Speaker 1: This is the book that says God made you to
Speaker 1: love you. This is the book that says you can
Speaker 1: be forgiven. This is the book that says, no matter
Speaker 1: what problem you go through, God can use it for
Speaker 1: good in your life. This is the book that tells
Speaker 1: you how to get to heaven. Now, the Bible is
Speaker 1: the most read book in the history. It's the best
Speaker 1: selling book in history, and it is the most translated
Speaker 1: book in history. Why is it the word of God?
Speaker 1: How do we know it is the word of God.
Speaker 1: We're going to look at that this weekend as we
Speaker 1: start in your outline two Timothy, Chapter three, the Bible
Speaker 1: says this, all scripture is God breathed, and it's useful
Speaker 1: for teaching and rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. I'm
Speaker 1: going to explain that in another week, so that the
Speaker 1: Man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Speaker 1: We're going to look at this verse again next week,
Speaker 1: but I want you to look at the phrase all
Speaker 1: scripture is God breathed. Circle that word God breathed. That
Speaker 1: word in Greek is theo nustos, theo meaning God nustos
Speaker 1: being breathed. The Bible is God breathed. Now, what does
Speaker 1: that mean? Some of the translations translated the scripture is inspired.
Speaker 1: But we're not talking about an inspiring writer writing an
Speaker 1: inspiring book. We're talking about God inspired this book. It
Speaker 1: is God breathed theo nustos. Right now, you are listening
Speaker 1: to the breath of Rick Warren. You're listening to my breath,
Speaker 1: because what my voice is is breath coming up over
Speaker 1: my vocal cords, vibrating those vocal cords and coming out
Speaker 1: a sound. If I didn't have any breath, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have any voice. So the breath of Rick Warren is
Speaker 1: the word of Rick Warren. It is the voice of
Speaker 1: Rick Warren. And the Bible says that God's word is
Speaker 1: God's very breath. It's not just a good idea. It
Speaker 1: is God's word to us. And as a result of that,
Speaker 1: Psalm one nineteen tells us this, all of your commands
Speaker 1: can be trusted. Everything in the Bible can be trusted
Speaker 1: as true because.
Speaker 2: It comes from God.
Speaker 1: Now, it's one thing for the Bible to claim that
Speaker 1: it's the word of God. It's one thing for the
Speaker 1: Bible to say it can be trusted.
Speaker 2: But how do I know? Really?
Speaker 1: I mean, really, how do I know this is the
Speaker 1: Word of God. It's not just some bunch of fables
Speaker 1: or a bunch of stories that were put together. It's
Speaker 1: a valid, legitimate, important question, and we need to ask
Speaker 1: before we ever start studying the Bible. How do I
Speaker 1: know I can trust it? Time Magazine thought this was
Speaker 1: such an important question it put it on its cover twice.
Speaker 1: Here was a cover of Time Magazine a while back
Speaker 1: that said, how true is the Bible? It's a good question.
Speaker 1: This morning, we're going to settle this issue because there
Speaker 1: are incredible proofs, evidences, and facts that you need to
Speaker 1: know to help you make up your mind. So you're
Speaker 1: not making up your mind based on what you've heard
Speaker 1: other people say, but what the Bible actually claims for itself,
Speaker 1: and what history, science, and all these other things teach
Speaker 1: us about the Bible. We're going to look today to
Speaker 1: start off forty days in the Word on inspiration, how
Speaker 1: do I know I can trust the Bible? Well, there
Speaker 1: are seven reasons. Pastor Tom's going to help me with
Speaker 1: these this weekend, but I want you to write down
Speaker 1: the first one. It is historically accurate. The Bible is
Speaker 1: historically accurate, and for that reason, I know I can
Speaker 1: trust the Bible. In other words, the Bible isn't just
Speaker 1: doctrinally correct. It's not just theologically correct. It's not just
Speaker 1: accurate regarding morals and regarding ethics. It's true history, real people,
Speaker 1: real places, real time. It is true historically. Now why
Speaker 1: is that even important? Because the Bible tells us this,
Speaker 1: God cannot lie. God cannot lie. A lot of people
Speaker 1: ask me all the time, is there anything God can do? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things God can't do. God cannot
Speaker 1: deny himself. God cannot not be God. God cannot lie
Speaker 1: because God is truth. In fact, the Bible says this
Speaker 1: on the screen Hebrews six eighteen. It is impossible for
Speaker 1: God to lie because God is truth. The only reason
Speaker 1: the universe works is because God is a God of truth,
Speaker 1: which means stuff is true all the time. Can you imagine,
Speaker 1: for instance, if the law of gravity only worked on
Speaker 1: Tuesday and Thursday, it'd be a pretty weird thing. But
Speaker 1: the laws of physics are true. God bought them up,
Speaker 1: He created The laws of mathematics are true. God created
Speaker 1: the laws of mathematics on which the universe runs. And
Speaker 1: so God cannot lie. If this book has one lie
Speaker 1: in it, it's not a godly book. It's not a
Speaker 1: book of God, because God cannot lie. Psalm thirty three,
Speaker 1: verse four says this, the word of the Lord is right,
Speaker 1: and it is true. Now that's not only true and
Speaker 1: right about salvation, it's true and rite about history. I
Speaker 1: want you to give a warm welcome to Pastor Thomas.
Speaker 1: He talks to us about this.
Speaker 3: So how do we know that the Bible is historically accurate? Well,
Speaker 3: by the same way you know any other history is accurate.
Speaker 3: You just go by the tests of good history. For instance,
Speaker 3: one of the ways that you test good history is
Speaker 3: is it from eyewitness accounts? And historian would go in
Speaker 3: and say, is this written down by somebody who saw it,
Speaker 3: or is it second hand or third hand, or is
Speaker 3: it a legend written down one hundred years later. The
Speaker 3: Bible is primarily eyewitness accounts. That's why it's good history.
