Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look
us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
You know, we're considering this idea of the word of God.
This is a holy book that we have in front of us, isn't it?
It's not just any book. It's a holy book.
But you know, there are a lot of religions that are out there who
would also say that they have holy books as well.
Let's be honest that we know that this is the word of God,
but yet there are other religions who would also try to
lay claim to the fact that they have the word of God or that
they have a holy book. Whether it's the Quran or
whether it's the Talmud to Judaism, the Book of Mormon,
Scientology, ecology, has Dianetics, the Mahayana sutras
of Buddhism, and even others like universal Unitarians.
They have no holy text per SE, but they believe that their
sacred texts are all of equal value, whether they're poems or
traditions or other writings. Basically, whatever is holy to
you is what is actually holy. And so, sure, we can stand up
here with some authority this morning and say we have the word
of God. But someone in a mosque could
say the same thing this morning. And someone in a Christian
Science organization could say the same thing this morning, and
someone in a Mormon church could say the same thing this morning.
And so we ask ourselves, sure, we can trust the word of God,
but why do you know that you can trust the word of God?
Sure, we can trust the word of God.
We looked at that last week, didn't we, that you can trust
the word of God. But the question is why?
How do we know it's God's words? How do we know it's not just the
ramblings of 40 some men who wanted to put their spin of life
on to parchment and somehow ended up into the book that we
carry around today? How can we have hope in this
word? How do we know that we can base
our life upon this book and it's upon the very words of God?
It's a important question, isn't it?
I mean, if we're going to live our life after this book, we
ought to know why we can trust this book.
And so while last week, yes, again, we saw Peter who
explained to us that this was no fable that we were reading, that
this was the eyewitnesses of 12 men, 11 men who saw the majesty
of God, of course, in the general sense.
But then also how three of them saw him transfigured there on
the mount and saw him and Elijah and Moses all together.
And they're saying, but yes, but we have a more sure word of
prophecy. We have something even better
than eyewitness account, because eyewitness accounts can fail,
can't they? They can diminish over time.
But we have the word of God within us in our hands today.
But why can we trust God's word? I hope that we can give you some
answers to that here this morning.
We stand pleased for the reading of God's word.
We're in second Peter chapter #1 we'll read the same text that we
did last week. Different message, don't worry,
just the same text from a different direction.
Second Peter chapter one, verse 18, or rather 16, says, For we
have not followed cunningly devised fables.
We may known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His Majesty.
For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when
there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory.
This is my beloved Son, and whom I am well pleased.
And his voice which came from heaven, we heard when we were
with him in the holy mountain. We have a more sure word of
prophecy, where until 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 arise in your hearts.
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of
any private interpretation. You can't make it into what you
want it to be, nor can I make it into what I want it to be.
For the prophecy came out in old time by the will of man, but
holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
And much of the answer that we're going to see this morning,
it's concentrated on verse #21 isn't it?
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, the
Ghost. We could trust the Word of God.
But this morning I want to see why we can trust the Word of
God. We'd be seated and let's pray
together this morning. Heavenly Father, we do thank you
for this morning. And I thank you for those who
are here. I really do.
I thank you for their attendance to your word and to your church.
And I do pray that what I give them today will be worthy of
their attendance, that it will be, it will be worthy of of
their listening and, and for their for their to take heed to
Lord, not because it's from me, but because it's from you.
But Lord, may I say rightly what needs to be said?
And Lord, may we know for sure by the time this message is
done, without a shadow of a doubt, that we can trust your
word, Lord, because we can trust you.
And so thank you for this time. And we ask it humbly in Jesus
name, Amen. Well, last week we did take a
good long look at why you can trust God's Word, that this is
no fable, as Peter said, that they were eyewitnesses of the
glory of God. But this morning I want us to
take what we see in our text and to examine it and to expand upon
it from other Bible passages so that we can know not just that
we can trust God's Word, but why we can trust God's word.
And there's three reasons I want us to look at this.
And the first is this you can trust it because of Revelation.
You can trust it because of Revelation.
And you say, pastor, so you're saying we can trust the Book of
Revelation And yes, you can trust the Book of Revelation is
the final book of the Bible is the 66th book.
But I am saying more that in a specific sense that we can trust
the word of God as a whole, all 66 books because of the Holy
Ghost involvement in revealing to us the nature and the word of
God. That's why it says at the in and
verse #21 that these men spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost. What does that mean?
