You may be seated. Happy Mother’s Day. Good to see you. Couple quick announcements. We’ll be in 2 Timothy, chapter 3 tonight, so if you’ve got a Bible, you can go there. One is we just wanted to welcome and say Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers. And for those of you who find this to be a particularly hard day because you would like to be married or you are married and you’d like to be a mother. You’re struggling with infertility or miscarriage and such things, Bible says we should rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn, so I wanna celebrate all the moms today and also be praying for those ladies who aspire to be mothers that God would enable them to accomplish that and to see that great blessing.

Normally, we go right through books of the Bible, and we’re gonna jump ahead a little bit this week. We’ll go back to 2 Timothy 2 next week. The text I was gonna hit on talks about not being a mean-spirited jerk that argues and quarrels, and I felt like if you’re gonna bring your mother, that probably wasn’t the best, so we’ll work out of 2 Timothy 3 instead. I’m gonna jump forward.

And the Mother’s Day hook is buried down in it, so you’re gonna have to hang with me for quite awhile, couple hours, and then we’ll be right in the middle and the heart of it, so you guys just hang in there till we get to the middle. There’s a great Mother’s Day hook right in the middle of the text. So I’ll pray and we’ll do some work in 2 Timothy 3 verses 10 through 17.

Father God, thanks so much for an opportunity to gather together as your people and to study and to learn from the Scriptures. God, on this day that we remember and honor our mothers, God, I pray for a special kindness and grace and blessing upon the mothers in this church that, God, you would fill them with wisdom and patience and skill and endurance.

God, I pray for the children that will be raised and are being raised in this church, that they would be raised to know you and to love you and to serve you.

And, Father God, for those women that find this to be a difficult day because they aspire to be mothers but because of varying circumstances they’re not in that season at this time, Lord God, we do pray for your provision and your kindness upon them, that you would provide the way for those women who long to be mothers to in fact see those needs and those longings and those desires met.

God, we love you and we thank you that we can come together and study, and I just pray and ask that, Holy Spirit, you would come to illuminate our understanding of the Scriptures that you have inspired the writing of so that we might be conformed to the image of Jesus whom we worship. It’s in his name we pray. Amen.

It’s interesting. I get up every week, and I tell you open your Bible to blah, blah, blah, blah. Pick up a book and a chapter and a verse. And I wanted to this Sunday to talk to you about really the miracle that it is that we actually are able to do that and to give you some indication of what was done that enables us to actually have a Bible and then be able to get together and actually be able to study it and to read it. And I think it’s tremendously important that you have an appreciation for just that simple task that I just told you to do at the very, very beginning. Get your Bible and turn to 2 Timothy 3.

When we’re talking about the Bible, Bible means book. Scripture means writing. The Bible will be referred to by both terms, including as well as in the Bible it refers to itself with both words as synonyms. When you’re talking Scripture, what we’re talking about is one book from Genesis to Revelation that is in 66 parts. You’re looking at 66 books of the Bible, 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New, written over the course of about 1,500 years by some 40 authors in primarily Hebrew in the Old Testament, Greek in the New Testament, and few smatterings in sections that were actually written in Aramaic.

The authors include people who were rich and poor and young and old and people that are highly educated, people that are uneducated, people that are single, people that are married. It’s quite a cross-section of life stages that write the books of the Bible.

And it’s very, very interesting ’cause as we get to know the Bible a little bit more, we come to find that it is in the history of the world the most powerful and best-selling book that has ever been. Nothing even approaches in sales close to that which is Scripture. And the main theme of Scripture is Jesus, and no books have been written to the degree that have been written about him. More books have been written about Jesus than anyone in the history of the world.

And so you’re talking about the most pivotal series of events in the history of the world, and it’s very, very interesting as well because the events recorded in the Bible are the facts upon which our whole calendar and our civilization is built. The Old Testament is before Christ. The New Testament is from the coming of Jesus and then the implications of his coming. And our history is broken down into B.C. before Christ and A.D. anno domini, the year of the Lord, the coming of Jesus. Our whole Western calendar is broken down on the events that this book historically records about the person of Jesus.

When I told you turn to 2 Timothy 3, that’s the chapter. We didn’t have chapters in the Bible until the 1200s. Before that, it was just written as a novel. You’d just find it on one scroll per book. And I told you to go to verse 10. That’s where we’re gonna be today. We didn’t get verses until the 1500s, so it’s only been less than 600 years that I could actually say go to 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 10, and you’d have that address to find it. Before that, you’d just be thumbing through the book, trying to find the place that we would be today.

The other curious thing is the amount of work that has gone into getting you and I a copy of the book. Throughout the history of the world, there has been a relentless and continual attempt to keep you and I from having a copy of the Bible. Those brothers and sisters in Christ who have gone before us that desire to have the Bible translated into a language that you and I could read, that common people could read, were fiercely opposed. And many, many people have died and shed much blood over the opportunity that we just sort of take to pick up the Bible. And most of you have multiple copies of the Bible. Probably got on in your car, in your house. You’ve got nice Bibles, cheap Bibles. If you’re religious but don’t walk with God that closely, you may have just one of those enormous Bibles, those huge Bibles, those kind of Bibles that if nuclear war comes, you could stand under it, and you’ll live long because they’re just huge and impenetrable.

But most of us have at least a copy of the Bible, and the work that has been done to get us just the Bible itself is amazing. One of the first men who tried to translate the Bible from what was actually at that point Latin – the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, New Testament written in Greek. The first translation was done by a gentleman named Jerome. He translated the Greek and the Hebrew into Latin, which was the common language of that day. That’s called the Vulgate translation.

Another gentleman came along named John Wycliff, late 1300, early 1400s, trying to translate from the Latin into the English so that people like you and I could just read the Bible. That was his whole goal. He was fiercely opposed. He never got his translation published and released because before he could do so, they burned him alive is what they did. They basically slow-roasted him like a rotisserie. They cooked him like a hog.

You say why would somebody do that? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because the Scriptures contain power, and the Word of God comes with the authority of God. It takes down kings. It changes society. It transforms hearts and minds. It renews people. The Word of God, when it is unleashed, it goes out in the earth like Isaiah 55 says that it will and it accomplishes what God intends for it to do.

So because of that, there is a great fear and a reticence on behalf of people who are in political or spiritual power to keep that untamed and passionate and free Scripture to go into the world because they know that it could cost them. Because after all, let’s say for example, that I am a religious leader and I am the only one that has access to the Bible and I’m the only one that gets to read it and interpret it, and you get to just trust me, which is what some religions say, right? Mormon religion says there are certain sacred texts, but nobody gets to see them. It’s not available for people who are common. It’s only available for the secret, selected people, and the rest of us need to trust them.

If we set up a system like that where people don’t get access to sacred texts and where people don’t get to read Scripture and interpret it for themselves, then whoever holds those texts holds the power, and they control your salvation. They control the money, and they have a vested interest in keeping the Bible out of your hands because it could change the world in which they live. It could dethrone them from power and from influence, and it could empower regular people to walk with God without them.

And so there’s great, great, great opposition. There always has been. Great and fearful thing that the Bible would be unleashed and people just be able to read it. Guys like John Wycliff, they try really hard to get it to us, but they die a brutal, brutal death.

Another opportunity came along sometime later. We’ll talk about a few of those, but it was interesting. Until there was a printing press, you and I wouldn’t even have widespread copies of the Bible available. If you wanted a copy of the Bible, you would need to purchase one, but most of us couldn’t afford that. It could take a life savings just to buy a copy of the Bible. And if we wanted to make a copy of our own, we’d have to find someone with a copy, which would be very hard. We’d have to learn Latin. We’d have to translate it on our own into our own language. And then we’d have to do so writing it by hand.

