Calvary Road Baptist Church
“GOD’S SUFFICIENT WORD, THE BIBLE”
Psalm 119.105
The title of this message from God’s Word is “God’s Sufficient Word, The Bible.” Allow me to explain my title by way of introduction.
When I use the word “Bible,” I am referring to those 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, 39 books written before the time of Christ, in the Hebrew language primarily, and 27 books written following Christ’s glorious resurrection in the Greek language of the common man of the day, referred to as Koine Greek from the Greek word for common. When I use the word “Bible,” I do not refer to the apocryphal books once printed in the Bible and are included in the versions sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church. The apocryphal books are not rightly to be thought of as part of the Bible, since nowhere in the apocryphal books is there any claim of inspiration, and since none of the apocryphal books seems to be anything more than a collection of some books that are historical accounts and some portions that are fanciful works of pure fiction.
Unlike the apocryphal books, the Bible is the product of divine revelation and inspiration. Revelation is that work by which God reveals something that could not otherwise be discovered. Revelation is a miracle. But beyond the miracle of revelation, whereby God communicates truth to one man or a small group of people, there is another miracle, the miracle of inspiration, which has to do with writing.
There are various ways people use this word inspiration. I usually use the word in a very particular way, a very narrow way, an exact way. I do not use the word inspiration when the word encourage would do just as well. Neither do I use the word inspiration when the word motivation would do just as well. I usually use the word inspiration only when I refer to God's supernatural work whereby He moves a man to write a portion of the Word of God.[1] And to be even more precise, God never inspired Moses. He never inspired David or Isaiah or Jeremiah or Daniel, Paul, or Peter. In that sense, I have never been inspired since inspiration refers only to that which results from God’s rare and miraculous moving in a man’s life to write Scripture. What is inspired, then, and only inspired, is God’s written Word, the Bible. That is, God worked in chosen men’s lives to produce something we call the Bible. And it is the Bible, that which was produced by God using these various human instruments, that is truly inspired.
Yet another comment before we turn to our text, found in the 119th Psalm. My observation has to do with the word “sufficient.” What does the word “sufficient” mean? It means “enough.” The Bible is enough. When it comes to dealing with spiritual issues, it better be that no authoritative resource beyond the Bible is needed because no definitive resource beyond the Bible is available.
Let me echo what better men than I have said on this matter: There are two ways of looking at mankind and his condition. And let’s set aside, for now, the physical problems that a person can suffer and focus only on the mental, emotional, and behavioral problems that plague us.
On the one hand, a human can be looked upon as a sinner whose sins plague him and for which spiritual solutions are needed to resolve spiritual problems. But ever more popular is the so-called “medical model” of explaining a person’s behavior, wherein an individual is seen as being sick instead of sinful and therefore is not personally responsible for his condition or her actions.
By such reasoning, Andrea Yates, the woman in Texas who drowned her five children years ago, was sick, not sinful, and she should receive medical treatment and not death by lethal injection.[2] Who was at fault for her murders? If the medical model is true, not her, but society, her husband, or her religious faith. She is not evil. It was her having to be a stay-at-home mom, homeschooling her kids, being a mother to five young children that’s at fault. She wasn’t evil for drowning her kids, one at a time, in the bathtub. She was sick, you see. It’s the society that’s evil. It’s a husband-dominated marriage that’s evil, the patriarchy. Everyone would be better off if those kids were shipped off to daycare each day so mom could have gone to an emotionally fulfilling job. Making her stay at home, repressing her, that’s what is evil.
Those men on skid row in downtown Los Angeles aren’t evil. They’re sick, you see. They’re not drunkards, but victims of alcoholism, not dope fiends, but hopeless victims of drug abuse. It wasn’t their fault they gulped themselves down to intoxication as teens. They can’t be responsible for smoking dope. How were they to know that all the warnings and cautions they received their entire lives about the danger of drugs would prove to be true? Those folks aren’t sinful, people. They’re sick, and you should provide them with food, housing, clothing, and the chemicals they use to get high.
Decades ago, there was another woman in Texas, a nurse’s aid, who hit a homeless man with her car.[3] But she was not evil, either. Oh, it’s true that when she hit him, he got stuck halfway through the windshield of her car, his head in the seat and his broken legs laying out on the hood of the vehicle. She should be credited for not getting in another accident as she drove home with a man sticking out of our windshield.