That the Holy Spirit revealed some things to these men, who in
turn wrote these things down. These men in and of themselves
were unaware of these truths until the Holy Spirit brought
them to their light and inspired them, as we'll see in just a
moment as well, to write the words of which they wrote.
Well understand this. We have no way of knowing God on
our own without Him revealing to us.
We have no way on our own, with our own senses of truly
understanding who God is without him revealing Himself to us.
Now we can learn more about the world through observation and
experimentation, and that's what the scientific methods all
about. And by the way, I'm not against
science. Sometimes people say, well,
you're a Christian, so you must be against science.
No, I'm certainly very much for science.
I'm just against when science tries to remove God from the
world, because you can't remove God from the world and come to
any conclusion that is good and right because, well, he put this
world into place, didn't he? And he didn't just evacuate this
world after he put into place. Hebrews chapter one verse 3
tells us he still holds every molecule in place in this entire
universe that that we, our mind came in handle that.
We can't even figure that out, but yet that's the God of whom
we serve. But this world in many ways we
can observe and we can experiment and learn more.
For instance, I've had a piece of wood up here today.
We could look at it, we could burn it, we could cut it, we
could observe its rings, we could analyze its chemical
compositions. In fact, I was thinking about
taking a chainsaw and just going right down the, no, nevermind,
we're not going to do that this morning.
But the idea is you can learn a lot about, well, a piece of wood
by observing it. And there's a lot of different
ways to be able to observe it. And there's a lot of different
things in this world that we can't observe and we can learn
more about because God gave us the senses to be able to
observe. And God gave us the mental
capacity to be able to take those observations and to
formulate them into thoughts and to be able to formulate them
into truth. But, but listen, we cannot do
that with God. We cannot do so in the sense
that we observe Him for who He is and write down, yes, He is
truth. We observe Him and say, yes, He
is love. Yes, we observe Him and say,
yes, He is our Savior in and of ourselves.
Listen, we can't go to Him to make those observations.
So what has He done? He has revealed Himself to us so
that while we cannot go to Him, we could put it this way.
He has brought those truths to where we are so that we could
understand, because He wants you to know Him.
Think about that. The God of the universe wants
you to know Him. Now you say that, well, sure, He
wants the world to know Him. Of course He wants the world to
know, but He wants you to know Him.
That He didn't just reveal these things for the world, He
revealed them for Adam Rivero, He revealed them for Bethany
Rivero, He revealed them for Victor Rivero, my father, we can
go on and on with each and every one of us here that he wants you
to know him. So he revealed himself through
the word to us. We can't do this with our own
human reasoning and senses. Job understood this.
He said in Job 11 verse 7, can't thou by searching find out God?
Can't thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
You'll remember Job had a lot of questions, didn't he?
And then once God came down and started asking a few of his own
questions, Job said this, never mind, mind.
I rescind all my questions. I see who you are Lord, and you
are in control. First Corinthians chapter 2,
verse 14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God. They're foolishness unto him.
Neither can be known them because they are spiritually
discerned So in and of ourselves, because these are
spiritual things that we can't on our own in our flesh discern
them. But God in his love, God in his
mercy, God in his grace has revealed himself to us.
And he's done this in a a couple different ways.
First of all, there's a general revelation, a general
revelation. He reveals himself through
natural things. He's accessible to all men.
He's revealed himself through creation.
He's revealed himself through history.
He's revealed himself through our consciousness that these are
things and entities of which he's revealed himself to all
mankind. Psalm 97, verse 6, the heavens
declare the glory of God and the people see his glory.
Psalm 19 one through 3 the verses we were right before what
our brother Brian just read a few moments ago.
The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament show with
his handiwork day on today utter a speech and night under night
show with knowledge. There is no speech nor language
where their voice is not heard, meaning this that God's general
revelation through creation cuts across all societies.
It cuts across all languages, it cuts across all races that all
can look at this world and say this wow, there must have been a
Creator who made all this if their minds and hearts are truly
open to that of which they see. And even the truth of God is
written under the consciences of man.
Romans 215 which show the work of the law written in their
hearts, their conscience also bearing witness and their
thoughts the mean while accusing or excusing one another.