If you just took the Bible and sat down with a steno pad and a pen, it would take you 10 months to copy it word for word, 10 months. Not to mention having to translate it from one language to another. And so what would happen was oftentimes particular towns or regions would have a copy of the Bible, a singular copy of the Bible, and if you or I wanted to read that copy, we would need to pay a steep and high price.

It was not uncommon in certain locations in Europe where you and I would work very hard. We’d harvest our fields. We’d get up an entire cart filled with hay. We would then take it to the guy who owned the one Bible. We would pay him the whole cartload of hay, which would be a lot of money in that day. And in compensation for that, he would allow us to read the Bible for one day. One day.

If you wanted to read the Bible for one day, you would have to work all year to harvest a crop. You’d have to throw it in the back of a cart. You’d have to travel some miles to the guy who did own the one copy of the Bible. You’d have to dump your savings account, hand it to him. He would let you sit there on his property and read the Bible for one day. And at the end of the day you’d give the Bible back, and you would go home. And you would tell your wife and your children and your family and your friends what you’d learned. And that was the biggest day of your life ’cause that was the one day you got to hold the Bible and read it for yourself.

That’s how the world was until another Christian brother of ours Johannes Guttenberg came along and invented a little thing called a printing press. And the printing press was his attempt to make the Bible widely available to a large number of people, so he invented the first printing press. The printing press was developed by a Christian for the purpose of duplicating the Bible so we could get a copy. That was his hope and goal. He died penniless. He died without much fanfare. He died without much wealth, but his goal and his objective of making the Bible available has happened.

Today if you go to Amazon.com or you go to Barnes and Noble bookstore, you’re like me, you buy a lot of books, each one of those books is part of the legacy of our Christian brother Johannes Guttenberg that wanted us to have the opportunity to read and to think freely.

Another gentleman came along about that same time, a gentleman who was working in Switzerland with the Swiss and with the Jews. His name was Ulrich Zwingli. Zwingli’s desire was to take the Bible and to translate into the language of the Swiss and the German people. Wanted them to read it for themselves to understand it in their own language.
This guy was so hated and despised that he died in battle. They didn’t know it was him, but as soon as they discovered it was him, they took his body, they chopped it into five pieces, and they burned it. You say why? Because he wanted people to read the Bible.
What I told you today was please take your Bible, open it up. That’s all he wanted. He wanted me to be able to say that. He wanted me to be able to say you have a Bible. Open it. That’s all he wanted.

You say why? Why would people oppose him so violently? It’s interesting because non-Christians understand the power of the Scriptures oftentimes more clearly than the Christians do. The Christians sometimes get lazy and don’t open the book, and the non-Christians who know what it says, they’re terrified that they will. That was why.

The first man to get us a copy of the Bible in our language was William Tyndale. He was late 1400s, early 1500s. He translated the Bible on the run. There were bounty hunters that were chasing him because there was a bounty placed upon his head. They wanted to kill him. And so as he’s literally running for his life, he’s translating the Bible into English so that people like you and I could have a copy of it to read for ourselves.

They finally captured him. They chained him to a pole in a public execution. They strangled him with wire, basically barbed wired. They knew that if they didn’t cut him off at the neck that he’d keep preaching, and they didn’t wanna hear it. And then they slowly burned him alive, not unlike what they did to Wycliff.

But because of the suffering and death and the work and the invention of the printing press and all that, it finally did get to point where the Bible was made available to people like you and I to read in a language that we could read. We could read it for ourselves. We could see who God is and what he says.

Then it happened there was a group of people called the Pilgrims. You’ve heard the story. They wanted to read the Bible freely, and they wanted to worship God freely. And so they got on ships, and they came all the way to the United States of America trying to find a place that they could worship God and they could study the Scriptures without encumbrance. Many died on the way. They got here.

Following in their wake were the Puritans. And because of the Pilgrims and the Puritans, in this country the proliferation of Scripture occurred. Additionally, behind it came the proliferation of education. More than – well, the first 100 colleges in the United States of America were all Christian. There was no such thing as public education for the first 100 plus years of American history.

The only people that were involved in education and literacy were Christians. Everywhere that Christianity spreads, education and literacy spreads because Christians believe it’s very important that people know how to read and have a copy of the Bible that they can pick up and read for themselves. That they don’t have to depend upon an organization, apostles, a secret leader, an elected official, a Pope, anybody else. You could just pick up the Bible, read it for yourself and know God for yourself because the Bible itself teaches that the same Holy Spirit that inspires the writing of the Scriptures in dwells the Christian. And the Holy Spirit knows what the Bible means, and he could teach us if we’d just pick it up and read.

And so because of that, we have a society that was not entire Christian but definitely blessed by the Christians who educated, instructed, created literacy. Because of that too, we have translation. Because of that, if you go into a nation that has not yet had the Gospel, the odds are that they are not a highly educated, First World nation because of their view of God.

If you believe that God is a loving and good God and that he has spoken to us and that he wants us to organize ourselves and have language that is written down so that we could be literate and build education so that we can study and learn and grow, that is the framework for a growing society. If you do not believe that, you do not have the wherewithal to put together a society that is forward-moving in its progress.

That’s why wherever Christianity goes, literacy goes, education goes, and the vast majority of the translation work in the world is done by Christians. And when Christians go into an area that doesn’t have a written language, they will learn the spoken language. They’ll turn it into a written language, and then they’ll translate the Bible into the written language so that people can read the Bible and be literate and then begin to make academic process in their society in a forward way.

It’s amazing. I come into church every week, and I love you guys, and I say take your Bible and go to…look what has happened for that to occur. You’re at the tail end of a few thousand years of a miracle, absolutely miracle. Most of us have the Bible. We get to read it.

And when I talk to you today about the Bible, I wanna elevate the Scriptures, and that’s gonna be the theme of what we talk about today, but I really want you to come, not hearing me say that you have to read your Bible. I want you to hear that you get to read your Bible, that it’s a great honor and a great privilege that many people have suffered and died, and much labor and work has been done all the way to the point of we create a printing press. We throw a revolution. Half of us die on a boat. We establish a new nation. We create educational systems. Translation work is done so you can buy one for like 10 bucks if you want. I mean, a lot of work has gone into the point where you and I can just say oh, I’ll read today and see what God has to say.

And not only have those who have translated and copied the Bible suffered. The authors themselves suffered, suffered greatly and mightily. Hebrews says that some of them were sawn in half. You’re gonna meet a guy today named Paul. He’s gonna be the author of the letter that we’re reading. Twenty-seven books are contained in the New Testament. Paul is the author of some 13 or 14 of those books. There’s a debate as to who wrote Hebrews, but we could basically say Paul wrote about half of the New Testament books. You’re gonna meet Paul.

Paul started out as a man who hated Christians and murdered them. By the end, he will go from a man who murdered Christians to a man who is murdered as a Christian. Interesting plot twist.

And where we find Paul at this point in the story is that he went from hating Christians to be absolutely and utterly convinced that Jesus was God to becoming a pastor. And the conversion of the Apostle Paul is one of the great testimonies of the truth of Jesus being the only one true God.

There is no reason that Paul would end up worshipping Jesus unless he was convinced. In his day it would be nothing short of saying Osama Bin-Laden has become Pastor Osama Bin-Laden. It would be no different than saying Saddam Hussein has become Pastor Saddam Hussein. It is no different than saying Fidel Castro has become Evangelist and Pastor Fidel Castro. He’s just written a whole new commentary on the New Testament.

