adult class here will once again turn to Second Timothy chapter number three, Second Timothy three. And we'll dive right back in to our study that Bible basics for discipleship. And we're looking at revelation and inspiration of the word of God. Alright, I am fighting a little bit of a cold as you can probably tell in my voice. And so I'm going to do more fist bumps and waves than I am shaking of hands. And if I take an extra step back, it's just because I don't want to cause any worries. about any germs but I am fighting a little bit of a cold and so I apologize for a little bit of a nasal sound and then Kelly is fighting some sort of stomach bug. I woke up this morning actually she didn't feel well when she was home last night getting ready to go to bed and she wasn't feeling well and she woke up this morning and still having some nausea and a bad headache and so she stayed home this morning hopefully she'll be feeling better by the end of the day today. But again, thank you for your faithfulness. And once again, we go back to a passage of scripture that we know so very well, 2 Timothy 3. And most of us probably have this memorized and could quote it. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. This is verse 16 of 2 Timothy 3. And it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction. for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. And then if we could turn over to 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter number one, 2 Peter chapter number one. Another passage of scripture that we are probably familiar with, and again, we may have committed to memory, 2 Peter chapter one, And then let's look at verse number 19 through verse 21. We have also a more sure word of prophecy wherein to you do well that you take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star rise in your hearts knowing this first that no prophecy of the scriptures of any private interpretation. for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." So a couple weeks ago we started this series on Bible Basics for Discipleship and we're working our way through what we might term as bibliology. I know this is a little bit of a doctrinal course, a little bit of a theology course, but it's so important for us to have this foundation, especially as we are witnessing to a world that has rejected absolute standards, that is morally relativistic, moral relativism dominates, and denies infallible truths. And so we are facing a culture that is, for the most part, biblically illiterate. There are fewer people who really even know the main characters of the Bible, and again, I like to use the word events more than I like to use the word stories, but there are a lot of people now who don't even know main characters of the Bible or the main events, main stories of the Bible. I think I mentioned either last week or the week before that we were watching Jeopardy one night just for a few minutes, and one of the categories was a Bible category, and the three contestants with their answers on basic Bible trivia. They were kind of oohing and aahing and kind of stumbling and then they would, you know, in their voice, they would give the answer and they were, however you phrase it in Jeopardy, what is or who is, and you could tell that they were even doubting whether or not they were sure about their answer. And these are people who were incredibly smart in current events, in what I would say sometimes useless trivia, but they were extremely smart individuals. They knew a lot of facts about a lot of different things, but they struggled with basic Bible knowledge. None of the questions that we heard were very hard at all. Most of our, I would say all of our kids could probably have answered them just like that. And yet we have people today, I mean, Sunday school is basically going the way of the wind in a lot of churches. There might be an hour, hour and 15 minute service. Usually it's 30 to 45 minutes of music to get a high on feelings and then maybe a 20 or 30 minute devotional that's a lot of positive thinking, a lot of just motivational speaking and inspiring talks. That's the way a lot of churches have gravitated toward. And if you only go to one service a week for an hour, hour and 15 minutes and you slip in, you know, you ride the golf cart in from the back 40 and you slip in the back and you sit in your designated. I know how it is in churches, we have our spots, we like to sit in and we're like we have our parking spots, we like to park in and you know, but if you have that spot and you just come that one service, you slip in, you slip out and all you get is a little bit of a a marshmallow devotional type of sermon, then what kind of foundation, how are our roots getting very deep? How are we being good theologians in our Christian life? We're not. So, as we're hearing of, and again, 30 to 30% of pre-pandemic church attenders have never returned to church. If that's the case in most churches, What is that saying about our culture and the direction it is going? And we know from the book of Proverbs that where there is no vision, the people perish. That word vision is speaking of revelation, the revelation of the word of God. And where people are not being taught, they're not being preached to from the sound word of God, line upon line, precept upon precept, the milk and the meat of the word, if they're not being fed that, then the people will perish, Proverbs says. So sometimes we do dig a little deep. I don't want to