We can even look at the history of the world and we can see
times and seasons where we say wow, only God could have done
this. Of course we see through the
history of Israel recorded to us in the word of God, but we also
see through the history just in general.
You can go all the way back to the times of the medieval ages
and see Charles Martel in the Battle of Tours and consider the
fact that if they had lost that battle, that Islam would have
come across all of Europe and who we are as a country today
would be very different and the world itself would be very
different. I believe God had intervened.
Could be the Spanish Armada back in their battles, or even some
of the stories that we've heard from the Revolutionary War and
how our country, I believe, has been uniquely placed for such a
time as this. You know, I believe God reveals
himself through all these different things in a very
general way. The Bible teaches that.
But what I really want us to get down to when it comes the Word
of God is not just general revelation, but special
revelation. And that's what's being talked
about here when it says that we have a more sure word of
prophecy. For the prophecy, verse 21 came
not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
You see that there were probably 40 or so authors of the Word of
God who did not of their own dream up what we call the Bible
today or in their own thoughts have just created this fable
which turned into the Bible which people are following
today. Don't know that the Holy Spirit
directly revealed self to these holy men of old through dreams,
through visions, through audible voices, or through angels.
And this is how God spoke to men like Paul, or Daniel, or David,
or Asaf, or Peter, that God spoke to them.
He revealed Himself to them in a very real way.
Hebrews 1 verses one and two. God, who at sundry times and
divers manners spake in the time passed by unto the fathers, by
the prophets, hath in these last times spoken to us by His Son.
By the way, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. What do we see?
That there were men who were given this special revelation
from God and that these were penned for us to be able to read
today. Now I will say this, this type
of revelation is not how God communicates with us today.
Well, why would that be, Pastor? It would be very dangerous for
me to get up and say this. I have a special revelation from
the Lord. Well, why would that be
dangerous? Well, if I was to say something
of that nature, what I'm saying is this.
What I'm about to tell you is on equal standing with the word of
God you have in front of you. Listen, I can't say that to you
today in any way, shape or form. I can't tell you before that I
have a new word from you, from God.
No, what I can tell you is that we have a very old word.
We have a very timeless word. This is the second week in a
row. Drop this stuff.
We have a very old word that I happened to stick some things in
the back of it that I probably shouldn't do during the week.
But we have this very old, very timeless word that we have
before us and we have no new need for.
Listen, you say, well, wouldn't it be great if we had something
new today? We have a more sure water
prophecy that's before us. Even Paul or Peter says this.
Listen, I was on the mount. I saw those things.
But I have something even more sure than that.
I have the Word of God, that's why it says in First Corinthians
chapter #13 and verse #10 But when that which is perfect is
come, that which is perfect, not who is perfect which is perfect,
what is that? The word of God.
When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part
shall be done away. Now listen, to be sure, God
still leads and guides and directs the believer today
through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
But I will say this, he is not still speaking Scripture to his
people today. Listen, that's where you get a
Joseph Smith. That's where you get the cults
that say, well, listen, I know what God said before, but he
told me something new now. And if you want to hear what
God's saying today, you've got to follow me.
That's a very, very dangerous thing.
Listen, we follow Christ and Christ alone.
We follow his word and his word alone, that I am not giving you
extra revelation here today. We're led by the Holy Spirit,
but the Holy Spirit lead us through what?
The word of God that He is our teacher, that He is our guide,
and God reveals himself and we can trust His Word because of
this revelation. Now not only can we trust the
word of God because of revelation, but we can also
trust it because of inspiration. So first we see revelation, but
then we also see inspiration. And the word inspiration
literally means this God breathed.
It means God breathed. Look again at verse #21 For the
holy, or rather the prophecy came out in old time by the will
of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost. So what?
What does that mean? They were inspired to be able to
write the things of which they were right writing.
And and this is a a doctrine that was affirmed not just in
the New Testament but also in the old as well.
For instance, Jeremiah chapter one, verse 9.
Then the Lord put forth his hand, and he touched my mouth,
and the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in
thy mouth. Psalm 86 or 68, verse 11.
The Lord gave the word. Great was the company of those
that published it. What did the prophets always
start their message with? Thus sayeth the Lord.
Thus sayeth the word of the Lord.
A burden that came from the Lord.
It always was this. When the prophet spoke, it was
always this. This has come from the Lord.
