 So, if you have an outline, if you need one, maybe I can hand these back to Noelle, and that way when new people come in, thanks brothers, when new people come in, like they tend to do in a Sunday school class, trickle in and trickle in, then we can have somebody at the door handing those out. So, the essentials part is going to be the authority of the Bible. The addition part that goes beyond essentials is going to be looking at the canon. So, let's begin to look into the Word of God here. Okay, so first and foremost, we're looking at the authority of the Bible. Some of the key parts and thoughts of a doctrine of the Word of God are going to be the authority of the Word of God. It's going to be the clarity of the Word, the necessity of it, the sufficiency of the Word of God. When the Bible talks about the Word of God, sometimes it refers to Jesus as the Word. He's the one who expresses God's will for us, just like the Bible expresses the will of God. It's why he can be called the Word. When the Bible talks about the Word of God, it can refer to the actual speech of God, when God said, let there be light. And when the Bible refers to the Word of God, it can be a personal address, like when he speaks to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. When the Bible talks about the Word of God, it can be through prophets. When the Bible talks about the Word of God, it can be in its written form. That's primarily how we think about it, in the written form that we have the Word of God in our hands here. So we're going to look at the Word of God in its written form in the authority that it has. Okay, let's look up some of the scriptures together. And let's see. Breon, would you read 2 Timothy 3.16? And Brian, would you read 2 Peter 1, 19 to 21? Okay, so we see here that the Word of God, the scripture, by inspiration of God is literally here, it's God breathed. God has breathed out the Word of God, and then it's profitable for the doctrine, it's profitable for the teaching, it's profitable for correction or rebuke. So it shows us our sin, it corrects us, it leads us on the path that is right, and then it teaches us how to live that out. Do you see those four different points? James Adams has a book about counseling. And then in counseling, it's How to Change, I think is the title of the book. And in that book, basically he takes these four points from this passage and he says, this is what you do in biblical counseling. You show people about a particular area in life that they need help, what the doctrine is, what they'll say about that topic, then reproof. You show them how they're not living it, correction, how to get what the right way is, and then instruction how to live it out. So the Word of God is profitable for all those things, that, and in verse 17, that it's completely sufficient that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Okay, so do you see that the path for how to live is all outlined, and that the fact that it's sufficient for us in order to live out every good work. So because of that, because the Word of God is God-breathed, it comes from God, it's sufficient and right for every area of life that we need. Does that make sense? Then because of that, because every Word is God-breathed, what's the exhortation in chapter 4? Guru, what's the exhortation in chapter 4? Of 2 Timothy chapter 4, since the Word of God is every Word is God-breathed, and it's sufficient and appropriate for us to grow, then what's the well-known exhortation in 2 Timothy 4 to Timothy? Okay, then to preach the Word. Now, think about this. This is why we preach expositionally, verse by verse, is because every Word is God-breathed. So every Word in here is important. So how are we going to systematically cover every Word together? Yeah, verse by verse, Bible preaching. We're going to preach the Word, verse by verse. And it's going to do four things in our lives. It's going to teach us the truth, the doctrine. It's going to show us how we are not in accord with that. In other words, it's going to show us how we're sinners. It's going to show us the right way. And it's going to show us how to live in that right way. That's the authority that the Word of God has over all our lives. So let's also look at 2 Peter now. Another key passage on the inspiration and the key passage on the doctrine of the Word of God. Okay, so if you see in verse 21 that the Bible we have doesn't come from just somebody thought up some thoughts of philosophy or wisdom in life, but instead we see that it's moved and is a work of the Holy Spirit. It's a work of God who moved these holy men of all. So often when you talk to somebody about the gospel, then the conversation often will go to the Word of God, the topic of the Word of God. Because people are very quick to reject the authority of the Word of God and say, well, what we have here in your hand couldn't possibly be from God. This is just a book made by man. So a book made by man. And the reason is, well, it's changed over time. You know, the phone game. Now, I'm sure you've never heard that before. Keith is shaking his head. With a phone game, a telephone game, we whisper into somebody's ear. Keith whispers into Daniel's ear. Daniel whispers into Noel's ear. Noel whispers into Ben's ear. Ben whispers into Brenda's ear. And the message goes around the room until he gets a brion and then comes back to me and it's different. And so this oral tradition can never last because the message of the Bible couldn't possibly be what Jesus actually said