Why Do We Need The Bible?

The title of the message is why do we need the Bible. That's a question that I would expect to be asked from a child. Or maybe even a youth. But I am sure that there are adults out there that ask the same question.

Have you ever been to a symphony? You go into the auditorium and you grab a program, find your seat, and wait for the performance to begin. Gradually, one by one, the individual musicians start to enter the stage and take their seats. Then they start tuning up and warming up. And it ends up as a big commotion of sounds.

After a while, the conductor enters and takes his place on the podium and taps his baton. At the wave of his hand, the concert begins. The orchestra plays, and the result is a beautiful sound that you came to here.

In our world today, we live in a spiritual anarchy. Most people do what is right in their own eyes, rather than looking to any authority source to guide their actions. As believers, we can easily be confused with all of the competing beliefs and behaviors.

But God is telling us today that when we ground our lives on God's Word, we are following the conductor of the universe while playing the beautiful song He created us to play. We will be using the Apostle Paul's second letter to Timothy. Chapter 3 as our text today.

Prayer.

In this portion of Paul's letter, he addresses the topic of sin and how it can damage our lives. It is amazing to me that what the Apostle Paul wrote two thousand years ago describes our 21st century culture to a “T”.

2 Timothy 3:1-5 – “But know this: Hard times will come in the last days. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, 4 traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people.”

Because of the original sin of Adam and Eve, sin is still in the hearts of every human today. We live in a time of spiritual anarchy. People do whatever is right in their own eyes. That is basically why sin exists today. Sin flourishes in our culture. But it should not surprise us.

Paul says that hard times will come in the last days. Usually we only think about the last days in terms of the end of the world. But the last days is a Scriptural phrase identifying the era between the church's beginning and Jesus's return. That is now. These are the last days. So, whether we live in the first century or the twenty first century, Christians have always experienced difficulties when sin is around. As Christians, would you agree that we live in a culture that conflicts with God's Word?

Phrase by phrase, we can recognize the sins that Paul spells out:

- People are self centered. They look out for themselves above anything else.

- People are materialist. They do what's necessary to keep up with their neighbors.

- People are arrogant and proud. A simple scroll through your social media news feed highlights people's self-righteous and self- serving character.

- People are demeaning, irreconcilable, slanderous, and simply unloving toward others. We especially see that now during the political campaigns.

- People love the pleasures of this world more than the pleasures of God.

- Even spiritual leaders are deceiving us.

Sin is everywhere in our culture today because sin thrives in every human heart. People want to march to the rhythm of their own drum, but they don't see how damaging their self-reliance can be.

We hurt ourselves by our behavior and far too often we hurt others as well. Without God, humanity is like a giant orchestra where everyone plays his or her own song while following worldly conductors of their own choosing.

God's Word speaks with power and practicality to everything you are facing, thinking, and feeling right now. If you are one that feels like God is so distant to you at this very moment, God just wants you to know that He is actually very near and very active.

2 Timothy 3:13 – “Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived.”

What Paul is saying is that corrupt people are deceived thinking they know what is right when they don't. But to make matters worse, they don't keep their deception to themselves. They try to form allies with others. What that means to us is that on any given day, we will likely face a barrage of deceptive ideas and behaviors that are contrary to God.