Speaker 3: Moses was there when the Red Seas split. Joshua was
Speaker 3: there when the walls of Jericho fell. The disciples of
Speaker 3: Jesus stood in the upper room, sat in the upper
Speaker 3: room and saw the resurrected Jesus appear. And then they
Speaker 3: wrote down what happened, and we read about it. Matthew
Speaker 3: was there and he wrote it down. John was there
Speaker 3: and he wrote it down. Peter was there. He told
Speaker 3: a guy by the name of Mark. He wrote it
Speaker 3: down in the Gospel of Mark. And Luke talked to
Speaker 3: all of them, including Jesus's mother, and heard about what
Speaker 3: had happened. So it's eyewitness accounts of what had happened. Now,
Speaker 3: the other test of history by which we know the
Speaker 3: Bible as accurate is the extreme care with which the
Speaker 3: Bible is copied. You may have heard people say, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm sure was right when it was first written, but
Speaker 3: it's been passed down generation after generation, all these changes
Speaker 3: have come in.
Speaker 2: You ever heard that.
Speaker 3: If you hear that, you know someone hasn't just hasn't
Speaker 3: taken the time to study it, to look into it,
Speaker 3: because when you look into it, you find out the
Speaker 3: extreme care with which the Bible is copied. The Old
Speaker 3: Testament copys the scribes, and when they would copy these
Speaker 3: scrolls from one to the other, they would copy it
Speaker 3: like we would copy a xerox copy. It had to
Speaker 3: be exact, and they had this long list of rules
Speaker 3: that had to go by to make sure that it
Speaker 3: was exact. Rules, like when they had a scroll, it
Speaker 3: had had a specified number of columns throughout it, so
Speaker 3: it would always be the same, and the link of
Speaker 3: those columns always had to be from forty eight to
Speaker 3: sixty in linked, and it always had to be thirty
Speaker 3: exactly thirty letters white, so they could always check it
Speaker 3: out to make sure that it was always right. They
Speaker 3: had this rule that you had to copy letter by
Speaker 3: letter and not word by word, so that well, you know,
Speaker 3: on your phone, like it does text prediction and sends
Speaker 3: the wrong word to somebody, the word you didn't want
Speaker 3: to send. They wanted to make sure that didn't happened.
Speaker 3: So they could only copy letter by letter, and they
Speaker 3: went by these tests to make sure that it was right.
Speaker 3: After they copied it. They knew in a book how
Speaker 3: many letters of the alphabet were in each book, So
Speaker 3: for instance, like our letter A, they would know that
Speaker 3: there were one thousand, six hundred and fifty three a's
Speaker 3: in this book, and if had one thousands to six
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty four when they counted it, they threw
Speaker 3: the scroll away and they started over. They were so exact.
Speaker 3: They knew the middle letter of the first five books
Speaker 3: of the Bible, the Pentitude, they knew the middle letter
Speaker 3: of the whole Old Testament, and after they copied all
Speaker 3: of this, they would go to that middle letter and
Speaker 3: count forward and backward, and if it didn't come out
Speaker 3: exactly the number it should, they'd throw it away and
Speaker 3: they'd start over. That's how exact they were. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of reasons we can ways that we can see
Speaker 3: that they're exactly. But one of the ways we can
Speaker 3: see is through something called the Dead Sea Scrolls. We've
Speaker 3: all heard of those. What's so significant about the Dead
Speaker 3: Sea Scrolls? Well, the Dead Sea Scrolls were written about
Speaker 3: one hundred years before Jesus, and they have in them
Speaker 3: copies of all of the Old Testament book except Esther,
Speaker 3: all the other Old Testament books. When we found those scrolls,
Speaker 3: the earliest copies we had before that were from nine
Speaker 3: hundred years after Jesus of many of those books. So
Speaker 3: there's this thousand year gap. All of a sudden, we
Speaker 3: get to check out how much change came in in
Speaker 3: those thousand years. You don't wonder how much, about five percent,
Speaker 3: and that was almost all and just in the spelling
Speaker 3: of words, the spelling of names. Over a thousand years,
Speaker 3: those copies were proved to be right as they copied
Speaker 3: again and again and again and made it right. It's
Speaker 3: another proof of the historical accuracy of the Bible. Another
Speaker 3: proof is in archaeology. You look at archaeology and it
Speaker 3: proves again and again that the places and the people
Speaker 3: and all that the Bible talks about are true. It's
Speaker 3: not fiction. You can go and find these places. We've
Speaker 3: dug up these places, the Areopagus where Paul was, the
Speaker 3: theater in Athens where there was this riot, We've dug
Speaker 3: them up. We can see them today. The pool of
Speaker 3: Saloon where the blind men was healed, portions of Herod's temple,
Speaker 3: all these places that are talked about in the Bible.
Speaker 3: They've dug them up. We can see them. The Book
Speaker 3: of Acts is all about his historical accuracy. Luke an
Speaker 3: historian as well as a doctor. As he wrote the
Speaker 3: Book of Acts, he talks about fifty four cities, thirty
Speaker 3: nine countries, and nine different islands, complete historical accuracy. One
Speaker 3: of the great things about how archaeology it works with
Speaker 3: the Bible is how it's again and again shown that
Speaker 3: actually the Bible is more accurate than our ideas of history.
Speaker 3: There's been many times when we've had an idea of
Speaker 3: what's historical and said, well, the Bible must be wrong,
Speaker 3: and the Bible's proved itself to be right. For instance,
Speaker 3: for a long time, historians said, well, we're not sure
Speaker 3: that guy named Solomon lived in the Old Testament, and
Speaker 3: we're certainly sure they didn't have horses like it talked about.
