You know, here at McLean Bible Church, we are always emphasizing to you the experiential side of Christianity. In other words, we want you to understand that the heart of Christianity is not found in creeds or confessions or doctrinal statements. We want you to understand that the heart of Christianity is not found in the mindless accumulation of Bible facts. It is found in an experiential relationship with the living, breathing, personal God of the universe. And one of our major goals here at McLean Bible Church is to help you learn how to have that kind of experiential relationship with the living risen Christ every moment of every day in your life.
As the old hymn says, we want you to walk with Him and to talk with Him and to let Him tell you that you are His own every moment of your life. Now, this is what being a follower of Jesus Christ is really all about. But in emphasizing the experiential side of Christianity as we do here, there is an extreme that we must be very careful to avoid. And this extreme is the one that makes light of all Bible doctrine, the extreme that says doctrine is stale, it's dry, it's boring, it's impractical. Preaching doctrine is divisive to the unity of the church and therefore we won't do it. I love what John MacArthur, pastor out at Grace Community Church in California says, and I quote, he said, I bristle when I hear pastors say we don't get into doctrine in our church, it's too divisive. Or they say, I'd rather emphasize practical truth than be a doctrinal preacher.
We've imposed, MacArthur says, an artificial meaning on the word doctrine that has turned it into something abstract and unrelated to daily living. But as the New Testament uses it, doctrine is merely sound teaching and no ministry is more important than rightly proclaiming sound doctrine. This is why Paul wrote Titus and said, Titus 2, 1, teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. This is why Paul told Timothy, 2 Timothy 4, 2, preach the word, correct, rebuke and encourage with all long suffering and doctrine. MacArthur concludes in the New Testament, the real issue is not whether doctrine is to be emphasized, but whether the doctrine that's being emphasized is true, no element of the preacher's task is more important than articulating sound doctrine because there is no basis for right behavior apart from right doctrine, end of quote.
Now here in McLean Bible Church, we agree with John MacArthur and that's why we preach and teach and emphasize biblical truth, sound doctrine in everything that we do here in this church. Now, why have I said all of this? Well, I've said it because as we continue in our study of the life of that great man of God, Moses, over the next two weeks, we're going to talk about two doctrinal truths, one this week and one next week, and I promise you that these doctrinal truths will not be dry, they will not be stale, they will not be boring, but rather they will have enormous implications for your life as a follower of Jesus here in the 21st century.
Now let me give you a little bit of background as we get ready to dig in this morning. Remember that Moses, at age 40, was driven out of Egypt and became an exile on the backside of the desert. We'll show you a map. He spent the next 40 years of his life living in the southern part of the Sinai Peninsula, the red circle that you see on the screen. But at age 80, one day Moses was walking along and he saw a bush that was on fire, but it wasn't burning up. And so he went over to see what was going on, and when he did, God spoke to him.
Here's the account. Exodus chapter 3, verse 4. And when God saw that Moses came over to look, God called to him from within the bush and said, Moses, Moses, and Moses said, Here I am. Verse 5, Do not come any closer, God said.
Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. Verse 6, Then God said to Moses, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And at this, Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Now, folks, when we go into the New Testament to Matthew chapter 22, we find that the Lord Jesus Christ used this very conversation between God and Moses to teach us two doctrinal truths of enormous, monumental importance.
We're going to cover one this week and one next week. And so if you brought your Bible today, I want to ask you to open with me to Matthew chapter 22. Matthew chapter 22. And if you didn't bring a Bible today, reach right under the armrest next to you, you'll find a copy of the Bible. And we're going to be on page 699, page 699 in our copy. Matthew 22 in your copy. And here in Matthew chapter 22, we're going to pick up at verse 23.
Here we go. That same day, the Bible says, the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. Now, here we meet a Jewish religious party named the Sadducees. The Sadducees were the patricians of ancient Israel.
Their party consisted of the priests, the nobility, the aristocrats, all the muckamucks in Israel. And we know that one of the doctrinal positions that the Sadducees held is that there is no resurrection. There is no afterlife.