throw this over our heads at all. And I'm not gonna go back and spend a lot of time in review, but just quickly going through these questions again, the way a lot of people think about the Bible nowadays, if they have any respect for the Bible at all, many of them reject it outright. A hockey player doesn't participate this past week. He's a Russian Orthodox. He's a Russian. I'm not saying that he's in any way, shape, or form an Orthodox Christian, because the Russian Orthodox Church is not a Christian church, doesn't believe the gospel, and is in cahoots with Putin. But anyway, they, in the Russian Orthodox Church, they reject homosexuality. And there was Pride Night at a hockey game this past week, and this particular player I believe it was for the Philadelphia Flyers, he refused to play in the game or in the, I'm sorry, in the preliminaries. He refused to wear the pride jersey and refused to be in the preliminaries because the hockey sticks even had rainbow stickers on them. So he refused to be in the pregame and he made like one short statement about why he didn't participate. And then they allowed him to play in the game. And some of the sports commentators just lost their minds. And this one guy was calling for a million dollar fine on the Philadelphia Flyers. And this guy getting basically kicked out of the league. And they just lost their minds. Because he didn't celebrate their sin. And that's a Russian Orthodox who's taking a stand that some so-called evangelicals, so-called Jesus followers won't even take. There are mainstream evangelicals who call themselves professing Christians who won't even take a stand that this Russian Orthodox hockey player did. But this guy in this broadcast and how he just went off, he basically, without coming right out and saying it, he basically said the Bible is not something that we should consider worthy of free speech practices. basically in his statement as he was just going off he basically said the Bible is not and I believe he used the word Christian in his I can't I don't have the quote right in front of me he basically said the Bible is does not measure up to free speech anymore now that's just one guy in a sports show but how many people think like him they reject the Bible outright But then there are people who have some measure of respect for the Bible. They might even take a class in a college about the historical aspects, the contributions to literature that the Bible has made. There are some religious people who might even consider it a liturgical book for worship or self-righteous living. They might consider it a book of wise sayings that help us have a better life. They might consider it a group of good stories with moral principles like Esau's fables, but sadly, very few people truly submit to the Word of God as the inspired, infallible Word of God with absolute authority over our lives. There are fewer people who see the Bible in that way. So a lot of people are asking these questions. We talked about these already. And yet there is a vacuum when it comes to answers to these questions. The world is looking for the answers, and they're looking at all the wrong places. But the Bible has the answers to these questions. The Bible gives us the truth that meets the greatest needs of mankind, which are spiritual. We need forgiveness. We know who we are, how we got here, where we're going, what happens after I die. We know how this life matters, because the Bible tells us. The Bible answers these questions. We looked at these areas that are so predominant in our culture today, modernism, naturalism, postmodernism, expressive individualism. Expressive individualism is the dominant thinking in our culture today, though there are vestiges of modernism, naturalism, and postmodernism that are still around. Of course, this leads to moral relativism. I define my own truth. I find the truth somewhere in myself. And of course, this is a lie that's been promoted since the garden, when Satan spoke to Eve and said, ye shall be as gods. And accused God of not giving Adam and Eve everything they deserve. And said, ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And of course, Eve fell to the temptation, Adam along with her. And so now sin has entered the world. And Satan is repackaging the same lies and promoting them. Same lies just keep coming back. A little bit different form, a little bit different packaging, a little bit different color icing, but the same poison that's been promoted by Satan since the garden. So we've talked about six words that we're going to work through. And today we're going to look at inspiration. We're going to break this down. We spent quite a bit of time on Revelation, God making himself known to man. And then today we're going to look at inspiration, God's method for delivering his word to mankind. And then eventually we'll get to preservation, translation, interpretation, and application. I added a word. Some people will make it a second, or excuse me, a seventh category. But I went ahead and added it off to the side there next to interpretation. I put illumination. And I'm putting those in the same because they're so closely related, but we'll get to that, Lord willing, in a future week. We talked about revelation last week in more detail, general as well as special revelation, general revelation, creation, the conscience, and the soul. Special revelation, of course, being God's word and the living word, Jesus Christ. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, The Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. The Word became flesh. Hebrews 1. I have to go back. I should be able to put my head. I think my head's clogged. And so I can't think clearly. Hebrews 1. God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son. the living word of God, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, but whom also he made the world. So we talked about general and special revelation. We looked at some specifics in Unger's Bible dictionary. The definition, revelation is the divine act of communicating to man truth which otherwise man could not know. God revealed himself to man in his word and in his son, Jesus Christ. And we would not know truth if God had not breathed it by inspiration, delivered it to mankind through revelation, inspiration, and if he had not sent his son. We would be wandering through life trying to figure things out on our own, and we would all be on our way to an eternal hell with no hope, with no salvation. but God in His mercy and His love and His grace revealed His Word and revealed His Son. Carl Henry, we see the quote there, looked at last week, and then we ended last week with this statement, this phrase, the faith. And we looked at several passages of Scripture, and in the book of Jude, the last book of the Bible before, the book of Revelation, As Jude, the half-brother of Jesus, was wanting to write a letter talking about the glories of our salvation, he was so burdened that God, by inspiration, changed his mind and he wrote, he said, instead of about the common salvation, he said, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith. That body of truth, divinely revealed, the sum of what Christians believe. And we see that phrase in these other passages. And we looked at those, or most of those, last week. So, revelation is God delivering His truth to man. God making Himself known to man. The written word, the living word. And then we have general revelation, special revelation. General revelation is not enough to save Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." So general revelation is enough to make man condemned, to make man accountable, to give man a taste of God, to want to know more, to respond to the general revelation so they can receive the special revelation. I use the example of Cornelius, who had a lot of general revelation and was seeking Obviously, it was God who was seeking him first. We love him because he first loved us. But nevertheless, Cornelius responded to the general revelation, and God sent Peter, and he delivered to him the special revelation, the gospel. And Cornelius and his household got saved. So when salvation does not save, we must have the word of God. So how, then, did we get the word of God? This is a incredibly important doctrine that in some cases is misunderstood. So let's go to some very basics. Inspiration is God's method for delivering his word to man. Now I'm gonna ask a question here. Why did God use this method? As humans, as people, We think of, okay, the written word, papyrus, animal skins. It seems like there would be a better way. God could have waited another 1,000 or 1,500 years till the development of the printing press, or maybe a couple thousand years to the development of the internet. Surely God would have wanted to use Snapchat, Facebook, I mean, TikTok's the most popular social media app in the world, I guess. Wouldn't that have been a better instrument? In our minds, sometimes we think that way, right? So Derek, you're gonna make a comment? Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yes. Yes, exactly. Man would have come up with his own method and he would have developed TikTok, social media, video, all these other things, but God put it in written form. Yep. Right. Exactly. Yes, Sam. Great point, great point. He chose, in a lot of cases, what would seem like the worthless of the world to inspire his word using those men who, fishermen, zealots, backwoods preachers, on and on we could go. He didn't use angels. He didn't use special tablets. He didn't use secret codes and messages. Now, can we use television, video, and internet to declare the truths of God's Word? Sure we can. But the medium affects the message. That's the same thing with music. The medium affects the message. The sound affects the words. So the medium affects the message of the word of God, of the gospel. Not that we can't use television, video, or internet, but God did not send his son, nor declare or reveal his word in the technological age that we are in. He did it at the perfect time in his perfect plan using the written word. Yes, Brian. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, the vocabulary, the expressiveness of the Hebrew language, yes. And so the Old Testament, 40 books right there. We've got 40 plus. I just got my numbers wrong. But yes, 40 plus books of the Bible written in Hebrew or Aramaic. And it was a very expressive language with a wide vocabulary. And it wasn't Egyptian hieroglyphics or some ancient cuneiform. It was in a language that could be declared to the world in a way that people could receive it and understand it. Very good. Yes. Good point. Yes, great point. How would those people have gotten saved? Good point. Excellent. And we still have a little bit of a mystery as to how Melchizedek received the gospel and was a high priest that Abraham paid tithes to. I mean, there's still some mystery as to how Melchizedek, it's fascinating. And