The Bible is absolutely truth because it is impossible for God to lie. But Dr. Tony Evans says mankind will routinely deny that.
The problem is, like a line in a great movie, people can't handle the truth. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. The Bible is an unparalleled book containing both historical and future accounts of natural and supernatural events.
It gives us the amazing opportunity to know God and to understand ourselves and others better, but only if we allow it to. Well, Dr. Evans has presented a series of lectures on preaching the Word of God. And although these talks are primarily aimed at equipping pastors and their individual ministries, the information shared helps all of us gain insight into the power and uniqueness of the Bible.
Let's listen in as he talks about unleashing the power of the Word. Your understanding of the Bible and view toward the Bible will greatly affect the power of your preaching. Any discussion of biblical exposition that does not start with the text will automatically start in the wrong place because the Bible is in fact our foundation. The Bible is a unique document.
It was written by 40 authors from different walks of life over 1,500 years, from 1450 BC to 90 AD. It is unique in its teaching about God, about man, about salvation. No book in history has been preserved like the Bible. The Bible offers a curse for those who add to it or who take from it. It's good to know that curse before you start preaching it.
Many ministries have been cursed because people have gone outside of the Word to build their ministry. It has been preserved year after year, and it is the ultimate source for addressing life's issues. Composed of 66 inspired books, divided between two testaments, the Old and the New, God has composed a canon, the collection of approved or recognized books. In the same way that a man walking with a lady picking up a flower here and a flower there as they move along, ultimately winding up with the whole bouquet when the trip is over, God, through the progress of Revelation, collecting books here, books there, books over here, until they've all been collected into what you and I call our completed Bible. The more excited you are about Scripture, the more excited you're going to be about the chance to see lives transform as God uses you to speak it into the lives of others. First of all, Scripture is unique in its revelation.
Isaiah chapter 55, verse 8. My thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bare and sprout and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word, which goes forth from my mouth, it shall not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire and succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. Why do we need a revelation? We need revelation because the text says God is totally different than us. His thoughts are not our thoughts. He doesn't think like we think. His ways are not our ways.
He doesn't operate like we operate. So if He is wholly, totally other, different, and He's beyond my ability to conceive it because He is totally unlike me, then if I am going to discover what He is like, He must reveal Himself. The concept of revelation is divine disclosure.
It is God pulling back the curtains of His hiddenness so that you and I can see what He's like, see how He operates, understand what He thinks. To put it another way, the Bible is not the word of man. The Bible is the word of God. Now, when you understand that it's the word of God, you treat it differently than you do the words of men.
Now, this raises a question. How do we know the Bible is the word of God? There are a lot of religious books out there.
Why the Bible? The overriding reason why the Bible and no other document is the word of God is simply because Jesus said so. You judge books in days gone by by whether the facts can be validated, whether they're supporting evidence, often by archaeological or scientific discovery. When you look at the Bible as strictly a history book, you will discover it's got more manuscript support than virtually any other written document in human history.
Thousands and thousands of manuscripts going way back in time, one of the great discoveries in the 20th century was the Dead Sea Scrolls validating the authenticity of the Old Testament. When you look at the Bible as a history book, it passes the test of any other book that would be called legitimate history. In this history book, which we're not yet calling the word of God, is a person named Jesus Christ.
This Jesus Christ in this history book declares that the history book is not just a history book, but that the history book is the word of God. Revelation is absolutely necessary if we are to know God. General revelation gives you a general sense of the identity of God, his power, his greatness, according to Romans 1, his attributes. Special revelation deals with how you can enter into relationship with this God. Special revelation, the Bible is like having a concert and getting a backstage pass. The concert is available to everyone.
The backstage pass allows you for a close-up personal communication. And so, revelation is God disclosing himself so that that which would otherwise never be known now can be known. Another thing that you must be grounded in to be a solid biblical proclaimer is the uniqueness of Scripture with regard to its inspiration. Paul writing a pastor, a preacher, Timothy says to him in 2 Timothy 3.16, All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training righteousness of the man of God may be thoroughly furnished for all good works. Inspiration refers to the process by which God oversaw the composition of Scripture so that its message was recorded without error. It deals with divine revelation intersecting with human writers. That God oversaw a process by which that which he spoke or said or wanted communicated got written down in the book that we know as the Bible.
So, what's the argument? That men wrote the Bible so there must be errors in the Bible? Is that men did not write the Bible independently of the superintending, overseeing role of the Holy Spirit, guaranteeing its accuracy. In fact, in John 14, Jesus tells his disciples, When the Holy Spirit comes, He will bring back to you the things that I have spoken. Not only does it mean that the Bible is an accurate document to proclaim as the very speech of God, but God did not, in the process of the recording of Scripture, did not cancel out the uniquenesses of the individuals during the recording. In other words, they didn't become typewriters where God dictated to and they just typed it in because the personalities of the writers were not canceled in the recording of Scripture so that a writer used his own style, his own background, his own history to record the Word of God.
