the more you study the Word of God, the more answers you get about the environment you live in and the answers to things that are unknown. Now we don't look at it that way because I think we don't because we're always looking at New Testament doctrine, but it is. What's the verse that the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword? able to penetrate the soul of man and divide it from the soul from the spirit and the bone from the marrow. Don't you find it interesting that the Word of God is the one vehicle that can teach you the differences between what your soul is about and what your spirit is about.

That they are different. You didn't know that you had both of them because You and I are soulish people. We operate based on our intellect, our will, emotions. What do you mean they're the same? Can you tell me the properties of your spirit? Do you know what it is? Do you know what it does? Are you even aware of it? Well, isn't it the Holy Spirit?

Your spirit. Your human spirit. Do you have one? See, and that's a great answer because only the word of God can educate you about your spirit and that it isn't your soul. You alright with that? No, because what is it then? What the heck is a spirit? What is a spirit? What is it I don't know that I have? Yeah, that's true. So what is your spirit? First of all, do you think that man is body, soul, and spirit? Those three entities? I thought the spirit was the Holy Spirit. No, you have your own spirit. God breathed into Adam the breath of lives and Adam became a living self. So is man two parts, soul and body, or is he soul, spirit, and body? What is he? I guess he's three. You think he's three? You're not sure though, are you? No, that's why I asked.

I think human beings are spirits that have souls that live in bodies. But because we come out of the sin nature, our spirits are dead to God. We don't have any, at least early on, any cognizance of what we are spiritually, that we in fact are spirits. Our essential identity is spiritual.

So here comes the word of God. and that begins to inform our souls through our spirit, because when you're saved, your position in Christ, is it because your soul is positioned there, your body is positioned there, or what? You understand what position and condition is, right? Right. So you have a position before God that can't be changed, right? Is that your soul that has that position, your body, or your spirit?

I'm guessing it's the spirit. I think it is too. You know, on Wednesday night we were talking Romans 12 to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. See, I think your spirit's been renewed already. It was made alive when you were saved. But your soul hasn't been. Your mind hasn't got it all down. So there's a renewing or a growth process that goes on in your soul, but your spirit is already made alive to God. And it's the entity in you that receives revelation from God.

Because God's a spirit, isn't he? Isn't God the Father a spirit? He's not a Labrador, is he? Isn't he a spirit? God the Father? Sure he is. And the Holy Spirit's a spirit, right? The Lord Jesus Christ is a man, no. He's soul, spirit, and body. Or spirit, soul, and body. So couldn't God be? Couldn't God be what? A man. No. Christ is the man. So Christ is the man and God is floating around? No. We have a triune God that has three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You don't know the Father without the Son. If the Lord Jesus Christ is is not the word of God, is not the one that reveals God to us. Would you ever know that God existed other than looking at his creation? No, you wouldn't.

But see God is essentially a spirit and as the Lord Jesus told the woman at the well that he was seeking persons to worship him in spirit and in truth. He wants human beings to be spiritually alive so that they can worship him on his level. So you have to be spiritually alive. Well, the Word of God teaches a believer over time that there is a difference between his soul and spirit. That he knows that he has a soul which allows him to communicate and interact with the environment that he's around and other human beings, but his spirit is the part of him that interacts with God. And the Word is the thing that reveals that to you and so you understand spiritual things. The natural man can't receive the things of the Spirit of God, they're nonsense to him because he's not spiritually alive.

But you are. So if you die, your soul goes to? Where? Wherever you're choosing. Wherever God chooses, up or down. Is it your spirit that sees God when you die or is it your soul? It's both. We already talked about up to date and subject matter. Eternity past to eternity future. It is the only publication that deals with eternity past to eternity future from before creation all the way to the new heavens and the new earth and on into eternity. It's the only book that covers that subject.

The publication of the Bible is interesting. When I read this I thought, I would have never thought that one of the proofs that the Bible is the word of God is the fact that it's published in most languages on the earth and the first some of the first printed pages from the Gutenberg Press were the Bible. And if you study or just investigate maybe the new tribes' missions, what they do, this is why I'm so impressed with them. They purposely target tribes in places that they don't have a recorded language. They communicate verbally but it's never been written down.

So they go in there And this is a 25 to 30 year process. They go in there and they learn the language verbally. And then they begin to create the language with an alphabet and sounds. And they teach the people how to read their own language. They're creating the language based on the sounds. The first thing they do once they get the language down is they start to translate. the Bible into the tribal language so that they have the Word of God before they leave.

25-30 years down the road they have the Bible in place. Realistically they have a bunch of believers and they have a church established and they've appointed elders and what do you think they do then? They leave. Perfect. They leave. Because the people in these villages, have you read What's that Stephen Saint's book, what's that thing called? The Great Omission. The Great Omission.