Speaker 3: They only had camels back then, so that can't be right.
Speaker 3: Until at Megiddo they discovered one of Solomon's chariot cities
Speaker 3: with thousands of stalls for guess what, horses, So the
Speaker 3: Bible was proved right. One of the greatest, probably the
Speaker 3: greatest example of that, is an empire called the Hittites.
Speaker 3: There's this whole empire called the hit Tights talked about
Speaker 3: in the Bible that was not talked about anywhere else.
Speaker 3: So for centuries historians said the Bible just made it up.
Speaker 3: Utel in the early nineteen hundreds, a professor by the
Speaker 3: name of Hugo Winkler discovered at Boguskoy ten thousand clay
Speaker 3: tablets at the capitol of guess what the Hittites. Now
Speaker 3: everyone believes in the hit Tits. In fact, during a
Speaker 3: break in the game. Today you can go on Wikipedia
Speaker 3: you can read about the hit Tites.
Speaker 1: Not only is the Bible historically accurate, it every time
Speaker 1: archaeology backs it up, but it is scientifically accurate. That's
Speaker 1: the second reason the Bible is scientifically accurate. Now, there
Speaker 1: is so much misunderstanding and boloney about this in the world.
Speaker 1: I want to spend a majority of time on this
Speaker 1: point because people who think the Bible is scientifically inaccurate
Speaker 1: mean a they've never studied the Bible, and b they
Speaker 1: probably don't know science.
Speaker 2: Because the truth is.
Speaker 1: God always sets up the laws of science, and he
Speaker 1: made sure that his word does not contradict the laws
Speaker 1: of science. Now, the Bible was not given to be
Speaker 1: a scientific textbook. Obviously, you don't study the Bible to
Speaker 1: build a rocket, and the Bible doesn't use scientific language.
Speaker 2: But the Bible never, never, never.
Speaker 1: Gives bad science quack science, not once in over sixteen
Speaker 1: hundred years in which this book was written, does it
Speaker 1: give bad science. In fact, it is always a head
Speaker 1: of science. There are things in the the Bible says
Speaker 1: were true that we just discovered one hundred years ago.
Speaker 1: Two hundred years ago, three hundred years ago, Johannes Kepler,
Speaker 1: the famous mathematician, the famous astronoer.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Kepler said, science is simply thinking God's thoughts after him.
Speaker 1: In other words, God established the laws of physics, and
Speaker 1: then we discover them. God established the laws of biology,
Speaker 1: and we discover them. God established the laws of mathematics,
Speaker 1: and we discover them. One of the reasons why we
Speaker 1: know the Bible can be trusted is because it's scientifically accurate.
Speaker 2: And the reason it's accurate is.
Speaker 1: Because the laws of the universe were invented by God,
Speaker 1: so he obviously understands them, even in years past when
Speaker 1: we didn't, because for thousands of years we've misunderstood different things. See,
Speaker 1: the one thing about truth is it never changes. But
Speaker 1: the one thing about science is it constantly changes. There's
Speaker 1: nothing more worthless than an obsolete science book. I guarantee
Speaker 1: you that the science book you had in the third
Speaker 1: grade is not being used in the third grade today,
Speaker 1: and a lot of things in that book are no
Speaker 1: longer believed or even taught. Nothing is more worthless than
Speaker 1: a five year old computer book. You can find them
Speaker 1: on any garage sale, and nobody wants them because things
Speaker 1: get out of date so fast. They get out of
Speaker 1: date so fast. Science things that we thought we believed,
Speaker 1: we now know more about it, and we go, oh well,
Speaker 1: In fact, in medical science it happens all the time.
Speaker 1: I had to go to a doctor this week and
Speaker 1: he was talking to me about a particular condition and
Speaker 1: I said, oh, well, then I assume we're going to
Speaker 1: do this, this and this, and he goes, oh, no,
Speaker 1: we don't.
Speaker 2: Believe that anymore. I said, you got to be kidding me.
Speaker 1: Everybody knew that, don't know, we don't believe that anymore,
Speaker 1: and we don't use that in medicine anymore. How many
Speaker 1: articles have you read that now say that something you
Speaker 1: thought was good for you now causes you cancer, yes, right,
Speaker 1: Or stuff that they said it's fine for a pregnant
Speaker 1: woman to take, and then ten years later ago it's
Speaker 1: not fine.
Speaker 2: Science constantly changes.
Speaker 1: Do you know if you've ever been to Paris, you've
Speaker 1: probably gone to the Louver, the famous art museum and library,
Speaker 1: world class library. Do you know that in the Louver
Speaker 1: Library there's one section that has three and a half
Speaker 1: miles of obsolete science books. Three and a half miles
Speaker 1: because stuff they thought was scientifically fact fifteen hundred years
Speaker 1: ago was disproven a thousand years ago. And what we
Speaker 1: thought a thousand years ago was disproven seven ninety fifty
Speaker 1: years ago. And what we thought twenty five years ago
Speaker 1: was proven ten years ago. And what we thought ten
Speaker 1: years ago is now changed to today. And if you
Speaker 1: had been reading the Bible a thousand years ago or
Speaker 1: seven hundred years ago or five hundred years ago, what
Speaker 1: the Bible says would not have matched the science of
Speaker 1: that day because it wasn't up to date. God understands
Speaker 1: stuff even when we don't, and his rules don't change.
Speaker 2: The Bible says this and some one eight.
Speaker 1: Let every created thing that's the whole universe, give praise
Speaker 1: to the Lord, for he issued his command. God set
Speaker 1: these rules in motion, the laws of thermodynamics, the laws
Speaker 1: of physics. He issued his command, and they came into being,
Speaker 1: and he established them forever and ever, and his orders
Speaker 1: will never be revoked. The second law of thermodynamics doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Today and not work tomorrow.