There's no heaven in hell. We know that the Sadducees argued with the other rabbis about this issue all the time. And so we must assume that the question they're about to ask Jesus here is a question that they had used to stump all the rest of the rabbis. And they figured it would stump Jesus as well.
Here comes the question. Verse 24. Teacher, they said, Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him.
The Sadducees are referring to a practice that God gave in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy chapter 25. Now, verse 25, there were seven brothers among us, they said. The first one married this woman and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. Well, the same thing happened to brother number two. He married this lady, he died, and there were no children. And the same thing happened to brother number three, all the way down to brother number seven, and finally the woman died. Man, you talk about a woman with some bad karma. I mean, how would you like to be brother number seven and see this thing heading your way, huh?
I don't think that would be a good deal at all. Well, here comes the question, verse 27. Now, in the afterlife, they ask, whose wife will she be since all seven were married to her? Now, the first thing that Jesus does here, folks, is he answers the question that they actually asked.
Verse 29, Jesus replied, you are in error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection, in the afterlife, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Rather, they will be like angels in heaven. Jesus said, fellas, here's the answer to your question. In heaven, there is no more marriage, so whose wife will she be in heaven?
Jesus said, the answer is, she'll be nobody's wife. But wait, Jesus didn't finish yet. Jesus says, hey, you know what? Now that I've answered the question you did ask, I'm going to go on and answer the question you didn't ask, but that you should have asked, and that is, is there really a resurrection? Is there really an afterlife?
Is there really a heaven and a hell? Verse 31, but concerning the resurrection of the dead, Jesus said, concerning the afterlife, have you not read what God said? And what did God say? He said, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You say, Lon, wait a minute, stop.
I don't understand. How does that verse in any way prove that there's an afterlife? Well, friends, where did God say this? I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Well, he said it to Moses at the burning bush, right? We just read about it. Exodus chapter 3, yes?
Yes, all right. Well, the burning bush happened in 1450 B.C. And at 1450 B.C., Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had all been dead here on this earth for a minimum of 400 years. And yet, notice what God said to Moses. He said, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God didn't say, I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or I have been the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He did not use past tense. God used the present tense and said, 400 years after these men died here on earth, I am still their God.
Why? Well, because they are still alive. They are still alive with me in the afterlife in heaven. I am not the God of the dead. I am the God of the living.
Verse 33, and when the crowd heard this, they were astonished at Jesus' teaching. Well, I guess so. Now, that's as far as we want to go in the passage right now because we want to stop and ask our most important question. And so I know you guys are ready, right? You stoked, yes?
Yes? All right, here we go. One, two, three. Stoked what? That was stoked. Come on, now you can do better than that.
One, two, three. Stoked what? There you go. There you go. You say, Lon, so what? I was, I have been, I am.
What difference does any of that make to me in my life, all right? Well, let's answer that question. You know, I take appointments on Tuesday afternoons. And a while back on a Tuesday, I had this young couple come in to meet with me. They were getting married. And they came in to ask for some advice. And so I began by first asking them about their personal faith in Christ.
And both the man and the lady indicated that they had committed their life to Christ. But then the young man said to me, you know, he said, but we still have some difficulties and some differences on some points. And that's what we wanted to ask you about. He said, but I feel sure that we're going to be able to work them out. And I said, well, like what?
Like, be specific. He said, well, like my fiancé is not really sure that Jonah got swallowed by a fish. She's not really sure that Noah's flood really happened. She's not really sure that Adam and Eve ever existed. She's not really sure that the Red Sea really opened while I take everything in the Bible literally just the way it says. And I said, you guys got a problem. I said, what are you going to do when your little boy or little girl comes home from Sunday school and they've been taught the story of Jonah and the fish? One of you is going to sit down with them and say, yes, that's exactly what happened.
And the other one is going to sit down and say, well, dear, that's just a nice little fable. You guys do have a problem. And friends, the problem they had is not a problem unique to young lovers. It's a problem a lot of churchgoing, professing Christians have today. It's a problem that lots of people in our world have today.
Maybe it's a problem you have today. And that problem is to what degree is the Bible inspired, inerrant, absolutely correct and utterly trustworthy in every single thing it says? Well, right here in Matthew chapter 22, this chapter tells us exactly how the Lord Jesus saw the Bible in this regard.
