Bringing A Penknife To A Sword Fight
2 Timothy 3:16-17

Intro: A rat looked through a crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package. What food might it contain? He was aghast to discover that it was a rat trap. Retreating to the farmyard the rat proclaimed the warning; "There is a rat trap in the house, a rat trap in the house!"

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Excuse me, Mr. Rat, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it."

The rat turned to the pig and told him, "There is a rat trap in the house, a rat trap in the house!" "I am so very sorry Mr. Rat," sympathized the pig, "but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured that you are in my prayers." The rat turned to the cow. She said, "Like wow, Mr. Rat. A rat trap. I am in no grave danger. Duh?"

So the rat returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's rat trap alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house, like the sound of a rat trap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see that it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer's wife.

The farmer rushed her to the hospital. She returned home with a fever. Now everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.

His wife's sickness continued so that friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer's wife did not get well. She died, and so many people came for her funeral so the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide meat for all of them to eat.

So the next time you hear that someone is facing a problem and think that it does not concern you, remember that when there is a rat trap in the house, the whole farmyard is at risk.

OPEN: Back in the Old Testament, in the book of Jeremiah, we read an intriguing story of a Jewish King who didn’t like something God had to say. The King’s name was Jehoiakim and God had Jeremiah write down a prophecy which condemned the King and his kingdom because of the evil that King had allowed to take place. God sent a warning to Jehoiakim and the nation of Judah to repent... or else.
But instead of repenting of his sin Jehoiakim decided to show his contempt for God’s prophecy. He ordered a scribe to come into his chambers and read the prophecy in his presence. And after 3 or 4 columns of the scroll which the prophecy had been written on were read (roughly equivalent to 3 or 4 pages from a book) the King took a knife and cut off that section from the scroll, and he crumpled it up and threw it into a fire. And Jehoiakim did that with the entire scroll until the whole of the prophecy had been completely destroyed.
Jehoiakim cut out the sections of the prophecy he didn’t like... which... was pretty much all of it. And over the centuries, people have – to one degree or another – done exactly the same thing to God’s Word with their own knives.
ILLUS: For example, Thomas Jefferson created his own personalized Bible using a similar technique. Jefferson titled the finished product: “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” And what he did was, he took several copies of the Bible and literally went through the Gospels, taking a penknife and cutting out the sections of Gospels that he LIKED. Then he’d paste those sections he liked into a journal – and that became his Bible.
The parts he left out the parts were rejected because he felt those sections were “contrary to reason.” You see Jefferson was offended by the idea that God would reach down into this world and “interfere” with the affairs of men.
So, anything that smacked of a being a miracle was ‘contrary to reason.” He left out anything that spoke of God’s miraculous power. Things like:
• the feeding of the 5000
• the various healings Jesus did
• and (of course) the resurrection of Christ from the dead.
ILLUS: More recently in the 1990s, about 150 religious scholars did pretty much the same thing.
They got together in something they called the “Jesus Seminar” and voted on verses in the Gospels as to whether these verses actually spoke of true events (as opposed to stories they felt the Gospel writers had made up). They voted by the means of “colored beads”:
Red meant - yes, Jesus said or did that.
Pink: The passage sounded like it could have been Jesus.
Gray: Maybe.
Black: Definitely did not happen.
They rejected many parts of the Gospels they felt were ‘over the top. For example, they rejected things like
• the passage where Jesus said: "I am the way, and I am the truth, and I am life". They felt it was “too exclusive”. The very idea that Jesus would say that there was no way unto the Father except by Him was offensive to them.
• And they rejected Jesus’ parable about the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25 as being too judgmental.
• And, of course, they rejected the resurrection of Jesus from the dead as being too outlandish to be believed.
Now, why would they do that?
Why would these scholars (and Jefferson) cut away so much of the Bible?
Very simple: they did not believe ALL SCRIPTURE was God breathed.
They believed the Bible was a man-made document filled with errors and made-up stories.