Speaker 1: It always works because it was true and it was
Speaker 1: made by God.
Speaker 2: Truth doesn't change, you know.
Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty one, there was a very famous book
Speaker 1: that came out called fifty one Incontrovertible Proofs that the
Speaker 1: Bible is scientifically inaccurate. It's a very famous book, Fifty
Speaker 1: one incontrovertible scientific facts that we know this is eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty one that the Bible does not agree with. And
Speaker 1: we know that the Bible is scientifically inaccurate. The only
Speaker 1: problem is today, one hundred and fify years later, you
Speaker 1: couldn't find a single science on the science on the
Speaker 1: planet who would agree with any one of those incontrovertible facts.
Speaker 1: They have all been disproven by science. Truth does not change.
Speaker 2: Now. One of the proofs.
Speaker 1: That we know that this book is not simply man made,
Speaker 1: that this book came from God, that God directed men
Speaker 1: and women to talk and speak and wrote write things down,
Speaker 1: and we know that it's the word of God.
Speaker 2: Is what's not in it? What's not in it?
Speaker 1: Because if this were a human book, you would expect
Speaker 1: it to be filled with scientific facts of the prevailing day,
Speaker 1: but they're not here.
Speaker 2: They're not in the book.
Speaker 1: For instance, for thousands and thousands of years people believed
Speaker 1: that the Earth was flat. It wasn't until Copernicus and
Speaker 1: Galileo and Columbus that people realize the world's not flat,
Speaker 1: it's round, it's a sphere, it's a ball. And so
Speaker 1: you would expect the Bible to say the Earth is flat,
Speaker 1: because it was in existence and being written during those
Speaker 1: thousands of years when everybody thought the world said not ever,
Speaker 1: single verse in the Bible says the Earth is flat,
Speaker 1: not at all. In fact, it says the exact opposite.
Speaker 1: Two thousand and six hundred years ago. God said this
Speaker 1: in the Book of Isaiah.
Speaker 2: Forty, verse twenty two.
Speaker 1: God is enthroned above the sphere of the Earth. Two
Speaker 1: six hundred years ago. The Bible says the Earth is round,
Speaker 1: the Earth is a sphere, the Earth is a globe.
Speaker 1: Long before anybody knew it everybody when that was written,
Speaker 1: nobody believed it, but God said it, and it was
Speaker 1: true whether anybody believed it or not. For thousands of years,
Speaker 1: people believed the earth had to be held up by something,
Speaker 1: and depending on the culture you were in, you got
Speaker 1: certain different beliefs on what held it up. For instance,
Speaker 1: if you were Greek, in Greek culture, you believe that
Speaker 1: the world was held up by a giant named Atlas. Okay,
Speaker 1: we all know who Atlas is. That Atlas held up
Speaker 1: the world. Now, part of the Bible's written in Greek.
Speaker 1: Atlas isn't in the Bible. Why because it's not true.
Speaker 1: So it's not in the Bible. You would expect that
Speaker 1: during that time it would have somehow found its way
Speaker 1: into the Bible, but it's not there. For thousands of years,
Speaker 1: the Hindus believed that the Earth sat on the back
Speaker 1: of giant elephants, and that when the elephants moved, that's
Speaker 1: what caused earthquakes. Now they said, well, what did the
Speaker 1: elephants stand on.
Speaker 2: I'm not making this up.
Speaker 1: You can find in any science or encyclopedia. They believed
Speaker 1: that the giant elephants stood on the back of a
Speaker 1: giant sea turtle, and the giant sea turtle stood on
Speaker 1: the back of a giant sea serpent who swam through
Speaker 1: a cosmic sea.
Speaker 2: Now, that was the prevailing.
Speaker 1: Attitude in the world for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Speaker 1: It's not in the Bible, even though the Bible was
Speaker 1: being written during this time. Why because the Bible leaves
Speaker 1: out the lies. The Bible tells us that Moses was
Speaker 1: skilled and schooled in all of the wisdom of the
Speaker 1: ancient Egyptians because Moses was adopted as the son of
Speaker 1: Pharaoh's daughter, so he went to the best schools in
Speaker 1: ancient Egypt and was taught what was the prevailing science
Speaker 1: of that day. Now, the Egyptians were flat out brilliant.
Speaker 1: They built the pyramids, They were masters at architecture, at engineering,
Speaker 1: at astronomy, at a none other things. But they were
Speaker 1: The ancient Egyptians were dead wrong on what held up
Speaker 1: the earth because ancient Egypt believed that the earth was
Speaker 1: held up by five pillars. Certainly Moses was schooled in
Speaker 1: that science because he went to the best schools in
Speaker 1: the land as Pharaoh's grandson. And yet not once in
Speaker 1: scripture do you find the earth is held up by
Speaker 1: five pillars.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: Because it's not true, And so it didn't make it
Speaker 1: into the Bible. The prevailing science of the day didn't
Speaker 1: make it there. In fact, the oldest known writing to
Speaker 1: man is likely the Book of Job. It's the oldest
Speaker 1: literature in existence that we know about. Job was the
Speaker 1: first book written in the Bible. The books the Bible
Speaker 1: are not in chronological order. Job is the oldest book
Speaker 1: and in Job twenty six, verse seven, the oldest known
Speaker 1: literature in the human race. It says this God stretches
Speaker 1: the sky over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing.
Speaker 1: Who told job? How did he know? That everybody knows
Speaker 1: the earth is flat and it's on the back of pillars.
Speaker 1: It's not why because the Bible only always tells the truth.
Speaker 1: I'm reinforcing this because I want you. It is sheer
Speaker 1: nonsense to say that the Bible is scientifically an accurate.
Speaker 2: That means you just don't know the Bible.