Here in Matthew 22, notice that Jesus bases his entire theological argument with the Sadducees, the argument that says that there is indeed an afterlife. He bases that whole argument on one word from Exodus chapter three, the word M. And he bases it on the fact that that word was not past tense and it was not future tense, but rather it was present tense. The point is that the Lord Jesus Christ considered every word in the Bible more than that. He considered every tense of every word in the Bible to be inspired by God, number one, to be without error, number two, and to be authoritative enough to hang an entire doctrine on, number three. Now, folks, all of this brings us nose to nose with the Bible's claim for itself, namely that it is the inspired, inerrant Word of God.
Second Timothy chapter two, verse 16, all scripture, the Bible says, is inspired by God, literally is God-breathed. And you should know that when we talk about this doctrine, the inspiration and the inerrancy of the Bible, we are talking about the single most important doctrine in the entire Christian faith. You say, well, wait a minute, what about the deity of Christ? What about the sinless life of Christ? What about the virgin birth and Jesus' substitutionary death on the cross and the resurrection? I would say those are all up there, you know, qualifying as the most important doctrine in the Christian faith.
No, my friends, I'll tell you why. It's because everything we know about every one of those things we learn in the Bible. If the Bible is not trustworthy, if the Bible is not utterly reliable in everything that it says, then how do we even know that all these other things are true?
I'm back to what I said. The inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible is the single most important doctrine in the Christian faith. So what exactly does it mean when we say that the Bible is inspired? Well, inspiration simply means that God caused the exact words he wanted to be written down in the Bible. 2 Peter 1, verse 20. Peter says no scripture ever came from the writer's own imagination. Peter didn't sit down one day nor Paul and say, you know what, it's kind of a slow day. I think I'll write some scripture today. Let's see, what can I say here? I think I'll call it 1 Timothy.
No, no, no. He goes on. Rather, Peter says, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, by God himself. Now, how this process worked, how these men were filled with the Holy Spirit and carried along and how they knew what to write from God, we don't know how that process worked.
But what we do know is what the result looks like. The result looks like an inspired Bible. 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, inspiration means we would have the very same Bible we have today because the truth is the Lord Jesus Christ did write every single word in the Bible. It's just that he wrote it through the people that he picked to actually pen the words. Now, this is what we call the doctrine of verbal plenary inspiration. What that means is verbal inspiration means that the very words of the Bible are inspired, not just the broad concepts and ideas. Plenary means that every single one of the words in the Bible was inspired.
But let me show you something even more amazing. Here in Exodus chapter three, verse six, we quoted the verse, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Friends, if you look in the original Hebrew language, you will find that the verb M is not even there. The way the sentence literally reads in Hebrew is I, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In the Hebrew language, this is called a nominal sentence. And in a nominal sentence in Hebrew, the verb to be is understood to always be in the present tense, M, R, is.
And what this means, and this is awesome, this is awesome. What this means is that Jesus's concept of the inspiration of the Bible went beyond even verbal plenary inspiration. For Jesus, not only were the words of the Bible inspired by God, but even the grammatical and syntactical nuances of the language in which the Bible was written was inspired by God.
That's amazing. Now, friends, all of this explains the Bible's ultimate claim for itself, that it is inerrant. Psalm 19, verse seven says the law of the Lord is perfect. Inerrancy means that the Bible is without error, period. Not just when it speaks to areas of religion or theology, but inerrancy means the Bible is just as correct when it speaks to areas of science, geography, geology, astronomy, cosmology, and history as it is when it speaks to religion, per se. Inerrancy is the linchpin of biblical Christianity. Rob the Bible of inerrancy and all of biblical Christianity crumbles with it.
I love what John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said. He said, if there be any mistakes in the Bible, there may as well be a thousand. If there be one falsehood in that book, it did not come from the God of truth. Friends, if the story of Jonah and the fish is untrue, then how can we be sure that the resurrection of Jesus isn't untrue?
