Temple Baptist Church - 10-26-2025
Exodus 13:18; 32:15-19; 34:1
Introduction:
A. Bibliology is the branch of systematic theology that studies the facts and doctrines concerning the Bible as God’s revelation to man, including its inspiration, inerrancy, authority, canonization, illumination, preservation, and interpretation.
B. This morning, I want to take a biblical look at two things that guarantee our Bible’s authority: Inspiration and Preservation. These two doctrines MUST always be tied together because Inspiration without Preservation makes the Word of God, we hold in our hands the “word of man,” an imperfect Word of God. Imperfection and God do not go together!
C. Now, having said that, I want to look at these two words to explain what they are and why they must be used together.
D. So-called “theologians” in our day separate Inspiration from Preservation. This causes confusion and doubt among many who read their Bibles shallowly. It is a ploy of Satan as he always tries to divide and conquer God’s people. I think that everyone knows that “God is not the Author of confusion, but of peace, as in ALL churches of the saints.”
1 Corinthians 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
E. And please do not say that King James Bible believers are the culprits in confusion. We still hold to the old Authorized King James Bible of our forefathers. We follow the Old Paths wherein is the good way.
F. First, we will look at the Doctrine of Biblical Inspiration, which Paul said pertained to “All Scripture.” Does “All Scripture” apply to Paul’s day, Timothy’s day, and our day? That question needs to be answered.
G. I believe that we all would agree that God inspired the Original Autographs, but no one owns or has seen one. I know of no one who owns the two original “Tables of the Law” which were written by the “finger of God.”
H. But, what about the Scriptures that Paul had other than what he wrote? What about the “holy Scriptures that Timothy was saved by? What about the King James Bible that we hold in our hands?
J. To understand what Biblical Inspiration is, we need to go to the Book of Genesis, often called “The Book of the Beginnings” or “The Seedbed of the Bible.” Genesis is also the Book of First Mentions.
1. Genesis chapter one. In the beginning, God spoke or breathed out. In the first six days of Creation, God spoke everything into existence, and it was “very good.” What God breathes out is perfectly perfect, no fault at all. Impeccability is a divine attribute of God alone.
a) God speaking is expiration or breathing out. We use this term when a person dies; their last act is to breathe out or expire. In fundamentalism, we used this term to explain the Word of God: “God Breathed.” I have seen it printed on the front cover of Bibles.
b) Inspiration means to breathe into something. God breathed out, but also breathed into or infused. The infusing is both Inspiration and Preservation.
3. The best illustration is a biblical one. Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
a) God formed man of the dust of the ground, but he had no life. God made a body. God infused the life of God into Adam's body. The life God infused into Adam was eternal life. Therefore, we find preservation in the same act.
b) God never had to infuse life into anyone since that day, as that eternal life remains preserved in reproduction.
K. All Original Manuscripts are both Inspired and Preserved. These original writings did not just “poof” into existence. God spoke, and men wrote, through divine preservation, His words down. They were perfect through preservation. These men, in their humanity, could have made a mistake by altering, omitting, or adding to the Word given, BUT they did not because preservation is God’s work, even though He uses men.
Psalms 68:11 The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it.
What did this great company publish? The Word that God gave!
L. The first written Scriptures were approximately 3,500 years old and are found in the Book of Exodus, chapters 31-34.
1. Inspiration and Preservation. God provided the tables of stone and wrote upon them the perfect Word of God with His finger.
Exodus 31:18 And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.
(Testimony – Inspiration and Tables written with the finger of God – Preservation)
a) In this verse, we find the First Mention Principle of Bible Interpretation concerning both Inspiration and Preservation: “The first time a word, doctrine, or concept is mentioned in Scripture, it establishes the foundational meaning and usage of that word or truth throughout the rest of the Bible.”
b) Simply stated: When God introduces a subject in His Word, He does so in a way that reveals its basic, essential meaning. Later mentions of that subject will build upon, expand, or illustrate that first introduction — but never contradict it.
2. The Man of God’s Mission. Again, a First Mention of the work of the Man of God concerning the Scriptures. Moses then carried the perfect Word of God down to the people.
Exodus 31:18 And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.
Exodus 32:15-16 And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. (16) And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.
3. The Destruction of the Original. In anger, Moses broke the tablets.
Exodus 32:19 And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.
4. The Preservation of the Word of God. Moses hewed the tables of stone but God wrote upon These tables the exact words as the first!
Exodus 34:1 And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.
5. What God Inspired, God Preserved! He did not leave either inspiration or preservation in Moses' hands.
M. The New Testament confirms that inspiration and preservation are both simultaneous acts of God.
1 Peter 1:23-25 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. (24) For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: (25) But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
a. The Apostle Peter declares that the same principle holds true today:
1 Peter 1:23–25 – Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever... But the word of the Lord endureth for ever.
“Incorruptible” – Not subject to corruption, decay, or death; enduring forever.
1 Corinthians 9:25 – “Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.”
1 Corinthians 15:52 – “...for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
b. Just as God breathed life into Adam, so He breathed His Word into writing — and that Word still lives and abides forever.
c. Therefore, the Scriptures we have today — preserved in the Authorized King James Bible — are as living and incorruptible as the day God first gave them.
Conclusion: Men may reject the truth of what God said in these last verses, but I thank Him every day for His precious Word that saved my soul many years ago. Believe what you want, but I still believe the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, inspired, preserved Word of God in the King James Bible for English-speaking people.
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