God’s Basic Design (Part 1 of 2)

You believe the Bible has absolute authority today on Truth for Life Alastair big explains why your answer to this question will significantly change every aspect of your faith and your life.

Alastair begins a series today titled God's design for women stick our Bibles and turn to the book of Psalms 739 Lord you searched me and you know me you know when I sit and when I rise you perceive my thoughts from afar you discern my going out and my lying down.

You are familiar with all my ways before a word is on my tongue. You know it completely Lord you have me in behind and before you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain where can I go from your spirit. Where can I flee from your presence. If I go up to the heavens you are there. If I make my bed in the depths you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me your right hand will hold me fast if I say, surely the darkness will hide me in the light become night around me even the darkness will not be dark to you. The night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you, for you created my inmost being unit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place when I was woven together in the depths of the air. Your eyes saw my unformed body all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be and then he says how precious to me are your thoughts regarding how fast is the sum of them were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand and when I wake. I'm still with you. We thank God for his word and we look to him to help us as we study it together. I want to be very honest, when I was thinking about this day think about it in very different terms before I began to give myself to a properly last weekend I was in Toledo and I had to address some issues they are in relationship to men. And as I thought about what was going on in that context, and then imagine this week and look forward to today. I was thinking I think really very badly and quite wrongly.

By way of confession, which is good for the soul, I think, quite honestly, and this is a dreadful thing to admit, especially with you all here, but I mean I might as well I was thinking in the last week was in all mail and a lot different in terms of the way that one would have to cochaired and when I got to the more cozy opportunity of the women.

The following Saturday. I could relax a little more, perhaps, in preparation, I may be able to approach the material a little differently. After all, and so on and so on and in the midst of all that I said Mr. you just flat out wrong. I mean you're thinking completely wrongly and so then after I walked around the room a few times and began to think as properly as I could.

I determined that I would do what about to do. I have to think if you if you left your brains anywhere outside go out and get them and bring them back in because I want to feel very much to your minds and to encourage you to think along these lines. After all, the title that is been given to the event is pretty straightforward. God's design for women, so we know that it is to be about God. We know that it is to be about design and we know that it is to be about women and since it is about God in the first place. It is surely appropriate that our text for all of our deliberations should be God's word, the Bible and having read from the Bible and having made this statement by way of introduction, I want immediately to pause purposefully and talk to you about why it is that we would ever use the Bible as the source of our deliberations today starting their purposefully and actually staying there directly. The reason that we do so is because we believe that basic to all our understanding of Christian truth is God's revelation of himself and his will. In other words, the Bible speaks to us about the truths of Christianity truths to which we come not as a result of our human discovery of God, but truths to which we come as a result of God's disclosure of himself and disclosure that he is made uniquely in the Old Testament and in the New Testament God has made himself known in a number of ways in our humanity, we have a sense of moral rightness and wrongness which is the standard's handiwork when we look at the leaves falling to the ground and recognize again that in every good opportunity and we recognize that in the order of creation God has made himself known. We may not have given much thought to the fact that here in the pages of Scripture.

He has made himself known uniquely. Of course he has made himself known. Ultimately, finally, seemingly in the incarnation of his son the Lord Jesus Christ and so I come to you today to address the subject on the conviction that the Bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament is inspired by God. The word actually means that God breathed it out and therefore his words in the same way that our words speak to who we are and what we believe funds in the measure our authority and our character. The word of God as we have it in the Bible speaks to his character. It is authoritative. It is permanent and it is sufficient and we believe that God knew in the putting together of the Bible. All of the needs of men and women throughout all of the centuries, so that, although it in the 21st century and removed by a long way from the material that were going to consider today.

Nevertheless, we discover that it has an immediate impact because of who the author is.

And because God made in both the writings and the readers.

Now of course there be some who say well I understand so far what you're saying. It isn't ultimately the acceptance of the authority of the Bible simply in the last analysis, an act of faith and the answer is yes it is but it is an act of faith that is not contrary to reason people sick but that's just an act of faith what they have in mind is that somehow or another faith involves leaping into oblivion.

Faith involves the disengaging of our thought processes.

Faith involves some other mechanism in our lives, but important to fight when the Bible speaks about faith.