If what the Bible says about Adam and Eve is wrong, then how do we know for sure that what Jesus said about heaven and hell isn't wrong? Now you might say, well, Lon, wait a minute. Well, ho, ho, stop. Time out.
Time out. Can you prove any of this? I mean, can you give me any hard and fast evidence to support the Bible's claim that it really is inerrant and from God?
Oh, yes, I can. As a matter of fact, I've got an hour's worth of evidence I'd like to give you. It's on a CD that we've prepared just for today that has part one and part two of my series on spiritual boot camp. And for one hour, I will give you nothing but solid evidence, extra biblical evidence that this is exactly what the Bible claims and it stands the test of scientific investigation.
These are available in the lobby at two tables. You go if you have any doubt at all in your mind that the Bible really is what it says it is, you go out and pick one of these CDs up and you listen to it. And I promise you, if you've got an open heart and an open mind, you'll be convinced by the time you're done. So let's summarize. OK, let's remind ourselves what Matthew 22 tells us about how Jesus saw the Bible.
Three things. Number one, Jesus believed that the Bible can be accepted as truth at face value. Jesus believed verse 24 of this chapter that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, just like the Bible said. Jesus believed verse 31 of this chapter that God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, just the way the Bible says. Jesus believed, according to Matthew 22, that what Exodus three records God is saying to Moses is exactly what God said to Moses. Jesus believed that what the Bible says about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the afterlife, that it's absolutely accurate. Friends, Jesus held the view that the Bible means what it says and it says what it means, that we don't need a bunch of gobbledygook speaking theologians today to reinterpret the Bible and tell us what it says.
We can read it and it says exactly what it means. That's how Jesus saw the Bible. Number two, Jesus saw the Bible. He believed that the miraculous events that the Bible claims to have happened. Jesus believed they did happen exactly the way the Bible tells us. You know, in Exodus chapter three, the Bible says that Moses saw a bush that was on fire and it wasn't burning up. Now, that's impossible.
I mean, that's contrary to all the laws of nature. This is obviously a miracle. And yet here in this chapter, it's clear Jesus believed the Bible's account.
You know what? Jesus also believed the account of Noah's flood. Check it out. Matthew chapter 24. Jesus also believed the Bible's account of Adam and Eve.
Check it out. Matthew chapter 19. Jesus also believed the Bible's account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's wife turning to a pillar of salt.
Check it out. Luke chapter 17. Jesus believed that Jonah got swallowed by a fish and spit up three days later on the ground.
Check it out. Matthew chapter 12. Jesus believed all of these events happened exactly the way the Bible said they did. Finally, number three, Jesus believed that the Bible was inspired down to the deepest possible level as we saw. Jesus believed that God breathed not only every word of the Bible, not only every tenth of every word of the Bible, but Jesus believed that God also breathed every nuance of grammar and syntax in the Bible through the writers of the Bible and onto paper exactly the way He wanted it. Friends, Jesus staked His entire credibility as the Son of God, the Savior of the world, and the Messiah on the fact that the Bible is true just the way it stands. That even the most outrageous events that the Bible says happened, that they did happen exactly the way the Bible describes, Jesus regarded the Bible as the inspired, inerrant revelation of God to the human race. So listen.
Look here. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ today, that means that you acknowledge the fact that Jesus Christ was God Himself wrapped in human flesh. If you're a follower of Christ today, that means you acknowledge the fact that Jesus Christ knew everything about everything because He was God. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ today, you acknowledge the fact that Jesus rose from the dead to prove that He was God wrapped in human flesh. Now if that's true, and if Jesus regarded the Bible as the inspired, inerrant Word of God, friends, I maintain there is absolutely no room whatsoever for you and me as His followers to regard the Bible any other way than the way Jesus regarded it as the inspired, inerrant Word of God. That is unless you were prepared to say that you know more than Jesus knew. And if you're prepared to say that, then you're stupider than I thought you were.
Come on now. Now you say, well, Lon, okay. But you still haven't told me what difference this makes to my life when I walk out of my door on Monday morning to go to work, to go to school, to run the carpool.