It was ensured that what they were saying was inspired from
the Lord. For Ephesians chapter 3, verses
3 through 5. How that by revelation He made
known unto me the mystery, as I wrote a four and a few words
whereby you read, you may understand my knowledge in the
mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known
under the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy
apostles and prophets by the Spirit.
Second Timothy 316 all Scripture is given by inspiration of God
and it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction and righteousness.
Meaning this everything you need in this life comes from the word
of God. For doctrine, what's right, for
reproof, what's wrong, for correction, how to get things
right and for instructions and righteousness, how to stay
right. Once you get right, that's
everything you need in the spiritual life and how is it
given to us by the inspiration of God.
Now define biblical inspiration. Is this divine authorship using
human penmanship? Divine authorship using human
penmanship. Now, when we say that Peter
wrote these words, he was using the pen and he was writing, but
was he giving us his thoughts? No, he was inspired by the Holy
Ghost. That's why we could trust.
Listen, we know when Peter spoke on his own, and we can't trust
those words, can we? Because he spoke a lot on his
own. I'll never deny you, and that's
just one example of many, but when he was filled with the Holy
Ghost, in a very unique way, he was able to write these words.
The revelation of God-given through inspiration to human
penman. Now, there's a lot of different
ideas about inspiration. I'll be honest with you.
I've, I've, I write, I write quite a bit.
There are times that when I write, it's just, can I tell
you? There's times I write the, the
word writer's cramp sometimes feels mild to the way that I
feel in front of a keyboard because it's like I'm sitting
here and nothing's working. The words don't, words aren't
working. It's like I'm not even
acquainted with the English language.
There are other times I write and sometimes it's coming out so
quick that I don't think that my 50 words a minute typing skills
can keep up and I feel inspired. And is there a level of
inspiration that can be said to that?
Well, sure there is. Are Shakespeare's writings
inspired? They could be.
Are others types of authors and different things inspired?
Sure they are. But that's called general
inspiration. It's not the inspiration that
comes because someone is writing down the very words of God.
That's much different. You know, we're not just talking
about Peter just felt this burst of energy and all of a sudden he
started writing things which turn into the Bible.
No, no, he was being moved by the Holy Ghost.
That's much different than a general inspiration.
There's also a thought process of partial inspiration that God
only inspired part of His word. There are some that say the
Bible contains the word of God, but they're not willing to say
it is the word of God. Listen, this book does not just
contain the word of God. It's the very word of God.
We don't just believe in partial inspiration.
By the way, if it's partially inspired, what parts were and
what parts were? Well, I sure hope John 316 is in
that list, or I sure hope Romans 10/10 is in that list.
I sure hope Ephesians 289 is in that list.
If it's only partially expired, then how do we know the parts
that tell us that we're sinners in need of a Savior and the
Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins?
How do we know? They say, oh, you can know.
And my answer would be how can you assure me this?
There's this thought process of partial inspiration, even a
thought process of neo Orthodox inspiration.
Just the thought of that kind of gets sent shivers down my spine
without even knowing what it means.
Neo Orthodox inspiration. But there's a group of people
out there that would even claim to be Christians who say
something like this. The Bible is not the word of
God, but when it's mixed with your own life experience and
your own perspective, it then becomes the word of God.
So my question is this. So God's word on its own is not
God's word, and he needs my help to make a God's word.
That doesn't sound like much of A God, does it?
God does not need my help to be able to inspire His word.
You know what he wants from us to read it, to live it, to learn
it. You know, we don't believe in a
general inspiration or a partial inspiration or a neo Orthodox
inspiration, but rather what we would call a verbal plenary
inspiration view meaning this, that God revealed these things
verbally to these men. And plenary means, complete
means from cover to cover that we believe it is all inspired.
Well, Pastor, some of it's just unbelievable.
You're talking about a flood that covers the whole world.
You're talking about a creation in six days.
You're talking about the Red Sea standing up in heaps.
So you're talking about the blind seeing.
We're talking about the the Book of Revelation.
All the things that don't even make sense in the Book of
Revelation, I don't even understand.
Listen, it came from God, so I trust it because I know where it
came from. I know the source, and that's
got to be good enough for me. Listen, when my human reasoning
does not line up with the Word of God, do I trust my human
reasoning or do I trust the word of God?
