Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20100516.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Exodus: God's Forming The Nation Israel For His Abrahamic Covenant
Part II: God's Forming Israel To Heed Him, Exodus 15:22-40:38
K. God's Directive Of The Tabernacle To Fellowship With His People
3. The Lampstand: Validating The Truth Of God's Written Scriptures
(Exodus 25:31-40 et al.)
    Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

    In our last Sunday morning sermon, we stated that "(i)n a world that needs fulfilling truth, we can always find it in the exposition of Scripture by Christ's faithful servants . . ."

    Though this statement may edify some, it fails to help others who doubt the Bible that God's servants have is even His true Word:

    (1) According to Jim Leffel's work, Postmodernism: The Spirit of the Age', many post modernists reject belief in objective truth, declaring an end to all ideology that claims it promotes the truth. This idea rises from the view that to affirm absolute truth is dangerous in that belief in absolute truth has led to many abusive evils in history.

    (2) In accord with postmodern thinking, Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code that became a hit movie suggested: "The modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda -- to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base.'" (Darrell L. Bock, Ph. D., Breaking The Da Vinci Code, 2004, p. 99-100)

    Brown's book (on p. 234) presents the character, Teabing at one point asserting "Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned'". (Ibid., Bock, p. 99)

    Hence, The Da Vinci Code implies our current Bible is not even the original one, not to mention that it is not divinely inspired!

    (3) Besides this, other dominant ideologies in today's world openly deny our current Bible is divinely inspired and authoritative:

    (a) Islam denies our Bible is God's authoritative, absolute truth: it claims the Law of Moses, the Psalms of David and the Gospel of Jesus are authoritative, but that they were either repealed by the Koran or "corrupted" so that one cannot rely on the record we have of them today in our Bible to know God's absolute truth. (Ibid., p. 5)

    (b) Marxist ideology that is derived from Marx and Engels' The Communist Manifesto, agrees with that work's statement on page 92 that "Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality." (learn-usa.com, "Goals, Communist Manifesto'") This work outright rejects the Bible's divine inspiration!

    Thus, we may ask, "How do we know our BIBLE today is God's inspired, authoritative Word that His servants can use?"

    Need: "How do we know the Bible is God's inspired, authoritative Word from which His messengers can expound His truth unto us?!"