Well, friends, this doctrine, this doctrine of the inerrancy of the Scripture has an enormous implication for your life and my life. You know, every year I go in the summer to Hume Lake Christian Camps and out in California way up in the Sierras and speak. And one of the wonderful things about Hume Lake is there is no light pollution there, meaning you can see the stars.
Man, they're gorgeous. And one day, one year I was there with my good friend Dan McKinnon, and we were walking back from the evening meeting. And he said to me, do you know anything about the stars? Because I commented how pretty they were. And I said, no, not really. He said, you see that star up there? And he pointed right near the Big Dipper. He said, that's the North Star. I said, okay, whatever.
He said, no, no, no. You don't understand how important that is. He said for centuries, sailors navigated by the North Star because if you're anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere and you look at the North Star, the North Star will always point you to due north. And sailors use that to keep from getting off course and to keep from wandering into waters where they didn't belong.
And that could be dangerous and harmful for them. And later I was lying in my bed just before I went to bed and I was thinking, you know what? Everybody needs a North Star in their life. You know what, folks? You do.
I do. Every one of us needs something that keeps us pointed in the right direction, something that when the whole world around us is getting disoriented, we always know where true north is. Every one of us needs something that keeps our boat in the middle of the channel and off the rocks, that stabilizes our lives and protects our lives and that keeps us from stepping on landmines. This is why Psalm 119 says your word, the Bible, is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Psalm 119 verse 98 says your commandments in the Bible make me wiser than my enemies. Psalm 119 verse 11, I have hidden your word, the Bible, in my heart so that I might not sin against you. What is Psalm 119 trying to tell us? It's trying to tell us that the Bible is our North Star. It's trying to tell us that if we will navigate our life using the Bible as our compass, using the Bible as our guide and our authority, using the Bible as our gyroscope, it is impossible for us to have a crash and burn spiritual disaster in our life if we use the Bible as our North Star. And so as a follower of Jesus Christ, let me give you the same advice that God gave Joshua 3400 years ago. He said, Joshua chapter 1 verse 8, do not let this book, the Bible, depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night, Joshua, so that you might be careful to do everything written in it, for then you will be prosperous and then you will have good success. God says, study the Bible, know the Bible, meditate on the Bible, and most importantly, obey the Bible, and you cannot end up in the ditch.
You can't. You know, just recently I had a good friend, a wonderful follower of Jesus Christ who fell off his horse and into the ditch. It was really tragic. And I can't tell you how sad I've been ever since I heard about this, really sad in my spirit. In fact, my middle son, Justin, actually called me and told me about it. He saw it on the news before I did. And he said, Dad, what do you have to say about that?
And I said, Justin, here's what I have to say. Please pray for me, son, that that never happens to me. Please pray for me that I can finish my life well. And friends, that's my goal for not only myself, that's my goal for you. Every one of you here is a follower of Christ, that you finish your life well, that you don't disgrace yourself, and you don't disgrace the Lord Jesus Christ whom you represent, but that you finish like Paul finished, saying, I ran the race, I finished the course, I kept the faith, there's a crown laid up for me in heaven. This is how we want you to finish, my friends. And the way to finish that way is to use the Bible for one of the reasons God gave it, to use it as the North Star for your life. As I said, to study it, to know it, to meditate on it, and most importantly, to obey it.
You can't end up in the ditch if you do that. And I beg you, I beg you, God went to a lot of trouble to write the Bible, not for Him, but for you and for me. Use it, my friends, navigate by God's North Star, and you can never, ever go wrong.
I hope you'll make that commitment in your life. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thanks for reminding us today what it really means to have an inspired, inerrant revelation from God in our hands. And Father, my prayer is that we would do with the Bible what You want us to do. We would use it as the compass, the gyroscope, the navigational authority for our life. That, Lord Jesus, we would make it the authority for everything we do, say, and think, that we might protect and insulate our lives from disaster.
God, thank You for giving us this book. Help us to treasure it and help us to use it as our guide through life. Change our lives because we were here today. Change our behavior and help us bring our behavior into compliance with the principles of the Word of God for our own protection and benefit and for Your glory in our lives. And we pray this in Jesus' name. And God's people said. Amen.
