THE HOLY SCRIPTURES
2 TIMOTHY 3:14-17
11/58
The context 2
Timothy 3:1,13. History keeps on
repeating itself so long as we have the same human nature, same sins, same
devil to stir up men. Will continue
until he is chained.
When same evils
arise, must apply the same remedy.
Compare: They
physician.
So Paul here: 3:14ff
a simple direction. His early training
held him like an anchor, saved him from the dreadful drift of the age.
Let us use the same
great remedy. Cannot force truth upon
men but we can make our teaching clear.
Point to the Word of God. Lift
up the cross. Take to dream that human
learning is to be met with human learning, that Satan will cast out Satan. No - lift up the brazen serpent - look and
live. No cure for the midnight but the
rising sun. No hope for dark world but
the light of the Son of God. We are to
keep to the apostolic plan; sowing the seed of the Word.
1.
The instruction of Timothy.
1.
"from a babe"
Not a youth,
well-grown child but a child rising out of infancy.
The first of
formation years. Old age remembers what
happened then more than the events that took place to
a.
A great nobleman, Christian leader in Britain, a godly nurse taught him
the things of the Lord. He tells us she died before he was 7 - yet in that
time…
b.
The mother of Moses. How long
had him?
2.
His instructors.
2 Timothy tells
us. His father a heathen Greek but his
mother, grandmother…fulfilling their mission for the lord as truly as did in
judging Israel is Solomon building the temple.
Father, mother,
leading their children to Christ, Sunday School, church, knowledge of the
Book. Not send but bring, be with. Lord Jesus look with pleasure upon those who
feed His lambs, nurse His babes, not His will that any of these little ones
perish.
3.
The subject of the instruction: the Holy Scriptures.
a.
My trip to Palestine: Jews captured one point of the old city, the tomb
of David on Mt. Zion. A synagogue - the
scroll of Torah, kissing the letters, rolling, kissing the roll in the
cylinders, kissing the tassels, tenderly, reverently laying in the ark. Though unfortunately lost the spirit in
worshiping the letter, yet to be commended.
Why did Paul choose
Timothy? No doubt many young men who
gloried in the advanced thought of the Greek philosophers, looked upon the
stereotyped teachings of the Scriptures with contempt, but Paul…Timothy…
Notice Paul's
description of the Book of God; 3:15,16.
Contrast with those who regard it as a man-made book, a collection of
the literature of an ancient, obscure people.
If man-made not God
breathed, then modern advancing more enlightened man ought to be able to write
a better one by human standards, man far better prepared to write a Bible than
when the authors, members of a single despised raced; lived in hills of
Palestine in a tent of no larger than one of our counties. No printing presses, no great airlines or
steam ship to make them acquainted with the various cultures of civilization,
no telephone wires or radios to bring them news, no newspapers to spread before
them. Science had not unlocked nature’s
door to reveal secrets of the rocks below or the stars above. What a scantily supplied storehouse of human
knowledge they had to draw upon compared with the inherited wealth of information
at our command today. Yet they grappled
with every problem confronting humanity today.
Why not produce a
better Bible? Collect but to be found
among graduation of finest universities in the land. This select group travel where will, consult great libraries,
employ every measure of research and communication swift, glean in fields of
geology, astronomy, biology, history…take advantage of all the progress in art,
literature. After exhausted every
resource, let them embody results of best intelligence in a book, offer it to
the world as a substitute for the Bible.
Why not? Have they the confidence that the prophets
of the Baal had in their god? Has man
so fallen that we cannot expect as much from him today as 2000-4000 years ago? Surely man is not retrograding - no - he is
evolving - up from the heart. Should be
able to produce - better book than man unaided would have produced centuries
ago, a better Christ.
Or did the Book come
to us from a source higher than man?
The materialist,
evolutionist, scientist is a pitiful creature, lost, groping in the dark. He appeals to his god to answer by fire:
To inanimate matter
with an earnestness that is pathetic employed in the worship of blind force of
faith greater than religion requires.
Compare: To believe nothing created something.
II. THIS KNOWLEDGE
WAS QUICKENED BY SAVING FAITH
Scripture not save,
but able to make wise unto salvation.
May know Scripture,
yet not born again.
Somewhere, sometime,
must accept Christ by faith as Savior.
Compare: Sun rise.
May be hard to say exact time, but a time when behold the horizon,
another time when above.
By faith knowledge
is turned into wisdom. Scripture
knowledge is wisdom when it influences the heart, affects the life, sanctifies
the spirit, renews the will.
Notices faith never
finds her wisdom in the wisdom of men but resorts to the inspired writings for
guidance. This the wells from which she
drinks, the manna on which she feeds.
The knowledge of Christ to her the most excellent science - asks only
what is written.
We continue to
advance in this wisdom as known more of the Scriptures.
Not as wise as we
ought to be, hope to be, can be, must be.
Compare: Ephesians 4:14 "carried about with
every wind of doctrine."
Their spiritual
appetite can digest bricks as well as bread.
They are religious
ostriches with a marvelous capacity to swallow anything, everything.
The true believers
great reason for his faith is "It is written."
Compare: Christ our Master with the tempter, "It
is written."
His teaching full of
OT Scriptures. Paul. Hebrews.
A strange mysterious
creator which attends the Word of God.
A power to enter the heart. This the power of God.