A “SO-CALLED” religious scholar stated “if you press a skeptic to name just 5 errors in the Bible... they can’t.
Now, by contrast, back in 2007 the “San Antonio Express-News” reported that reviewers of upcoming math textbooks for that year found 109,263 errors in books being purchased for Texas schools. One 2nd-grade math book, for example, had 4 plus 7 equaling 10. Pretty sure that wasn’t right.
Now, my point is this: The Bible is an extremely accurate book. And in spite of the constant attacks of skeptics down thru the ages, it remains the best-selling book in the world. And the Bible has lasted as long as it has because it is a GOD BREATHED document.
God literally wrote the thing. Or actually... you could say He “ghost wrote” the Bible.
ILLUS: You know what ghost writing is? That’s when a celebrity pays a good writer to write a book in their name. The book is named for the celebrity, but their book was actually carried by the ghost writer. James Patterson does a lot of this.
And that is just what happened with Scripture.
The KJV version of 2 Peter 1:21 says: “... prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved (carried) by the Holy GHOST.”
Did you catch that?
The Holy Ghost (Spirit) was a “ghost writer” of the Scriptures.
• Isaiah may have had his name on the book, but it was the Spirit that carried him along.
• Matthew may have written the Gospel, but it was the Spirit that ghost-wrote his book.
• Paul may have written letters to the churches, but it was the Spirit that dictated the words.
And that’s actually what Paul claimed happened even when he spoke: “This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.” 1 Corinthians 2:13
But Paul told Timothy, the proof of the pudding was in what Scripture was capable of doing in the lives of those who read were instructed by it: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be THOROUGHLY EQUIPPED for every good work.” As II Timothy 3:16-17
The Bible has the power to transform us and remake us even better than before.
David put it this way:
“Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me.
I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes” Psalm 119:98-99
The Bible can make me wiser than my enemies and smarter than my teachers? How can it do that?
A philosopher by the name of Vishal Mangalwadi recently wrote a book called “The Book That Made Your World”. He noted that whether you talk about politics or science, education or technology, the Bible was the key that unlocked the Western mind. He found that it was the biblical notion of human dignity that formed the social structure of western nations like the U.S. That the Bible created a fertile ground for women to find social and economic empowerment. That Scripture uniquely equipped Western culture to cultivate compassion, human rights, prosperity, and strong families. And that it shaped our very concept of education and science.
Take Isaac Newton for example. He made major contributions to mathematics, optics, physics, & astronomy. He discovered the law of gravitation, formulated the basic laws of motion. He developed calculus, and he analyzed the nature of white light. I can’t even understand half the things that he discovered.
But behind all of his science was the conviction he learned from the Bible that God had made the universe and that He’d made it according to a mathematical structure. And that God had gifted human beings with ability to understand that structure
Then there was Robert Boyle – the father of modern chemistry. He agreed with Newton. Because of what Boyle had read in the Bible he looked at that the universe as being filled with an extreme degree of orderliness. He saw this was true because God ordained laws that guided everything in our world. And Boyle believed it was the scientist's duty to discover what laws God had established.
Then there was Johann Kepler. His 3 laws for planetary motion are the basis for our understanding of the solar system today and they have shaped how astronomers - even to this day - view the heavens. Kepler believed that there was a mathematical precision and orderliness in the universe; and that the scientist's duty was to discover what mathematical formula God had used.
Because of what he’d learned from the Bible, Kepler believed that God had created the world according to an intelligent plan and that that plan could be understood thru observation and reason. In fact, he’d read in Scripture that God encouraged the heathen to look carefully at creation so that they might come to know God. So Kepler strove to prove the greatness and majesty of creation, so that mankind could have a deeper & more powerful worship of their creator.
My Point Is This:
These men didn’t just become wiser than their teachers. They BECAME our teachers.
Their research formed the foundation of much of what we call science.
And they formed that foundation because of their belief in the God of the Bible.
These men believed this because they believed that ALL Scripture was God-breathed was useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Scripture changes people.