She’s not evil for leaving the man impaled in her windshield to die a slow death over the next two days, bleeding out in her car, moaning, and begging for help. After all, she did go out to the garage and apologize to him several times as she let him bleed to death all over her car seat, his broken legs on the car’s hood.
We have to remember that she had been driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs. That explains everything. She was afraid she would get into trouble driving under the influence, so she let the man die a slow and agonizing death. But it was the drugs she had taken two days earlier and the liquor she had guzzled two days earlier. That’s to blame ... not her.
Folks, that’s where you go with the “medical model” of people’s ills. That’s where you end up, with insanity pleas, with sham professions such as psychiatry, when you refuse to hold people responsible for their actions, when you allow folks to blame others, to blame society, to blame poverty, to blame systemic racism, to blame the patriarchy, to blame the full moon, for their behavior instead of holding them responsible for what they do. I call upon you to reject all of that nonsense.
Allow me to simply declare what I do not have time now to prove: The Word of God is sufficient to address all the sins of the human race. The problem is not that the Bible is not sufficient. The problem is that the Bible is ignored! What God has given to us to address the spiritual failings of humanity, this Book, is enough to get the job done.
What causes me to make such claims for the Bible? Turn to our text, and you will see. Psalm 119.105:
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
Two elementary but far-reaching observations from this short verse by way of introduction:
First, THE IDENTITY OF THE BIBLE
David is nothing if not short and sweet here. Referring to Scripture, the subject of this entire 119th Psalm, as we have seen, David labels it “thy word.”
But “Thy” refers to God. That would make the Bible God’s Word. That would make Scripture’s origin the throne room in heaven. That would make the Author be God and not man. Thus, this Bible belongs to God and not me. It is His and not mine, His Creation and not the result of anyone’s collaborations. You be careful, then, who would impugn the dignity and the character of the Bible, for it is closely associated with God. And your view of the Bible reflects your view of God. Your respect for the Bible asserts your respect for God. Am I sure that this Book is God’s, that it’s His Word? Forty-six times in the Bible, we read the phrase “God said.” And in 221 different verses, we read that “the Lord said.” You tell me if I’m sure. And then, on top of that, there are 60 verses in which Godly men declare scripture to be “thy word.” So, there can be no doubt on the part of reasonable people that this book belongs to God, that it’s His, that He takes credit for authoring it, and that He is the guarantor of its contents.
If the word “Thy” shows this to belong to God, then the word “word” reveals to us just what it is we hold in our hands. This is a book of words and not pictures, showing us that God speaks to people’s minds, the place where people reason, the place where people think and understand and deduce. Pictures can mean many things and convey, at best only impressions. But words strung together into sentences and understood with their context and following their use when the Bible was penned are far more precise. Thus, we can know the mind of God on an issue, or a topic, or a subject. Not impressions, but declarations! What does God think? What does God want? What does God demand? What does God command? These things we can know from the Bible.
This book is also a book of words and not a sheet of musical notes. “Music is the universal language!” No! Even simple language contains vastly more information than the most complex music could convey. Much controversy exists these days about the place of music in the Church, the kind of music that’s appropriate, and the role of music in the intelligent worship of God. Let me say that music can do no more to a person than move him emotionally. Thus, as powerful as music is to move, therefore someone, who is, after all, an emotional being, music is entirely incapable of communicating to any individual intelligently. Thus, if someone communicates with God, he will not do so with music, but with words, just as God has communicated with man, not with music, but with words. Failure to distinguish the functionality of words from the functionality of music betrays an ignorance of the difference between intelligence and emotion.
So, what is it that we hold in our hands when we grasp the Bible? A form of communication from the Creator of the universe and all that herein is, revealing to our minds His mind, expressing to our thoughts His thoughts, informing to our wills His will. Therefore, what a great blessing God has bestowed upon us that He has given to us His Word. And may I say, what a staggering and weighty assignment we have been given to respond intelligently to Him?
As Well, THE ABILITY OF THE BIBLE
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
The Bible can show to you your predicament, your position. Mom, Dad, get a flashlight tonight and turn off the lights in the living room. Then turn on your flashlight and shine its light straight down at your feet and at your kid’s feet. Imagine with your children that you are on a rocky cliff, and the light from your flashlight shows you how dangerously close to the edge you are. And without the light from your flashlight, you would never know, on a moonless night, the danger you now know yourself to be in. Thus it is with the Word of God. You are spiritually dark, and you cannot see with your eyes. You are pretty helpless to know by yourself how close you are to falling to your soul’s destruction, how close you are to ruining your marriage, or how close you are to destroying your children. It is only through the Word of God that you can shine the light of truth on your present situation to see where you are, the danger you are in, how close to destruction you are. It is a lamp unto your feet.