I have to entrust the fully inspired Word of God, which
reveals God to us. I want to be careful how I say
this. I want to be clear how I say
this. There's a lot of churches today
who will not stand upon that foundation of which I've just
told you the last several minutes.
They'll say something like this, that the Word of God was
inspired. As far as the originals, well,
may I remind you that we have none of the originals today.
And if all we can trust was the originals, then we don't know
that what we have in front of us today is actually the Word of
God because we don't have the originals.
We have the copies of copies of copies.
You say, Pastor, that's troubling to me.
And, you know, on its face, it would be troubling, except we
don't just see that we can trust this word because of revelation.
And we don't just see that we can trust this word because of
inspiration, but we also see that we can trust this word
because of preservation. Because of preservation.
I heard somebody say once, well, you know, if you were to take a
Xerox of a document, and then once that was removed from the
copier, you put that up on the top and then you made a copy of
the copy. And then you remove that and you
took the copy of the copy and place that up.
If you did that 10 or 20 times, what would end up happening?
Eventually that copy would just probably turn about black,
wouldn't it? Because every time it would add
a little bit of an image to it. And over time you would end up
losing what was there. And someone said, isn't that
exactly what happens with the word of God?
And my answer would be when you're talking about man, yes,
but we're not talking about man. What?
We're talking about man and his limited abilities and his
limited machines. Sure.
That's exactly what happens, that you're playing a game of
telephone from this person to this person, this person, this
person. And by the time you get around,
you know, you started with that somebody like someone else, and
you get to the end and you find out that they hate someone else.
That's not what we said, but that's what makes the game
funny. But we're not playing a game of
cosmic telephone with the Heavenly Father.
We're not here making copies of copies off of a Xerox machine
that's somewhere up in heaven. But yet we believe that God is
so big and we believe that God is so great, and we believe in
God's promises that he's told us that we can trust the word of
God today, not just the original copies quote, UN quote, but that
you have the very word of God in front of you today.
It doesn't make sense, pastor. You're really speaking.
It doesn't. We're talking about God, and
we're not just talking about God.
We're talking about God's promises to man.
Go to first Peter chapter #1 we're going to look at a couple
places very close to where we are.
First Peter chapter #1 the pastor.
You're passionate about this. Well, listen, we're talking
about the Bible. We're talking about the
foundation of everything we believe.
And there are so many churches that will tell you, you know, we
believe the Bible, but only so much.
And friend, if we don't believe the Bible for what it is, then
what do we have here this morning?
Why are we meeting here? We ought to just all go out to
brunch together like everyone else is.
But I don't like brunch, so I don't want to.
You know why? Because we've got something
else. We got a more sure word of
prophecy in front of us and we can believe it from cover to
cover. First, Peter chapter one, look
at verse #23 it says it's being born again, not of corruptible
sea, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and
abideth forever. For all flesh is, is grass.
In the glory of man is the flower of the grass.
The grass wither at the flower thereof falleth away.
But the word of the Lord endureth forever.
And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
He says this. The things of this world, they
die with this world, but the words of God they endure.
Go to second Peter chapter #3 Get a little ahead of ourselves
here, because we'll be here in, you know, 3 or 4 years.
But second, Peter chapter #3 that's not true.
Verse #15 An account that the long-suffering of our Lord is
salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to
the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you, as also in all
his epistles Speaking of them. And those things in which are
some things hard to be understood, which they that are
unlearned and unstable, rest, as they do also the other
Scriptures, unto their own destruction.
Now, first of all, I just want to throw this in just for a
moment. I love Peter's transparency
here. And again, he's speaking by the
inspiration of Holy Spirit. Peter is talking about Paul's
epistles, and he says this, some of the things he says are hard
to understand. So if you ever get into the Word
of God, he said, you know what, it's a little bit difficult.
It's a little bit hard for me to understand exactly what's going
on. Do you realize that the apostle
Peter says some of the things Paul says are hard to
understand? I thought people be happier
about that than that. He's like, maybe you all
understand it. I don't know.
That gives encouragement to me because sometimes I read some of
these things. I should get more of this or I
should understand more of this. Peter himself said, you know
what, Paul, he looks at things a little bit differently, but I
have trouble understanding that. But what is he saying?