because of how it's passed through. Instead we see that it's holy men of God are moved by the Spirit and they are writing down what's verifiable, what we can see and transfer the message of God. It's not like the telephone game. It's written down. It's sure. It's unchanging. Okay, so let's look at the end of 2 Peter in chapter 3 verse 16. And Clyde, would you read that verse? Okay, so what does Peter refer to as the Scripture is there? So it is the Old Testament and what else? Go ahead. That's right. So Paul, yes. So we have New Testament, Old Testament referring to Paul's writings as the Scripture and to the Old Testament as the Scriptures. Okay, let's look at 1 Timothy 518. And Adam, would you read that one? Okay, so what we have here is the Apostle Paul is quoting two different passages. Does anybody have a footnote to tell me where those two different passages are from or does somebody remember? So I hear Luke and Deuteronomy. Okay, so he's quoting the law with the, you should not muzzle an ox that will trend out the grain. And then he's also quoting Jesus Christ from Luke. So he's quoting both the New Testament and Old Testament. And what is he saying? Verse 18, but the Scripture says. Okay, so what we're seeing here is the New Testament is validating itself as authoritative as the Scripture. Now have you ever had anybody, when you're talking to somebody about the Gospel and you show them what the Bible says and they say something along the lines of how do you know the Bible's true? Every time you point to the truth of the Bible, you point to the Bible itself. Isn't that circular reasoning? Have you ever heard that argument? Okay, Noel, would you comment on that? Is that understandable? What Noel's saying is that when you are talking about ultimate authority, ultimate authority can't point to anything higher to prove itself than the ultimate authority. So you have to have circular reasoning when you're pointing to ultimate authority. We point to who God is, ultimate authority. You're not going to be playing on the same rules as other argumentation. Ultimate authority has got to point to itself and Noel's example is, okay, if you take reason, how do you prove it? Reason is the ultimate way to know. No things. Well, I reasoned it out. Or you can take it that same argument and say, it's not possible to know open ultimate authority. Well, how do you know that? Because I don't know of any authority that is ultimate. You see how you're using circular argumentation to have an ultimate authority, to have ultimate truth, even to say that there is no ultimate authority or there is no ultimate truth. You have to use the circular reasoning. So when we look at the Bible as the ultimate authority, we're going to point to the Bible to show that that's true, because there is no higher authority that you can go to. So it's helpful to compare, like Noel said, compare worldviews when people don't understand that. Okay, so the authority of the Word of God, let's look at Matthew 1.22 and how Jesus refers to the Word of God. Matthew, I think the Lord will be in chapter 4 verse 4. We'll look at Matthew 1.22 first. Okay, Joyce, would you read Matthew 1.22? So here we see in Matthew 1.22 that, and 23, a quotation about the virgin birth. Now, who made the quotation? Yes, where is Matthew quoting this from? Who spoke this? Isaiah. Isaiah? And who else? The Lord. Okay, the Lord. That's the trick question, right? Okay, so it's both. That's the point. It's both the Lord and the prophet Isaiah are being quoted here. This is the authority of God through holy men of old. Okay, so this is an essential, key part to the Christian life. Walk in order, this is essential to know anything for sure. When we have scientific theories, some scientific theories over time have proven that we learn more information and we see that our theories were not actually accurate. We learn more things over time. It's impossible to know by science everything there is to know in life and to know it for sure. You can't reproduce everything in a laboratory. But by the word of God, it is possible to know ultimate truth. The word of God is truth. John 17, 17, he'll sanctify them by their truth. Thy word is truth. It's easy to nod your head in a Sunday school class, right? That this is true. But then do you apply it? Do you apply it that the word of God is true? Do you think and judge all of your life around the word of God? Do you really make your decisions based on the word of God? Do you seek to know and grow in the word of God and your knowledge of the word of God? And how much are you reading the word of God? If I could ask, 98.7% of us would say, yes, this is the word of God. If I were to ask you each individually, and then if I were to ask you, okay, each individually, how much did you read the Bible this week? What will we get? Not quite 98%, right? What I'm saying is, do you truly believe that this is the word of God? Let's read Matthew 4.4. And, Wes, would you read Matthew 4.4? Okay, so the Lord Jesus Christ knows when he's tempted where to go to, to the word of God and to answer the word of God. And he knows even in answering, he's going to instruct us that what we truly need is the word of God. That we don't live by just a bottled water and a plate full of spaghetti and meatballs. We live off the word of God. That's what we need. We need that nutrition. We need that for life. Try Christian. Try stopping reading the word of God and you'll shrivel up. You know, I'm not very good at, you know, raising plants. My