Speaker 1: For instance, for years, it was the accepted science that
Speaker 1: they were about one thousand stars in the universe, and
Speaker 1: that they could be counted, that the number of stars
Speaker 1: were finite. In fact, one hundred and fifty years BC,
Speaker 1: a guy named Hiparcas counted him, and he wrote a
Speaker 1: very famous dissertation one hundred and fifty years BC saying
Speaker 1: that there are one thousand and twenty two stars in
Speaker 1: the universe.
Speaker 2: That's it, And it was accepted.
Speaker 1: For a long long time that there were only one
Speaker 1: thousand and twenty two stars in even but it doesn't
Speaker 1: say that in the Bible. Three hundred years later, one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years BC, a guy named Ptolemy does
Speaker 1: it again and he comes out. He says that hiparkas.
Speaker 1: That guy's a kook. He's a nut. There are one
Speaker 1: thousand and twenty six.
Speaker 2: He found four more stars. Shoot, they found planets this year.
Speaker 1: I read an article just a couple weeks ago where
Speaker 1: a guy said the number of stars in the universe
Speaker 1: is infinite. It is widely accepted today that there are
Speaker 1: more stars in the universe than there are grains of
Speaker 1: sand on the planet Earth. They cannot be counted. Now,
Speaker 1: we didn't know that. I mean, everybody accepted there are
Speaker 1: one thy twenty four twenty six stars. But two six
Speaker 1: hundred years ago in the Bible, God had said this
Speaker 1: Jeremiah thirty three twenty two, the number of stars are infinite.
Speaker 2: Hmm. Guess Polemy didn't read that one.
Speaker 1: Or anybody else for thousands of years, but it was
Speaker 1: there because.
Speaker 2: It is the truth. It is always the truth.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could go into so many different areas
Speaker 1: into biology and show you what the Bible says about biology,
Speaker 1: into chemistry, show you what the Bible says about chemistry,
Speaker 1: into medicine. You know, for many years people believed that
Speaker 1: too much blood in your body made you sick. For
Speaker 1: thousands of years, this was an accepted custom, and they
Speaker 1: did what was called blood letting.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm talking about, how.
Speaker 1: That they doctors would doctors would cut a sick person
Speaker 1: and bleed them, thinking that was going to make them healthy.
Speaker 1: That was accepted science. Everybody knew that was true. It wasn't,
Speaker 1: but everybody knew it was true science. And you cut
Speaker 1: the blood, and it was because of Hippocrates. And for
Speaker 1: two thousand years and Hippocrates, they believed that all illness
Speaker 1: came from four bodily fluids yellow bile, black bile, red blood,
Speaker 1: or blue flim. And it also those four fluids also
Speaker 1: controlled your temperament. Nobody believes that anymore, but for two
Speaker 1: thousand years that was scientific proof, and so people thought, well,
Speaker 1: you have to bleed people to get the bad stuff out.
Speaker 1: Many people don't know our first president, George Washington, was
Speaker 1: killed by doctors bleeding him to death.
Speaker 2: That's how he died.
Speaker 1: George Washington had a heart problem and doctors didn't know
Speaker 1: what to do, so they did the common science of
Speaker 1: the day and they bled George Washington. He didn't get well,
Speaker 1: so a few days later they bled him again. They
Speaker 1: cut him and bled him. He didn't get well, so
Speaker 1: a few days later they bled him a third time
Speaker 1: and he died.
Speaker 2: From blood loss.
Speaker 1: Now today we know you give people blood when they're sick.
Speaker 2: It's the exactly we do, the.
Speaker 1: Exact opposite of what they did for a thousands of years.
Speaker 1: You give people blood because we know the life source
Speaker 1: is in the blood, and good blood makes people feel
Speaker 1: better that that's where the life comes from.
Speaker 2: It's called a transfusion.
Speaker 1: We give people blood today, But they didn't know that
Speaker 1: for a thousands of years.
Speaker 2: But the Bible knew it.
Speaker 1: In fact, back in Leviticus seventeen, then thousands of years
Speaker 1: ago leu Veticus seventeen eleven, God said this, the life
Speaker 1: of every creature is in its blood. How did Moses
Speaker 1: know that? That wasn't known for a thousand We didn't
Speaker 1: even know that blood circulates until around sixteen fifty. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until the seventeenth century when William Harvey discovered that
Speaker 1: blood circulates. For thousands of years, nobody even thought it circulated.
Speaker 1: Everybody bought into Galen, who was the Greek doctor for
Speaker 1: two thousand years, except that his idea basically that the
Speaker 1: heart was a source of heat, but nobody knew that
Speaker 1: actually pumped blood, and yet thousands of years ago, the
Speaker 1: Bible says the life of every creature is in its blood.
Speaker 2: They should have just read the Bible.
Speaker 1: During the Middle Age, there was the Bubonic plague. The
Speaker 1: bubonic plague killed one fourth of Europe. One out of
Speaker 1: every four people died during the Black Plague because we
Speaker 1: didn't understand germs, and we didn't understand contagion, and we
Speaker 1: didn't understand infection, and we didn't understand quarantining people. And
Speaker 1: so they had sick people with the bubonic plague who
Speaker 1: were contagious, sleeping right next to healthy people, and people
Speaker 1: just kept dying because we didn't know about germs and contagion,
Speaker 1: and it became an epidemic and then a pandemic. Should
Speaker 1: have read the Bible, because thousands and thousands of years
Speaker 1: before the bubonic plague, God had said in Leviticus thirteen,
Speaker 1: verse four, this put an infected person in quarantine for
Speaker 1: seven days. That's thousands of years before we even knew
Speaker 1: what germs were. God was saying, here's how you take
Speaker 1: care of people who get infected with an illness. Put
Speaker 1: him outside the camp for seven days, and if they're
Speaker 1: still sick, he says in the next vert, keep him
Speaker 1: out there for another seven days. Nobody understood quarantine because
Speaker 1: nobody understood germs.