It speaks of it, not in antagonism to our rationality and in the final analysis. When we think about the Bible itself all about authority for believing it is ultimately in the Lord Jesus Christ himself that when God raised Jesus from the dead he was. If you like unconditionally validating who Jesus was. What Jesus did and what Jesus said in the remarkable thing about this Jesus is that although he is if you like outside of the Old Testament. Still, everything that he says references the word of God.

He's constantly quoting the Bible and he is validating retrospectively the Old Testament and Isaac was one of the things that an individual when they begin to get serious about thinking about who Jesus is and why he came one of the remarkable things is when you read the Old Testament and then you follow the life of Christ say how in the world did an individual managed to approximate so closely to all these things that were written hundreds of years before he arrived. And of course he was also validating prospectively all that then would be written about in in the New Testament in the Gospels and in the story of a developing church in the act and the letters that were written in the first century or so, and finally in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. Looking forward to this. Jesus now all of that to say this, Jesus is the grand theme of the Bible.

He is if you like the focal point of the picture on the very good pictures are not very good at are tall and fight.

Perspective is something that that passed me by. I was absent on the day to get out perspective in in terms of those lying drawing but shows good night and so she's able to say to make known, or if you look at it in this way then you will see exactly what's going on and if you look at your Bible. If you look at yourself. If you look at the issue of womanhood separate from Jesus, then it is impossible to get it right, you may be here today and years and years of zigzags anything in eyes I might as well close with my eyes when it comes to the Bible, believe one shot and leave one open so long.

But the amazing thing is this the very faith that is involved in accepting the authority of God's word comes by means of God's work in the Scriptures are described to us as being the word of Christ. Therefore what the Bible says the Lord Jesus is the head of the church says the Lord Jesus speaks to us today, not by the contemporary utterances of inspired individuals, but he speaks to us by the teaching and application of the inspired Scriptures understand the distinction so we don't run around looking for inspired men or inspired women. We actually would want to look for men and women who are committed to the inspired Bible so that we need and being sensible women would be able to examine the Scriptures and see whether what is being said by the teacher is actually confirmed, and ratified in the Bible that has to do with a picture of womanhood away that it has to do with the nature of marriage or whether it has to do with our involvement in the local church, whatever it may be our dependence is not on the utterances of inspired individuals, but our dependence is upon the instruction and application of the inspired Scriptures over the years there with me and haven't already said your mind. I should have had a 2nd cup of coffee. I'm trying to explain to you why this is so very important.

Until you accept the authority of the Bible and I can give you are. This is not the is is not a conference on the authority and sufficiency of the Bible. But until you accept the authority of the Bible you will not defend our student, you will not do what it says and saw the issue of where we starting from in addressing the subject is a crucial issue. So is this Bible authoritative is this word of Christ, the head of the church to be obeyed and army to defend or to its whether it is palatable or not, are we to do what it says. Whether we like it or not, are we to obey it when it runs absolutely contrary to contemporary culture.

The Bible must always be given the last word on any subject to somebody you know is possible to misinterpret the Bible is, of course, it is we may misinterpret the Bible, frankly, because were ignorant.

We just don't know really anything about it at all and so we say silly things about it or we may misinterpret the Bible because we just pick agreements out of the Bible and we don't pay any attention to the context in which it said. We may also misinterpret the Bible because of our own prejudices we find in the Bible that we want to find in the Bible so we go to it and we find it and then we sits there and none of us are free from the potential for the house and we make sure that that doesn't happen. Well, I think if we study the Bible properly. We understand that there are certain things that are perfectly plain and clear. Those are the main things over which there is really no debate at all.

Nobody is concerned, to argue about them.

There are other things where the Bible is not as clear and is not as plain. So on the plane clear things we need to be playing really clear on the issues where there is not the same clarity secondary issues we need to make sure that we are not dogmatic and necessary and bombastic and domineering and understand God's design.

How do we know about God in the Bible. How do we know that is designed in the Bible.

While I don't want to lose somebody in the very first 10 minutes so I don't frankly then to the Bible at all. If I'd known I was there. Sorry, I would've gotten. I thought it was some guy in a principles from out there you know how proud to cross whoever that character is some great ideas some insights. I need insights not only the Bible is gracious of you can see the house which I can't, you know, I need 10 principles here. I need pointers I need help help me start this Bible stuff. Listen ladies if you stay with me. I with gods help them want to show you that this is exactly what we all need is exactly what we need and it is an illusion to think that we can address this sense of need that we have by simply reaching out for practical pointers to be implement until we are convicted and convinced that God has a legitimate right to rule that God has a legitimate right to speak that God has spoken with in his word, and therefore that he gets the last word on every subject, we will not be able to make the progress that will require now we can go and illustrate this, we want take the time to do it. Of example, when Jesus in Mark chapter 10 is asked a question on the subject of divorce. Your remember how he answers it answers it by going right back to Genesis chapter 1 in Genesis chapter 2. Do you not know. He says that God made them in the beginning male and female that they became 1/so we have the revelation of Scripture sent over and the guests. The investigation and the confusion of men and women in the 1940s mine by the name of Hendrik van loon.