then Job, who was probably in the time of the patriarchs. How did Job receive the gospel? I just think those kinds of things are fascinating, but that's a great point. How would they have received the truth? had it been in the 21st century, 20th century, and depended on television, internet. Can you imagine how wicked, if the world is this wicked in the internet age, can you imagine what it would have been like before the flood? Before the flood, every man did, well, basically, the imaginations of his heart was only wicked continually. It was only evil continually. And it was violence that filled the earth. That was before we had the internet. That was before we had guns, you know, the evil things that just jump out of off the floor and jump into people's hands and have a mind of their own, right? Okay. There's no control by anybody holding the weapon. It's just this evil object that just somehow randomly begins shooting. Okay. Anyway, if before, before the flood, if before the flood, Man, was that evil. Can you imagine the internet? Can you imagine them discovering, God allowing the discovery of television and video prior to the flood or in those early days of history? The wickedness, the evil. I mean, look at how dark the internet is and how media is used today and the wicked forms of it. God gave us the written word. And he did so by his own breath. He breathed the words through human authors so that the very words that they wrote were the words that God said, and then he preserved them for us today. So let's look at four non-scriptural views of inspiration, and then we'll get into what inspiration is. First of all, there are some. believe or teach that the Bible is naturally inspired. That the men who wrote the human authors, who wrote the very words of God, people who deny that the Bible is the very words of God, God breathed, they claim that, in some cases, these authors were given a higher level of creativity or ability. So Handel in writing the Messiah, incredible, high achieving in the area of music. We can think of different athletes, we can think of different authors, we can think of different educated elites who have brains, who have abilities, gifts and talents that are inspiring. Is that all God did with The authors, the human authors of his word, he just gave them a higher level of creativity. They got real excited one day and they had a special ability in writing. And so they just had a really good day. And they just really felt good about their writing ability. And they had a special talent in writing. And they just sat down and, wow, it just came out so well. And so people thought, wow, this is so good. We've got to put this into a religious book called the Bible. Is that all it was? Earl? Right, and there is Not just a lack of quality, but then we can get into the factual errors, the historical errors, the lack of organization, the lack of a common theme in a story that is central on, like in the Bible, of course, Jesus Christ. That's lacking in these other materials. Yes. Hank, I'm sorry, Sam's down here. Go ahead, Hank, and then Sam. Yep. Great point. And that's one of the things that I read. I'm glad you brought that up because if it was a book by man who had a higher level of creativity or ability, he would want to wow us with all of his great abilities and not have all the warts and the sins of even the greatest characters of the Bible. Like Abraham, who had sin, David and others, What human author would have included those things if it was just about showing off man's abilities and man's skills? Great point. Sam? Yes. You know, you can, you got one verse over here in the Book of Mormon, and one verse over here, and they don't balance each other out where in Scripture, even though it was written over all these many years, you know, one verse, the rest of the Bible has to balance on it. Correct. Correct. Excellent point. So we have, whoa, sorry. We have 66 books. We have 66 books, 39 Old Testament, 27 New Testament. And we have 40 different authors over 1,500 years. And yet there is a central theme. There is 100% accuracy. Moses didn't contradict John. Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament and holding the Old Testament at the same level as his own words, because they are. They're God-breathed. Great point. In scripture, we can interpret scripture by scripture. There's a unity. throughout all of those years because it's one book, God's book, God-breathed. Partial inspiration. You've probably heard this one. This one's fairly common. The Bible merely contains the Word of God. This is where we typically hear the Bible has some good moral truths. It might even have some good religious things to say. It might even have some spiritual effects, but when it comes to science, when it comes to history, even maybe math, or other non-religious topics, it's not accurate. The Bible only contains the Word of God. There might be parts that are inspired, and there are parts that aren't inspired. And usually they'll talk about history or science, and the Bible's not inspired in those areas. That's where this idea, this wrong view of inspiration comes from. Yes, Earl. Yes. Right. Right, exactly. And the Jesus Seminar would have been the same way. They would get together every year. on what they believed, what Jesus really said, what was truly inspired. So all these men and women with a bunch of letters after their name would get together once a year and have a big committee meeting, and