Speaker 2: But God was right. I could go on and on.
Speaker 1: The Bible is always scientifically accurate. It is always ahead
Speaker 1: of science. The Bible says this Proverbs thirty verse five.
Speaker 1: Every word of God is flawless. Mine aren't, yours aren't.
Speaker 1: Human beings aren't. But every word of God is flawless.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's not only flawless. Psal'm twelve six says this,
Speaker 1: The words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined
Speaker 1: in a furnace of clay and purified seven times.
Speaker 2: It's like, is that the right word? Is that? The
Speaker 2: right word is purified seven times?
Speaker 1: My wife Kay wishes i'd speak like that, because see,
Speaker 1: often my mouth gets in gear before my mind gets engaged,
Speaker 1: and I say words that are flawed.
Speaker 2: But God's word is flawless.
Speaker 1: We know we can trust the Bible because it is
Speaker 1: historically accurate, archaeology confirms it, and it is scientifically accurate.
Speaker 2: Number three, we know we can.
Speaker 1: Trust the Bible because it is prophetically accurate.
Speaker 2: It is prophetically accurate. What does that mean.
Speaker 1: It means that the promises and are the predictions in
Speaker 1: the Bible always come true. Now, the Bible is filled
Speaker 1: with literally thousands and thousands of prophecies where God says,
Speaker 1: this is going to happen at such and such a time,
Speaker 1: in such and such a way. And over all of
Speaker 1: the centuries, thousands of these prophecies have already been fulfilled,
Speaker 1: every one of them exactly as God said, and some
Speaker 1: of them are still yet to be fulfilled. You know,
Speaker 1: there are over three hundred prophecies in the Bible about
Speaker 1: Jesus the Messiah. Up to a thousand years before he
Speaker 1: was born, and up over a thousand year period, three
Speaker 1: hundred prophecies said things like this is when he'll be born,
Speaker 1: this is where he'll be born, this is how he'll
Speaker 1: be born. You can't control that if you're trying to
Speaker 1: make yourself the Messiah.
Speaker 2: You didn't choose where you were born.
Speaker 1: This is how he'll die, and the manner he'll die,
Speaker 1: and what he'll die from, and all of.
Speaker 2: The over three hundred prophecies.
Speaker 1: If what are the odds of me making three hundred
Speaker 1: predictions about you and every one of them coming true,
Speaker 1: The odds are so astronomical you couldn't write that number down.
Speaker 1: You see, it takes more faith to believe it all
Speaker 1: just was a coincidence than to believe that God planned it.
Speaker 1: It takes an enormous faith to believe it's all just random,
Speaker 1: that it all just happened without a designer, without a creator.
Speaker 1: Thousand years before Jesus came and died on the cross,
Speaker 1: David in one of his psalms describes what death by
Speaker 1: crucifixion is like. Now he didn't use the word crucifixion
Speaker 1: because nobody knew that word. But a thousand years before
Speaker 1: the Romans are even thinking of crucifixion, David describes what
Speaker 1: the death of a CRUCIFIXI of life?
Speaker 2: How did he know? That?
Speaker 1: Only God could have told him? Look at these verses.
Speaker 1: The Bible says in Second Peter, no prophecy ever originated
Speaker 1: from humans. In other words, guys did just said around
Speaker 1: and go, hey, let's think this one up.
Speaker 2: Write it down.
Speaker 1: No prophecy ever originated from humans. Instead, it was given
Speaker 1: by the Holy Spirit as humans spoke under God's direction.
Speaker 2: You know, during.
Speaker 1: Bible times, nobody wanted to be a prophet. You know why,
Speaker 1: because the law was this In Israel. A prophet of
Speaker 1: God had to be correct one hundred percent of the time,
Speaker 1: and if you were wrong just once, then you were
Speaker 1: considered a false prophet and would be put to death.
Speaker 1: So nobody wanted to be a prophet because you had
Speaker 1: to be accurate of the time. Now there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people claim to be prophets today. There are prophets,
Speaker 1: false prophets, nonprofits.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I mean, by the way, let me just give you
Speaker 1: a little tip. Don't ever trust the psychic who asked
Speaker 1: for your name. I mean, if you're so psychic, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't ask for I have to ask for my credit card.
Speaker 1: You should just know it and don't say, well I
Speaker 1: know all about you. Okay, then tell me what my credit.
Speaker 2: Card number is. Then then I'll believe you.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's prophetically accurate. Jesus said this in Matthew twenty six.
Speaker 1: But all this is happening to fulfill the words of
Speaker 1: the prophets.
Speaker 2: As recorded in scriptures.
Speaker 1: Jesus said, it's all coming true, just like God predicted.
Speaker 2: Revelation twenty two.
Speaker 1: John says, the Angel said to me, these words are trustworthy,
Speaker 1: this prophecy. These words are trustworthy. You can trust it
Speaker 1: and they're true? Why because it from God, the Lord
Speaker 1: sent his angel to show his servants the things that
Speaker 1: must soon take place. It is prophetically accurate, and the
Speaker 1: odds of all these prophecies happening and just the way
Speaker 1: they did over thousands of years is astronomical.
Speaker 2: Number four.
Speaker 1: The fourth reason I know that the Bible is trustworthy
Speaker 1: is it is thematically unified. It is thematically unified. What
Speaker 1: I mean by that it has the same theme through
Speaker 1: the entire book, from cover to cover, from Genesis to Revelation.
Speaker 1: It is the same theme of redemption from Genesis to
Speaker 1: the end. Jesus is the star, and it is a
Speaker 1: thematically unified book.