The Bible is also able to show you your path. With that same flashlight, show your kids where they are headed in the dark. Without the flashlight, one would have walked into the coffee table, the other into a floor lamp. In like manner, the Bible shows where you are headed. Your path leads to destruction. And without the shining light of Bible truth, you would merrily march your way straight to Hell.
SERMON:
The Bible comes from God and is His Word. It is the only source of truth to show you what is going on, where you are, and where you are headed if something doesn’t change.
Please look at our text again:
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
According to this verse, God’s Word shows you where you are and where you are headed. Let me ask you, Where else would you find the answers to the crucial questions of life? Would you ask some psychiatrist who denies the very existence of sin and the afterlife? How can psychiatry be correct, when that profession labeled homosexuality a mental illness for more than 50 years and then decided a few years ago that it isn’t mental illness?
I am not suggesting homosexual activity indicates mental illness. Not at all. The psychiatrists were wrong about homosexuality for half a century. So much for science. But psychiatrists are still wrong. While, like the blind squirrel that occasionally finds nuts, they no longer tell people that homosexuality is a mental illness, they are still wrong in denying that homosexual activity is sinful.
One wonders by what standard they just decide that what was wrong is now right? By what standard does anyone determine what is right and what is wrong? Do we vote on it? Do we just do what we want to do? And how are we affected when things go awry?
Some would say that we should ask scientists. They’re smart. They sure are, but are they the ones to ask the serious questions of life? A movie released in 2001 that I hope from reading the reviews no one here saw was titled A Beautiful Mind, about a brilliant scientist.[4] But he was diagnosed by psychiatrists as schizophrenic. Out of touch with reality, they say. The movie also left out the part about him being anti-Semitic and about being an adulterer who refused to support the child he fathered by his mistress. Scientists are not necessarily qualified to deal with moral and spiritual issues.
What about God? You haven’t forgotten God, have you? The psychiatrists have forgotten about God, simply discount Him as unimportant or not existing. Scientists, for the most part have forgotten about or have ignored God. The party animals have forgotten about God. The greedy folks who work on Sundays have forgotten about God. The fornicators have forgotten about God. But it’s not a good idea to forget about God. Not a good idea at all.
Hebrews 4.13 refers to God as “him with whom we have to do.” That verse means you will have to deal with God someday. Someday you will stand before Him and give an accounting of yourself. And if that time of accounting was today, if your ticket was punched by God today, would you be prepared?
May I make a suggestion? Let me show you, from the only reliable source of information available to you and me, the Word of God, the Bible, the answers to some very basic, but very important, questions.
Let’s see if God’s Word, our light and our lamp, sheds any light on some pretty important questions:
First, WHERE ARE YOU?
Not “Where are you physically, where are you geographically, but where are you spiritually?” Where do you stand insofar as eternity is concerned? Where do you stand with God?
You’re not righteous. We know that from Romans 3.10, which reads, “There is none righteous, no, no one.” You don’t seek after God, Romans 3.11. You don’t do good, Romans 3.12, not as far as God is concerned, anyway. Your whole life is filled with destruction and misery, Romans 3.16. And you don’t fear God, Romans 3.18. No wonder God is angry with you, Psalm 7.11.
Why is it that you are this way? Why is it that when the Bible shines like a lamp to your feet, it shows this stuff? Because, Romans 3.23, you are a sinner, just like everyone else. The Bible clearly indicates that you were born a sinner and that your sinfulness makes you an actual enemy of God, Romans 5.10. An enemy of God? Yes, an enemy of God.
Ephesians 2.1-3 further shows you to be spiritually dead in trespasses and sins, to be a child of disobedience, to be subject to the devil himself, to be by nature a child of wrath and shows that you really live for nothing but the fulfillment of your lusts and desires.
So, where you are is in an awful place, spiritually. No wonder God is angry toward you.
Next, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
According to God’s Word, if you are not converted, you have a certain destiny.
