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     Greetings on this Lord’s Day morning and Welcome to the Berean Break.  My name is George A. Sinkie and and I am the speaker for this program.  But I am not the authority for what is said here, that authority rests completely with the word of God.  I had an interesting discussion with a gentleman one day.  The problem was, that he did not want to use what the Bible teaches as the authority and so there was very little hope of helping him to learn and apply truth into his life.  Before I share with you some of his comments (and he encouraged me to use our discussion on this program), let’s go to God in prayer:

Great God in heaven, Thank You for this day in our lives, And for the many blessings that You give to us.  Help us today to be Your disciples, And seek to find out Your will.  And not only to seek Your will, But to apply that will into our lives.  Thank You for Jesus, And the salvation that we can have through Him.  In Jesus’ Name !!  AMEN!!

     Before I go into the comments that this gentleman made, I want to assure you that we talked about me using our discussion on my radio program.  I want to also assure you that when you call up with a question, IT WILL NOT BE MADE PUBLIC THAT YOU CALLED TO TALK TO ME without your permission.  It was obvious that this man had studied some parts of the Bible and he was trying to base his life on his study.  The trouble is he had not learned what the Bible was teaching in those verses.  He is a prime example of what Paul was speaking of, when he wrote, 2 Timothy 2:15, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth.”
     I believe that this man gave study to the word of God but he missed out on what this verse says.  Three things are pointed out here:  (1) “present yourself approved to God”; (2) “no need to be ashamed”; and (3) “handling accurately the word of truth.”  This gentleman did none of these three things.
     A side note for part of what he was saying and I hope that I don’t lose you with this, because it is pretty complicated.  He went to several verses in Jeremiah, where Jeremiah is instructing the Jews that they need to repent of having left the will of God.  And then tried to say that this was because they were not taking care of the Garden as God had commanded.  (Now in reality Jeremiah is dealing with the Jews who were under the Law of Moses.) Then he was trying to say that we were wrong to use the big equipment used on farms today, That we need to follow the command to Adam and each one of us needs to work our own little garden with a shovel and a rake and a hoe.  And then he was saying that we are wrong to use the soybean because there is a parasite in it that makes it sweet and when we eat the soybean we get this parasite in us, and that parasite is the offspring of Satan.
     As I said I hope I don’t lose you with that, but just remember this is not at all what God is really teaching from these verses.  These things are not what I want to talk to you about today though, if you have trouble seeing how these things are not the will of God, let me know and I will show you from the word of God that these things are false.

     The point that I want to talk about this morning deals with something more basic.  While there are many who struggle with how to understand the word of God as we have looked at, there are also those who struggle with the question “what is the word of God?”
     This man seemed to become very angry when I would not accept the Book of Wisdom as being a part of the Bible.  Now you may be wondering about this Book of Wisdom, it just doesn’t sound familiar.  The reason for this is that it is a part of a group of books called the Apocrypha.
     My wife asked me one day about a book called Sirach, which is one of the apocryphal books.  Apocrypha means “hard to understand” or “hidden.”  And there are usually 14 or 15 books in this group.  Varying numbers of these are accepted by various groups.  All of the ones we will deal with today are additions to the word of God that are added to the Old Testament.  Sometimes they are added as entirely new books or combined with other apocryphal writings or sometimes they are added as extra verses or chapters to books of the Bible.
     Today we will briefly consider five fundamental points for why these books are not part of the Scriptures.  I will be using some quotes from these apocryphal books so that you will be able to consider these points.

     First, some of the teaching from these books is unbiblical or heretical.  In a book called 2 Maccabees in 12:45, it says, “And also in that he perceived that there was great favour laid up for those that died godly, it was an holy and good thought.  Whereupon he made a reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin.”
     What this verse is saying is that to make reconciliation for the dead, (that means to pray for them) will deliver them from sin.  Compare that with what the inspired word of God teaches in Hebrews 9:27, “And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,”
     No praying for, or changing the dead person’s relationship with God is seen in the word of God.  This point is even clearer in the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus as recorded by inspiration of God in Luke 16:25-26, ‘“But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony.  And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, in order that those who wish to come over from here to you may not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.’”’
     Any teaching that is contrary to the Scriptures is false teaching, whether it is in the Apocrypha or supposedly from angels or from a man called the Pope.
     Another point to be made is from this Book of Wisdom that this man was trying to defend.  Listen to Wisdom of Solomon 11:17, “For thy Almighty hand, that made the world of matter without form, wanted not means to send among them a multitude of bears, or fierce lions,”
     Where it says, “made the world of matter,” it is teaching creation out of pre-existing matter, but the inspired word of God teaches that creation is ex nihilo, which means out of nothing.  We read this in John 1:1-3, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”

