Not One Jot or Tittle (Part 2 of 2)

In a culture where belief is subjective and truth is relative, it's your truth.

We can find ourselves wrestling with the question, what exactly do I believe? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Beggs shows us how we can look to the scriptures to find answers to those existential questions with which we wrestle. Our study today begins in the third chapter of 2 Timothy, in a message titled, Not One Jot or Tittle. Although it took time for the New Testament to finally be recognized and finalized, somewhere around the end of the fourth century, we need to realize, too, that you don't have to ferret around in your Bible to realize that even early on, the picture of the authoritative elements of the New Testament are quickly becoming apparent. Even in 1 Timothy, for example, when Paul is writing there, and he quotes a saying of Jesus at the same time as he's quoting from the Old Testament, and he refers to them both as scriptures. Peter in the same way refers to the letters of Paul, and referring to them as scripture. And in all of this, the point of it, as we see in the text, is that the message of the Bible in the Old Testament and in the New Testament is salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what Paul is doing in speaking to Timothy here in his apostolic framework is making sure that when Timothy exercises his ministry, he's going to be absolutely convinced of this. And it is on account of that that he's already issued a clear call to him to continue in what he has learned, to continue in what he has firmly believed.

But you see the imperative nature of what is happening. I think it was Donald Guthrie who taught me at LBC in New Testament. I think he's the one who said, from a human perspective, the church at this point, from Paul to Timothy, trembled, humanly speaking, on the brink of annihilation.

There was no guarantee that it was going to make the transition from the apostolic to the post-apostolic church. That's the importance of the Scriptures. That's the importance of what Paul is saying. Be aware, Timothy, of its authority, of its reliability, of its finality.

Same for us. We no longer have prophets. We don't have the Lord Jesus physically present with us as he was with his disciples. We do not have new organs of revelation as in the time of the apostles. As John Murray puts it, Scripture is the only revelation of the mind and will of God available to us.

It is the only extant revelatory Word of God. And it is, of course, that confidence and sufficiency in its confidence that was to mark out Timothy, and it is clear from all that followed that he held the line. I look forward one day to reflecting with Timothy on what it is to have a godly mother and a godly grandmother. Paul leads him to Christ. His grandmother and his mother lay the foundation, tutoring him, guarding him, guiding him, waking him up in the morning with the Shema—"Hear, O Israel, the LORD your God, the LORD is one, and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart," and so on. And Timothy would have begun his day with that. At least with his mom. And he would have ended his day with that. And then there came a day when the pieces of the jigsaw fell into line.

What a day! Well, you say, but that was Ephesus. It's a long time ago. This is London.

Oh, yes, it is. And here we are. And the real question for us now is not actually, What did Jesus believe and what do the apostles believe? But what do you and I believe? John Murray writes wonderfully helpfully when he reminds the reader, it is possible to be formally committed to the fact that the Word of God is living and authoritative without being ourselves, arrested by it, summoned into its presence, and bowing in reverence before the one to whom it points.

With that said, I want to make some comments that I'm glad I'm leaving directly after I've made them. What do you and I believe? Well, you say, well, actually, I have an orthodox view of the Bible. And if someone says to you in the bus on your way home, well, on what basis do you believe in the infallible nature of Scripture? What are you going to say? Are you going to give them a course in apologetics, as helpful as that may be?

No. The only ground for that belief is in the witness of Scripture itself to itself. There can be no higher authority. And that's the wonderful thing about the Bible when you teach it, because it's not like any other book. Any other book, whether it's a textbook or a novel or whatever it might be, we sit down with it, we get a cup of tea, and we say, I'm going to see if I can understand this book.

Now, when we come to the Bible, of course, we do not come to the Bible initially with views about infallibility or inerrancy or anything at all. We're reading this book. We're reading it and trying to pay attention to it. But somewhere along the line, it suddenly becomes apparent to us, this book understands me. It's not so much that I'm trying to understand it. It understands me.

What kind of book is this? And on what basis do I believe in its authority? And could I ever believe less, as I say, than Jesus himself believed? Now, it is in what kind of context that we face the question, What do I believe? Well, I don't want to be alarmist and unkind in any way, but we face this question in, I would suggest to you, a collapsing culture.

That's easy to say. Some of you are familiar with the writings of Douglas Murray. He's just done a new book, The Madness of Crowds—Gender, Race, and Identity. And in his introduction to the book, he writes as follows, We are going through a great crowd derangement in public and in private.

Apparently, he's just been out here walking around, both online and off. People are behaving in ways that are increasingly irrational, feverish, herdlike, and simply unpleasant. He's making a comment on contemporary culture. It is time we began to confront the true causes of what is going wrong.

Well, what are you talking about? Well, he says, we've been living through a period of more than a quarter of a century in which all our grand narratives have collapsed. In the vacuum, we are then left to come up with explanations and meanings of our own. So the crowds on the metropolitan line, on an average rush-hour commute, are squeezed in tight with one another, never talking, trying to see other people in the reflection, and if they're honest, saying to themselves, Who am I? What am I?

