#2 We Believe In God's Holy Word - The Bible Series

Start the message off with short 3 minute video "Written on Your Heart" found at SermonCentral.com

Back to Basics. Why? Because so many people who call themselves Christians cannot quantify and define what it is they do believe. A couple of weeks ago we looked at the very beginning basic of believing in God. We looked at natural revelation.

Romans 1:19–20 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

But how do we know for sure?

How do we know the way of Salvation?

How do we know what it is that God requires of us?

How are we to know the things of God?

To know these things and more, we turn the Holy Scriptures, the very words God, the Bible. Why is the Bible the foundation for what we believe? In the Baptist Faith and Message, where our Baptist beliefs are outlined, it starts not with what we believe to be true about God, Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit, not what we believe about salvation and not what we believe about heaven or hell. The BF&M starts off with what we believe is true about Scripture, the Holy Bible. This is significant, because everything we believe is based solely and entirely on the very words of God which is the Bible. Let me read Article 1 from the BF&M:

"The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation." [1]

What we hold in our hands does not merely contain the words of God, it is all the word of God, written by men divinely inspired and directed by God. Let me make this perfectly clear, we do not worship the Bible, we worship the Author of the Bible and our salvation come through Jesus Christ, who is the focus of the Bible.

John 5:39 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me;

As such, we regard only Scripture as our final, ultimate base of authority and truth which leads us to Jesus. Anything less than this is deficient and opens the door to every conceivable kind of theological distortion. [2]

2 Peter 1:16–21

I have looked back over my sermons for the past 12 years I have been at this church and I see at least once each year, often more, I have preached a message centered on the Word, why we need to read it, why we need to live it. Today is no different.

A Gallup Poll released on July 6, 2022, stated that only 20% of Americans believe the Bible is the actual Words of God to be taken literally. This is down from a high of 40% in 1984. Looking deeper in those statistics, only 40% who identify as evangelical or born again believe the Bible to be the actual word of God to be taken literally.[3]

Many Christian say they believe every word, yet they do not know what every word says for they have not read the Scriptures. Oh they know some of the stories, but do they understand, from the word, what holy living looks like?

Commenting on this poll, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins offered his hypothesis for why the majority of Americans are skewing away from a literal interpretation of the Bible. “I think the reason we’re seeing this downward trend in terms of those who view Scripture as literal, literally the Word of God is the cultural forces that have really begun to press in on the church because of some of the things [you mentioned] they’re having to rectify.” He acknowledged that accepting the Bible literally comes at a counter cultural, often personal cost. “Either the word of God is true, and the choices that family members have made about their sexual lifestyle, their personal relationship in terms of holiness, what kind of church they’re in, and the doctrine that’s being taught that if those things are true in the Scripture, then they’re out of line with it. So as these pressures come to bear, it’s easier just to reject those elements of Scripture and say all is fine.”[4]