they would parse the Bible, and they would vote on what they believed was actually the word of God and what wasn't. Oh, really? So they, you know, so God died and they took over? I mean, ridiculous. And who gave them the authority, right? What made them the, the authority. Conceptual inspiration. Boy, this gets into churches, sadly. God, and I guess the other ones do as well, but even in good churches, we gotta be careful because this idea is that God only inspired the thoughts of Scripture. Okay, so what happens is, Does God, okay, did God in inspiring scripture, and we'll talk about this some more, in his inspiration of scripture and inspiration of the Bible, did he retain the personality of the human author and the writing style? Did he retain that? While inspiring the words, breathing the words, did he retain the personality, the writing style of a John, a Daniel, a Peter? Yes. So what this does is it says that God put the thoughts in Peter and John, Daniel, the other author's heads, and then they had to formulate the words, and that's how we still know that this is a book written by Daniel, or this is a book written by Matthew, or this is a book written by John, because they were able to keep their personality, their experiences, and their writing styles, because God only inspired the thoughts. Now what's the danger in that? David? Exactly. Well, Paul, you know, he was just speaking culturally in 1st and 2nd Corinthians. That's not relevant to the 21st century. That's what Paul applied in his day, but it doesn't apply now. Great point. That's one of the greatest dangers of that. And then this is another one that has affected churches and affected them badly. Good churches. The idea that the Bible becomes the word of God. There are people who will emphatically state in good churches that will hold to a right view of inspiration, but will capitulate a little bit on this. And this is the danger. This is that encounter theory or an existential view of the Bible. Kierkegaard, soaring Kierkegaard, he said, only the truth which edifies thee is truth. So one of the dangers, one of the things we have to be very careful with, and we'll talk about this some more with interpretation, is that we don't go to the Bible as the authority. The Bible is the authority and we are to be submissive to the Bible. So we are, and this is one of the responsibilities of a pastor, one of the responsibilities I take very seriously, is that when I preach or I teach the word of God, that I reveal, that I show what God says in his word. Not what I say, but what God says. God meant what he said and said what he meant. So sometimes what we do, oh, that verse really helped me. So is John 3.16 more inspired than the genealogical accounts of Luke or Matthew or Chronicles? But we quote John 3.16, but very few of us will quote Simon begat so-and-so who begat so-and-so, right? But are those genealogies less inspired than John 3, 16? Of course not. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. God breathed those genealogies and all those measurements and specifics regarding the tabernacle and the temple for a reason, for a purpose. But we get, and it's not that we shouldn't quote John 3.16, of course we should. Of course we should memorize Psalms and various passages of scripture. I've yet to have a Bible teacher require a memory verse from the genealogical records. I just haven't, your Bible verse that's due on Friday is so-and-so begat so-and-so, verses 6 through 10. No, we just, but God breathed those words the same that he did John 3, 16. So those genealogical records, those measurements of the tabernacle and temple are there by the inspiration of God just as much as John 3, 16 or some of the other favorite verses that we have. Does that mean that we have to dig a little deeper and get a little bit maybe more understanding of why those genealogical records are there? Maybe we have to think a little deeper about the tabernacle and the temple? And we have to understand why and the value of worship and the purpose and the priority and the preeminence of Christ that was true in the Old Testament that is still true in the New Testament? I mean, we could get into some of that, but this is where sometimes these Bible studies can get in trouble if there's not someone who truly is knowledgeable of the Word of God and in the principles of interpretation. Sometimes these little Bible studies can turn into, well, what does that mean to you? What does that mean to me? What do you think about that? Well, the other day I was having a hard day and I picked up such and such Psalm and it just meant a whole lot to me. So that Psalm is more inspired, more inspirational than where I was reading in my devotions the other day in the book of Genesis, where I saw the genealogy of Esau and the chiefs of the tribes. We have to be very, very careful. And this is where even good churches can get in trouble. Yes, Brian. Right. Okay, good question. So the encounter theory is that the Bible becomes inspired when I encounter it in a way that is meaningful to me. So there can be good churches who take this the wrong way, but then obviously there are churches that are not orthodox. who will deny the inspiration of the Bible by saying, well, it only becomes inspired when I encounter it in a way that impacts me, that makes sense to me, that really I can live out or apply. And then again, this existential view, Soren Kierkegaard, who's another one of those non-Orthodox liberal theologians