How many days can I keep doing this? And will somebody come forward and say that there is meaning and purpose to all of this? You read the Times—I'm talking the Times of London—if you read it on September 10th, I read it every day, you will have read Melanie Phillips' comment, in which she announced and pointed out that the BBC film, which is planned to be shown in schools to pupils between the ages of nine and twelve, claims that there are more than 100 gender identities.

That's the film. To which Melanie Phillips, a practicing Jew, says in her opening sentence, How did we get to a stage where such absurd nonsense is promulgated by our cultural avatars? How did we get to a stage where such absurd nonsense…? Now, immediately somebody's going to say, Well, you're not allowed to say anything that's absurd nonsense. It may be absurd nonsense to her, and off we go on that sliding scale. Why does she do that? Because she's reading the Old Testament.

She understands the nature of God and his creation. Or do you want another indication of it? Do you remember the old days when there used to be the story of an impending judgment, and there was sin, and then there was a story of redemption, and so on? And then the church decided that there was a better way to go at that, and nobody came to listen? Well, just read your newspaper. It's all back.

It's all back. The church of climatology. Now, irrespective of your view of whether you like plastic straws or not, the fact of the matter is that this, fascinatingly, is increasingly the world's version of a secular religion. It transcends gender, it transcends race, it transcends cultures, it transcends political convictions.

It is absolutely throughout the whole Western world. And it is a theology. It says, my man, this climatology in much of Europe and in sections of America has replaced traditional Christianity as the ultimate source of authority over human behavior, comprising both an all-embracing teleology of our existence and a prescriptive moral code. I find it quite fascinating, because sometimes I speak to my friends who say, you know, it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that comes judgment. They say, I never heard anything as ridiculous in all my life. Then we just walk around for a minute and a half, and they say, You know what?

I would say within three decades the world is going to burn up and be done. I say, I never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life. So there we are at polar opposites. On what basis do you have this?

And where is this? Well, is this the mouth of God? Is this the Word of God? That's what I'm saying to you. It's one thing to say, I believe in the Bible.

Yes, it's a great idea. It's another thing to say, I believe in the Bible when it intersects radically against the cultural milieu in which I live, because then I have to do something with it. It would be great if the collapsing culture was more than matched by a church that was ready to go instead of a church that is confused.

In the 1950s, James S. Stewart—just happened to be a Presbyterian Scotsman—addressing students and faculty at Yale, at the Divinity School. He warned them about embracing a view of Scripture that was theologically vague and harmfully accommodating. Is it really wrong? Is it unkind for me to suggest that the warning has gone unheeded in many quarters of the church, that we are prepared for whatever reason to revise the cutting edge of Scripture when it says that marriage is a heterosexual, monogamous, lifelong union? Or are we really confused? Is that because the Bible isn't clear? Think about it in our day.

You're sensible people. Read church history. Consider the contrast between my own background in Scotland and the Church of Scotland and all that has gone on in the last ten, fifteen, twenty years in Scotland. Consider the response, by and large, that we've seen in our own time in contrast to the response of the evangelicals in the middle of the nineteenth century in the secession from the Church of Scotland.

Eighteenth of May, 1843, described as a sorrowful yet glorious day when, in the context of all this unraveling stuff, 451 ministers stood up in the assembly and walked out. Commentating on that, one of my friends wrote, Principle had triumphed over expediency, Scripture over human laws, and the whole of Scotland was confronted with the example of men who were prepared to suffer for Christ and to suffer for his Word. It was about the Bible. The Bible can't allow us to do this.

Here's what's fascinating and alarming. Incipient denials of Scripture—like, when it's not really obvious in the culture or not really obvious in the church—those little denials may take decades to become apparent, but they will eventually yield the bitter fruit of unrighteousness. And the issues tonight in Western culture relating to gender and to human sexuality and to personal identity are matters concerning which the authority of the Scripture must be brought to bear.

Collapsing culture, confused church, cowardly and compromised clerics. Paul's charge to Timothy, and all the Timothy's to follow, was clear. Keep your head, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. And fundamental to that, for Timothy, was a clear conviction in his own heart and life concerning the evangel, the gospel, that he was then to proclaim. Which evangel is it that is going to be preached? When Gresham Machen came to Britain many years ago, he tackled this very subject, and in his own unmistakable way, he said, A man who is on fire with a message never tacks in that wretched, feeble way, but proclaims the truth joyously and fearlessly in the presence of every high thing that is lifted up against the gospel of Christ. Well, I say to you tonight, the challenge remains. The opportunity is before us.

Perhaps it's never before. The pulpits of our nations require men convinced that the Word of God does the work of God by the Spirit of God. Read church history in the city of London. It was here in London that Spurgeon preached. Did you go to the Van Gogh exhibition? Did you realize that Van Gogh went to church and listened to Spurgeon preach? And what of Thomas Watson in the seventeenth century? Or John Stott just down the road?

