The Word of Truth

The word of Truth
II Timothy 3:14-16
August 23, 2026

Paul has been writing to his son in the faith, Timothy, from prison, giving him final direction, exhorting him to stand strong and to teach the church the important things. One of those is to be grounded in and to continue in the truths he has been taught.

We see that Timothy  from childhood has been schooled in the sacred writings of the scripture. This is very powerful and important, because Paul says that it is the study of scripture that gives wisdom  that leads to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

This is critically important today. In today’s culture, truth is relative. Biblical truths, values and principles formed the bedrock of society thousands of years. Whether people adhered to it or not, it was still widely accepted as truth.

With the founding of America, history shows that 98% of people considered themselves Christian and morality influenced by the direction of the word.

Today, the word itself is under attack. People with rebellious hearts try to find any way to discredit the Bible. The enemy, Satan, is the father of lies and he uses lies, half-truths, and subversion to sow doubt, and through that erode the bedrock of truth people need to build their lives on.

Ironically, many who want to destroy the authority of the word, then find themselves lost without  a solid foundation of truth to build on. One soon finds out that without absolute truth, life quickly becomes very messy and destructive.

In the confusion of this age, how would we know the right way to go? 

Illus: Many of you might have seen the new movie, The Odyssey. While watching this it reminded me of how perilous the ocean was to cross in those times. You never knew where the currents or the winds might take you. You never knew when the storms would come and how long it would last. It might take a year or more just to get home from where you were, not knowing if there would be enough water and food for the journey ahead.

This is a metaphor for  the paramount importance of the Word of God in our lives. With no true north, a person—and, by wider application, society—is like a rudderless ship lost on an ocean of hopelessness. Souls get lost. There is no food, no water, no sustenance.

We need a true north, the compass of the Word. Why? So that the man of God will be equipped for every good work. We need the word to build our lives here on earth on, and to reach our eternal destination with God.

But for that, we need to have an unshakable confidence in the word, knowing it is from God, more than just another book. Many now don’t take for granted that the word is the truth. Many have asked me: How do I know the word is true and why is  different from all the other religious writings?

Tonight we are going to look at some evidences to strengthen faith in that regard.

I. Become Convinced of the Truth

• For us to live effectively, we need to find our true north. How do we know what is right and wrong? How do we sidestep the traps of these perilous times? We do so through the Word of God.

A. The Scripture Points to Christ

• Paul points Timothy to his upbringing. We know that Paul was a student of Scriptures, and here he also points to Timothy as a student of the Scriptures.

• Naturally, the Scriptures he speaks of here are not the New Testament. Remember, the New Testament had not yet been canonized, and Paul’s letters had not yet been bound into a single book. Paul was referring to the Old Testament.

• Yet he says that these sacred writings are able to give you wisdom. Not only that, they also lead to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Here Paul makes it clear: if you truly study the Old Testament, you will find Jesus.

• Everything points to Him. We see that you can glean wisdom from the Old Testament, but the truest wisdom you find is that salvation is available through faith in Jesus Christ.

B. Jesus Confirmed the Authenticity of the Old Testament

• The inerrancy and inspiration of the Old Testament is a very deep study, and if one studies it, you find that it is God breathed and every word and letter is there by design.

• Jesus in His teachings confirmed the validity of the Old Testament.

Matthew 5:17-18,  “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. (jot or tittle)

• Here Jesus validated the Law and the Prophets, and even said that every jot is important. The jot is the smallest Hebrew letter that looks like an apostrophe.

Illus – We know that just changing one letter can change the meaning of a word. ‘Couch’ and become ‘cough’ with one change, and ‘rough’ with one more. Even an apostrophe can change the meaning of a whole sentence.

• God is very serious about His word and we should treat it with respect, because to dilute it has disastrous consequences. The Jewish scribes meticulously copied the sacred scriptures because God was so serious about His holy word.

• This also shows that Jesus backed the fact that the word is more than just a general vague book of ideas. To view it this way it can later become a book about the general narrative, which then leads to seeing the Bible as a figurative guideline.

• For example, God called marriage a union between a man and a woman, not just an idea of relationship between any consenting adults.

• Interestingly, Jesus confirmed the historical validity of the biblical accounts that are attacked most today. A physical Adam and Eve, not just a figurative concept, Jonah and the fish, Noah and the flood. It amazes me how Jesus spoke these specific instances that would be attacked thousands of years later.

• Jesus also quoted directly from Genesis 1 and 2, thereby confirming the text of biblical creation, as well as teaching about the Sabbath modelled on the creation week.

C. History Confirms the Old Testament

• The Old Testament also confirms itself as it is tested by acceptance of Jewish teachers through thousands of years and the prophets which is confirmed by prophecies that has come to pass, and thereby also pointing to prophecies that will still come to pass.

• When scientific or research ‘evidence’ clashes with the Bible, we hold the opinion that science or research just hasn’t caught up with the Bible yet, which there are many examples of.
• For example, archaeology that only in the last century proved and now keeps proving the historical truth of the Bible as new discoveries are made, which were denied previously because evidence has not yet been discovered.

• Even scientific discoveries the Bible speaks of the we have not had the tools until recently to observe.