in the late 19th, early 20th century in the same likes of Karl Barth, Karl Barth, these guys would be in that same liberal theology camp. And this is how they tried to get around the inspiration, the infallibility of the Word of God. So in the 1920s, I forget when the Fundamentals, the five-volume set called The Fundamentals was written, If you pick up the five fundamentals, you pick up those volumes, you'll find that the central issue that the fundamentalists were dealing with was the authority of the Word of God. Essay after essay written about the inspiration of the Bible. Do we realize that the LGBTQI plus, what do you know, do we realize that that movement is essentially about the authority of the Word of God? Because if that is not a sin, which is clearly declared in scripture as sin, then what authority does the Bible have in any matter of morality? Almost every issue that's out there is ultimately an attack upon the authority, the inspiration of the word of God. That is why this is so important. And it's so important that we have this in our theological data bank. Yes, Hank? Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. So we could also rename it the stupid. All right. I think we have time to dive into this next slide. And we're going to look at several facts about what inspiration is. What inspiration is, okay? Or how God inspired his word. The words of the Bible are God-breathed. They're the inspired word of God. But God used a special group of men, holy men of God, set-apart men of God, given the privilege and the responsibility of writing down the very God-breathed words of God. These were prophets. These were apostles. or men who were closely associated. Okay, look at the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Was Mark an apostle? Mark was not, but who did? It's okay. You'll just get a B on the next test. So who did Mark probably, okay, he was writing by the inspiration of God, God breathed, but whose eyewitness account, whose testimony does Mark probably write from? Whose vantage point? Peter, his eyewitness account. Mark is probably writing of Peter's eyewitness account. But Mark is writing the very God-breathed words of God, and God used the experiences and the personality and the writing style and all that of Peter in his influence on Mark as Mark penned the very words of scripture. God maintained Mark's distinct personality in Peter's, but we know from studying the book of Mark that the material most closely resembles Peter and his experiences, his eyewitness accounts. Okay, what else in the four gospels? We have Mark, Luke. Luke was another one, but was Mark and Luke, were they closely associated with the apostles? Yeah, Luke, who was under whose ministry? Very closely associated with whose ministry? Paul's, exactly. So there are times in the book of Acts where As Luke is writing the God-breathed account, the inspired account, he will use plural pronouns, we, us. Because Luke was on the journey with Paul. He's on the boat. He's there as Paul's preaching. So Luke was closely associated with an apostle. Jude, half-brother of Christ, closely associated with Christ, of course, and with the apostles. So the Word of God, the men who were inspired to write the very words of God, were either prophets, the gift of the prophet, apostles, the gift of the apostles, which were verified with signs and wonders, or men who were closely associated with those apostles. Yes, Earl. You're fine. Yeah. But of course, Paul met the credentials for an apostle because he saw the resurrected Lord and was called by Christ. Right, yeah. Very good. Oh yes, Luke was, very good point, Luke was a researcher, yes, and he was a physician. So he would do his studies, very detailed, good point. I wish we had time to go further, but God prepared men. God prepared them with their experiences, their personalities. Obviously, He saved them. He called them. So He used, prepared men. He used them, He used their personalities, transcending their personalities is the word that's used on the screen, for the writing of His word, okay? a four-year-old on the table in an emergency room who sees bright lights and is brought back out of a state of unconsciousness and writes a best-selling book on heaven. Does he have greater authority? Then the prophets and the apostles, the 40 different authors that God used? Of course not. But some people would say that. These are specially called men prepared by God, using and transcending their personalities for the writing of his word. Now, how then did God keep the writer's personality and writing style. How did he do that? I can't think of, there's probably better illustrations, but one of the ones that I have used through the years is that of a stick in a stream. You put that stick in a stream and it follows the current. The stick stays distinct from the water. The water stays distinct from the stick. but the stick moves in the current of the water. So everything that that stick, all the movements that that stick makes are according to the current. So all that the holy men of God wrote, they wrote according to the current of the Holy Spirit. The God-breathed words of God that they wrote were God's very words. So Peter's experiences, Paul's experiences, their writing style, we can look and we can compare the gospel of John with the book of Revelation in the three epistles and we can see vocabulary and experiences that were John's. In Mark, we can see vocabulary and experiences that were