That would take extraordinary and exceeding evidence. That’s exactly what Paul was. He was a terrorist out murdering Christians, breaking the law, putting them to death unjustly. He all of the sudden gets converted, becomes a Christian. He’s very, very passionate about Jesus being the one true God. He begins traveling to tell everyone about that. And on three missionary journeys, the guy covered 5,500 miles before there were planes, trains, automobiles and a movie by that name. The guy is on a boat. He’s on foot. He’s traveling to preach Jesus, 5,500 miles.

At this point, he has been beaten, shipwrecked, homeless, left for dead. He has been left in the open sea. He’s almost starved to death. He’s been attacked by mobs. He says at one point that he “bears the marks of crucifixion” on his body, which means if he took his shirt off, this small little Jewish guy would have such a contorted skeletal structure and such bruised and bloodied and beaten skin, that it would look like Jesus did when they murdered him. That’s what he looked like.

At this point in his life, he’s in a Roman prison is where he’s at, and a Roman prison is not like our prisons where you just sit around and watch porno and lift weights and eat carbohydrates and fight with other guys and build shivs. Roman prison was totally different than that. In a Roman prison what they’d do is they’d dig a hole 20 feet into the ground, no stairs, no toilet, no electricity, and they’d put you in the hole and they’d put a grate over the top, and you’re in a hole. You know how cold it is in a hole 20 below ground at night? It’s cold. It’s uncomfortable. It’s damp.

Paul is freezing in this hole. He’s gonna tell Timothy later bring my coat. Bring my cloak. He doesn’t even have a blanket. He’s in this hole, and he pens while he’s in this hole his final letter. This is Paul’s final letter. A couple weeks later, they chop his head off. He suffers. The guys who write the Bible suffer just as much as the guys who translate the Bible so that we can read it. Everyone who’s involved with the Scriptures ends up suffering and dying, oftentimes in brutal and terrible ways. Why? Because the Scriptures are so powerful that there is an incredible resistance to them both being written and promulgated.

So you’re gonna meet Paul. He’s our author. He’s sitting in a hole. They’re getting ready to chop his head off, and he’s gonna write something to us, and they’re gonna have to chop his head off because they’ve discovered that that’s the only way they can silence him.

And what that tells you and I is what he has to say is incredibly important. If it’s enough for him to get murdered for and if it’s enough that everyone who’s tried to get the book in our hands so we could read it is going to get murdered for it, it seems self-evident that what he has to say must be exceedingly important.

So we’ll pick it up and we’ll start in chapter 3 verse 10, so please do pick up your Bible, and if you don’t, start bringing one. If you don’t have one, get one. If you can’t afford one, we have Bibles. Take one. It’s not stealing. You could just have one of ours, okay? Please do bring your Bible. Today we start in 2 Timothy 3, verse 10.

Here’s what Paul says about himself. “You” – he speaks to young Timothy – “however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, my faith, my patience, love, endurance and persecution, sufferings, what kind of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.” What he first says is this. “I’m Paul. I’m Paul.”

And what Paul does here is he beings with an argument that essentially says this. “I’m telling you the truth, and I have no self-interest in what I’m about to tell you.” It’s that true. Every other religious leader, tradition and philosopher has some kind of self-interest. They want power. They want followers. They want fame. They want riches.

I’m your pastor. I love you. The first three years of this church I worked for free, raised my money from the outside, but right now, I also have a vested interest in the health of this church because this is how I feed my family. This is also my job.

Everyone has self-interest and vested interest in what they say and teach spiritually. Paul has divested himself of self-interest. He’s basically saying, “You’ve seen my life. All I’ve gotten out of this is brutality.” Sufferings and persecution are the words that he uses.

You think about it. What is in it for Paul? Homeless, beaten, shipwrecked, left for dead, hated, despised, no wife, no kids, flat broke, in a hole, gonna chop his head off. Paul’s saying, “You could trust me. When I tell you something, it’s because it’s true. I’m not telling you this because it’s clever. I’m not telling you this because it’s convenient. And I’m not telling you this because it benefits me in some way. I don’t want followers or power or fame or a new religion or a book deal or to get on Larry King or to have a posse or drive an Escalade or have a bunch of girls like Hugh Hefner. There’s nothing in this for me. I’m Paul. They’re gonna chop my head off. I’m in a hole. Do you remember what I’ve been through?”
And he refers back to the occasion where he was outside of Iconium, Lystra and Derbe, a series of towns where he first met Timothy, the gentleman that he’s writing the book to. When he went there, he walked into tow and began preaching, and the whole town decided, “You’re God,” which you think about it, most of us, if that happened to us, if we walked into Fremont and all the sudden Fremont declared us God, we’d go with it. I’m God. Hey, yeah, I’m God. I’m God. I need money, food, chicks, a band, a massage. I’d just start making a list of stuff, you know? Well, here’s what God needs. Better keep God happy. You guys know if God’s not happy. I’d start making a list of stuff. You’d make a list of stuff. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t. Be God. There are advantages to people thinking you’re God. There are huge – there’s an upside to that.

But Paul says, “No, no, no, no, I’m not God, you silly people. Worship the real God. He’s offended. Repent. Stop worshiping me.” Oh. They get mad at him. They drag him outside of the city, and they stone him. That’s not like junior high kids smoking a bong sitting around listening to hip hop. This is a different kind of stoning.

This is the kind of stoning where everybody gets a rock and they chuck it you, and they’re gonna murder you through rock-throwing. This is still what happens in the Middle East, people chucking rocks at each other. It’s got a long tradition there.

So they all chuck rocks at Paul, and what a terrible way to die. I mean, can you think of a worse way to die than a bunch of people throwing rocks at you. He’s just bloody, beaten. He falls over, passes out and they think he’s dead. He’s knocked unconscious.

He wakes up, realizes “Hey, I’m still alive. Those people have anger issues. They need Jesus.” So what he does, he goes back into town. “Hey, guys, Jesus is God. I don’t know why you’re so upset. You guys need forgiveness. You’ve got anger issues. You’ve got deep-seated emotional problems. Jesus loves and forgives sinners.” With blood coming off the guy, flesh hanging off the guy, he’s gonna go tell them about Jesus. Jesus loves you. Why you throwing rocks.

What Paul is basically saying is, “When I tell you something, it’s not ’cause there’s anything in it for me. You’ve seen my life. You know when it cost me everything, and it’s about to cost me my head. I tell you what’s true, not because there’s any self-interest in it.” He says, “You’ve seen me live. I’m consistent. You’ve heard me teach. I’m consistent. You’ve seen my suffer. I’m not in this except for the truth.” That’s the gist of Paul’s argument.

And then he relates his life and then he at then end of his life here puts a responsibility on Timothy as well as you and I. Here’s what he says in verses 12 and 13. “In fact everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted while evil men and imposters will go from bad to worse deceiving and being deceived.”

What he says is there’s really only two kinds of people in the world, people who wanna live a godly life in Christ Jesus. They want to. If you want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, you will face persecution. He promises it in fact. I know that’s not your life verse, okay. We’re Americans. “I had a fish on my car, and they cussed me out. I was persecuted.” No, that’s not what it’s talking about. You didn’t use your turn signal. It has nothing to do with Jesus or the fish. That’s on you.

What he’s talking about here is real, live opposition. If you love Jesus and you walk with Jesus and you wanna live a godly life with God, Jesus Christ, you will face opposition. There will be people who don’t like what you believe, and they don’t like what you have to say. Doesn’t mean you need to be rude or mean about it. You’re just gonna meet resistance. I don’t think Paul was a jerk. He’s a guy who told us that love isn’t rude. Love is patient, kind. He’s a loving guy. Jesus was a loving guy. They murdered them both.