And it even changes civilizations - because God has given it the power to do that.
when the Bible is taken seriously nations change, cultures change, and people change. The Bible is the Good News that transforms all of this. In fact, that’s what the word “Gospel” means: “good news.” The Gospel message is full of God’s grace and God’s forgiveness.
But if the Bible is “good news” why would anyone want to cut out parts of it? Well, folks cut away things from the Bible because the Bible isn’t ALL good news.
Some of the Bible is BAD NEWS for many people.
Just like the judgment on Jehoiakim (we talked about at the beginning of the sermon) the Bible has words of condemnation and words of warning of God’s impending judgment. God tells people “you can’t always do what you want to do, because certain things are NOT acceptable. And if you do those things... there will be consequences.”
For example: I Corinthians says “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-10
People who live these kinds of lives (or who approve those lifestyles) squirm when they words like that. This is NOT good news to them. That’s not what they want to hear.
So they’ll either avoid God’s word (by NOT reading it/ or NOT going to church) or they’ll try to find a church that will tickle their ears. Or they’ll even cut out the Scriptures that make them uncomfortable.
These theologians rejected any authority in the Bible except the things Jesus said (and even some of that they doubted). But everything else – things in the Old Testament and most of the New – were optional. Even letters written by Paul or Peter or John... didn’t make the cut.
And I use that term “cut” deliberately, because these Red Letter “Christians” are essentially heretics who have gotten out their penknives to cut away at God’s word– just like Jehoiakim did.
Now, that’s a dangerous thing to do.
Peter warned the Christians of his day about messing with Paul’s writings
II Peter 3:15-17 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. (Paul’s) letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position.”
Peter was warning the Christians of his day (and he was warning us)
• stay away from these men with penknives.
• don’t listen to these folks because they’ll drag you away from Jesus.
Peter described them as ignorant, unstable people... lawless men who will be destroyed. And that’s exactly what happened to Jehoiakim.
God destroyed him.
God told Jeremiah that Jehoiakim’s “...body will be thrown out and exposed to the heat by day and the frost by night. I will punish him and his children and his attendants for their wickedness; I will bring on them and those living in Jerusalem and the people of Judah every disaster I pronounced against them, because they have not listened.” Jeremiah 36:30-31
That’s NOT good news.
When men like Jehoiakim bring penknives to a fight with the Bible (the Sword of the Spirit) they’re bound to lose. And that makes sense if you think about it. If you had a choice of fighting with a penknife of a sword... which weapon would you chose?
And these folks have already lost. God says they will be destroyed. But even worse - the people who listen to them will suffer.
And that’s bad news.
But notice WHY God brought judgment on Jehoiakim and all Judah – they “have not listened.” They refused to love the truth and so be saved.
That’s why we need to be committed to standing firm with the Bible. We do nobody any favors by trying to water down the warnings and judgments of Scripture.
ILLUS: There was once a fiery preacher who often spoke on the subject of sin. He minced no words, but defined sin as "that abominable thing that God hates."
Some of the members of in his congregation came to him and urged him to tone down his sermons. They said: "We wish you would not speak so plainly about sin. Call it something else. Call it an 'inhibition,' or 'an error' or a 'mistake,' or even 'a twist in our nature.'"
"Oh," replied the preacher, "I think I know what you mean. Come with me."
He took them down to the church kitchen, reached under the sink and drew out a bottle of cleaning liquid which had a skull and cross bones on it.
"What you would have me do is put another label on this bottle. You’d want me to not call it poison, but something more pleasant... like lemonade.
But that’s not going to happen. When God calls something sin, evil, depraved or an abomination, I will call it by no other name."
The Bible is “Good News”
But there is poison in this world that the many want to pretend won’t hurt us.
God can not give us the good news of Christ’s love and salvation if we ignore the dangers of those poisons.
But if we LISTEN to God - if we realize that God saved us to avoid sin - then the good news is that He will change our lives.
Remember we read I Corinthians earlier: “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor thieves nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-10
That’s bad news.
But in the next verse Paul tells us the GOOD NEWS:
“And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” 1 Corinthians 6:11

Based on a sermon given
By Jeff Strite