The Primacy of Teaching God's Word - Life of Paul Part 69

Well, good morning everybody.

Hey, good to see you guys here. How about taking a Bible out if you brought one and turn to Acts chapter 20. We're going to be continuing in our study of the life of the great man, the apostle Paul.

You know, you may not realize it, but on Friday night on Halloween, October the 31st, we celebrated one of the anniversaries of one of the greatest events that's ever happened in world history. For on October the 31st, 1517, a young man named Martin Luther, who at the time was a faithful Roman Catholic priest, posted on the door of the castle in Wittenberg, Germany, 95 theses. They were all about indulgences and the sale of indulgences in the Catholic Church and his concern about abuses in the sale of these indulgences. But at the same time, he also began to do something interesting. He began to study the Book of Romans and he discovered a new truth. Now it wasn't new for the Book of Romans, but it was new for Martin Luther. And that is he discovered that eternal life is not the reward of human religious effort in the Catholic Church or through any other church, but rather eternal life is a free gift that God gives to anyone who places their trust in Jesus Christ and what he did for him on the cross. And Martin Luther began to preach this. Well, of course, that put him on a collision course with Pope Leo X of the Catholic Church. And he was actually, Martin Luther was called to a trial for heresy in April 1521. And at that trial, he refused to recant what he was teaching about eternal life. And he said these words, and I quote, he said, I am bound by the scriptures I have quoted. My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything.

May God help me. After leaving that meeting, Martin Luther was afraid for his life. And so for over a year, he hid out in the castle in Wartburg, Germany. And while he was there, he did something that would change the history of the world. And that is he took the Bible, which was in Latin, and he used that year to translate the entire Bible into the common language of the German people so that the common man and woman could read the Bible. This started a whole plethora of common language Bible translations, culminating 90 years later with the translation in 1611 of the King James Bible, the first accessible Bible in the English language for the common person. And the reason Martin Luther did this is because he believed in the primacy of the Word of God. He believed that knowing God's Word, and understanding God's Word, and applying God's Word to everyday life is the single most important priority for a follower of Jesus Christ. And to do this, Luther understood people needed the Bible in their own language.

And that's why he translated it. Now, this is what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about the primacy of God's written Word, the Bible, in our lives as followers of Jesus Christ, because we're going to see the Apostle Paul in our passage for today also endorse the primacy of the Word of God in this passage.

So that's kind of our plan. Come on along and we'll come back and we'll talk about you and me in a few minutes. But let's talk about Paul first. Acts chapter 20, a little bit of background. Remember here that the Apostle Paul is on his third missionary journey, and he has just gotten through spending nine months in Greece.

Let's show you a map. He's been to the cities of Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Corinth, all the churches that he started on his second missionary journey, and he's collecting money for the poor believers living in Jerusalem. Now that he's got that money collected, he originally planned to leave from Corinth, sail southeast towards Jerusalem and deliver the money, but he learned that there were some assassins on board the ship, the Jewish community in Corinth that planned to kill him, and so he wisely changed his plans and decided instead to go overland back up north to Philippi and to sail from there. He had with him a group of representatives from the churches that had given him money. They were along to be witnesses that the money was handled in a godly and a righteous way, and that's where we've been.

So now let's pick up and let's see what happens. Verse 5, these representatives, the Bible says, went on ahead and waited for us at Troas. Now let's look back at our map. You see Troas on the northwest shore of the modern country of Turkey, and so this large group of representatives went there while Paul was still in Philippi. Verse 6 says, but we sail from Philippi after the Feast of Passover. We know the Feast of Passover was in April 57 AD, so that's when Paul left Philippi, and after five days at sea we joined the others at Troas where we stayed seven days. Notice here that the word we reappears in the book of Acts. It hasn't been in the book of Acts since Acts chapter 16, and of course the we refers to Dr. Luke, the author of the book, who traveled with Paul to Philippi, and then Paul left him in Philippi to work with the fledgling church there, to work with the young believers there, to work with the churches of Thessalonica and Berea, and for six and a half years Luke has been in Philippi serving the churches there. Now that Paul swings back through Philippi, he picks up Dr. Luke again, so the we section start back up, and Luke of course is going to be with Paul now all the way through the end of the book of Acts, but what a faithful guy.