So, guess what? When you preach the recorded Word of God, God expects you to preach it through the vehicle that He made you. You don't have to become somebody else. In fact, it would be a sin for you to become me or me to become you because when the Bible was written, it was written through the personalities that were unique to the individual being asked to record whatever portion of Scripture being recorded. So your question is, Lord, how have you made me?
What have you made me? And through that vehicle, I want to communicate the truth of Scripture. Dr. Evans will show how everyday gadgets can offer an insight into the Bible's unique operation in our lives when he returns in just a moment.
Stay tuned. Pain, uncertainty, and division seem to be everywhere you turn these days until you look to Jesus. And now more than ever, the world needs to hear the hopeful story of the kingdom of God transforming hearts.
That's why today we're asking for your year-end gift to help meet our year-end challenge amount to keep that hope going out through The Urban Alternative. Your generous support will ensure you and more listeners all over the world can continue to be encouraged by God's Word through The Urban Alternative broadcasts. Please visit TonyEvans.org to give today. That's TonyEvans.org. The message you're hearing today is about unleashing the power of the Word, one of the four lessons from Dr. Evans' biblical expository preaching series and part of the alternative special audio compilation, The Top 24 in 2024, two dozen of Tony's most impactful, life-changing lessons presented this past year. We're offering this entire collection right now as our gift to anyone who comes alongside the alternative ministry with a year-end contribution. And when you make that donation, we'll also include The Greatest Gift, the exciting new Christmas album from acclaimed gospel vocalist and musician Anthony Evans, The Greatest Gift and The Top 24 in 2024, yours with our thanks when you visit TonyEvans.org and make a donation, but only for a limited time, so do it right away. That's TonyEvans.org, or you can call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222. When you do, check out how you can also receive a copy of the Tony Evans Study Bible.
It's available as a special upgrade to this exclusive year-end deal. I'll repeat our contact information for you after part two of today's lesson. Here's Dr. Evans. So, the Bible is the Word of God, and it is the eternal Word of God. Next, Scripture is unique in its accuracy. John 17, 17 says, Sanctify them in thy word, thy word is truth. Why do we preach the Bible? Because if it is the revelation of God, it is absolutely accurate.
It's true. It doesn't just tell the truth, it is the truth. The problem is, like a line in a great movie, people can't handle the truth. The Bible is absolutely truth because it is impossible for God to lie.
It is amazing how men want truth in every area of life except the Bible. I mean, what would you do with an unsure doctor who said, Well, I think this is the place I ought to cut. What would you do with an unsure pharmacist that said, Well, I think this is the medicine the doctor wants you to have.
Worse yet, what would you do with a pilot who said, Well, I think this is the button I need to push. He probably wouldn't go to that doctor, use that pharmacist, or get on that plane, because when it comes to your health or life, you want absolute truth. Closely associated with the fact that Scripture is unique in its accuracy is that Scripture is unique in its authority. In St. John chapter 10, Jesus says in verse 35, If he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and then Jesus adds, which is put in parenthesis in most of your Bibles, and the Scripture cannot be broken.
That's a very important statement. The Scripture, this is Jesus talking, the Bible cannot be broken. Now, what does that mean? It means you can't take part of it that you want and leave the rest of it that you don't want.
It's a, here it is, package deal. It's all the inerrant, truthful word of God. It cannot be split up.
It cannot be divided. Then Scripture is the supreme court to which every other court of opinion must submit itself. Scripture is unique in its authority. Next, tied to that, is the uniqueness of Scripture in its power. We read in Isaiah 55, verse 11, that God sends his word forth like he sends the rain to accomplish the purpose for which he sent it. So the word of God is true. It has authority. Therefore, it is powerful. Why is the word of God powerful? Simpler, because its author is powerful.
Fact of the matter is, he's all powerful. Luke 1 37, there is nothing impossible for God. Mary wanted to know when she found out as a virgin she was pregnant. She wanted to know, how can these things be? The answer, nothing, is impossible with God. Sarah wanted to know the same thing, I'm 90 years old.
How can I be pregnant? Same answer. There's nothing too difficult for God. How powerful is God's word? God spoke, and the worlds came into existence.
Need I say more? God's word is so powerful that it not only creates, God's word is so powerful that it sustains. It's by his word that the worlds are sustained, according to 2 Peter, chapter 3. That he preserves the world by his word. The Bible says, according to 1 Corinthians 2, verses 13 and 15, that through God's word, we get the mind of Christ. We get the very thinking of God operating in our psyche. The Bible says, in 2 Peter 1, 3, that Scripture is so sufficient, it is everything you need pertaining to life and godliness.