And if you’re gonna follow Jesus like Paul followed Jesus, you’re gonna end up suffering what Jesus suffered, and that’s hostility and opposition and animosity. You’re gonna have people who don’t like that. Some of you say, “I don’t wanna live a godly life ’cause that sounds like that could be complicated, and that could come with lots of downside.” Well, you do have an option. You could be evil. That’s Plan B. you don’t have to wanna live a godly life. You could be evil and an imposter.

Evil people are those who sin and teach sinful things, and imposters are people who pretend to be Christians. This is cults and other religions, and these are people who claim the name of Jesus but don’t worship one God, don’t worship Jesus as that eternal one God. Those are imposters. Those are imposters.

You know where imposters come from? Christian schools, Christian churches, Christian families. Some of you are imposters. You’ve been around Christians long enough to know, “Hey, I know that song, and I know that verse, and I know I’m supposed to cry here and feel bad there.” You’ve sort of learned how to work as the Christians work and react as the Christians react. That’s an imposter.

Judas was a classic imposter. He looked at the 12 disciples. You got good, holy, godly men. No, not that guy. That guy’s on the other – he’s an imposter. He’s taken on the role of an apostle. He’s taken on the status and position of an apostle, but he doesn’t worship Jesus as the one true God. He’s an imposter.

Evil men are imposters. Evil men just don’t come in and say, “Hi. I’m the evil man. Follow me. I’m looking for people,” because that’s not a sales pitch. They pretend to be Christians. Every weird religion that started in the United States of America – and beware of any religion that starts in the United States of America. Anything that starts by a White guy just in general just be suspicious. It started within the church by an imposter who is evil and stepped outside of the truth but maintained their posture as an imposter still declaring themselves to be a Christian.

But here’s the deal. “They will go from bad to worse.” There will be a theological and a moral decline. They start off bad, and it just gets worse and worse and worse and worse. And here’s why, “deceiving and being deceived.” It’s deception. I’m not saying that such people are not sincere, but I am saying that they are sincerely deceived. It is the object of your faith, not the sincerity of your faith that is primary. They are good people. They mean well. They’re so sincere, but still they’re deceived. You can be sincerely wrong. That’s what he’s talking about.

One of the names for Satan in the Bible is the Deceiver. He deceives people. What happens is that people are deceived by Satan. They then begin the process of self-deception, convincing themselves. Now people that have been deceived to the capacity that they begin the process of self-deception are exceedingly convincing to others because they themselves have deceived themselves. If I can fool me, I can fool you. That’s the point.

What he says is there’s only two kinds of people. People who live their live in Christ Jesus and desire for that life to be godly or evil people who are imposters pretending to be Christians whose lives are filled with deception and go from bad to much, much worse.

Now I’m assuming that the vast majority of people who call themselves Christians would never say, “Well, I wanna be deceived, evil, an imposter.” That’s not what I want on my resume. That’s not what I’m shooting for.

But the vast majority of people who claim to be Christians as well are not living a godly life in Christ Jesus. So what that leads me to believe is that there is a huge preponderance of people on the earth who are just deceived because Paul says you’re either walking with Jesus, the one true God, or you’re sorely deceived. You’re an imposter pretending to be a Christian, and you’re evil. He leaves us with a decision. Which team are you on? Which direction are you going?

And I know at this point, some of you are saying but there’s a lot of religions. There’s a lot of opinions. There’s a lot of perspectives. There’s a lot of teachers. You either need to go with Paul who goes with Jesus or somebody else who claims to follow in their wake but is much, much, much further down the road.

There’s a lot of deceivers, guys. There’s a million books out. There’s a thousand perspectives. There’s a million opinions. But I tell you what. The vast majority of it is imposters of deception. That’s just the way the world is.

The truth is pretty simple. We wouldn’t need as many books on God and spirituality if all that was said was the truth. The fact that there is such an enormous body of opinion indicates that the deceivers continue spinning alternatives.

Paul says, “I’m Paul. I have no self-interest in this. They’re gonna chop my head off. This is the truth.” The truth is you either pursue a godly life in Jesus Christ or you’re an imposter who’s an evildoer that’s been deceived and is in the process of going from bad to much, much worse. Stark reality. Harsh thing to say. Now you know why they’re chopping his head off. If he was alive today, they’d do the same thing.
But he says this out of love for us. Again, he says this out of concern for us. He says this out of affection for us, not because there’s anything in it for him. He’s in a hole, beaten and bruised, gonna get his head chopped off. There’s nothing in it for him. He’s divesting himself of self-interest out of love for you and me.

So he admonishes his friend Timothy and he admonishes us all in the next verse, verse 14, saying, “But as for you.” Okay and that’s my question. What’s it gonna be for you? Let’s not just make this into a historical lecture on 2,000-year-old spiritual practices. What’s it gonna be for you? “As for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of.”

First thing is have you learned? Have you learned? Have you learned? Many people haven’t learned. Learning requires receptivity, not an argument. It requires being taught. It is the acknowledgement or the acceptance that none of us comes into the world knowing who God is and who we are and what sin is and who Jesus is and what he has done through his death, burial and resurrection and how we can have – none of us comes into the world with an innate knowledge of the most essential things. We just don’t, so we have to learn them. We have to learn them. We have to put ourselves under a teacher or teachers, and we need to learn.

Most importantly, we need to pick up our Bible and put ourselves under the authors of Scripture and learn. First thing he says you gotta learn. Do you know there’s one God? Do you know that? Do you know that man can’t become God, but God can become a man? Do you know that? Need to learn that. Do you know that there is only way to salvation. That’s Jesus. He’s the way, the truth and the life, and he says, “No one comes to the Father but through me.” Do you know that we all sin? We’re all sinners, everyone, except for Jesus.

God became a man, lived without sin. He was tempted as we are, the Bible says, but he never did sin. Do you know that there’s no way to have your sins forgiven other than trusting in what Jesus has done? There’s nothing you can do to merit your salvation. It’s only what Jesus has done. Do you know that? Do you know that the Bible is the Word of God, and it’s perfect and trustworthy and true? We’re gonna talk about that a little more extensively in a minute.

Have you learned these things? Have you learned them? And then once you have learned them, he says you know what you’ve learned and become convinced of. The second point is are you convinced of those things because there is a difference between learning something and being convinced of its truthfulness. You could learn a lot of things, but you need to appropriate those unto yourself through belief, through faith, through being convinced.

I told you guys this story before. When I was in college, I had a professor who memorized every verse of the New Testament. He had learned it. He believed none of it. Wasn’t convinced of any of it. He memorized it because his brother was a missionary. He liked to argue with him. That was it.
You and I can learn all kinds of things. We could pick up tidbits of truth on the radio or in a book or maybe even we picked up the Bible now and then or we have Christian friends. Maybe we’re part of a Christian community or family or church, and we learn some things. We pick up some bits and pieces. All of that is well and good. The question is are you convinced of it? Are you convinced of it?

If you’re not convinced of it, you need to continue to study and learn until you come to the point of being convinced. At this point, had Paul not been convinced, he would not give up his head. You only come to the point of being willing to die if you’re convinced, and so you need to learn, and you need to become convinced of that which you’re learning. You need to become convinced.

Some of you are saying where’s the Mother’s Day piece. We got a lot of bloody stuff going on here. Lotta people are getting whacked. It’s like an episode of The Sopranos. Where’s the Mother’s Day piece?