Six and a half years he stayed there and served because Paul asked him to. Well they travel together now, and verse seven, on the first day of the week there in Troas we came together to break bread. This is the first unambiguous reference anywhere in the Bible to the fact that the early church gathered for worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, not Saturday, the Sabbath, the Jewish Sabbath, but remember this was a pagan culture, people didn't get Sunday off, so they were in the evening, they had to work all day, and this worship gathering now was on Sunday night after work, and that explains what happens next. Verse seven, and Paul preached to the people, and because he planned to leave the next day, he kept on talking until midnight, and you guys think I'm bad. This guy preached three or four hours straight until midnight, and you say well Lon, why in the world did people stay and listen to him that long? Well friends, because this is the apostle Paul, because these people had never heard him in person before and this was their chance, because after he left, they weren't going to get the chance to hear him again in person. I mean he didn't have a cassette ministry, he didn't have a radio program, although I did think that if Paul had a radio program, a really cool name for it would have been not a sermon, just an epistle. What do you think?

No I think that's cute, but alright, well whatever. Anyway, they knew this was their one shot at him, so they came to listen. Now, verse eight, and there were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were meeting, and there was a certain young man named Eutychus sitting on a window sill, and as Paul talked on and on, you feel Dr. Luke in here, as Paul talked on and on, Eutychus sank into a deep sleep and fell down from the third floor.

This is why I don't feel so bad sometimes when I look out at you folks. I figure if they did it to Paul, then it's okay for it to happen to me. Eutychus fell fast asleep while Paul was preaching and tumbled out of the window, three stories. Verse nine, and Eutychus was picked up dead, but Paul went down and lay on top of the young man and wrapped his arms around him and said, don't be alarmed, he's alive. Now there's a lot of debate that has circled around whether Eutychus was really dead or whether he was just unconscious, and Paul just recognized he was unconscious. I'm inclined to think he was really dead, because don't forget they have a physician here.

They have Dr. Luke right there on the scene, and Luke ran down and certainly examined him, and what does Luke write? He says that we picked him up dead. He was dead. And if this is true, then what happens here is that the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul raises this young man from the dead. Now, this is not an unprecedented thing. The Apostle Peter did the very same thing in Acts chapter nine with a young woman named Dorcas.

This is not unprecedented, but it is a pretty amazing thing to watch somebody raise another person from the dead. Paul did this. You say, well, after that, what did they do? Did they all yell and scream and dance around? Did they have a big party? Did they start talking about organizing a citywide miracle crusade?

I mean, what do you do after you raise somebody from the dead? Well, look what Paul did. Verse 11. Then Paul went back upstairs again, broke bread, and continued speaking. He went back to preaching until daybreak. The guy preached all night long.

Amazing. And then after this, Paul left, and they took the boy home alive, and they were greatly comforted. You know, this is amazing to me, that after raising somebody from the dead, I mean, well, what in the world is that like to raise somebody from the dead? What did Paul do? Paul went right back to the Word of God, right back to teaching the Word of God.

You know why? Because in Paul's mind, miracles were not the priority. In Paul's mind, doing supernatural events is not the priority. In Paul's mind, the teaching of the Word of God, the understanding by people of the Word of God, the spreading of the Word of God, that was the prime issue in the life of the apostle Paul. And that's why, instead of worrying about the fact he'd just done a great miracle, he didn't dwell on that.

He went right back to the real prime directive, and that is preaching and teaching the Word of God. Now, that's as far as we want to go in our passage, because we want to ask a question. And you all know the question, so are we ready? Everybody ready? Okay, here we go.

One, two, three. So what? Right. You say, Lon, so what? Say, what difference does it make to me?