He wrote a book entitled the story of mankind, and he began his history of the world with these words, we live under the shadow of a gigantic? Who are we, where did we come from weather are we bound slowly but with persistent courage. We have been pushing this? Farther and farther towards that distant line beyond the horizon where we hope to find our answer. We have not gone very far out whether we are male or female.

Today those ultimate questions are the questions. Are you just a bunch of chemicals in suspension do you emerge from plankton suit because if you do then, frankly, the issues of how well I'm doing in my femininity, how well I'm doing in fulfilling the role of single woman nor maternal provider is marginal at best and probably totally irrelevant.

So you see, until we address this most foundational issue about which the psalmist writes in Psalm 139 about the very nature of our creation and what God has done, then the other questions which are very important questions are in need of being left on the sign out. You don't have to look far to find that there is a difference between the revelation of the Bible in the investigation of that, the New York Times and its health and fitness section actually in the science times and then the subsection health and fitness had a review entitled on being male, female, neither or both and I can read the article and is used by way of illustration about anyone quote from it until the turn-of-the-century doctor my out of its rights. Gender was defined through a binary taxonomy of opposites, i.e. people were either male or female writing you to say that because you know I and in a circuit is pointed, but in the late 19th century, Sigmund Freud, the German psychiatrist Richard Vaughn craft ebbing and Wilhelm flights, a German physician began putting forth the notion that humans are inherently bisexual, and that sexuality existed on a continuing between male and female in 1910, a girl in physician, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld published a pioneering work on transsexuality and articulated a relatively new modern definition of gender quotes absolute representatives.

All of their sex are, he wrote only abstractions invented extremes so the idea of sexuality as it is propounded here and I'm going to show to you in Genesis 1 and two and the notion that emerges out of the early days of the 20th century in German psychiatry, in which spills over the Atlantic into contemporary thought. These two notions could not be farther apart they are not bad fellows. They do not live together. You cannot marriage them. Okay which is why I'm saying to you what I'm saying unless you are convinced of the authority of the Bible than when you take your New York Times on I choose the morning and read this you are going to be immediately at sea and running down the street, sink my what I might wear it on my own. The continuing my mail on my female what in the world but if you have accepted the authority of the Bible and you believe that God gets the last word on every subject, then you don't disengage your brain. You interact with the material you think it out in light all what you know as having been revealed by the creator God and there's all the difference in the world the right starting place the right foundation for our walk with Jesus is to be convinced of the Bible's authority and sufficiency listing the Truth for Life with Alister, you should know the Truth for Life we hear from listeners all across the globe, even from places that are hostile to the gospel. People tell us this program is a much-needed source of strength and encouragement when you sign up to be a truthful life, truth, partner to make a monthly gift to the ministry of Truth for Life. Your giving goes directly to the distribution of Alister's teaching as a true partner. Your prayers and your giving help make a real difference in someone's life. You can sign up to become a true partner the Truth for Life.org/true partner or give us a call at 88858878 when you do will say thank you each month by inviting you to request both of our featured books for no additional donation being approved. Partner is a great way to share the gospel while building a wonderful library for yourself for having books to give away to others.

Today we are encouraging you to get a copy of Nancy Guthrie's book saints and scoundrels. This book takes an intriguing look at the encounters that people in the Gospels have with Jesus you get a fresh look in the work shaped and motivated people like John the Baptist, Judas, Barabbas and Stephen sure to request saints and scoundrels. When you sign up to become a true partner can also request the book when you give a one time donation. Just click the picture in the app visit Truth for Life.org/about looking hope you enjoy your weekend and are able to worship with your local church. Be sure to listen Monday we will consider what your favorite uncle they resemble a certain animal at the zoo.

The Bible teaching of Alister Beck is furnished by Truth for Life with the Learning is for Living