Peter's. Yet in understanding that Mark was the one who wrote the physical words, okay? Though they were inspired by God. Peter was the eyewitness. Questions on that? I don't know if that stick-in-the-stream is the best example, but it's one way holy men of God spake, as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, as we just read in 2 Peter. And we're running out of time here, but we go back again to 2 Peter 1, verse 19. We have also a more sure word of prophecy. What had Peter just talked about? the Transfiguration. Did Peter say, I have had a experience that none of you have had, so therefore listen to me and what I have to say. Was that his main theme in that passage? He said, yes, I've had this experience, but not everybody's going to have the experience I had of seeing Jesus and Elijah and Moses at the Mount of Transfiguration. But that's not where we, yes, that's a recorded, accurate account inspired by God, But we have a more sure word of prophecy. Peter was not trying to wow everybody with all of his experiences and say, I hope that you have a good of experience as I do in your Christian life. No, he was saying, we have the Word of God. And you may never have an experience like I did, but you have the Word of God. We have the Word of God, a more sure word of prophecy. No prophecy of the scriptures of any private interpretation. Man didn't make it up. But the prophecy came by the will of God. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Yes, Hank? Correct. Correct. Exactly. You're exactly right. Right. And that comes back to even our statement we looked at last week, the faith, that body of truth, it's complete. By the Bible. Correct. So we measure experiences, we measure statements, we measure motivational things, all kinds of good things that are said and done, we measure them all by the word of God, because the Bible is the authority. All right, one last one, and then we'll be done today, and we'll have to come back to this. But these men who God used, okay, it's the words, technically, that are inspired. I'm using God-inspired men, but understand that, technically, the only thing that is inspired are the words. Those words are God breathed, but obviously we understand the instrument, the human instrument was God, or was man, and God breathed those words as they wrote those down. There were things that they wrote that were hard to understand or they otherwise would not have known. Was Moses there at creation? But did he write an accurate account of creation? Sure he did, because he wrote the very breath of God, the very words of God. Did Daniel Know and understand all of those kingdoms and prophecies, even into the 70th week, was Daniel there for all of those prophetic events? No, but he wrote of those things by the inspiration of God. God breathed those words too, and he wrote them down. Though he was only there for, what, the Babylonian Empire and maybe a little bit of the Medo-Persian Empire? He wasn't there for the Greek or the Roman. And then, of course, the prophecies, and then John. Did John get a window glimpse of heaven in the visions and the revelations? Sure. But had John been to heaven in the full sense of it and received his glorified body and walked on the streets of gold and gone into the Millennial Temple or walked on or been in his new mansion in the sky, did he experience all those things to the fullest? No. He got a glimpse. He got a preview. If I can use a modern vernacular, he got a trailer version. But he wrote of those as God allowed him to write. Just those things that God breathed for him. And there were some things that he had to put in a book and eat and swallow because he wasn't allowed to declare them. Just like Paul, who went up into third heaven and wasn't allowed to tell everything. But he gave us his word. God gave us his word and didn't say, depend on Paul's experiences. to write about everything I saw. We'll find out some of those things in heaven when God decides to reveal those to us. Yes, Hank? Oh, yeah. Yes. Right, right. I mean, there's probably four letters to the Corinthians, only two of which are in the Bible, because those were clearly the inspired word of God. But the other two letters were not. Yeah. Good. All right, I know that's a lot. We're digesting. We'll come back to this, Lord willing, next week. Any closing comments or questions? Yes, Derek? Right. Right, I know. And really, what it boils down to, they put their faith and trust in a man's experience. You think about it, it ultimately comes down to Muhammad's experiences. A violent, you know, this is gonna go out on the internet and I'll get shot, but a violent man who in his harem had a teenage girl, or younger, I forget the exact age. Was she nine? Not even a teenager, okay. Book of Mormon, the historical inaccuracies, what is it ultimately a faith in? It's a faith in man's experiences. These experiences of these people trump the sure word of prophecy. That's where man is an error, and we have to stick with the word of God. So anyway, we'll have to close with that. We're out of time, but thank you for the feedback and the input, and let's pray, and then we'll get ready for the service. Lord, again, we thank you for your word. Thank you for the confidence that we have in the scriptures. Help us to live in that confidence, and help us to grow and increase in our faith and trust in you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. We'll get ready for the service in about 15 minutes.