Here we go. Mother’s Day piece. Here’s the hook. For those of you that are still here and awake, this will be very important. Verse 14, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of because you know those from whom you learned it” – aha, there’s the Mother’s Day piece – “and how from” – when? – “infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which were able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”

Ah, now we get somewhere. Here’s the Mother’s Day hook. This is a whole lecture about the Bible with a little piece about the importance of a mother who knows her Bible. He says, “Now you know because you’ve learned and you’ve become convinced because you’ve been well instructed.” Who taught Timothy? His mother and his grandmother. Back in 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 5, Paul says, “I have seen in you a very sincere faith, Timothy, my dear friend, that first lived in your mother and your grandmother.”

Timothy has learned a lot about God. He’s learned a lot about salvation and Jesus. He learned it first, not from Paul because he didn’t meet Paul till he was in his late teens or early 20s. At this point, Timothy’s in his mid- to late-30s, probably older than I am. He’s been with Paul for some 15 years, but his theological instruction didn’t begin the day that he met Paul. It began way, way, way back before he was even born.

It began when his grandmother loved the Lord and read the Bible. She had a daughter. She raised that daughter reading the Bible to her, encouraging her to love the Lord. That daughter of hers grew up to become a mother, who gave birth to this guy named Timothy who went on to become a co-author of a few books of the Bible.

Timothy’s theological instruction began on the lap of his mother and grandmother. Was his father a Christian? Nope, he wasn’t. Bible says that his mother and his grandmother were women who worshipped God. They were Jews, and his daddy was a Greek. Doesn’t mean all Greeks go to Hell. Lot of them do but not all of them.

What it does mean is that in that age if you identified yourself as a Greek, that means you weren’t identifying yourself with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Jewish God. You’re identifying yourself with Greek gods like Zeus and Hermes. You’re identifying yourself with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epimenides, Alexander the Great, the great tradition of Greek philosophy, Greek literature, Greek civilization. You weren’t identifying yourself with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You weren’t identifying yourself with the coming Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. You weren’t identifying yourself with Moses and Solomon and Isaiah, and you were identifying yourself with Socrates and Plato and Aristotle.

His daddy didn’t know the Lord. His daddy didn’t know the Lord. But his mother did and his grandmother did. His mother did and his grandmother did. I’ll say this for the mothers. It is exceedingly important that women are good theologians, particularly women who aspire to be mothers.

You read a lot of books. You can go to the store, and you can read a lot of books on motherhood, everything from nursing to bedtime routines to discipline to educational theories to diet and nutrition. Very rarely will you find a book that tells you, “Hey, read your Bible a lot because you wanna be able to instruct your child in the ways of God.” But it’s the most important thing. It’s the most important thing.

What that means is that mothers should first of all be theologians. A lot of you women are saying, “Well, I’m not a mother.” Well, great. Get your answers before you get your children, and when your kids come, you’ll already know your book, chapter, verse. You’ll be able to answer their questions.

That’s the woman in Proverbs 31. It says that “faithful instruction is continually upon her tongue.” The kids can come to her and they say, “Mom, what about this?” And she says, “Here, bring your Bible. Let’s look it up. I’ll talk to you about – let me explain this to you.” What she doesn’t say is, “I don’t know. Call the pastor. Schedule an appointment. Go see him in June.” She’s able to at that moment open the Bible and Mom can instruct and teach.

I would go so far as to say that in my experience I’ve seen many, many children who hit high school and then go off to college, and they oftentimes choose Bible college because they had the wrong mother. Had they the right mother, many students wouldn’t need to go to Bible college.

I’ve met a lot of young people. I’ve lectured in various Bible colleges. I say what are you doing here. “Well, I really wanna learn the Bible.” Well, where’d you grow up? “I grew up in a Christian home.” Well, didn’t your mother know anything? Couldn’t she do anything for you? I mean, you made it 18 years with her, and you got out and your big goal was to go somewhere that opens the Bible.

And I’m not denigrating Bible college or seminary. I’m not against academics or education, but the Scriptures need to start at what age? Infancy. Some of you have been at age of accountability, which means that children can’t learn until they’re a certain particular age, which is not true. It’s not true. John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb. I mean, he’s connected to God before he’s even out. You can start early, from infancy, right? You can read the Bible to your kids in the womb. You say what if they don’t get it. Well, then your wife’s listening. It’s not so bad. You haven’t wasted any time. It’s all good.

You need to understand, guys, that little kids are built to receive knowledge of God. That’s why Proverbs 1 in specific and the Bible in general tell us that they are written for the instruction of little kids, children. Children.

A child can know a lot about God before they’re even old enough to read. I’ve a got a four-year-old son and a two-year-old son, and they know a lot about God. They’re not old enough to read yet. It starts from infancy.

Just rid your mind of any silly thing like an age of accountability or children are only –no, it’s from infancy, he says. Little, tiny kids, right? Little, tiny kids can love God and they could know God and they learn the Bible, so read them the Bible or read them a Bible that’s age appropriate. Make sure that they’re learning the Scriptures. That’s the whole point.

They should come from the mother. They should come from the grandmother. What that means as well though for the mother and the grandmother is they need to be reading their Bible. Ladies, do you read your Bible? Do you know your Bible? Do you study your Bible?

And I’m not talking Christian books, and I’m not talking theologians, and I’m not talking other things. I’m talking the 66 books, Genesis to Revelation. I’m not against books, but first things first. Do you have a good Bible, ladies? Mothers, do you have a good Bible? Fathers, if you wanna do something nice for your wife, get her a nice Bible for Mother’s Day. I bought my wife a nice Bible. We’re giving you ladies that are mothers a bookmark today as your Mother’s Day present, and we’re trying to say something, right, like read, like read, read, read. It’s good for you.

Read. Read to your kids. Read the Bible to your kids. Read the Bible with your kids. Teach your children Scriptures. Make sure that you take time to be in the Bible for yourself because a lot of mothers, quite frankly, they don’t even take the time to read because they’re busy. I’ll tell you what. It’s easy. I mean, between all the food to cook and the dishes and fluids flying out of all the orifices and rear ends to spank and things to do, you can keep yourself completely occupied and never take time to read the Bible.

Some of you mothers need to get quiet time and space to read. If that means you gotta go in the bathroom, lock the door and turn on the fan so you don’t heard the kids, maybe that’s what you gotta do a little bit. But I would say this as well, ladies, when you’re a mother, don’t just read your Bible in silence and solitude. Read your Bible also in the presence of your children so that they see, oh, Mom reads the Bible. Mom reads the Bible.

That’s why I’m moving my library home and my study home, and I’m gonna have all my reference material at home, gonna have all my books at home, do all my book writing and studying at home so I can do that in front of my children. ’Cause I was thinking about it. If I go into the office and I study the Bible all day and then I come home, my kids never see me with a Bible open, which isn’t a good thing. My wife and kids don’t have access to my reference material, and when they got questions, they can’t look things up. So if I’m gonna be a good dad, I should probably make sure that’s home.

And what that means for the mom as well is that Mom needs a good Bible. Mom needs an opportunity to study. The kids need to be taught Mommy’s gonna read the Bible now. Maybe she’ll read to you. Maybe she’s gonna read for herself, and also Mommy needs reference materials. Nothing sexier than a woman with a bookshelf filled with reference material. That is hot. A woman with large books, wow. Concordances, commentaries, topical Bibles, reference materials.

You guys, when it comes around to Christmas, and you’re thinking, “I’m gonna get romantic and buy her pots and pans. Shame on you. Get her some books. Get her some books. The clothes you buy her don’t fit. They make her look like a 13-year-old Cristina Aguilera ripoff anyways. Don’t get her pots and pans. Order pizza. Give her a break. Use the money to get mom some books. Get her some reference material. Get her a good book. Get her a library. Get her a shelf. Get her a chair to sit in so she can sit down and read, and she can read the Bible to the kids. The most important that a mother needs to do is impart the truth of God from the Word of God to her children. So important.