Or Lloyd-Jones over here? And it goes on and on. And somebody's saying to themselves, Oh, yeah, yeah, bring out the old boys, the worthies. They're all gone.

Well, listen here. It doesn't matter if they're gone. We daren't look to the past.

We don't rest in the heritage they leave. They are not the light. They were sent to bear witness to the light. He who is the true light was coming into the world. J. C. Ralph, wonderfully, in volume 7, page 269, says to his readers, Fear not for the church of Christ when ministers die and saints are taken away. Christ can never maintain his own cause. He will raise up better servants and brighter stars.

The stars are all in his right hand. Leave off all anxious thought about the future. Cease to be cast down by the measures of statesmen or the plots of wolves in sheep's clothing. Christ will ever provide for his own church. It's a wonderful reminder, isn't it? And so it now falls to us to serve the next generation by expounding and proclaiming and applying, living and loving the Bible itself. It's no small task, is it, to declare the Bible's assessment of humanity as sinful, guilty, responsible, and lost. You're going to do that. It's going to come at cost. Well, a final word will be to Peter, but before that, one other Scotsman.

Okay? This is Hugh Martin. Alas, he says that so many who ought to be teachers deal as falsely and irreverently with the oracles of God as a cat playing with her kittens or a kitten with a cork. I am sorely afraid that there is to be a great decline in our church, a great lack of holy courage in contending for the infallible truth of the entire Scriptures, and truly men that can tolerate the substitution of the natural for the supernatural, of human reason for divine revelation, are not only no longer worthy of their sustination—which was an important word at that point—but are no longer worth their salt. May God raise up men taught from above and valiant for every jot and tittle of divine truth, for it shall stand should heaven and earth pass away. And if you meet any after I'm gone who do courageously stand for all revealed truth, give them my compliments and tell them to be strong and of a good courage, for now, even at this present time, their heads shall be lifted up above their foes. Let them yield not to the current sentimental Christianity that would convert men's faith in a living, glorious, inexhaustible, infallible Word into empty-headed, empty-hearted speculations no better than Chinese puzzles or acted charades.

Whoo! God will avenge such trifling. The Scripture cannot be broken. It is the testimony of him who is himself the eternal Word.

And Peter says, All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the Word of the Lord remains forever. And this is the Word that by the Gospel was preached to you. As Alistair Begg just said, Scripture cannot be broken, an encouraging reminder that God's Word stands firm even when our culture seems to be crumbling. That's the conclusion of today's message titled Not One Jot or Tittle on Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. Alistair joins us today to talk briefly about the Bible's view of contemporary culture and he explains how that reflects on our purpose here at Truth for Life. Alistair Begg Well, I don't know if Paul Simon was right when he said that the signs of the prophets are written on the subway walls and whispered in the sounds of silence, but I do know that the Bible makes clear where our culture is today. All the evidence is of a society that has turned its back on God's rule and his authority and seen particularly in the issues of marriage and of gender and of God's sovereign rule.

So where does it leave us? Well, as you heard, Paul's charge to Timothy is straightforward. Keep your head, endure hardship, discharge all the duties of your ministry. In other words, Timothy and all the Timothy's that come after him were not to be ashamed of the testimony of Jesus Christ, but rather to proclaim it with boldness. And that of course is what we're doing here at Truth for Life. The opportunity before us is to preach the Word of God with courage, with clarity, and at the same time with genuine compassion and obviously conviction.

We do this using an extraordinary platform that God has given us through radio and through all of these online channels. And by God's grace and your giving, Truth for Life reaches a global audience every day of the year. And so in these final hours of this year, your giving is particularly essential to us.

Please reach out before tomorrow's midnight giving deadline. We rely on your generous year-end donations in a very large way, and your giving will go directly to teaching the Bible to our world, a world that so desperately needs it, a world that needs to hear the good news in Jesus. Thank you.

Well, thanks, Halaster. A great reminder that it's essential year-end giving from listeners like you that brings the gospel to the world through Truth for Life. To ensure that your giving reaches us before tomorrow's midnight deadline, you can donate online right now at truthforlife.org slash donate or call us to donate at 888-588-7884. And keep in mind when you give, we want to invite you to request a book titled Exploring the Bible Together. This is a 52-week devotional that will help you begin or continue a meaningful time of family worship in 2021.

Be sure to read the introduction to this book. It includes some practical tips to help you build a sense of anticipation for discovering the treasure we find in God's word, helping to make each study a big hit with your whole family. Exploring the Bible Together also lays out a clear schedule that will take you through selected readings from Genesis to Revelation, but don't let that intimidate you. This plan calls for reading just a few verses each day. Request your copy of Exploring the Bible Together when you give by tapping on the image on the mobile app or by visiting truthforlife.org or you can call us at 888-588-7884. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. Join us again tomorrow as we bid farewell to 2020. We'll close out the year by looking at the subject of our broken world in a message titled What God Requires. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.