     The second problem with the Apocrypha is that it is extra-biblical and fanciful.  In the book called Bel and the Dragon there are two stories concerning Daniel.  They are told with great imagination and yet the way they are written shows that they are just that — imagination.  Now the Bible, by inspiration of God does record some amazing and wonder-filled events, but the Apocrypha stories lack the authenticity of God.

     The third thing that shows the Apocrypha was not from the mind of God is that it teaches sub-biblical and at times even immoral things.  The book of Judith is about a devout Jewish widow who offers herself to a Babylonian general and then kills him.  Listen to what this supposedly devout Jewess prays in Judith 9:12-13, “I pray thee, I pray thee, O God of my father, and God of the inheritance of Israel, Lord of the heavens and earth, Creator of the waters, King of every creature, hear thou my prayer:  And make my speech and deceit to be their wound and stripe, who have purposed cruel things against thy covenant, and thy hallowed house, and against the top of Sion, and against the house of the possession of thy children.”
     The story abounds with lies and in it all it is portrayed as being the “will of God” and with His help.  The inspired word of God is very clear about God’s attitude toward lies.  Hebrews 6:18, “in order that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have strong encouragement, we who have fled for refuge in laying hold of the hope set before us.”
     God has never and will never encourage or accept lying.  It is easy to see how one religious group that accepts these writings has a doctrine called Mental Reservation, which basically teaches that if their religion will be promoted by lying then it is OK to lie.  It is easy to see that a religion like that is a false religion… not the truth of the Bible.  It has been said that both Ecclesiasticus (not to be confused with the inspired book of Ecclesiastes) and the Book of Wisdom teach a morality of expedience.  That means that truth can change depending on the situation.  But the truth from God’s word is absolute, it does not change with the situation.
     Another way that the Apocrypha is sub-biblical is that there are geological, chronological, and historical errors that abound in them.  These same claims have been made by skeptics concerning the Bible, but archeology has eventually proven the accuracy of the Bible.

     The fourth problem with the Apocrypha deals with the time of the writing.  The inspired writers of the Old Testament wrote over a period of many years and then with the writing of Malachi, in about 400 BC, inspired writing stopped.  Part of what Malachi wrote was that God would send His messenger to prepare the way and that he as Elijah.  From the writings of the gospels we see that both of these prophecies were written about John the Baptist.  Most of the Apocrypha was written between the time of Malachi and the coming of John the Baptist, and so it falls within this time of silence from God.

     These four points prove clearly that the Apocrypha was not from God.  But there is a fifth point that carries a lot of weight in this study of what is the word of God.  Many Jewish writers did not accept them as inspired by God.  These included Jewish philosophers, Jewish historians, and Jewish scholars.  But of even greater importance than these is the fact that neither Jesus, Himself, nor any of the inspired writers of the New Testament, ever once quote from the Apocrypha.  They quote from almost every one of the inspired books of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha was available to them but they don’t use it.

     And so to summarize… there are five strikes against the Apocrypha.  (1) It is unbiblical or heretical.  (2) It is extra-biblical or imaginary and fanciful.  (3) It is sub-biblical, and sometimes even immoral.  (4) It is post-biblical, or coming after the inspired writings of the Old Testament, of which it is claimed to be a part.  And finally (5) it is non-biblical or not accepted as Scripture especially by those who were inspired by God.

     This Berean Break is brought to you, in love, by the pre-denominational and non-denominational church of Christ that meets at 1600 East First Avenue in Mitchell SD.  You are welcome to meet with us at 10:00 Sunday mornings for our assembly followed by a time of Bible Study, also on Wednesday evenings at 6:30 for an additional time to study God’s Word.  If you have a comment or a sincere Bible question, please call or text me at 605-770-5555.  We want to remind you of the non-denominational TV program, “KNOW YOUR BIBLE” on KDLT-TV at 9:00 on Sunday mornings.  This is George A. Sinkie for the Lord’s church, here in Mitchell, good-bye for now.  Remember that we care about you and may God bless you as you do His will.

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