This was written for and given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on October 17, 2004 and again at the Wanda (IL) UMC on June 14, 2015. It is Also used as the fifth chapter in my book, ‘What We Learn’, available as a self-printed version through me Now, and, hopefully, commercially printed and available through a number of sources sometime in 2012!

The Scripture is from 2 Timothy 3:14 – 4:5.

          I believe that it was the spring of 1971 that one of my best friends started telling me about this really great 2-album set he had gotten, and wanted to bring it out to the house for me to listen to. I had been ‘out-of-circulation’ for a while and was just beginning to get caught up to some of what was going on in the world around me, and it seems that this new rock-opera was causing waves in many circles.

          He had ordered his album from a record club he belonged to, and one of the discs had a big warp in it which his record player had a real problem with playing. Mine, however, was fairly new and used a slightly different method of tracking, so when we played it on it, everything worked just fine. For that reason, he offered to sell me that copy at a bargain and he ordered a replacement, which we did… here is that very album, complete with the original jackets, though I Have lost the book somewhere along the way…   

          JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR became, at first, a cult classic, then over time matured into being accepted as a masterful piece of music and art, eventually being turned into an actual stage musical. (For those who might have thought it was always a musical, such was not the case! The first live productions I went to of it consisted merely of a stage full of musicians and singers performing the songs!)

          The success of it catapulted the composer into a stardom-role of his own, and he was soon writing and releasing a string of musicals, many of which have become classics in their own rights, breaking many different records on Broadway and around the world, winning kudos and awards throughout the industry. Who cannot marvel at the magic of watching a performance of Cats, or shiver at the sound of the organ runs in Phantom of the Opera? Even some of his less-well-known shows, such as Song and Dance, are pure genius in their way of using music to set and establish a particular theme and feeling… in fact, it is his ability to write almost any ‘flavor’ of music and use it to enhance… or even Create… the plot of the story that has always fascinated me. From the circus atmosphere of ‘King Herod’s Song’ in JC SUPERSTAR to the sound and rumble of the train in ‘Skimbleshanks, the Railway Cat’ in the musical Cats to his ability to theme music in Song and Dance that delineates the differences of New York City and Los Angeles and perfectly capture the ‘feel’ of each, Andrew Lloyd Webber is a true master of using music to tell a story. Just as an example, listen to ‘The Song of the King’ from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat as Pharaoh… the ‘King’… tells Joseph his dreams…

          Now, that is a fun song! And aside from using just a little poetic license, the story it tells is pretty much correct, as we have it in Genesis. But… there-in lies the problem!

          I have listened to this CD for many years now, and have even seen it performed live, and thoroughly enjoy the music and story. However, I was always just a trifle concerned about its accuracy. Some years ago I purchased a multiple-CD set of a ‘dramatic’ reading of the Bible and would listen to it while driving the big-truck from time to time. One time, not long after hearing the actual full story of Joseph and his brothers on the Bible CDs, I chanced to listen to the musical as well! And I was struck by how different the two stories actually are! Oh, Rice and Webber have the basic idea down, but they obviously have to omit an awful lot… and to liven it up they make free use of poetic license, which, again, I think is mostly acceptable. But I came to realize that for many people, this is about as close to Bible learning as they get… and if that be the case, they are getting an improper view of the Bible!

Just as one example, in another song, Joseph proclaims that, “Anyone can make it if they get a lucky break!” No attempt is made at explaining how it was part of God’s plan for Joseph to be in Egypt at that time and to be in a position to save his family from the famine sweeping their world… and thus assuring the survival and growth of the nation of Israel. Indeed, the basis of Webber and Rice’s story seems to be to believe in yourself and your dreams and anything is possible… propagating the current trend towards promoting self-worth and self-importance!