You go to a bookstore and you'll find the vegetarian Bible, the fashion Bible. Whenever they call something the Bible of something, that means it's the ultimate word on the subject. Well, if the ultimate word on subjects, people need to use the Bible, then what must the Bible be about life?
The final word on the subject. Finally, in this section, Scripture is unique in its illumination. Illumination means to turn the light on.
It's turning up the dimmer switch so that you can understand and apply revelation. Remember now, revelation has to do with the information that God delivers. Inspiration deals with the recording of that information. Illumination deals with the understanding and application of that information. And you've got to have all three. You've got to have God revealing, so you've got information.
You've got to have it recorded so that you have a record of that information. And you've got to have illumination, because you can have somebody listening to you preach and not understanding a word that you say. The job of the Holy Spirit is to turn the light on, to open up the heart so that you can perceive divine truth. The Holy Spirit is like a highlighter, you know? Some of you are—I've seen you underlining things in your Bible.
You get a yellow highlighter. It makes it jump out. So let me explain something. This is the age of the Spirit. The Old Testament was the age of the Father.
The Father was on the front page. The Gospels was the age of the Son. Jesus Christ is on the front page. The church age is the age of the Spirit. The Holy Ghost is on the front page. The Holy Spirit, the forgotten member of the Trinity, is critical to your preaching, because He makes the Bible live in the life of the preacher and the life of the listener, which is why He's called the Spirit of Truth.
He's the overseer of the recording of Scripture. God doesn't do His work without the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit hoovered over creation and brought order out of chaos. So the Holy Spirit is integral. This involves the anointing.
In 1 John 2, he talks about anointing. Anointing, let me illustrate it, is like a satellite dish. On my house, I have a satellite dish. Satellite dish allows me to pick up programming that folk without a dish or without cable can't pick up.
We'll call the folks without a dish basic Christians. ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Network saints. But not folks with dish. Folks with cable or folks with a dish, they get more than that. They get USA, CNN, TNN, they get Superstation, they get ESPN.
In other words, a whole world is opened up to you. You know why? Because the dish connects you to the satellite. So it picks up on the signal. The role of the Spirit is to pick up on heavenly network channel so that you can understand, you can remove the fuzz and the snow and get a clear picture of what God's saying and how God wants you to apply it. Now, here's the problem with preaching. It's not enough to have a great time in the study and have no time with the Spirit. Because you can have a great sermon with no illumination of carrying. You can have a great outline with no illumination of carrying. You can have gravy with no illumination of carrying.
You can be a professor of Hooperlyptics with no illumination of carrying. Without illumination, you've had an inspiring speech that hasn't changed a soul. It is the role of the Holy Spirit and your relationship to Him in the preparation and delivery of the sermon that turns it from a great speech into a supernatural event. Your relationship with the Holy Spirit will determine the power of the preached word.
And that's why it's Spirit and truth that must partner if proclamation is going to be with power. Dr. Tony Evans, talking about the critical role of the Bible in preaching, teaching, and addressing life's issues. And he'll come back with a final word to close our broadcast in just a moment. First though, if you'd like to have a copy of today's message to review on your own or pass along to a friend, you can get it as a part of our year-end audio compilation, The Top 24 of 2024. As I mentioned earlier, we're offering all 24 lessons in this comprehensive collection, bundled along with Anthony Evans' new Christmas album, The Greatest Gift. This exclusive resource package is yours as a thank you gift when you help support the alternative broadcast ministry with a year-end contribution. Get the details before time runs out at tonyevans.org, where you can also find out how to add the Tony Evans Study Bible to this special package. Again, that's tonyevans.org.
Or call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222. Here's Dr. Evans now with a final word for today. I don't want to conclude our program without giving our listeners a clear opportunity to become a Christian. A lot of people can listen to Christian messages, but never have a personal relationship with the Christ who is the center of that message.
So let me explain it very simply. You and I are sinners. We can't save ourselves. So God came up with a plan to provide salvation for us for free. He sent Jesus Christ His Son to die on the cross as our substitute, validating His purpose by raising Him from the dead. And so all you must do is come to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and for the gift of eternal life, and He will give it away. He will give it to you if you come to Jesus for it, believing Him to forgive your sins.
Do that right now. God has already made provision through the death and resurrection of Christ. You just have to accept that provision personally. When you do, you are born again.
You get to start life all over again. Why don't you respond right now by receiving Christ into your life? If you're ready to do that, take the time to visit tonyevans.org and click on the link at the top of the home page that simply says Jesus. Tony has more information there about becoming a follower of Christ, as well as some free resources to help in your journey. Well, tomorrow on the New Year's Eve edition of the broadcast, Dr. Evans will talk about how to ask God for a blessing that will not only change your new year, but the rest of your life. I hope you'll make plans to join us.