wife and I were pretty good, you know, plant killers. And we got one little basil plant. I call it the farm. You know, it has died, but then it came back to life. I don't know how it came back to life. Somehow that shriveled up shrub sprouted again. And, you know, I've realized I've got to water it in order for it to live. What do you need in order to live? Yeah, you need the word of God. I think of that shriveled up basil plant and how it looked like it was dead one time and I put a cup of water on it. And the next day it peaked out and wow, it was green and alive. You need the Bible. You need to meditate on the Bible. You need the Bible as your authority. You need to recognize that it's your life and your authority. You need to set aside and make it a priority in your life. This is an absolute essential. I can't under emphasize that, beloved. You need to set up your life around not your work schedule, but you set up everything else in life. You set it around the word of God. It doesn't go by your family schedule, the baby schedule or the child schedule. You need to, when you think about your day and what's most important, you set it up around the word of God. Don't we do that with meal schedules? We set up life around meal schedules. We say, oh, well we got to eat. We got to eat dinner. So we're going to make sure we get that. In the same way, you got to make sure that your life is set up around the word of God. Since it's the word of God, I'm going to just touch on the testimony of the Holy Spirit and the without error here. Since it is the word of God, we know the word of God and it's only revealed to us by the Spirit. When you're unconverted and you don't have eyes to see the Bible and the truths that are in it, if you read in 689 on the doctrine of the word of God, this is a key part to the word of God is that it takes the Holy Spirit and this is too important not to pass up. Let's look at the scriptures real quick. Lee, would you read John 10, 27? And then Daniel, would you read 1 Corinthians 2 verses 13 to 14? As in Daniel Baldwin? Could you read 1 Corinthians 2 verses 13 to 14? Okay, so the effectual call, the word of God that goes forth is going to be recognized and affirmed by the true followers of Him. And let's read 1 Corinthians 2. How does that happen? Now, 1 Corinthians 2, go ahead. This is how you tell, this is a litmus test for a Christian. You read him the Bible. And when they understand it, are they going to follow it? Not perfectly, not in the photo of life, but in the video of life. When you show them the Bible and they understand it, are they going to believe it and follow it? Okay, when you show the authority, take the same authority to somebody who's unconverted, you'll often see this. Yeah, I know it says that, but it's pretty common, right? It's the majority of the world. That's how common it is. So the Holy Spirit is the one who opens your eyes to the Scripture. In your own experience, you should know this if you're converted. You should know how you used to read the Bible when you weren't converted. And then how, since you've become a Christian, the difference the Bible makes in your life. You know, when you raise up a Christian home, you read the Bible all the time, right? You read the Bible and your parents make you do it. Every day? Isn't that right? But what a difference it makes to read the Bible with new eyes from a new heart. Then you can see the things that are truly matter. You can discern the things that is true food in life. Okay, so since it takes the Holy Spirit in us, in dwelling us, to open our eyes, to illuminate us, our eyes to the Scripture, since the Scripture is God-breathed, it necessitates it is without error. Titus 1, 2, turn there very quickly. Titus 1, 2, starting in verse 1, Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle Jesus Christ to the faith of God's elect and acknowledgement of the truth, which accords with Godliness in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. Okay, so God cannot lie. This may seem overly simplistic to you, but God wrote this book. God can't lie. Everything in this book is true. You know, you can settle the inerrancy debate just like that. God doesn't lie. God wrote this book. All of it's true. What about the New Testament use of the Old Testament and about how, when are they quoting certain things? Are they using citations? How are they interpreting? Well, no for sure. God wrote this book. God doesn't lie. That needs to be the foundation. Well, what about the numbers of soldiers that are accounted for in the Old Testament? There's a different number in chronicles than there is in Kings. And how do we account for those two accounts? Well, no for sure. Those things can be worked out. We can get answers to those things, but no for sure the basis that God doesn't lie and his word is true. If he has a lie or if he has something that's inaccurate, like God didn't know and couldn't count, like if he has something like that in here, then this book is not trustworthy. It takes one lie to make this book untrustworthy. And let me assure you, there is not one single error or lie in here. We have all the Word of God. Okay, so here's the essential part. Okay? In your outline, the authority of the Word of God in your life. Okay, now we're going to go into some canonicity. This is, it's mainly got into this because I wanted to understand it better. So, and I knew that it was going to be with everybody so everybody can help grow with me, can grow as I grow. Okay, so canonicity is