He's still saying this. He says that with the epistles
that he wrote are what they calls them his epistle speaking
them of those things in which things some are hard to be
understood, which they that unlearned and unstable rest,
which means they twist them as they do also the other
scriptures. What is Peter saying here?
He's saying this that all of Pete Paul's epistles are the
scripture. Now let me ask you this.
When he's talking about this, do you think he's talking about
only the original letters that Paul wrote?
How many people were reading the original letters?
Well, Corinth would have read Corinths, the churches of
Galatia would have shared Galatians, Thessalonica would
have read Thessalonica. I mean the actual letter, but
copies were made and circulated. Paul even reveals that that
copies would be made of these things.
And what is said here? Those are all the scripture.
Why? Because God is big enough to
preserve His word, preservation is promised.
Psalm 12, verses 6 and seven. The words of the Lord are pure
words, as silver tried in the furnace of earth, purified 7
times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord,
Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever.
Mark 1331 Heaven and earth shall pass away.
My word shall not pass away. Isaiah 40 verse 8 The grass
withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall
stand forever. Christ is the Word.
Is He perfect? Yes.
Is He preserved? Yes, then so is our word.
By the way, and this isn't my message this morning, but I will
say there's a reason we use the King James Bible that we use
here at Liberty Baptist Church, because there are many modern
translations today that come from much different manuscripts.
And those who translated them say this.
We can't know if we have the Bible today, but we're just
going to do the very best we can.
And so this is an amended attack.
I hope you know my heart well enough to know my thought
process with that and to know who I am.
I'm certainly always glad to answer questions about that.
But I will say this, from the beginning of the garden, Satan
has done nothing but try to attack God's Word.
And we're foolish to think that he won't do the same thing
today, changing a word at a time, a word at a time, a little
bit here a little and there a little.
You know, he's always trying to attack God's Word.
And so that's what we see here say.
Well, pastor, I've never really thought about that before.
We're not, we're not just throwing that out there for you
to think about it, to pray about.
But God has promised to preserve his word and we can know that we
can trust God's Word. And again, like last week, I, I
have to come to the same conclusion that when it comes
this issue of revelation and inspiration and preservation,
probably everyone in this room just about, if you're a
believer, you're saying, Yep, I agree with that.
I agree with that. In fact, I get in the feedback
here this morning, I've learned as a pastor over the 12 years
that I've pastored and preached 3 * a week, sometimes four times
a week with Sunday school, to not always take the feedback,
either good or bad that I'm being given during the message.
Because sometimes I think people aren't listening or don't agree.
And then they meet me at the door and say, that was
incredible. And there's, sometimes I see
people nodding their heads and they nod them all the way their
car and they drive off and I never see them again.
So I've learned not to necessarily trust that, but I
imagine just from what I see this ward is a lot of people
say, yeah, I, I believe that. I believe God revealed himself
to us. I believe it's inspired.
I see what Peter said about that.
I believe in the preservation. Maybe if you don't even
understand all the thought processes about that, you just
trust that God said he would preserve his ward and that's
good enough for you right now and praise the Lord for that.
But I would say this to you as an admonition to those of you
believers and unbelievers. But this can only bring us to 1
conclusion. And that conclusion is this, if
you can trust God's word, then you can trust the God of the
Word. If you can trust God's word,
then you can trust the God of the Word.
I found it often to be the case that if I was to ask someone
theologically, do you believe this is the word of God, they'd
say absolutely. But I'd say this, do you trust
God with your finances? They'd say, well, not really.
Do you trust God? But this is His Word,
Absolutely. Do you trust Him with the
difficulties that you're going through, the trials that you're
going through right now? Do you trust what He says about
holiness? Do you trust what He says about
prayer? Do you trust what He says about
burdens? Do you trust what He says about
encouragement? Do you trust what He says about
training children? Do you trust what He says about
marriage? Do you trust what He says about
church? Do you trust what He says about
being a servant? And most importantly, do you
trust what He says about salvation?
Do you believe that He can do what He said He would do?
Do you believe He did what He said He did?
Do you trust in Him for salvation?
And if you don't know him as your savior, friend, the Bible
tells you how you can know for sure that you're saved.
Listen, we're not talking about the Book of Mormon.
We're not talking about Dianetics.
We're not talking about the Quran.
We're not talking about any other book.