That's exactly, that's what his dad and mom were doing when his dad was murdered by these Indians in the Amazon. And the mom went back and started this process and the tribe became believers and they translated their language into actually a written language and the Word of God and the Word of God is spread through the Amazon. But all of that is not necessary for them to know God. They just learn more about God, right? They can learn or accept salvation long before this translation. If somebody verbally tells them. Yes, that's true. That's true. But the issue... What's that?

I said how powerful you put it in their hands. Well, you put it in their language and then they're able to use it to teach generation after generation. Plus it's not just about salvation. we've got with a lot of missions where we say, OK, do you believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins?

OK, great, now we're done. Yeah. And there's all this meat in the word that they're completely deprived of. They're just sort of floating with every winds of doctrine. Well, it gives them the opportunity for the false teachers to come in. That's right. That's right. So giving them the whole word of God is what's intended for them to use. Where'd they learn that system? They learned it right here, because that's what we do.

You know, Billy comes around, gives you the evangelism, and he skips town. And where do you go? Well, just pick a church. Any church. Yeah, they're all great. Whether they teach the Word of God or not, you know. The other thing that's interesting about, he used, in the novel, in the book there, he used Voltaire, who was a French prime minister or something, that said that the Word of God would be obsolete in a short period of time. You know there are lots and lots of guys that have said that.

This is kind of an anecdotal story. I remember when I first became a Christian. Actually I was right over here off of Yale Avenue. I had my real estate company was right over there behind the Safeway store in those office buildings over there. And one of my partners It took me lunch one day, and I'd only been a Christian about, I don't know, several months.

He said, how can you believe all that stuff in the Bible? He said, I read in the Denver Post that a guy dug up some bones in Europe, and they supposedly belonged to Christ. I said, do you believe that? He said, yeah, sounds good to me. I said, what do they have, property of Jesus Christ printed on the side of them? What's the deal?

I.R. Jesus Christ. So what I find absolutely fascinating is that human beings will believe nonsense way before they believe the word of God. Yeah, because he died in Israel. Yeah. Or you think about the Big Bang Theory. Or evolution. It takes a lot more faith to buy into evolution than it does to buy the word of God. The subject matter deals with unknown and unknowable things, which are spiritual things. Give me an example of an unknowable thing that the Bible deals with. The extent of the universe. Sure. Sure. That it's knowable. Is it knowable by just observing the universe that it was created by God? I think so, but I don't think the extent of the universe is knowable. It's more and more being revealed by our scientists.

Yeah, well there's water on Mars now, so are there people living there? And I'm thinking... Did you see the cartoon about that? That the Martians have these signs up there to tell the Muslims to go home? Somebody sent me a photograph with some Martians with signs saying Muslims go home. Must be real, right? But wouldn't God have revealed if there were other beings in the universe?

Yeah, that's a great question. What do you think about that? Do you think that God, you know, all we need is the Starship Enterprise and we keep looking around and we'll find another planet in which there are human beings in which maybe they didn't commit sin and maybe they live in a utopian society? What do you think about that? That they're another race of beings somewhere else?

I just don't believe it. It would negate the truth of the Bible. Sure it would. and it would certainly negate the whole purpose of the existence of Jesus Christ and what he came here to do. Describes Eternity Past and Eternity Future. It's the only book that describes what's going to happen in eternity coming up. It describes the program for the world, for Israel and the church. Now, you know, for some reason the press of the United States never read the Bible because their world view is a little different than ours, isn't it?

And this is a very interesting statement, this statement right here. On every subject its statement is final, accurate and timeless. What do you think? Is it? Oh, you're going to nod your head, yes. But you have to admit that you've read something in the Word of God where you thought, well, I don't... Is it accurate? And is it timeless? And is it absolutely final? I think it is. Huh? Of course. It's the truth. There's no mistake. So you'd have to say yes to that.

I think as a young, growing believer who's in the Word of God, The Spirit of God cements that idea into his mind. I think when he first starts he doesn't buy that. He's just investigating. The Bible as literature. It's graphic history. It's wonderful. It has detailed prophecy and it has detailed fulfilled prophecy in it. It has beautiful poetry. Have you ever spent any time in some of the biblical poetry? It's just magnificent, like psalms and things like that. And boy does it have drama. And you know what's interesting? The story continues from the very first book all the way to the last one. Because what's the, who's the main character?

Christ. It's the Lord Jesus Christ, sure. And it talks about in Genesis that he's promised and he's coming and he shows up in the pages of all of the Old Testament and then he does come and he's crucified and then the results of all his resurrection so the Bible is not prejudiced in favor of man and the way you know that is that when the authors of the Bible God never hid their sins from the reader You know?

And we sort of chuckle about a guy like Peter being such a vulnerable guy. Wow, boy, do you identify with Peter? I really do. Or a guy like Abraham. You know, Abraham believed God and he's accounted righteous. So if I was writing the book, from then on, Abraham would have been this holier-than-holy shining star. But he's a terrible guy, the stuff that he does over the next 40 years. Can he break and sells his wife to Pharaoh and tries to? all this weird stuff that he does.