And some of you ladies, this is my fear. Ephesians 6 says that the fathers should train their children, “bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord,” which is true. We emphasize that the father as a pastor, he has to raise his children in Christ. We absolutely teach that, but my fear is that some of the mothers take that as a license for apathy.

“Well, you know, I mean, I’m busy, and if they have any questions, I just tell them to go ask Dad. He’s the one who reads the Bible and knows what he’s talking about, and you know, I’m not the theologian in the house. He’s the theologian.” I mean, hypothetically, he gets hit by a car. Hypothetically, you die and go to Hell. I mean, any of this could happen, so you wanna prepare. Little preemptive maintenance would be good.

You wanna say, “You know, I’m gonna read. Make sure I just don’t, you know, die and when I get to Heaven look at Jesus and say ‘I’m with him’ ‘cause that’s not gonna go very far.” You’re gonna have to say, “Well, you know, I know you and I love you, and yeah, I was doing a little work and came to conclude that I was a sinner, and you’re God and I sort of got this straightened out between me and you a long time ago.”

You wanna have your own theological convictions, ladies. You don’t wanna dishonor or disrespect your husband, but you do wanna study, and you wanna work together. And I’ll tell you what, guys. If you’re smart, you’ll actually listen to the opinions of your wife because Proverbs 19:14 says “A prudent wife is from the Lord. A prudent wife is from the Lord.” A lot of guys are knuckleheads, say, “I read Bible. You shut up. Do what I say.” No. I read Bible. You read Bible. We open Bible, and if I’m wrong, feel free to tell me ’cause I don’t wanna shipwreck everything in the name of headship.

Guys, when you read the Scriptures, you wanna encourage your wife, read the Scriptures. Ladies, you wanna read the Scriptures. When your kids come, you wanna be able to open the Scriptures. And I’ll tell you what, ladies. If you don’t open your Bible and you don’t read, you don’t study, you’re setting a terrible precedent. You’re teaching your daughters Christian women don’t read the Bible. That’s not good. And you’re teaching your sons it’s good to marry a woman who never reads the Bible, neither of which is what you wanna say with your life action.

Ladies, foundation. First things first. To be a good mother, be a good theologian. Be a good Bible student. First things first. And then out of your learning will come your life and your instruction to your kids and the rearing and the raising of your generations. First things first. First things first.

And it’s not just reading the Bible. There’s a point to it all. He says in verse 15, “You have known from infancy the Holy Scriptures, which were able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” The whole point of reading the Bible is that you would trust Jesus, not a religion, not a morality, not a political movement, not your father, not your pastor, not some tradition of teachers, that you would trust Jesus. Jesus is the point of your Bible.

At John 5 the religious scholars in the day are arguing with Jesus, and Jesus says, “You guys read the Scriptures thinking that in them you’ll find eternal life. Yet you fail to recognize these Scriptures talk about me. And the whole point is that you would come to me and have salvation. You’ve missed the whole point.” The Bible is about Jesus, not about morality, not about religion, not about being a good person, not about being an ethical person, not about raising a good family, not about having good values, not about having a good society, not about protecting us from evildoers. The main point of the whole Bible is Jesus.

And it’s not just about what we do. It’s about who we love. That’s the point of the Bible. And he says study the Scriptures so that you can have salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. That’s why you wanna read your Bible, not so that you can figure out what to do, but you can figure out what he’s already done for you. When he said it was finished, that means that he took care of all that needed to be done for you to be saved. There’s nothing left for you to do except for you to love him and get to know him. What he’s seeking from you is not any work that you can do but a loving relationship. He’s already done everything. And see, that is wisdom. That makes you wise.

And if there’s anything that marks our day, I think the word folly would be appropriate. It’s just dumb. You ever watch TV? You ever watch the news? You ever read the paper? Do you ever talk to anybody? It’s just crazy the stuff that people come up with. And sometimes it’s in the name of God or religion. You say what? That’s just not wise. That’s not smart. That’s not healthy or sound. That just doesn’t ring true. That just doesn’t make sense. That’s crazy.

And sometimes it’s even people that claim to be Bible teachers in the name of Jesus. And I’m not saying that we should have a childish faith ’cause that’s immature, but I’m saying we should have a childlike faith. And I am saying that a lot of religions and denominations would be better off if 10-year-olds got to run the doctrinal statement ’cause you could be wise, young or old, as long you have salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Wisdom is a gift of God. James 1:5. “If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives in abundance without finding fault, and when he asks, he must not doubt.” You wanna be wise? You wanna navigate through this world? Say I don’t know what to do with money and family and sex and friendship and religion and politics. I don’t know what it do. It’s just so much folly and craziness and so many options or perspectives. What do you need? Wisdom. Okay, where do I get wisdom? Well, you can’t get wisdom apart from salvation. Where do I get salvation? Jesus Christ.

The whole point of the Scriptures is to remove you from foolish thinking, give you wisdom and loving relationship, saving relationship with Jesus Christ, the one true eternal God who came, lived, died and rose and is coming again to judge the living and the dead. It’s all about Jesus. It’s all about Jesus.

You say okay. I wanna have salvation. I wanna know Jesus. Where do I go for that kind of insight, and that’s his final point. His main point, you better go to the Bible. You better go to the Bible. He says in verse 16 and this is perhaps the most important verse on the authority of the Bible in the whole Bible. The Bible on more than 4,000 occasions refers to itself as sacred, as Scripture. Thus sayeth the Lord, the Word of the Lord came to me. The Lord spoke from Heaven – 4,000 plus times it says it’s divine and inspiration.

I challenge you to find me any religion or any religious leader that can make that claim and do so with any credibility. It just does not exist, but here’s what the Bible says about itself. “All Scripture” – how much?

Response: All.

All. Well, what about this verse or this book or what about this or what about this? All. All of it. Genesis to Revelation. Every chapter, every verse, all of it. Even if the scientific stuff, historical stuff, yes, all of it. Every word, every concept, all of it, all of it is God breathed. The second word, all of it is Scripture. Say is this Old Testament and New Testament sacred Scripture? Yes, yes, it is.

In 2 Peter chapter 1 verses 20 and 21 when Jesus ascended back into Heaven after his resurrection, he appointed Peter as the leader of the disciples. He held that position until he was murdered by crucifixion upside down, and then John took his place as sort of the leader and the last living apostle in the early days of the early church. And what he says, Peter says, in 2 Peter 1:20 and 21 is that in the Old Testament, the prophets didn’t just sort of come up with their ideas out of their head. They were carried along by the Holy Spirit. They were inspired of God. So the Old Testament is Scripture. That’s what Jesus says. In Luke chapter 10, verse 35 he says that Scripture “cannot be broken, cannot be broken,” that not even a dotting of an I or crossing a T, what he calls a jot or a tittle will pass away. He’ll make it all come to pass exactly as it promised.

It includes the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament. Also in that same book, 2 Peter chapter 3, verses 15 and 16, Peter is talking additionally about the letters of Paul, and he says you know what? People have a proclivity to take the Scriptures and to bifurcate them, to hold onto what they like and then to reject the parts that they don’t like. And he says they do that to their own destruction, and they’re doing that with Paul’s letters and he says that Paul’s letters are what? What’s the word that he uses? Scripture. Scripture.

I told you half the New Testament books are the letters of Paul. Peter is saying the Old Testament is Scripture. Paul’s letters, the New Testament, are Scripture. All Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament.

