Now, today, I would like to talk to
you about the Bible and the type of
book that it is.
The Bible is, in many ways, a most
unusual book.
And it's a most unusual book in that
it has a dual authorship.
In other words, God is the author of
the Bible, and in another sense, men are
the authors of the Bible.
The Bible was written, actually, by about 40
authors over a period of approximately 1,500
years.
Some of these men never even heard of
the others, and there was no collusion of
the 40.
Two or three of them could have gotten
together, but the others could never have.
And yet, they have presented a book that
has the most marvelous continuity of any book
that has ever been written.
And there is a collusion here, and that's
the collusion of the Holy Spirit.
And when you say dual authorship, somebody says,
you mean to tell me that the Holy
Spirit is the author and that these men
are the authors also?
I mean exactly that.
I mean that the Bible is a God
-human book, a God-man book.
And in many senses, the Bible is very
much like the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
You see, He came to this earth and
became incarnate.
He was both God and man.
And John put it in this simple way.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And you know, you can almost say that
about the Bible.
The Bible became flesh and dwelt among us.
And It on the Divine Side is a
book that we're going to talk about that,
and I hope I can get my foot
in the door.
There are four things on the divine side,
on God's side.
It's a God book, and that is revelation,
inspiration, illumination, and interpretation.
I want to talk about those four.
And by the way, somebody's saying this is
getting to be rather complicated.
May I say the notes that we have
on guidelines for studying the Bible are available,
and they are the first ones that are
being sent out.
If you'd like to have the full copy
now, but these messages I'm giving are in
print and will be sent out to those
today that are listening, if you'd like to
have them.
Now, on the divine side, we want to
talk about revelation, inspiration, illumination, and interpretation.
Now, on the other side, the human side,
and it's a very human book.
May I say it was written by man
from all walks of life.
There was the prince and the pauper.
There was the very highly intellectual and then
very simple man.
Actually, Dr. Luke writes almost classical Greek in
a period when the Koinade Greek was popular.
And did you know that his Greek is
marvelous?
But I have news for you.
Simon Peter wrote some Greek also.
He's not so good, if you want to
know the truth.
But did you know that God used both
of them?
God the Holy Spirit used both of these
men.
And that has to do with inspiration.
Now, that means that God was able to
use these men without destroying their personality.
And he let them express exactly their thoughts,
their feelings.
And you'll find they all did.
And yet, through that method, the Spirit of
God was able to overrule in such a
way that God said exactly what he wanted
to say.
And that's the wonder of this book, the
Bible.
That's the reason that it's a human book.
It's like my Lord that walked down here
and grew weary and sat down at a
well.
And he talked with people down here and
communicated with them.
This is a book that communicates.
I want to talk a little about that
too, by the way, next time.
I hear today that you've got to come
down to the level of the hippie or
the level of the group today that are
immoral and that you have to enter into
that.
I don't agree with that at all.
This is a book that talks to man
in all walks of life.
And the thing that has thrilled us about
this through the Bible program is this, that
there is a professor in the University of
Ohio that never misses one of these programs.
There is another professor in a university in
the south that encourages all of the faculty
to listen to the program.
And did you know that there are men
that are working right here in Los Angeles,
right down here on the wharf?
They don't speak very good English.
In fact, some of them barely speak it.
They understand it and they listen to the
program.
One man has written in.
He said, I don't write very well.
I just don't quite, not able to express
myself.
And all you'd have to do would be
to read his letter to agree with him.
And may I say to you, the college
professor and the man that is not even
have an eighth grade education, they all get
the message when this book speaks.
And then they talk about the generation gap.
I'm amazed today that there are young people
that are listening right south of us down
at San Diego at a college right now.
If you're listening to this program around the
noon hour, there's a group down there that
meet every day to listen to the program.
And some argue about it.
Some disagree, but they listen.
May I say to you, the word of
God communicates, friends.
It'll get through to you.
We have children that listen to it.
We hear from them.
And then we have retired people.
May I say to you, friends, the Bible
knows nothing about a generation gap.
It speaks to mankind today.
The Bible as it is, a man as
they are.
How important that is.
It's a God book.
I hold in my hand right now a
book that's supernatural.
And in this book, God says 2,500
times, God said, the Lord has said, thus
saith the Lord.
He's made it very clear that he's speaking
through this book.
And if you have a blood-tipped ear,
you'll hear him, my friend.
May I say to you, this is a
God book.
But it's a man book, a human book.