There was a successful book, and even a movie, some years back, called The DaVinci Code… I’m sure that most of you have heard of it, or at least heard of some of the scenarios it tries to paint regarding Jesus, Mary Magdalene, the Holy Grail, Christianity in general, and the institutional church in particular. Some of you may have even read it. The book was written as a fictional novel, but had enough factual information in it to make one wonder just how much of it is true. Much of its ‘theology’ came from the Gnostic Bible, a collection of supposed gospels and letters that many purport to give a more realistic picture of Christ and His teachings than what our standard Bible has.

Not long after The DaVinci Code was released, I found and studied a book entitled The DaVinci Deception, in which author Erwin W. Lutzer debunks all of the supposed claims and notions put forth in The DaVinci Code. I enjoyed it so much that I have often pondered doing an entire study based on it in which we would explore in more detail some of the concepts put forward in the ‘Code’ and why they simply cannot be! For now, though, suffice it to note that historians date the writings of the Gnostic Bible to be between two and four hundred years after the time of Christ, whereas the Books of the New Testament were written by either eye-witnesses of Christ or those who interviewed eye-witnesses and wrote down their words and memories regarding these happenings. As Mr. Lutzer points out in his book, if you wanted to study a biography of Abraham Lincoln would you be more prone to accept as fact one written shortly after his death by someone who knew him or at least had access to people who knew him… or one written today by someone who wanted to impose their beliefs or current trends onto what people believe about Lincoln? The same holds true for the Gnostic gospels… they were written, primarily, to support the Gnostic view of the world and how they wanted religion to fit into it!

And therein lies the secret as to why this book, The DaVinci Code, and all others like it, sell so well… people are still trying to find and make a ‘religion’ that agrees with the way they want to live… one that fits their lifestyle, as they see it. And all of these other teachings are much more acceptable to people who have been brought up in a culture that promotes the individual and individual rights… over the tight, seemingly restrictive Scriptures that God has given us. And since these texts and stories and legends all have a hint of truth about them, far too many people accept them as truth… and in so doing, they deny the credibility of what we accept as Holy Scripture!

But in our verses this morning, Paul says to Timothy, in his second letter to him from a Roman jail, that… “All Scripture is God-breathed”. Do you understand what that means? It means that even though it is true that every word that we have in this compilation we call the Holy Bible was indeed written by a human hand… those words were inspired by the very hand… the breath, if you will… of God!

When I listened to JC SUPERSTAR as a young man, way back when, I had enough of a Christian education to know that some of the facts and words contained in it where scriptural. And since that music was far easier to listen to than reading any Bible, I heard it many, many more times that I ever did actual scripture, and over time, grew to accept all that I heard in it as being scripture-based… and that is just not the case!

And I knew that! I had grown up in the church… I had been taught Scripture since before I was old enough to read! And yet I was so easily led into believing something else because it was so much easier to do so!

Indeed, Paul’s words to Timothy could just as easily been written directly to me… “…continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 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.”

In Psalm 119 David declares…

Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.

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.

I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts.

He loved the Word of God! He studied and obeyed it! He centered his entire life and being around it! And yet, even he made mistakes! How much more so will those who have only a passing knowledge, if any, of God’s Word make mistakes and lose their place in Paradise… sinning only because they are unaware… or un-convinced… of their sin?

Paul could be speaking of today when he says, “… the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

This is the Word of God! And as Paul says, it, “…is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the people of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Do YOU know what it says? Are you familiar enough with the teachings and love and promises contained in it to not only live it yourself but to teach it and demonstrate it to others?

Or are you a leaf in the wind… being blown about by any and every new idea put forward as to just what you are ‘supposed’ to believe? For the truth is, any ideas put forward by anyone other than God can only come from one other source… Satan! And true is said the axiom… if you don’t believe in something… if you are not firmly rooted in that belief, and strong in the knowledge and content of it… you will believe in anything!

And people… there is only one belief by which we receive Salvation and our place in Paradise! And that is the one contained within these pages… which have been given us through the ‘breath of God’!