Speaker 2: You so, what's the big deal about that?
Speaker 1: I know a lot of books that carry the same
Speaker 1: theme from the beginning to the end, written over sixteen
Speaker 1: hundred years by forty different authors.
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: You see, this book was written over one thousand, six
Speaker 1: hundred years, from the first book to the last, by
Speaker 1: forty different authors on three different continents, in three different languages,
Speaker 1: and they didn't know about each other.
Speaker 2: How do you think they all got the same story.
Speaker 1: When they wasn't even collected in one book until a
Speaker 1: thousand years later after they died in the Old Testament.
Speaker 2: How do you think they knew that?
Speaker 1: You see, it'd be one thing if one person wrote
Speaker 1: this book. See the Quran was written by one person, Muhammed.
Speaker 1: The analects of Confucius are written by Confucius. The writings
Speaker 1: of Buddha are written by Buddha.
Speaker 2: You would expect them to be uniform.
Speaker 1: The Bible was written by forty different people in every
Speaker 1: age and stage of life, as I said, on three
Speaker 1: different continents, in three different languages, over one thousand, six
Speaker 1: hundred years, and they got.
Speaker 2: The same story.
Speaker 1: This book was written by poets and prophets. It's written
Speaker 1: by princes and kings. It's written by sailors and soldiers.
Speaker 1: This book was written by attorneys and a doctor an MD.
Speaker 1: It's written by kings. It's written by prisoners. It's written
Speaker 1: by common people. It's written by prophets. All kinds of
Speaker 1: people wrote the Bible, and it was written in all
Speaker 1: kinds of locations. Some of the Bible was written in
Speaker 1: a cave, some of the Bible was written on a ship.
Speaker 2: On ships, some of it was written in homes.
Speaker 1: Some of us written in palaces, some of it was
Speaker 1: written in prison, and.
Speaker 2: They all come up with the same theme. You got
Speaker 2: to be kidding me. It has the same theme.
Speaker 1: Of redemption from cover to cover over one thousand, six
Speaker 1: hundred years. You couldn't get a more diverse group fishermen
Speaker 1: and tax collectors and scholars and businessmen an over a
Speaker 1: period of over almost two thousand years coming up with
Speaker 1: the same story.
Speaker 2: I mean, let me give you an example of this.
Speaker 1: If I were to take fifty pieces of paper right now,
Speaker 1: and there's sixty six books of the Bible, but let's
Speaker 1: just say I were to take fifty pieces of paper,
Speaker 1: and I were to hand them out to people today,
Speaker 1: and I said to each of you, I want you
Speaker 1: to tear this piece of paper any way you want to,
Speaker 1: in any shape you want to. I'm not gonna tell
Speaker 1: you how I'm gonna use it, and I.
Speaker 2: Just want you to tear it into shape.
Speaker 1: And so you tear it up in a shape, and
Speaker 1: then I take the fifty pieces back. What would be
Speaker 1: the odds that all fifty of those pieces of paper
Speaker 1: would form a perfect map of the United States of
Speaker 1: America and the fifty states.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't believe it. You'd say it's trick.
Speaker 1: The odds are too astronomical to just accept that they
Speaker 1: all unify and fit together. But the Bible's more than that.
Speaker 1: It was on many places, many people, and many centuries,
Speaker 1: and yet it all fits together with the same unified theme.
Speaker 1: Here's what Jesus said, Luke twenty four. Beginning with Moses.
Speaker 1: That's the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Viticus, Numbers, Juteroni,
Speaker 1: first five books of the Bible written by Moses, beginning
Speaker 1: with Moses, and all the prophets. That's the rest of
Speaker 1: the New Testament, I mean of the Old Testament. Jesus
Speaker 1: explained to them what was said in all the scriptures
Speaker 1: concerning himself.
Speaker 2: Did you get that?
Speaker 1: See, most people think the New Testaments about Jesus and
Speaker 1: the Old Testaments about Israel wrong. The New Testament wasn't
Speaker 1: even written when Jesus said that. He's talking about the
Speaker 1: Old Testament. It says he went through all the scriptures
Speaker 1: and showed what it said about him. The story is
Speaker 1: about Jesus from beginning to end. The pictures, the metaphors,
Speaker 1: the analogies, the illusions, everything in scripture from the beginning
Speaker 1: of the end is about God's plan to redeem people
Speaker 1: and build a family for eternity.
Speaker 2: It all began with him. The star of the story
Speaker 2: is Jesus.
Speaker 1: You can see him in every book and John six,
Speaker 1: verse thirty nine. Jesus says, you search the scriptures because
Speaker 1: you believe that they give you eternal life.
Speaker 2: But the scriptures point to me.
Speaker 1: Now, remember New Testament hasn't been written when he said this,
Speaker 1: He's talking about the Old Testament.
Speaker 2: All the scriptures point to me.
Speaker 1: Now, while we're talking about Jesus, Tom is going to
Speaker 1: come and talk to you about the fifth way that
Speaker 1: we know we can trust the Bible is the word
Speaker 1: of God.
Speaker 3: Fifth way I know I can trust the Bible is
Speaker 3: because it's confirmed by Jesus, because Jesus trusted the Bible.
Speaker 3: You may have heard somebody say, you may have even thought,
Speaker 3: you know, I trust what Jesus said. I'm just not
Speaker 3: sure about those other guys. Well, here's the challenge to that.
Speaker 3: Jesus trusted the rest of the Bible. So if I
Speaker 3: trust Jesus, then I'm going to trust the rest of
Speaker 3: the Bible. Because Jesus trusted the rest of the Bible.
Speaker 3: Jesus proclaimed the Bible as a unique book above all others.
Speaker 3: Look at this next verse in your outline, Matthew five eighteen.