I'm glad we don't, we got pews today, not windowsills. But other than that, what difference does this possibly make today? Well, let me see if I can explain that to you. You know, as I was reading this passage, I asked myself a couple of questions like this. Why did Paul spend all night, hours and hours teaching the Word of God that evening? Why was teaching the Word of God more significant in the apostle Paul's mind than even raising somebody from the dead? And why did Paul write Timothy the words that he did?

Second Timothy chapter four, in the presence of God, Timothy, I give you this charge, preach the Word, be ready to do so in season, and to do so out of season. Why did Paul say all of that, do all of that? Well, friends, the answer is because of what the Bible claims to be. The Bible claims to be the inspired Word of God to the human race. That's why in Second Timothy chapter three, Paul writes these words that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. It is all literally God breathed. And we want to take a moment now, I want to and talk to you about this issue of inspiration, because the inspiration of the Bible is the single most important theological issue in all of biblical Christianity.

You say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Well, don't you think the deity of Christ is a more important theological issue? Don't you think that the resurrection is a more important issue? Don't you think that maybe the return of Christ or the death of Christ on the cross is a bigger theological issue than this? No.

And I'll tell you why. Because everything we know about the deity of Christ, the resurrection, the cross and everything else, it all comes out of the Bible. Friends, if the Bible is not a reliable book, if the Bible is not inerrant and correct in what it says, we don't know any of those things even happen the way the Bible says they did. So this is the fulcrum point of biblical Christianity. This is the sine qua non of biblical Christianity. biblical Christianity rises and falls with the inspiration and the inerrancy of the Bible.

So let me talk to you about that for a minute. First of all, what does it mean when we say the Bible is inspired? Well, inspiration, let me tell you first what it does not mean. It does not mean first of all, we're not when we say the Bible is inspired, we're not talking about some superhuman achievement of man.

Like you know, Beethoven was inspired when he wrote his Fifth Symphony. That's not what we're talking about. Nor are we talking about God giving the writers of the Bible the basic idea and then saying now you guys flesh it out. He didn't say to Moses, Okay, Moses, take this guy, no one there was a bunch of rain. Now go work this out. Okay, write something about that.

He didn't do that. Nor third and finally, are we talking about God inspiring the Bible to me as I read it. You see, there's a lot of theologians who say, you know, the Bible's not a perfect book. It's a very imperfect book. But as you're reading this imperfect book, sometimes God, the Holy Spirit will take a verse out of it and boom, he'll zap it to you.

And you'll just kind of wiggle all over and get goosebumps in that. So that verse was inspired to you. But it may not be inspired to anybody else. No, no, that's not what we're talking about. Inspiration.

What does it mean? Well, let's let Peter tell us. He said, Second Peter chapter one, no part of Scripture ever originated in the writer's own understanding. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

This is inspiration. Men spoke the words God wanted them to speak as the Spirit of God carried them along and gave them those words. Now you say, Well, Lon, how exactly did did that process work? Were they in a trance?

What happened? Well, the Bible never says and we don't know. All we know is the result. The result is a book where the exact words God wanted were written down in this book. Friends, inspiration means that if the Lord Jesus Christ himself had sat down at a desk in Nazareth and personally written every word in the Bible himself, we'd have the exact same Bible that we have today.

That's what inspiration means. Now, the Bible also claims as a result of inspiration to be inerrant. This is why Saul 19 verse seven says that the law of the Lord is perfect. Inerrancy means that the Bible is without error, period. Inerrancy means that even though the Bible is not a science book, it's not a geography book, it's not a history book, it's not a cosmology book. But nonetheless, the inerrancy means that when the Bible speaks to science, geography, geography, astronomy, cosmology, or history, that whatever the Bible says about those subjects is just as correct as what the Bible says about salvation in Jesus Christ per se. Inerrancy is the linchpin of biblical Christianity. Rob the Bible of inerrancy and all of biblical Christianity crumbles with it. That's why John Wesley said, if there be any mistakes in the Bible, there might as well be 1000. If there be one falsehood in that book, it did not come from the God of truth. You see, folks, if what the Bible says about Jonah and the fish is untrue, then how do we know that the what the Bible says about the resurrection of Jesus isn't untrue? If what the Bible says about Adam and Eve is wrong, then how do we know that what Jesus said about heaven and hell isn't wrong? It's a package deal.