The Bible is not prejudice. It doesn't make these human characters these untouchable kind of people. Their sins and their shortcomings are laid right out there. It records sin and weakness of the best men. It's kind of neat the way the Bible is written because it goes to everybody, the most flawed individuals in the Bible, so it can relate to you because you're flawed.

If you and I were going to... Watch this. If you and I were going to sit down and write a trashy novel and call it a Bible... I don't read novels. And our main character was King David. We would not have... We would have excused David's infidelity, his adultery, and murder, wouldn't we? We wouldn't have put that in there. We wouldn't have been so subtle as to tell the guy, put Uriah in the front line so he gets killed. Pretty subtle, isn't it? And we certainly wouldn't have come up with this idea that a prophet has to come to David and do it in such a way that when the man says, you are that man, it absolutely breaks his heart. We wouldn't have done it that way.

But David is what? He's most favorite of God. God loves this man, but he doesn't hide his flaws. It's God's message to man rather than man's message to man. Important aspect. Such a book could not be written by man if he chose to write it, and even if he could, man could not choose to write it apart from divine direction.

Whenever we're studying in my classes on grace, and I like to pick somebody out like Craig and I, if God said, okay, Craig, you and Mike, I want you to sit down and I want you to come up with a plan how I can save mankind. We would never come up with a grace method. because we don't know what grace is. We would never, oh yeah, God, one of you has to become a man and die. Nah, we would have never even thought of that. So the word of God couldn't be written by man by themselves.

Because of our sinful nature. Yeah, we're blind. So it reveals the person and the glory of God as manifested in His Son. That is such an important statement because so many of us read the Bible or study the Bible on the basis of an academic approach and what we're trying to do is garner a bunch of facts when in fact what the Word is trying to do is to reveal the person and the glory of God as manifested in Christ.

This book does that. No other book does that. Jesus could never have been the invention of a mortal man, because his perfections could never have been comprehended by the wisest and holiest of men. Even Craig and I could not come up with his perfections.

So, the written word and the living word are simultaneous. In other words, Christ and the word of God is supernatural in origin. perfect blending of that which is divine and human. That's what the Word of God is and that's what the person of God is. The Word of God is designed to reveal Christ to not only the believer but to the world. That's what it's designed to do. And so therefore it's able to transform people's lives of those who believe. How does it transform lives? New birth. That's the start. This conformity transforming process that goes on, how is it done? What's the method? Or the schematic? How does God conform you to the image of Christ?

Taking you from dependence on self to dependence on Him. More than that. That's good. Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. The beholding is what you do The mirror is the Word of God and the Spirit of God you observe by beholding the glory of the Lord, the sum total of His intrinsic attributes and He via the Word by the energy of the Holy Spirit conforms you, transforms you into His very image. The Word of God is the mirror that reflects Christ. You can't behold His glory outside of the Word of God. It can be rejected by those who don't believe. Yeah, no problem. Even though it is the word of God, it's easily rejected.

Divine perfection embodied in each the person of the Lord Jesus and the word itself. The revelations which they, the written and the living word disclose can be comprehended by a child, and but at the same time infinite complexity. We who teach the kids in Sunday school, boy do we know this. Those little kids can understand the Word of God. The Spirit of God can show them what it means. And you can sit with them and talk to them about spiritual things and they know. And it comes from the Word of God. They know. And we in adult class, you know, we're all sophisticated and smart. I think they know more than we do. Okay, so next week we're going to talk about the fact that the Word of God is inspired and what it means. Okay? Question? Okay, could you say that sentence one more time? The Word is the mirror of God, right? It's the mirror that reflects the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Could you say that this is going to be in a PDF format on the internet? I'm not sure what they're going to do, but I think it's on there now. I think all of these slides are there. I'm pretty confident that's true. I've got a set that I downloaded from our website three years ago. Yeah. I thought you said last week it was not in PDF format, but some other paper. It's not up there now. We can get a copy pretty easy. If you guys would like, you're not sure you have a disc. I thought you had one. I might. Because we talked about it. I had another one. There are some around. I may have another one. It's the church's website. You can download it. It's just I've been holding off because I thought you said it was not...

Well, you know, as I started in studying this and started putting stuff together and then I started to study what Hal and Roger had already done, I can't do better than they did. Those two guys just did a phenomenal job, especially Hal, in putting the concepts together in a teaching syllabus so that you can just go through. Like today, this was Hal Molloy's outline.

It's perfect. I wouldn't say it's perfect, but it's really good. I like to teach based on questions and answers, and I thought, oh, this is the perfect book. I'll just start at the end of the chapter and start asking you the questions, and you can answer them all. But actually, learning the material, some of those questions are really important. Some of them, not as good as I think this outline is.

Perfect. That's close. Father, how we love you today. We thank you for your word. We thank you that we can learn not only what it is, but who it is and what your intention is regarding your word to bless us, Father. We thank you. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.