At the end of Revelation, it basically tells us there will be no more books from here. We’re done. You know everything you need to know. The cannon is closed right here. There’s nothing left to know or to say. Any other people who come add anything to them, they can get all the plagues and curses that are in the book. That’s what Deuteronomy tells us. Add nothing to God’s Word. That’s where Proverbs 3:5, 6 tells us that “every word of God is flawless, and he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Therefore, do not add to his words or he’ll rebuke you and prove you to be a liar.”

It’s really important that we get the bookends on what is Scripture. Very, very important that we get the bookends on what is Scripture, 66 books, Old Testament, New Testament. All Scripture is God breathed. It is. It is. And we would be loathsome to take that which God declares as a fact and to debate it. Christians are notorious for this. Pseudo-Christians, what Paul previously called imposters, will say, “Well, we don’t know about that book of the Bible. We don’t know about that verse. We don’t know about this. We don’t know about this. We don’t know about this, this, this.” It is God breathed.

Doesn’t say that it could be or should be or that, according to post-modern hermeneutical interpretation of the text and the redactor’s version of the text according to the interpretive community in the Qumran community that there was a multi-perspectival approach that considered that perhaps that maybe some of it has the possibility of being potentially God breathed. It just says it is. Wonder what that means?

This is a White guy, okay. This is a shoe that is on a White guy. This is Scripture, and this Scripture is God breathed. That’s what he’s saying. I think it was Mark Twain that said, “It’s not the parts of the Bible that I read and can’t understand that bother me. It’s the one that I do read and can understand that trouble me most.”

This is not something that is hard to understand, but it’s still something that you must not just learn but you must be convinced of, okay. All Scripture, all 66 books, are God breathed. This is the same imagery that comes from Genesis chapter 2, verse 7 where God creates Adam, and what does he do to give Adam life? He breathes life into the man.

God takes the Scriptures. Hebrews 4 says that they’re living and active and he breathes them into existence as he breathed life into the man. He breathes life into the pages of the Scripture. He breathes them into existence.

Some of you, I’m guessing perhaps most if not all of you, would love to hear from God. You think to yourself I wish God would talk to me. Wouldn’t that be great. The phone rang. “Hi, it’s God.” Oh, you got time? I got questions. Okay, we all would love to get a hold of God. 2:00 in the morning you wake up. You’re stressed out. You don’t know what to do, big life decision. I wish God would just talk to me. I wish God would talk to me. Say I wish God would sit right there, that he’d take a deep breath, talk, take another deep breath, talk, take another deep breath, talk.

Guess what. Genesis to Revelation. He’s taken a deep breath, spoken, taken a deep breath, spoken, taken a deep breath, spoken. God has spoken to you repeatedly. He’s been speaking for some 1,500 years through some 40 authors in some 66 books. You can hear from God any time you want. You could speak to him in prayer and you can listen to him in Scripture. That’s how you build your relationship. You talk in prayer. He answers in Scripture. It’s amazing. It’s amazing.

You can hear from God 24 hours a day, 7 days a week under any circumstance for any purpose. What a glorious and great gift. It’s God breathed. It’s no different than God sitting next to you, taking a deep breath and saying what it is you need to hear. It’s the exact same thing when you pick up the book.

That’s why you wanna pray before you pick up the Bible and say, “God, I know that you wrote this and now I want you to teach me what it is you have to say.” And God does write through human authors. He most certainly does. He uses their personality. He uses their experience just like he’s using Paul. What that shows is that God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick.

As you read the book, the authors are clear that they’re wicked people. Paul says “I’m the chief of sinners.” Jonah says, “I went to Ninevah, and I was a racist, self-righteous man.” Peter says, “I denied Christ.” Thomas says, “I doubted him.” Nobody in the book looks good except for Jesus. It’s all villains, one hero. That’s one of the reasons I know that it was written by God, not man.
If you and I were to write a book about our life, it would paint us as the hero and blame everyone else and talk about how they ruined our life. It’d start with our kindergarten teacher, maybe our mother, and work forward from there. Oh, they were terrible. The only reason I grew up to do those things is because of the conditioning I received from those people who ruined me.

The Bible, everybody just repents or dies and goes to Hell. Those are really the only two types of people we see in the Bible. And as you read the Bible, you realize, “Man, these guys are not writing books that make them look very good. Wonder why.” Well, it’s ’cause God’s telling them what to write. They’re inspired of God.

Because of that – I’ll tell you what. If you wanna know who wrote something, always look for the hero, and that will give you an indication of who the author was. You read the Bible. Who’s the hero? Jesus. That’s your author. That’s your author. Everybody else is someone who belongs to God and is part of his story, and God is participating with them. And don’t let that bother you just because the Bible is written by men and God. Jesus was fully God and fully man yet still perfect, and he was born of a woman and conceived of God the Holy Spirit. He came into the world through participation of human and divine. He lived fully man, fully God. The Scriptures as well are authored by men and God. God has a history of drawing straight lines with crooked sticks.

All Scripture is God breathed. It’s inspired. It comes from God. You say that makes sense now. Now I know why kings and politicians and why governments and nations try to keep this book out of our hands ’cause it’s from God, and they don’t want us to hear from God or they only want us to hear from God through them so that they can hold power and authority over us, and we can’t get an unmediated hearing with God.

This means a couple things practically. All Scripture is God breathed. What that means is this. There are other things that are not Scripture and are not God breathed. Very important to distinguish what is Scripture and God breathed, what is not Scripture and not God breathed. The amount of information on planet Earth is doubling every three years. That means half the information is from Adam and Eve up until three years ago. The other half is three years till today. It’s increasing exponentially.

There’s a lot of information, but I’ll tell you what. There’s only place you can go if you wanna get God breathed truth. Everything else is opinion, conjecture, speculation. It is not truth, bedrock and revelation. It’s just not.

Guys, I’ve read a lot of books. I’ve got a huge library. I’m writing a book. It comes out in August. Guess what it’s not. God breathed. It’s just not. It’s another book. Go on the shelf. And then it’ll be a discount book, and you can buy it for a buck in two months from then, okay? You buy it for $16 in August and in September it’ll be like $1.25 ‘cause that book is not God breathed. And 2,000 years from now, they’re not gonna be preaching sermons about my book. It’s not God breathed. It’s just not.

Two ways that people throughout the course of history who are evildoers that have been deceived and are imposters have tried to take us away from the 66 books and the complete and sum total revelation of what we need, there are two ways. One, they try to keep us from being people who can read and having copies of the Bible in our language. I told you about that.

But once the Scriptures are unleashed and people can read and copies are made available, there’s so much power and energy in the Scriptures. They’re living and active Hebrews 4 says. They go forth accomplishing what God intends, that other people don’t like what the Scriptures are saying and accomplishing, but they wanna harness the power and the opportunity that the Scriptures provide. So what they try and do then in some ways is to harness that power but then reroute it. They do this by taking the Scripture and putting over the Scripture something else in a higher authority.

See, because the Scripture alone is God breathed, we hold nothing in authority over the Bible. Other books, other teachers, other traditions go under the Bible, and we examine everything else in light of the 66 books of the sacred Scripture.

What cults and false religions and even Christians who get errant oftentimes do is they do the opposite. They elevate something else over the Bible. Okay, so if you’re a Jehovah’s Witness, it’s the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. If you’re a Mormon, it’s the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. If you’re the Catholics, it’s the traditions of the church. If you’re a Christian Scientist, it’s the Keys to Science and Healing.