• Examples of these are that the universe had a beginning, the earth being round, that blood is essential for life, and even the water cycle mentioned in Job, seen as one of the oldest books in the Bible.

• So instead of jumping to the conclusion that the Bible must be wrong, we see the Bible as the ultimate authority and that everything else just has to catch up.

D. Other interesting discoveries 

• Another interesting study is the study of biblical code. Although we don’t base our faith on it, it is very interesting that there is a definite correlation between the spacing sequence of letters that shows a grand design that is impossible for the best supercomputers, let alone humans to replicate.

Illus – Rabbi Moses Cordevaro, in the 16^th century said, “The secrets of the Torah are revealed…in the skipping of the letters.” Using equidistant letter sequence, we discover interesting examples.

Example 1: Torah in Hebrew is spelled “TORH”. Looking at Genesis 1 in original Hebrew. The using the square root of 7 ( 49), From the first “T”, count 49 letters, come to a “O”, 49 more the “R”, 49 more to “H”. Exodus, same thing.  In Leviticus, it doesn’t happen. 

Numbers, it happens but Torah is spelled backwards. HROT. Deuteronomy, same thing happens. 

Go back to Leviticus and look more closely.  Every 7^th letter spells the unpronounceable name of God, YHWY. We see the TORAH always point to the name of God. To try and design this, would be a great challenge, especially if you still want to contain logic in the text. 

Example 2: The genealogy from Juda to David is encrypted in Genesis 38 at 49 letter intervals. This chapter was written long before they were even born.

Example 3: Another great example is that the gospel message is ‘hidden’ in the genealogy following Adam in the Torah. Genesis 5. 

Adam         – Man (is)

Seth            – Appointed

Enosh         – Mortal

Kenan         – Sorrow (but)

Mahalalel   – The blessed God

Jared          – Shall come Down

Enoch         – Teaching

Methuselah – His death shall bring

Lamech      – The despairing

Noah          – Comfort, Rest

• It is so incredible that skeptics say it had to be planted by later writers. There is no way you can make a convincing argument that Jewish Rabbi’s, who, by the way did NOT believe in Jesus, planted in code the gospel message, and that thousands of years before Jesus fulfilled it.

• There are many, many examples of this. These are “fingerprints” of the Holy Spirit pointing to the supernatural origin of the Bible.

II. The New Testament Authenticity

• But what about the New Testament? There are a few criteria of why the New Testament has authority as being God’s word. Without going into too deep a study, I want to highlight a few of these.

A. There was a strict criteria to be accepted

• Firstly, to be part of the New Testament, a book or letter had to have Apostolic Origin or connection, meaning written by an original apostle, close associate, or original eye witness.

• Jesus gave His disciples this command:

Matthew 28:20, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

• They had the commission and mandate to teach the gospel, good news of Jesus, which they also did through writings.

• Paul, we know, was then called by Jesus as an apostle to the gentiles, whom God used to, from the original Hebrew scriptures, point to Christ and teach the gentiles about Jesus.

• There is also a very important scripture where Peter confirms Paul’s writings as inspired scripture as he equates it to Old Testament

2 Peter 3:15-16,  … just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

• Interestingly, here we see that Peter and the apostles, even in their time while the authors were still alive, had to deal with people distorting their words and it led to the destruction of people’s faith. This still happens with the word today.

• This is one of the important reasons why we need to know the scripture in the context of the full counsel of God, and not lean on “spiritual revelation” or human thought directions alone.

Illus – Having been in ministry for many years, one regularly has people say that God told them to do something. This is fine, as long as it is aligned with God’s word. Otherwise, it is just their own appetites and thoughts that are leading them astray.

• God gave us the word as a definitive authority to measure all other truths by. 

• Another qualification was that the books had to show internal evidence of their inspiration.

2 Peter 1:20, But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. 

• Then it also had to have been written in the apostolic period, when the original apostles were alive.

• Another criteria were that the theological content had to align with the teachings of Jesus and the apostolic traditions in the church. It also had to be widely accepted by the early church as from authoritative authors.

• Books that contained ideas contradicting accepted Christian doctrine, such as early Gnostic texts or teachings denying the humanity or divinity of Jesus were rejected.

B. Trust the whole word

• We hold to the fact that God superintended the human authors of the Bibe so that they composed and recorded without error His message to mankind in the words of their original writings. They were active writers guarded by God to write the Bible accurately without error.

• The evidences are overwhelming and a thorough study would take too long, but suffice to say that, as Christians, it is crucial for us to see the Old and New Testament as the God breathed, inerrant inspired word of God and to not be swayed by the confusion of this age.

C. Build your life on this word 

• After all this evidence, every person still has a choice. One can view this word as a good book with good ideas, but it demands to be more than this.

• Every person must choose what they make of this book, and your decision will have eternal consequences.

• Why? because Paul says that it is able to give you wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Jesus Christ.

• This will be the foundation of your faith life. Without it, your foundation will be very fragile.

• But with it as foundation you will be able to stand in troubled times that are coming.

• It has to become a deep, personal conviction. Study it, chase it down, build the evidences in your heart until you can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that your faith is grounded in the word of God.

Illus – Seeking Alah, Finding Jesus – Nabeel Queresh