  1. God had Israel build a tabernacle to typify how He as a holy God could fellowship with sinful man and meet man's needs, Ex. 25:1-9.
  2. The third tabernacle item named, the lampstand, typifies how all written Scripture is God-inspired so that His messengers under His oversight can use them now to expound His truth, Ex. 25:31-40:
    1. The lampstand was to be of "pure gold" with 6 branches sprouting in line out of 2 sides of 1 trunk to form 7 lamp shafts, Ex 25:31-32, 37a.
    2. Unopened almond buds were to adorn the lampstand in 22 places, 3 on each branch and 4 on the trunk, Ex. 25:31-36 NIV, ESV; NET Bible: Ex. 25:31-37, ftn. 3, citing U. Cassuto, Exodus, p. 342-344.
    3. This number 22 can only typify the 22 Hebrew consonants that were written in Moses' era (1450 B. C.) when the Hebrew vowels were only spoken, not written, J. Weingreen, Hebr. Gram., 1969, p. 1, 6.
    4. Thus, the lampstand typified the written Hebrew Scriptures, and teaches us of the divine inspiration and use of God's written Word :
      1. The word "almond" (shaqed) literally means "the waker" (Theol. Wrdbk. O. T., vol. II, p. 952), denoting the living divine inspiration of written Scripture, cf. Jeremiah 1:11-12 NIV; Hebrews 4:12:
        1. The almond tree is truly "the waker", for after losing its fall leaves, it starts to grow blossom parts so by mid-December, it has pollen grains in its buds! After a chill, warmer January and February days make the buds bloom. (waterfordnut.com/grow)
        2. So, written Scripture, typified in the almond tree, is "alive and powerful" with God's inspiration, Jer. 1:11-12 NIV; Heb. 4:12.
      2. As 1 blossom was associated with each written Hebrew letter of Moses' era, all written Scripture in the autograph manuscripts down to each letter bears God's divine inspiration, Matthew 5:18.
      3. [The complete canon is our 66-book Bible: (a) Jesus was publicly certified as Messiah and God by O. T. Prophecy, John 5:39; (b) He certified the 39-book O. T. in Matthew 23:35 (Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Matthew 23:35); (c) He certified His disciple's words in John 17:20, approving Matthew, Mark, John, 1-2 Peter, 1-2-3 John, Jude and the Revelation; (d) Peter, one of the disciples, certified Paul's 13 epistles in 2 Peter 3:15-16; (e) Paul certified Luke & so Acts via 1 Timothy 5:18; (f) Christ treated Hebrews and James as certified, alluding to their verses in Revelation 3:19-20.]
      4. The lampstand was made from one 75-pound piece of gold (Ex. 25:31, 39 NIV [ftn.]), so the Bible is a unified revelation though God used different authors in different eras to form it, Heb. 1:1-2.
      5. As the stand was made by being hammered out one-part-at-a-time (Ex. 25:31, 36), all Scripture is God-inspired since He oversaw the work of various authors in various eras, Hebr. 1:1-2; 2 Peter 1:21.
      6. The lampstand had 7 lamps, the number that typifies perfection, to show the perfection of God's written revelation, Psalm 12:6.
      7. The pure olive oil to be burned in the lamps throughout history (Ex. 27:20-21) shows the Holy Spirit's work in the inspiration and its illumination of Scripture to us today, 2 Peter 1:21; John 16:13.
      8. As the lampstand was to cast light to its front to light the table of showbread across the room from it (Ex. 25:37 NIV), the Bible is objectively inspired apart from those who expound it [at the table] versus the neothodox idea it is subjectively inspired in one's mind!
      9. All of the utensils used to service the lamps were to be made of the same 75-pound piece of gold as the lampstand (Ex. 25:39 NIV), so not only Scripture's original inspiration, but its preservation and illumination of truth today are all superintended by the same Lord!
      10. The use of the altar of incense while the lamps were being serviced evening and morning (Ex. 30:7-8) typify our response to Scripture:
        1. Revelation 8:3-4 reveals the burning of incense typifies prayer.
        2. Thus, as the incense was burned on the altar next to the vail by the Holiest of Holies, it permeated the veil to God's presence, typifying the prayer life of the upright unto God! (1 John 3:22)
        3. So, Exodus 30:7-8 teaches that upon receiving God's message from His Word, we express our response in prayer to the Lord!
  3. The ULTIMATE TRUTH revealed in the Scriptures is CHRIST:
    1. When Israel rejected written Scripture (Isaiah 8:19-22), in grace, God sent her Christ, the "Great Light", to minister in Galilee, Isa. 9:1-2, 6.
    2. Thus, Jesus is the Word of God personified (Revelation 19:11-13, 16), and all Scripture points us to Christ and exalts Him, Jn. 16:13-14!
Application: (1) May we trust in Christ for salvation, John 3:16, and (2) may we trust Scripture's divine inspiration, and (3) use it!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . . )

 The implication in Dan Brown's work, The Da Vinci Code that "Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike" (Ibid., Bock, p. 99) must be answered.

So too must Islam's charge that the Law of Moses, the Psalms of David and the Gospel of Jesus are of God but were repealed by the Koran or "corrupted" so they are unreliable. (Ibid., SIM NOW, p. 5).

We must also answer the Communist Manifesto's assertion that would deny the Bible or any other book contains God's absolute truth.

(1) Regarding the canon, Rene Pache's, The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture, 1971, p. 175 reveals: (a) "It is very remarkable that, fifty years after the death of the last apostle, there were found in the writings of defenders of the faith and also in those of heretics exact quotations from the whole New Testament (except for six or seven of the very shortest letters); both groups referred to it for their authority."

(b) Then, other religious writings appeared for 250 years after Christ that were never accepted by grassroots Christians, Ibid., p. 180.

We can only conclude that God arranged for all this to occur!

(2) As for the transmission of the Bible's text in the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek manuscripts behind the translations, (a) regarding the Old Testament record, "(v)ery few variants occur in more than one of the 200-400 manuscripts of each book of the Old Testament," Ibid., Pache, p. 190 citing R. D. Wilson, A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament, p. 69 and "The Textual Criticism of the Old Testament," The Princeton Theological Review XXVII (January 1929): 40ff.

(b) As for the New Testament, there are 24,000 manuscript copies where the second most copied ancient work, Homer's Iliad, has only 643 copies. Yet, the Iliad has 764 disputed lines in it where the New Testament has only 40, and the New Testament fares even better in this regard than do the copies of the 37 plays of 17th century William Shakespeare! (bibleevidences.com/transmission)

Yet, not one variant reading in all of the N. T. manuscripts we have touches on a doctrine that is not unanimously clarified in another passage by all of the manuscripts we have of that passage, Ibid., Pache, p. 193. God has truly preserved His written Word for us.

May we thus TRUST the DIVINE inspiration and authority of our 66-book canon of Scripture for God's blessing!