The book I have before me here, it's
pretty well worn.
To begin with, it's a very human book,
if you all know.
I got it marked up here.
And it's a translation.
It's not really the original at all.
If it was the original, I couldn't read
it.
It's put in a language that I can
understand.
And we're going to talk about some of
these versions, I suppose we'll get around to
that next time.
But the point I'm trying to make today,
friends, is that this is a book that
on one side is a God book.
This is a book that can communicate a
life to you.
And that today that you can even become
a child of God, begotten not by corruptible
seed, but by incorruptible, the Word of God
that liveth and abideth forever.
And then on the other side, it's a
very human book.
It talks to you about your aches and
pains and your groanings.
And Paul says, we that are in this
body, we do groan.
And I'm at the age right now where
I find out I do groan, friends, and
I'm for being scriptural.
I do a lot of groaning.
My wife tells me sometimes you ought not
to groan.
I said, I'm being scriptural.
The Bible says that we groan in these
bodies.
And I'm going to groan.
This is a human book, friends, but it's
a God book.
Yet there's no book to compare to it.
Why in the world do you read these
little old paperbacks these silly things?
I watched the other day a person over
in the Hawaiian Islands sitting on a hotel
reading one of these dirty little filthy paperback
books and out before it was the gorgeous
tropical scenery.
Why read these books when you got the
Bible, friends?
And it's a thriller.
It's a thrilling story.
By the way, if you're not on the
Bible bus, get on right now.
Write in and ask for the notes and
outlines.
Let us hear from you.
We'd like to take you along because right
now in a few days we'll be beginning
in the book of Genesis.
Now, I said last time that the Bible
is a most unique book.
No book to compare to it in many
ways, but this way primarily.
It is a book of dual authorship.
And what we mean by that is that
there is the divine side and the human
side of the Bible.
On the divine side, this is God's book.
He's communicated to man.
He's spoken here and he's got through his
entire word.
So much so that if God had anything
else to say that he hadn't said in
the Bible, well, he's already said it.
And if God spoke out of heaven right
now, he'd just repeat himself because he said
all that he wants to say to this
generation.
And by the way, he didn't learn anything
when he read the morning paper.
And when man went to the moon, he
didn't discover anything that God didn't already know
when he gave us the word of God.
And you know, friends, it doesn't look to
me like man discovered very much up there
either.
And it's a pretty expensive trip just to
get a sack of rocks to bring back,
by the way.
And I'll be perfectly willing to go out
here on the desert and get them a
whole wagon load of rocks and sell them
lots cheaper than that.
And I think they're very much the same.
You see, it's the same God that created
this universe that we are in today.
May I say to you that that's a
thrilling day in which to live, by the
way.
So that God has communicated with man.
And that book is the Bible.
That's the divine side.
But it's a human book.
God used about 40 authors over a period
of 1,500 years.
Each one spoke expressing his own feelings in
his own generation.
He had his limitations.
He made his mistake.
Poor old Moses made mistakes.
But when Moses was writing the Pentateuch, somehow
or another, there's no mistakes that got in
there.
The interesting thing is that I read in
seminary many years ago a little book called
The Mistakes of Moses.
I always thought that whoever that author was,
their book ought to be called The Mistake
of the Author because his mistake was writing
on the mistakes of Moses.
Now, today, I'd like to develop these four
subjects in reference to the Bible.
That is, revelation, second, inspiration, and third, illumination,
and fourth, interpretation.
Now, revelation means that God hath spoken and
that God has communicated to man.
Inspiration guarantees the revelation of God.
And illumination has to do with the Spirit
of God being the teacher and not this
poor preacher here in Los Angeles.
If the Spirit of God does not communicate
to you, I can't communicate to you.
But the Spirit of God can.
And since he wrote the Bible and we
give it out, I find out he'll communicate.
And that's the wonder of it.
That's the glory of it, friends.
And then the fourth is interpretation.
And here's where we all pull each other's
hair.
Really, the problem is not that the Bible
teaches many, many things.
The problem is there are many, many people
that are interpreting the Bible.
Unfortunately, they all don't interpret it my way.
I wish they did, but they don't.
And we'll just have to go along with
them and be patient with them because when
we all get into his presence, there'll be
perfect agreement then.
Now we see through a glass darkly, then
face to face.
I'll be changed, you'll be changed, and we
both will be made right.
Someone has said there's always three viewpoints, your
viewpoint, my viewpoint, and the correct viewpoint.
We'll get the correct one someday.