The Written Word of God

I. Introduction
A. In case you have picked up on the progression of these three sermons, let me point it out to you. It starts with God and it moves to the Bible.
1. God knows all truth and is the Truth.
2. God speaks the truth (first week: God speaks the truth to mankind through prophets).
3. God oversees the process whereby the spoken truth gets written down.
B. The word of God comes first in an oral form, and then it gets put into written form: inscripturation
II. Isaiah 30:6–8 An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent, they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people that cannot profit them. 7 Egypt’s help is worthless and empty; therefore I have called her “Rahab who sits still.” 8 And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever.
A. Verse 6 announced an oracle. Then in v.8 God tells Isaiah to write it down for future generations...
1. “Now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever.” – Isaiah 30:8
B. Here we see the purpose of inscripturation: to extend the testimony into the future, to make it last, to make it permanent.
C. This fits the pattern found throughout the Bible: God’s word first spoken and then written.
1. The 10 commandments (Apparently, this is the first Scripture, the first time the word of God was put into written form. And it was God Himself who did it — on tablets of stone.)
2. The five books of Moses were oral first, then written down
3. The prophets
4. Jesus teaches, gospels written
5. The NT epistles may be an exception. They were written both for the people at the time & for us.
6. But generally, the oral was for the people at the time. The written was for the generations to come.
7. “Inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever.”
D. God knows that future generations will read and be convicted by Isaiah’s writings. Most of the time there will not be prophets who will speak His word orally to that particular generation.
E. In other words, Isaiah was written for us! 1Cor.10:11 “These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.”
III. This tells us four things about God’s word
A. The prophetic office is not perpetual.
1. God could’ve chosen to speak to each generation through contemporary prophets. But He hasn’t.
2. After Isaiah was gone, the people still had his message in written form.
3. All through redemptive history, He speaks through prophets not to every new generation, but He speaks through prophets when there’s new revelation. Otherwise, He wants us to rely on His word given through prophets of the past.
B. The oral version of God’s word (as opposed to the written version) is also not perpetual.
1. God could have performed a continuous miracle by protecting and sustaining His word in oral form through the centuries. But this is not the way He works. He doesn’t perform continuous miracles. His miracles each happen at a given moment. None are perpetual.
a. There are ordinary ways of God’s governing the universe and extraordinary ways. He’s equally in control in either case.
b. But when He acts in an extraordinary way, which we call a miracle, it is a temporary breaking of the normal pattern. The Red Sea gets parted, but then it goes back to the way it was.
c. Jesus walks on water, but when He arrives at the boat, He steps in and things return to normal.
d. Jesus doesn’t create a spring of water which turns into wine at some point in the flow.
e. He doesn’t give a man the perpetual ability to walk on water.
2. And so it is with oral revelation. It is miraculous. God has spoken! And then He governs its being written down. But then things go back to the normal means of God’s governance.
C. God is the One who initiated His word being put into written form.
1. Jer.30:2 “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you.’ ” (See also Jer.36:2; Hab.2:2)
2. Romans 16:25-26 “Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him.”
D. Not just the speaking, but the inscripturation was infallibly governed by God.
1. 2Peter 1:20-21 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
2. 2Tim.3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed...”
3. In written form, it is just as much the word of God as it was in its oral form.
a. Luke 16:17 “It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.” (See also Matt. 5:18.)
IV. Application
A. God gave us a book.
1. This is all we have, whether we like it or not. What God has told us about Himself is in this book!
2. He could have communicated differently. He could have revealed Himself in pictures, or in a set of symbols, or a video, or in a formula, or in a voice, or in a song, or in a place, or in an experience. But in His wisdom and grace, He didn’t. God gave us a book.
B. I am not a bookish person. I don’t like reading. The Snow Goose
1. Then I met Christ. And guess what? I still didn’t like books. I love to learn but not to read.
2. But I did come to love THE book. Most of the reading I do is to understand THE book.
C. You don’t have to love books. But you do have to love God’s holy book.
D. This book is for us! These things were written down for us! This is why we need to read it.
1. “No thanks. I’m fine.” ???
2. This is what so many Christians say, not with their words, but with their lives.
E. I’m not saying everyone needs to become a Bible scholar.
1. But let me ask you: Are you not in the process of learning other things?
a. Sports, actors, musicals, TV shows, rock stars, celebrities, the royal family
2. Should we not also be in the process of learning God’s word?
3. Shouldn’t we be serious students of God’s word? Shouldn’t we be taking advantage of opportunities to learn it through reading and listening to sermons and Sunday school?
4. Not just looking for some encouragement each day or each week. But looking to build an understanding of God’s word that will help us to find encouragement and wisdom & correction for the rest of our lives.
F. Persecuted Christians getting Bibles, American Christians leave them on the shelves. Why?
1. Do they need it more? No, they just SEE more clearly that they need it.
2. Pride: We don’t think we need it. Or, let me rephrase that. We don’t feel we need it.
3. I’m embarrassed to tell you this. Until this August, I pretty much only read God’s word as a discipline. I rarely felt desperate for the Bible.
4. God waits till we realize how much we need it.
G. Kenya
1. Pastors walked 50 miles each way to come to my Bible seminar on eschatology
2. They knew the Bible as well or better than I did — even though none of them were full-time! But they hadn’t had the education.
H. My goal for each of you through this series is to help you develop the daily habit of feeding your soul on God’s word.
1. But I can’t make you feel your need for it. Only God can do that. But I warn you: He often does it by bringing such hardships into your life that eventually all you can do is run to Him.
I. Of course knowing the Bible is not enough! Other things are required, like humility, and understanding, and an open heart. But guess what? Those things aren’t enough either! Without understanding the word of God, these things are not enough.
J. Or you may say, “I want to hear about Jesus, not about the Bible!” I understand this.
1. Without the Bible, we have no Jesus. The Bible is how we know who Jesus is.
2. In one sense, we can’t know the Bible’s Jesus any better than we know the Bible, because the Bible is the revelation of the Bible’s Jesus.
3. If we’re interested in Jesus, we must be interested in the Bible, for that’s how we learn about Him.
4. If our love for Jesus does not lead us to love and study the Bible, then we have to question our love for Jesus, because this is where we find out about Jesus. This is where our own preferences and fantasies about Jesus get exposed and distinguished from the truth about Jesus.
5. So, let’s love Jesus & seek Him together in His word. Jesus Himself said that the key to growth and fruitfulness is when we abide in Him and His words abide in us. (John 15:7)