III. The Protection of God's Word from Error
"Thy
Word is true from the beginning."
Psalm 119:160
The Holy Spirit
used the ears
hands
and pens
of the
Writers of the BIBLE
God wanted us to have a book that we could trust completely. If there could be false things in this book, we couldn't be sure of
forgiveness of sins
eternal life
or any other wonderful things that the Bible teaches. God chose holy men to write such a book for us. God gave these men the words of the Bible and the men wrote them down.
Write out Jeremiah 30:2
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Write out II Peter 1:21
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Memorize: II Timothy 3:16, 17
Men did not write the Bible. God wrote it, using men as His instruments through whom He could give us the Bible, and that is why we say it is "inspired."
Inspired means "God-breathed."
Suppose God had asked Moses to write down something that he had done forty years before. Moses might have made a mistake. But God breathed upon Moses with special power that is called inspiration and kept Moses from making any mistakes when he wrote about things he had done himself, years before.
All of the men whom God chose to write the Bible were inspired by Him so that they would make no mistakes. Whether they wrote of facts they knew about or they wrote about things in the past and the future which they knew nothing about, they made no errors.
The Holy Spirit tells us through Peter that "The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." The Word of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The word for "moved" really means "carried along," like a boat is carried by a wind. That is the way the breath of God carried the men who wrote the Bible.
Sometimes
they did not know the meaning of what they had written. Daniel wrote his
prophecy and then asked the Lord what it meant. Even angels would like to
know the meaning of all that is in the Bible.
I Peter 1:10-12
IV. The Preservation of God's Word
"Heaven
and earth shall pass away,
but my words shall not pass away.
Matthew 24:35
After the flood, God chose a man, Abraham, to follow Him into the land of Canaan. This man became the father of a great nation, the Jews, or Israelites, as they were called in the Old Testament. It was through these Hebrew people, descendants of Abraham, such as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Isaiah, David and many others, that we got our Bible. Jesus Christ, around whom the Bible centers, was a Jew of the family line of David. We owe all of our salvation to the Jews.
Since there were no printing presses years ago; men had to write all the Scriptures by hand. They did this with homemade ink and pens. The paper they used was called papyrus. It was the inside of a tall weed, sliced thin and laid one piece across the other and dried out smoothly.
The skins of animals were also used. They were stretched and treated to hold ink lines. These were sewed together into a long strip. This was called parchment.
A stick was fastened to each end of the parchment or papyrus. It was rolled up towards the center when not in use. This formed a scroll. This was the ancient Bible.