It comes together. You say, Well, Lon, can you can you give me any evidence to prove the Bible's claim that it's inerrant, that it's inspired? Yes, I can.

In fact, I can give you about 40 minutes worth. It's on a CD I did called Spiritual Boot Camp Part One, the reliability of the Bible. And you can walk right out of here, walk right over in our bookstore, and you can buy one. And if there's any doubt in your mind about whether when we bring a number of different kinds of evidence to the Bible that the Bible can stand the test of what it claims to be, you go pick up that CD or that tape, and I'll help you with that. May I take a break and say if you're here and you've never trusted Jesus in a real and personal way, and one of the things that's always hung you up is what Jesus said, John 14 six, I am the way, the truth and the life. Nobody gets to heaven unless they come by way of me. If that has been something that has hung you up, then I'm here to tell you that you can trust the Bible, that the Bible is inerrant, that the Bible is what it claims to be.

And and if you have any problem with that, you go get my tape. And listen, friends, if you become convinced the Bible is what it says it is, then then you have no choice but to deal with what Jesus said. I am the way, the truth and the life. Nobody gets to heaven unless they get there by way of me, which means that a decision for Christ is the most important decision you'll ever make in your life.

I hope you'll think about that. Now, for those of us who are followers of Christ, let me move on from here and remind you that among the many proofs that the Bible is inspired and inerrant is the attitude of the Lord Jesus. I just want to cover this one today. The attitude of the Lord Jesus himself towards the Bible. And that is simply this, that the Lord Jesus staked his entire credibility as the Son of God, as the Messiah of Israel, his entire credibility on the fact that the Bible is true, just the way it stands, that even the most outrageous events in the Bible happen just the way the Bible says they happen. Now, for example, Jesus believed the Bible's account of Noah's flood, Matthew chapter 24. Jesus believed the Bible's account of Adam and Eve, Matthew chapter 19. Jesus believed the Bible's account of Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt. He refers to it in Luke chapter 17. Jesus believed that Jonah was swallowed by a fish and that he was in the belly of a fish three days and three nights. He mentions that in Matthew chapter 12. And Jesus believed that God spoke to Moses from a burning bush that didn't burn up exactly the way Exodus three says. He mentions that in Matthew chapter 22.

All of these outrageous events that a lot of people point to is say those things are ridiculous and impossible. Jesus said, I believe every single one of them. Now, if Jesus is who he said he is, we believe that he is God wrapped in human flesh and that he knows everything about everything that if this is the way Jesus regarded the Bible, then, folks, I maintain that as followers of Christ, there is no wiggle room for us to regard the Bible any differently.

And let me show you how far Jesus's belief in the inspiration of the Bible went. Matthew chapter 22. Let me summarize what happens here. There's a group of guys named Sadducees.

It's a religious party in Israel at the time of Jesus. And they come to him one day and they say, Lord, we've got a question. Here's our question. There was this woman and she had a husband and he died. And then she married again. She had a second husband and he died. And then she had a third husband and he died. And the fourth one died and the fifth one died and the sixth one died and the seventh one died.

And so here's our question. Jesus, when this woman gets to heaven, whose wife will she be? Because nobody else wants her down here. This woman's got bad karma.

Nobody wants this woman. So when she gets to heaven because nobody else is marrying her, whose wife is she going to be? Well, we know from their writings that the Sadducees didn't believe in heaven. They didn't believe in the resurrection. They didn't believe in an afterlife. They were the, you know, you blow out the candle, you're gone people. So they didn't really want an answer to this question.

This was a test. They were trying to trap Jesus. It wasn't a real question, but look what Jesus does. Matthew 22.

First, he answers their actual question. He says in the resurrection that is in heaven, people neither marry nor are they given in marriage, but they're like the angels in heaven. In other words, in heaven, people are not sexual beings anymore. The angels aren't sexual beings. They don't procreate. They don't marry.