Sometimes the Christian version is if you’re a Calvinist, you take the Westminster Confession and/or the Synod of Dort. If you’re a Lutheran, you take the Heidelberg Confession. And the last two are pretty good, so don’t send me an e-mail. I know the difference.

But the point is simply this. Nothing but the 66 books of the Old and New Testament are sacred, God breathed, perfect, trustworthy and true in all that they teach and say. And everything else has to be interpreted in light of the Scriptures. But what false teachers will do, they will put something over the Scriptures and say, “Wait a minute. Feel free to read your Bible, the translation that we have correctly chosen for you because we know best. But before you pick up that correctly chosen translation that we’ve manipulated to say what we want it to say, we also have this filter that you could put over it and it’s like pink glasses. Hey, everything’s pink only through those glasses. You’ll read this book then in light of the lenses that we give you, and you’ll see exactly what it is that we want you to see.”

That is deception, evil and done by an imposter. It’s not right. It’s not right. It’s just not right. It’s terrible. And if you believe that, you will go from bad to worse to Hell. That’s what happens. That’s what happens.

All Scripture is God breathed. Nothing else is God breathed. All Scripture is God breathed. Nothing else is God breathed. Guys, I want you to love your Bible. I want you to believe your Bible. I want you to trust your Bible.

Your blood is on your head, Mars Hill. Your blood is on your own hands. And for you fathers and mothers, your children’s are as well. This is very serious business, very serious business. If not, you will be foolish unto damnation, not wise unto salvation.

Do I love you? Of course I love you. Maybe some of you wanna chop my head off. I stand in a long line of great people who love you and are just trying to get the Word of God into your hands so you could read it for yourself. All Scripture is God breathed, not only that it’s useful. You guys know you need Scripture? You do. It’s useful for life.

First thing you’re gonna do when you pick up the Bible, you’re gonna receive teaching. Many of us don’t know who God is. We don’t know what we’re supposed to do. We don’t innately know those things, so we need to be taught. God teaches us.

But as soon as we begin to be taught, the first thing we feel is the sting of a rebuke. How many of you have read the Bible and felt like golly, that hurt. If so, you read it right, okay? You read it right. You read it right. If you pick up the Bible and say oh, I love that, read it again. You missed the point. You missed it.

Some people say, oh, I can’t believe you offended me. Well, God, when he tells us that we’re wrong, he does offend us, but he offends us for the sake of not just rebuking us but correcting us.

See, when I discipline my kids, it’s not just to kill them. It’s to correct them. It’s to say you kids are straying. I want you to get back on your feet, back on track. I’m correcting you. What I’m trying to do for you today is teach you about the Scriptures. Some of you will feel it as a sting of a rebuke. My hope is that you would receive it as correction, get back on your feet, get back on track, get back in the Bible, read the Scriptures, love Jesus.

Some of you say, “I brought my mom, man. How come you’re giving it to her?” I love your mom. Here’s what I want most for your mom. I want you mom to read her Bible and love Jesus. That’s what I want. That’s what I want for my mom, I want for my kids’ mom. That’s what I want for all moms. I want all moms to read the Bible, love Jesus and raise the next generation of Christian kids. I do have an agenda. Read your Bible, love Jesus. Happy Mother’s Day.

It’s good for teaching, rebuking, correcting. You get corrected, and then you grow in training and righteousness. Most of us just wanna make progress and be mature, but to do that, we need to get taught. Okay, now we learned this is where I’m wrong. I gotta get corrected. I get corrected. I get straightened out. Now I build momentum. Now I’m going the right direction. Now I’m making some progress. I’m growing in love for Jesus. I’m growing in knowledge of Scripture. I’m making some forward momentum and progress.
“So that the man of God” – a woman of God too – “may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Here’s the point. God’s intention for you is good work. You’re not saved by good works, but you’re saved to good works. Ephesians 2:8, 9 says you’re saved by faith in and grace from Jesus. Ephesians 2:10 says that you can do good works. You could work your job and love your spouse and raise your kids and love your neighbor and help those in need and feed the hungry and love the poor and take care of anybody that you get an opportunity to love and show God’s love to. Those are good works.

I’m assuming that you all have certain things you think are good, and you wanna work at those things. You wanna accomplish those good works. That’s what you wanna do. Say how do I do that? Well, first thing you need to be equipped. You need to be trained. You need to be endowed. You need to be enabled. You say well, okay, but you need to be thoroughly equipped and endowed and enabled. You need thorough instruction, thorough development. Say well, where do I get that? Scripture. It’s useful.

What that means is, guys, God has not left you with a deficient life and a deficient word that needs to be added to. You need to go to some other teacher to receive something else to figure out how to know God and live with God and live a good life with God and bear fruit and do good works. You don’t need that. All you need is your Bible. Need to open it and say okay, God, teach me. Where I’m wrong, rebuke me, correct me, train me in righteousness. Please thoroughly equip me so that I can do some good work, not so that you love me, but because you already have. Not so that I can merit your affection but because I already have received it. I’m not doing it out of an obligation. I’m doing it out of a devotion. Not so that you will embrace me but because you already have, and you’ve changed my life. And I wanna live a godly life in Christ Jesus. That’s why we pick up our Bible.

Gonna pray for you. First I wanna tell the moms though, we want you to be first fruits. We want the moms to love God first. We want the moms to read the Bible first. We want the moms to impart the truth of the Bible about Jesus to the next generation so that the kids know the difference between people who are pursing a godly life and imposters and evildoers that are going from bad to worse being deceived. Mothers have an incredibly important job. They’re the first theologians that each of us has. And if they do their job well and have their Bible open, from infancy wisdom can be imparted to a child, wisdom that leads to salvation in Christ Jesus and a life of good works as they are thoroughly equipped through the Scriptures that God has written to reveal himself to them.

Gonna pray for us all. Good time for you to spend some time with God asking yourself Paul’s question. Do I wanna live a godly life in Christ Jesus according to the Scriptures? Or am I putting something or someone over the Bible and in so doing following apostles and deceivers and imposters who are leading me from bad to worse? Or will I stand with Paul and Jesus in the testimony of the Scriptures and will I place my faith in the Lord Jesus and receive salvation from him and then be thoroughly equipped for whatever good work he has for me. This is your time to deal with God on those matters.

You’re welcome to partake of communion, which is remembering Jesus’ body and blood shed for your sin. It’s all about Jesus. It’s all about Jesus. You can give of your tithes and offerings. If you’re not a Christian, don’t. We love you. It’s good to have you. We don’t want your money. We’re just glad you’re here.

Then we’re gonna sing, and we’re gonna celebrate because we’ve learned something very important today, that God has spoken to us, that God loves us and that God will thoroughly equip us to live new lives of good works, and so we have something to sing about. We’ll pray to that end.

Father God, we love you. We thank you for a chance to study your Word. I thank you for the patience of these people as I take a considerable amount of their evening. God, I thank you for Paul’s words that all Scripture indeed God breathed. It’s profitable. It’s helpful. It’s useful.

Lord Jesus, I just pray for us all that we would read the Scriptures and study the Scriptures, not through the filter or the lens of anything even if it’s a good Christian theological, philosophical systematic system but that, God, we would just pick up the Scriptures and read, not so much to interpret them, but perhaps to be interpreted by them, not just to figure out what it is we’re supposed to know but to discover who it is that has loved us and whom we are to love.

Jesus, we love you. I pray for all the moms, that you would enable them to have an understanding as they read the Scriptures, that you would fill them with wisdom and that they would be able to impart that wisdom to their children, that that wisdom would lead them and their children to salvation in Christ Jesus and generation upon generation upon generation of people who are thoroughly equipped and produce good works. Amen.