something that I have always wondered about and questioned. Not in like a, that the Bible is not true, but I wonder about the standards that we use for canonicity. And it's been a question mark and so this study was very helpful to me. What are some typical marks that we have used in the past or that the church has used in the past for canonicity? Like how did, by canonicity is the canon, the measuring rod. How did the church know that there was 27 books in the testament and not 28? What about, I watched History Channel and Gospel of Thomas. Yeah, Gospel of Thomas, that's supposed to be in the Bible. And it was left out. Okay, so one, there can't be contradictions. So no contradictions. When you're evaluating, okay, Rian, okay. Well, the analogy to faith would be applied here, right, with the contradictions. So comparing scripture to scripture, Michael, okay. Does it say it's scripture? So if I take a Martha Stewart's cooking book and I say, well, this is the Bible, you know, it's 200 years from now. You can look through it and you can say, it doesn't even claim that, right? Okay, we'll say apostolic authority, whether delegated or directly given. Okay, Oliver, okay. So if we know it doesn't tell something accurate, so is that how you would summarize that? If it's not accurate or true? Okay, so they, so does it say things that are true? Some of that can be hard to evaluate. Okay, let's put it, okay. Historical accuracy, which yes, would be kind of a sub point under contradictions. Okay, Brian, okay. The fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies in it. And that could be hard to measure, though. That could be hard to measure. I'm not sure how helpful that would be. So Clyde, we'll let that one simmer. Maybe it is, I'm not sure. Okay, so that's good. The date, it helps us evaluate. That would rule out Martha Stewart's cooking book. Okay, the date is kind of bent. Okay, so that's also helpful. It's known by the church, so the church's affirmation. And linked with that is early church writings. You can reproduce the entire Bible by just looking up early church writings. And they refer to it as the Bible. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool that you could, if we lost all the Bibles in the world, you could reproduce the Bible by early church writings. So there you can see that they affirm the same Bible we have. Okay, Josh, I like the way Mr. Dodge is heading. This is, I think, this is the right way to think about canonicity. This, starting here, is going to bring, still have flaws in it. Starting here, a lot of this is still difficult. Some of this is scriptural, right? Like, not every point. Like Josh brought up Deuteronomy 18. The evaluation of a true prophet. You're going to see if they contradict what's already been written. You're going to see the claim. Some of this is, but this is, some of this other, like knowing historical accuracy or the affirmation by the church. Some of these things can be a little difficult to measure out and affirm. It's kind of like, how would you say, you know, you ask somebody, how do you know the Bible's true? And then if you only point to, well, when the Bible speaks about history, it speaks accurately, but I don't know all of history. So how would you know for sure? Or when the Bible speaks about creation, it speaks accurately. Like in Job, the Bible talks about how God hangs the world on nothing. And then we find out later on, years later, the Bible, the world hangs on nothing. So the, there are things that point to that are results and evidences, but the main thing, like we went over earlier in the authority, is that the Bible itself claims to be the ultimate authority. So what about canonicity? What does the Bible say about canonicity? Are we just going to go by what marks that we've evaluated and made up? Who made this list? Is this list from the Bible? This list is wisdom, but it ultimately comes from the Bible. What does the Bible say about canonicity? Yes, so the Christ does use the Old Testament. Most of the questions about canonicity don't come from the Old Testament. Most of them are coming from the New Testament. About how do we know what the New Testament is evaluated. Okay, so let me quickly take you through this line of thought. And you have a number of scriptures here on the, on your outline that you can look up on your own. Okay, so the Bible talks about how do you know canonicity? How do you know what is a book that should be in the Bible? It starts with Moses. It starts with, that's where the Bible's first written down. The Bible's first written down and then God himself is affirming in front of the entire nation that the law is the Word of God. The Ten Commandments are the Word of God. The first thing written down, God's going to write it down himself. And the people are going to see that and they're going to have the tests that God gives to how, here's how you know if God speaks in Deuteronomy 18 and also in Deuteronomy 13, that's on your outline. Since Moses is the fountain head of canonicity, how you know what's in the Bible. And he's not truly the fountain head, God is. God himself at Sinai is the fountain head. He comes down to Sinai to give us the Word of God. What a blessing, right? Okay, the fountain head of all is truly Jesus Christ. When we come to the New Testament, the true canon, the true measuring rod for what goes in the Bible is from Jesus Christ. And he has designated this through the apostles. In order to understand how this works out, you understand the historical redemptive outline of the Scripture that he has designated apostles to be the foundation for the church. And so he is establishing from his apostolic authority. Where does apostolic authority come from? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the ultimate decider of what goes in the canon, what goes in the Bible. Because he's the one who set up the apostles to communicate his Word. We're not left to make up our own standard of just what we think would be wise. The apostles are to communicate what is the Word of God. Okay, we can see that in Jude 3, the faith. This one's for all delivered to the saints. It's the faith, it's a definitive thing. It's not an ever ongoing changing fluid thing. This is the faith, definitive, concrete, complete. We can see Jesus himself affirm the Old Testament canon, Luke 24, 44 to 45, when he refers to the law, the prophets. When he's opening up the Scriptures on the road to Emmaus and explaining he summarizes what is the Old Testament in the end of Luke. We see Jesus Christ affirm the canon in a very interesting quotation in Matthew 23 when he's denouncing the religious leaders, he refers back to martyrs. He refers back to martyrs and he actually refers to the first martyr and to the last Old Testament martyr, which shows a communication of the Old Testament canon that Jesus Christ is affirming. That canon when he refers to the first martyr as Abel and the last as Zechariah. It's a communication of the clothe of an Old Testament canon, yes. That's exactly right. So did you get that? The Jewish Bible orders the books different. If you get your Bible in Hebrew, you have to get that from Miss Beverly. So if you get your Hebrew Bible from Miss Beverly, the ordering ends with Second Chronicles. So it's, like we say, Genesis to Revelation. Jesus is referring to the martyrs all the way from Abel to Zechariah, which is at the end of Second Chronicles. So it's an affirmation that Jesus Christ is the ultimate standard for what's in the canon and he designates that to the apostles giving apostolic authority. This is a great blessing to me because how do we know that the books that we have in our Bible are actually the ones? Well, God said it would happen. God said he would communicate his word and his truth. He said he would build his church, Matthew 1618, and he's going to build it on what? On a foundation that he's the Christ. And that foundation is truth spoken, the Word of God spoken, and then it's written down and it is the foundation for the church. That's Bible. That's Bible, folks. Jesus Christ has promised that the Bible would come to pass when he says that his words will come to pass and he's going to make sure it happens. It's a declaration from God. It's like a prophecy in God that we could see it fulfilled in that we get to hold the whole book. So we don't have to just judge by a standard that we make up of marks. This is wisdom. Wisdom is good. It's good to make the marks. But those come as a result of the promise that is sure instead fast in God's Word. That he would deliver the faith, Jude 3, that he would once and for all communicate to us through the prophets about his son, Hebrews 1, 1-2. So the next time somebody asks, well, how do you know the gospel of Thomas? I watched it something on the History Channel and how do I know the gospel of Thomas? Jesus Christ is the standard and he promised that his Word would not fail and that it would build his church and his church has affirmed it and gathered it just like he promised. It's here and Jesus did not affirm the gospel of Thomas. There's no apostolic authority there. There's no authority from Christ. That's not in the Bible. Get it out. Okay, so if you want more help on this, this is very helpful to me because this is establishing canonicity from the Bible instead of just an apologetics that we would evaluate. And it was very encouraging to me. So maybe you didn't wrestle with that or think about that, but I hope you would look into it more. There is a book by Herman Ritterboss that is a short book, 90 pages, that goes through this. So you see canonicity based on the Bible, not just on marks that somebody set up. And I was referred to this book from a sermons by Brian Borgman, listening to him. So if you look at Brian Borgman in sermon audio, he's a very good preacher out in Nevada, a reformed Baptist, and he has some sermons on canonicity that were very helpful. He struggled with the same thing, so when I was listening to him, I was like, oh, this is great! And then I got sidetracked and did all this Sunday on canonicity and didn't get more to the essential things. So next week we're going to focus more on the essentials of necessity, sufficiency, clarity. Yes, Samuel? The name of the book is Redemptive History and the New Testament Scriptures. You can get it at Bright Light at RTS. I got the last copy at Bright Light front park. So Bright Light at RTS has a number of copies for seven bucks. Okay, let's pray. Lord God, we thank you that your word is established. We thank you that your word is rock solid. We thank you that we can trust the promises and the declarations that you made that your word would come to pass and it's not just something in question or something that Constantine put together or something that the Catholic Church put together. Your word, you've promised it and we've seen it. We've seen it come to pass in history and we hold it and we hold it dear. Please help us to read it and treasure what you've given us. So Lord, we worship you. Amen.