The Word: The Solid Rock

THE WORD: THE SOLID ROCK

Mt. 7:24-27

INTRODUCTION

A. HUMOR

1. Tommy was fed up with being bossed around by his wife Sheila so he went to see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist told him that he was too mild-mannered

2. He gave Tommy a book on assertiveness. Tommy read the book like a fiend and by the time he had to go home, he’d finished the book.

3. Tommy strode manfully into the house, walked over to Sheila, pointed his finger at her and said, "From now onwards, I and not you make all the decisions in this house. Tonight, I want you to prepare me my favorite meal and I expect a special mouth-watering dessert afterward. Then, after dinner, you're going to run me a hot bath so I can relax. And when I step out of the bath, guess who's going to dress me and comb my hair?"

4. Sheila said, "The funeral director, that’s who!"

B. MODERN OPPOSITION TO THE BIBLE

1. Today in schools, atheists commonly declare that the Bible is primitive, full of contradictions and errors, etc. The left-leaning media and immoral Hollywood crowd add their own efforts, attempting to confuse and disillusion those who are still believers. The devil is hard at work to subvert and suppress the Church of God.

2. There once was a very strong awareness in the general population that the Bible was the Word of God; that it’s Divine, inerrant, eternal, unequalled, and that it’s God’s Word to humanity. This perception is now largely gone among the public.

3. We Christians must take action and re-inform the public of what the Bible is and what it can do for them.

4. My topic this morning is “The Word: The Solid Rock.”

I. INDESTRUCTIBLE NATURE OF GOD’S WORD

A. HISTORICAL REVIEW

1. Emperor Diocletian 303 A.D. Feb. 23, issued 4 proclamations to wipe out the Christian faith. For 8 years persecution swept the Empire.

2. Many churches were demolished. Many copies of the Bible were burned. Christians were killed.

3. To the Emperor, the purge looked so complete that he issued a new coin with the inscription, “The Christian religion is destroyed and the worship of the gods is restored.”

4. What he didn’t know was that God had a call on the next emperor – Constantine (313 A.D.) – who established the Roman Empire as a Christian Empire!

5. The Communists gathered Bibles and burned them. Hitler burned Bibles and declared he would write his own.

6. Nations have risen and fallen, but the Word of God lives on! Emperors, Kings and Dictators have attempted to stamp it out, but the Word of God lives on!

7. Philosophers and educators have mocked the Bible and predicted its demise, but they are dead and the Word of God lives on!

B. ILLUSTRATION: GOD’S ENDURING WORD

1. At the beginning of WW2, aerial bombings flattened much of Warsaw, Poland. Cement blocks, ruptured plumbing, and shards of glass lay strewn across the great city.

2. In the downtown area, however, most of one damaged building still stubbornly stood. It was the Polish headquarters for the British and Foreign Bible Society.

3. Still legible on a surviving wall were the words: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away” Mt. 24:35.

II. THE BIBLE IS THE BOOK OF THE AGES

A. NOT OF HUMAN, BUT DIVINE ORIGIN

1. The Bible looks like any other book in a bookstore, but it’s not. At Barnes and Noble, it’s thrown in with other books, but it’s nothing like them.

2. The words of this Book are ALIVE! Heb. 4:12 says, “For the Word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

3. The word “alive” is in Greek “Zoe,” alive, active, moving, accomplishing. They are living words with spiritual power.

4. The Bible is not the words of a man, a king, or a president, but of God. The voice that speaks to us from the Bible is the voice of God.

5. “All scripture is given by inspiration [theopneustes; God-breathed] of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” 2 Tim. 3:16, KJV.

6. As Mark Twain said, ““It ain't those parts of the Bible that I don't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do.”

B. GOD’S VIEW FROM HEAVEN

1. THE BIBLE: THE ONLY WORD FROM GOD! Many groups claim to have books of revelation from God – they are false!

2. Ancient Egyptians believed that the earth was supported by 5 marble pillars. Greeks believed it rested on the shoulders of the god Atlas. Hindus believed earth rested on the backs of elephants, which stood on the back of a huge tortoise, which was on top of a coiled serpent in the midst of a cosmic sea!