We're talking about the Word of God tells us what we can know
about salvation, that we're sinners and need of a Savior,
but that Jesus shed his blood on the cross, just like we heard in
Psalm just a few moments ago. So that we have blessed
assurance that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord
shall be saved. And if you don't know that
you're going to heaven today, or you're trusting in a church, or
you're trusting in a philosophy, or you're trusting in a
sacrament, know this. There's only one you can trust,
and that's Jesus Christ. Why trust Jesus Christ through
the sacrament? No, it's Jesus Christ through
nothing. It's Jesus and Jesus alone.
But for those of us who are believers today, listen.
Has God-given us his word? Yes.
Has God ever broken his word? No.
Then why don't we trust him more?
Because if we can trust God's word, then we can trust the God
of the Word. I'll leave you with this
illustration. I had an uncle for many years.
I've I've mentioned him before and and I loved him dearly.
It's on my father's side. He was a relative that I would
see maybe two or three times a year.
And from a very young age, I, I maybe from four or five, I
remember he would come to our house and he would always say
this. He said, Adam, he says, next
time I come over, I'm going to bring over a fishing pole.
He said, you know what we're going to do, we're going to go
fishing. He would say this to me all the
time. And you know, it's hard for a 7
year old to be jaded, but by about age 7, I'm thinking, I
don't think this is going to happen.
And, and I don't fish today. I, I, I still don't fish.
I blame my uncle because all this time he promised me to
bring the fishing pole. He never bought the fishing
pole. We never went fishing.
We never, we never even went past a body of water together.
I'm afraid if, if we did, he probably would have said, hey,
oh man, about that fishing thing.
He's like, he didn't want to bring me near a body of water,
either large or small, because he knew he hadn't done it.
Listen, he would have been better not saying anything and
it would have been fine, but he kept saying it over and over and
over again. And I don't know why, but you
know, it ended up being that in his life that he would tell me
other things and I would struggle believing the other
things too, because he kept not telling me the truth about the
fishing pole. Even if you just said, look, I
forgot, I, I never remember. I need to write it.
It was never that. It's like, hey, the next time,
take it to the bank. We're going fishing.
And today the only fish I know is from the Gordon's fisherman.
That's all I know. He's up in Gloucester.
He's doing a great job. All right, I don't know.
I've never been fishing. Not, not in the last 15 years.
You know, I didn't trust a lot of the other things that he said
because he kept breaking that promise.
May I remind you that God's Word has never been wrong in your
life. Ever.
There's never been one time this word has taken you the wrong
direction. There's never been a time it was
wrong in reference to salvation. There's never been a time it's
been wrong in reference to trials.
There's never been a time it's been wrong in reference to
anything. May I remind you this book is
not a history book, but when it speaks of history, it always
speaks truly. This book is not a book of
archaeology, but when it speaks of archaeology, always speaks
truly. It's not a book of science, but
when it speaks of science, it always speaks truly.
It's amazing to me how the world is always catching up with the
Bible. I just got an article a couple
days ago from brother Vince sent me about the world saying, wow,
there are really sellers of purple that that there's this
big place where they would make purple die.
And it was very expensive and it was very luxurious.
And wow, it's really surprising because the Bible talked about
that for about 2000 years and history just comes in the Bible.
It's right. And you're like, wow, it really
it's right. We know this.
It's, it's never steered you wrong ever.
So then why don't we trust him like we should?
If my distrust in my uncle's word caused me to distrust him,
then how much more so should our ultimate trust in the Word of
God cause us to trust him? Pastor, I can't tie.
I won't make it. That's not what he says.
Trust him. Pastor, I can't give my burdens
to the Lord because I have to be able to figure them out myself.
That's not what he says. Do it.
Pastor. I I couldn't share my faith with
somebody because I I don't even know what to say.
That's not what he said. Just do it over and over and
over. He's proven Himself to be true.
So believe him and live in that belief that God is who He says
He is because He has a Word that tells us who He is through
revelation, through inspiration, and through preservation.
So as we add to our faith this week, let's remember that the
only way we can add to our faith is through the Word of God.
And we have the promise that through inspiration and
revelation and preservation that you can trust God's Word.
Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of
Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing
to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us
know by contacting us at info@mylibertybaptist.org.
Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,
MA. May the Lord bless you as you
grow in His Word.