They don't have sex. And that's the exact same way it's going to be for people in the afterlife. She's not going to be anybody's wife in heaven. Heaven is different. But then he goes on, Jesus does, to answer a deeper question that they didn't ask.

He's going to answer a question they don't even want the answer to. And that is, is the afterlife real? Is heaven really there? Do people really live on in eternal life the way that the resurrection implies? They didn't want to know the answer, but Jesus answers it anyway.

Here's what he says. Matthew 22, he says, but as for the resurrection of the dead, as for people living on in the afterlife in heaven, haven't you guys read what God said to Moses from the burning bush? God said, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You say, well, Lon, how does that prove anything? That didn't make sense. I don't even understand what he's talking about. What's he saying there?

Well, let me explain it to you. Listen, when God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, it was 1450 BC. Jacob had been dead for over 400 years. Isaac had been dead for over 500 years. Abraham had been dead over 600 years. Their bodies had turned to dust here on earth.

They weren't here for centuries. And yet from the bush, what did God say to Moses? He said, Moses, I am present tense, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Not I was their God, or I have been their God past tense, but God used the present tense and said, 400 years after these men died on earth, I am still their God because they are still alive. They're alive in heaven with me.

They're still alive. And the people, the Bible says that the people all stood around and said, well, can't argue with that. God is not the God of the dead. Once you're dead, he's not your God anymore.

He's the God of the living because Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still living. Now friends, what I want you to see here though, is that Jesus based his entire theological defense of the afterlife on the Bible's use of a verb tense here in that area in Exodus 3 from the burning bush. He believed, Jesus did, that God breathed not only every word of the Bible, but would you notice, Jesus believed that God breathed every tense of every word in the Bible. He based an entire theological position and defense on the tense of a verb. That's how deep he understood the inerrancy and the inspiration of the Bible to go. And so once again, I repeat, if this is the way Jesus saw the Bible, what room do we have to see it any differently?

Now, regarding this, let me bring it down and make it personal to you and me. Because, here's what God said to Joshua. Joshua chapter 1. He said, Joshua, he said, do not let this book that I've given you depart from your mouth. Meditate on it daily so that you may be careful to do everything that is written in it, for then you will be prosperous and then you will have success wherever you go. Let me repeat that. Joshua, you meditate in this book and then you will be prosperous and then you will have success wherever you go. What this means is that as followers of Jesus Christ knowing the Word of God, as followers of Jesus Christ studying the Word of God, as followers of Jesus Christ obeying the Word of God, as followers of Jesus Christ using the Word of God as the roadmap for our life, what does God say to Joshua?

This is the key to a safe and a rewarding life. Now, I don't know about you. Any of you guys mourning people? See, I'm not. In fact, I had a friend of mine I was out with the other day and he said to me, you know, he said, 10 o'clock, I'm in bed. I'm like, p.m.? 10 o'clock, p.m. you're in bed? I'm like, dude, the news isn't even on yet. How do you keep up with the world? He said, well, I check it on my computer early in the morning. I'm like, well, you know, God bless you.

Because that's not how I do it. 10 o'clock at night, man, things are just starting to get rolling at 10 o'clock at night. You know, I do my best work after midnight. And it's not unusual for me to roll into bed 1 a.m., 2 a.m. And when I do that, to unwind a little bit, I turn on the TV. And there is nothing on the TV at 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning but infomercials, paid programming, as they call them.

And so I lay there and I watch paid programming. Friends, I know more about losing weight and home gym equipment and buying gold and investing in real estate than anybody here I believe today. Unbelievable what I learned watching these infomercials. Now, I'm not stupid.

I never buy any of that stuff. But it is interesting to watch people take other people on television like that. And laying there in bed, many times I say to myself, you know what? People are spending billions and billions of dollars a year, not just on infomercials but on astrology and self-help books and pop psychology. Just go to Borders and go over and look at that section because people are trying with everything in them to hit on a formula for successful living. You know what God told us? That the formula for successful living can be found in the nightstand drawer in every hotel in America. It's called the B-I-B-L-E. And friends, this is one of the reasons God gave us the Bible was to be a road map for life, to teach us how to live a successful and a rewarding life. And God wants us to use it that way. What did he tell Joshua? He said, Joshua, meditate in the Word of God so that you can obey the Word of God so that you can have a rewarding life.