It’s eternal punishment. When you die, you will immediately go to Hell. Remember, God is angry with you. In Hell, you will suffer the conscious and constant torment of flames of fire and unquenchable thirst. Luke 16.23, telling us of a man who died unconverted, begins with these words:
“And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments.”
But that’s not the worst of it. After you are standing before God at the last judgment, you will then be cast into the lake of fire. And there you will suffer torment and agony forever, with these words of the Savior you rejected forever ringing in your ears:
“Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”
But it may be a while before you die and pass on to eternity. The road you will travel between now and then, the road you’ve traveled thus far in your life, has been a miserable route, with shame, guilt, heartache, rebellion, and damage being the signposts along the way. And it will only get worse. Has your life to this point had any real meaning? Have you fulfilled any meaningful function in God’s grand scheme of things? Have you been in any way eternally significant? Or has your life been filled with pettiness, small-minded thinking, selfishness, self-centeredness, immaturity, rottenness, lies, fornication, greed, unwillingness to serve, inability to humble yourself, and an unteachable spirit?
It was not God’s original intent that you live the kind of life you’ve lived thus far. But it’s the life you’ve fashioned by the choices you made, by the options you have taken, by the sins you have committed, by the responsibilities you have mishandled, and by the foolishness that you have exhibited. All of your experiences will be recorded in God’s books. All your deeds will be recounted on Judgment Day. All your works will be rehearsed, remembering that none of the things you have done will be accounted as good by God, but all will be judged evil.
Listen as I read Revelation 20.12-15, foretelling your future experience:
12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
14 And death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
This is where God’s Word says you will go. And miserable will be your life’s journey getting there.
Third, WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO?
Do you really want to go to Hell and eventually end up in the lake of fire? That’s where the path you are presently on leads. But is it where you really want to go? Do you really want to go to the place where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched?[5] Do you really want to go to the place of eternal torment and gnashing of teeth, a place of darkness and perpetual isolation? Is the place that was created for the devil and his angels really the place where you want to spend eternity?[6]
The Bible tells of a better place, a place called heaven, a place as wonderful as Hell is woeful, a place as happy as Hell is unhappy, a place as sweet as Hell is sour, where people are as extremely delighted as those in Hell are extremely damned.
The question is, In which place do you want to dwell forever? Would you rather the isolation of damnation or the sweet communion of glory, the falling forever in the bottomless pit, or the fullness of blessing forever in God’s presence? Would you have holy angels as your companions or foul demons as your companions in torment, glorified saints to hear your singing, or depraved ghouls to hear your howling?
Finally, HOW DO YOU GET THERE?
How do you get to Hell from where you are? Simple. Do nothing whatsoever different than you are doing now. Just keep living like you are living, ignoring God all the livelong day, and when you die, suddenly or eventually, your appointment to Hell will be all taken care of for you by an angry God.
But if you want to go to heaven someday, and if you want your sins forgiven, then there is a way you have to go. There is a path down which you must go. Turn to John 14.1-6 and read with me the words of the Lord Jesus Christ to His troubled disciples:
1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
There is the way the Bible says to go, a path to follow. Jesus is that way. He said so Himself. Go that way, and He will take you to heaven. Decide to go some other way, and you will end up in Hell.
There are really only two ways you can tackle life, by doing what you think is best, by doing what you want to do, or by doing what God says to do in His Word, the Bible. “But the Bible is a really old book, and I am a contemporary individual.” Technology may change, but humanity has not changed since the fall of Adam and Eve into sin when they ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. God’s remedy for our race’s sin has never changed, either. It’s still the old-fashioned Gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of a Savior who saves sinners from their sins.
Therefore, the road map to heaven hasn’t changed and doesn’t need to change. Same kind of person. Same kind of problem. Same kinds of sins. Same God. Same Savior. Same salvation. Same Bible.
This is a Bible Church, and we preach a Bible message, take a Bible stand, and work to show people the Bible way to heaven, which is the Jesus, Who we find to be the central figure and theme of the Bible.
Would you like to talk to me about the salvation that is spoken of in the Bible? I’m willing if you are.
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[1] 2 Timothy 3.16; 2 Peter 1.21
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates
[3] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-mar-08-mn-31784-story.html
[4] www.abeautifulmind.com
[5] Mark 9.44, 46, 48
[6] Mark 25.41
Would you like to contact Dr. Waldrip about this sermon? Please contact him by clicking on the link below. Please do not change the subject within your email message. Thank you.
Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church