This is not a real complicated formula. We learn the Word of God, we obey the Word of God, and God gives us a satisfying life. That's what God says.

So let me ask you a question. This is why here at McLean Bible Church we challenge you to have a quiet time, to be into the Word of God regular. My question is, how many of us, don't raise your hand, spend at least 15 minutes a day reading, studying, meditating in the Word of God? How many of us? Don't raise your hand.

I suspect if we had people raise their hands, we'd be shocked to see how few hands really went up. And that's a problem. You say, Lon, can I live as a follower of Jesus Christ without reading the Word of God 15 minutes a day? Sure you can. You can be an athlete without ever going to the weight room.

You can drive cross country without ever using a road map. You can graduate from college without ever going to class. Sure, you can do a lot of things that are ugly. I mean, you can do it.

They're ugly. You can get it done. But it doesn't work out to be a very rewarding experience. Yeah, you can be a follower of Christ and not be in the Word of God, but you'll never have the kind of Christian experience God wants you to have.

It's impossible. And you know, years ago when I first came to Jesus, 32, almost 33 years ago, the man who led me to Christ, Bob Eckhart, I'll never forget it, he took a little black Bible. I'd never owned a Bible in my life. He gave me one.

Still have it today. Put it in my hand and he said, now Lon, I'm going to tell you something. He said, if you want to live a life that's worth living, he said, you spend more time in this book than you spend in Time magazine, than you spend in Sports Illustrated, than you spend in Newsweek, than you spend in watching television, spend more time in this book than you spend doing those other things and you'll have a rewarding life.

You know what? 33 years later, I'm here to tell you the man's right. That was great advice. And friends, I'm here to give you the same advice. Spend more time in the Word of God than reading Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated.

God forbid the Washington Post. Spend more time in the Word of God than you spend reading television, watching television and listen to the radio and you'll have a rewarding life if you'll spend time in the Word of God and obey it. That's what God says. So I want to challenge you today to take a hard look at your schedule. I know we go a thousand miles an hour here in Washington.

I know we do. But folks, getting into the Word of God is more important than anything else you do all day. It's more important than anything else you read all day. And if you don't discipline your life to get in there and I don't discipline my life to get in there, it's not going to happen by accident.

It just won't. You say, well, Lon, for me, the issue is not self-discipline. For me, the issue is I don't understand the Bible. I don't know how to study the Bible.

Ooh, have I got something for you? It's called Christianity 201 because in Christianity 201, that's what we teach is how to study the Bible for yourself and how to pray. And we teach you how to use other spiritual disciplines to get intimate with God. If you don't know how to study the Bible, don't you dare let that be an excuse for you not getting into the Word of God. Go right out in the lobby, sign up for Christianity 201 and we'll teach you how to study the Bible and get things out of it for yourself.

But one way or the other way, do you know how to study the Bible or you don't? Friends, remember what God said to Joshua. Want a reward in life?

Want a successful life? Meditate every day in this book so that you may be careful to obey what's in it. And that's how you get there. Let's pray together. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I want to give you just a moment to really talk to God today about your schedule, about your time or lack thereof in the Word of God. And if you need to make some changes in your schedule beginning tomorrow, then why don't you talk to God about that right now. Lord Jesus, you know that Washington moves at an unbelievable pace. And many times, well, we just become victims of the pace.

We wake up and we hit the ground running and we never look up until the day is over and we're exhausted and we fall in bed. And somehow, we never made time to be in the Word of God. My prayer is that you would challenge us today that that's not the formula for successful living. And that you would really speak to our hearts about carving out those few moments every day where we meditate in the Word of God so that we can be careful to obey it.

Lord, many people here today have told you they're going to make a change in their daily schedule. I pray you'd help them do that. And Father, thank you for giving us the Word of God as a road map for our life. May we use it. May we use it so that we can have the kind of rewarding life that you want us to have so desperately. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.