Speaker 3: Jesus said, I tell you the truth, and tell heaven
Speaker 3: and earth disappear. Not the smallest letter, not the least
Speaker 3: stroke of a pen, will disappear from the law and
Speaker 3: till everything is accomplished. Jesus looks at the Bible and says,
Speaker 3: it's going to last until the end of the time.
Speaker 3: It's going to accomplish what God wants to accomplish in
Speaker 3: this world. Here's what Jesus had to say about it.
Speaker 3: Up on the screen. John ten thirty five. Jesus said,
Speaker 3: let's read this one together. Jesus said, scripture is always true.
Speaker 3: Jesus proclaimed the truth of the Bible. And when Jesus
Speaker 3: talked about the truth of the Bible, I've got to
Speaker 3: listen to that in my own life. When Jesus says
Speaker 3: that every sentence and word of the Bible is true,
Speaker 3: that's why I believe that every sentence and word of
Speaker 3: the Bible is true. When you read how Jesus talked
Speaker 3: about the Bible with people, he would often base his
Speaker 3: argument about the truth of the Bible on a single
Speaker 3: sentence or even a single word from the Bible. So
Speaker 3: he believed every single sentence, every single word. So why
Speaker 3: wouldn't I? Because I trust Jesus. And when Jesus talks
Speaker 3: about the Bible, he doesn't just talk about poetry and history.
Speaker 3: He talks about it as something that's life changing. Look
Speaker 3: at this next verse up on the screen, Luke, Chapter eleven,
Speaker 3: verse twenty eight. Here's what Jesus had to say. Blessed
Speaker 3: rather are those who hear the word of God and
Speaker 3: do what and obey it? And do it so not
Speaker 3: just read it like poetry, Oh isn't that nice? But
Speaker 3: obey it because God wrote it to our lives. Jesus
Speaker 3: as he talked about the Bible, he talked about it
Speaker 3: as a real book, talking about real people in real places,
Speaker 3: where the real gods who's really at work in our lives.
Speaker 3: Up on the screen, let me just put for you
Speaker 3: just a real quick list of some of the people
Speaker 3: and places that the Bible talks about as real and
Speaker 3: that Jesus also confirmed as he talked that were real.
Speaker 3: Jesus believed in the prophets. If you want to write
Speaker 3: down a couple of these verses, I'll leave that up there.
Speaker 3: For a couple of seconds, he talked about all the
Speaker 3: prophets being really talked about Daniel being real. Jesus believed
Speaker 3: in Noah, everything that happened with the flood. He talks
Speaker 3: about that. He believed in Adam and Eve. Jesus believed
Speaker 3: in the tragedy of Sodom and Gomor and what happened there.
Speaker 3: He taught on that he believed in Jonah and what
Speaker 3: happened there. Now here's the interesting thing, particularly those last
Speaker 3: four Noah, Adam and Eve, Sodom and Gomora, Jonah. Those
Speaker 3: are the most disputed stories in the Bible by people
Speaker 3: who say, oh, it's just a bunch of fables, and
Speaker 3: they're good stories, they're good moral stories, but they didn't
Speaker 3: really happen. Well, Jesus believed they really happened. In fact,
Speaker 3: he used some of these as illustrations of the fact
Speaker 3: of what was going to happen in his resurrection. If
Speaker 3: Jesus really believed in Jonah, I believed in what happened.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I don't know how God created a fish that could
Speaker 3: swallow a guy, but he did. He did. I trust
Speaker 3: in it because Jesus trusted in it, and it always.
Speaker 3: It sort of makes me smile when two thousand or three,
Speaker 3: four thousand years later we look back at the Bible
Speaker 3: and we go, well, you know, I'm going to trust
Speaker 3: that part, and I'm not going to trust that part
Speaker 3: based on my subjective or emotional feelings. I'm going to
Speaker 3: accept that part and I'm not going to accept that part.
Speaker 3: Jesus trusted it. Jesus trusted it, and so I trust it.
Speaker 3: Augustine said, if you believe in the Bible what you
Speaker 3: like and you don't believe what you don't like, is
Speaker 3: not the Bible you trust, but yourself. And I don't
Speaker 3: know about you. I've found that my emotions, my opinions
Speaker 3: are not always trustworthy. I trust Jesus. He trusted the Bible.
Speaker 3: That's one of the main reasons why I trust the Bible.
Speaker 1: The sixth reason that you can trust the Bible as
Speaker 1: the absolute authoritative word of God God breathed Theonustus is
Speaker 1: that it has survived all attacks, and that makes it
Speaker 1: an unusual book. The Bible is the most despised book,
Speaker 1: the most derided, denied, the most disputed, the most dissected,
Speaker 1: the most debated, the most outlawed. The most destroyed, the
Speaker 1: most banned book ever in history. Millions of people have
Speaker 1: died because they refuse to give up their Bible. People
Speaker 1: were killed. It was illegal. It's still illegal in some
Speaker 1: countries like today. You take a Bible into Korea, you
Speaker 1: can get killed for it. North Korea, not South Korea.
Speaker 1: South Korea is a Bible country, but North Korea, you
Speaker 1: take a Bible in you can get arrested, thrown in jail,
Speaker 1: and you can be killed for it. This Bible has
Speaker 1: been underttacked for century after century after century by every
Speaker 1: imaginable thing you can imagine, and yet it is still
Speaker 1: the most read book in the world, the most published
Speaker 1: book in the world, the most translated book in the world,
Speaker 1: the best selling book in the world, and it is
Speaker 1: still making a difference in people's lives. The Bible is
Speaker 1: the source, the greatest source, single source of music. The
Speaker 1: Bible is the greatest single source of art, and the
Speaker 1: Bible is the greatest single source of architecture throughout history.
Speaker 1: If you take the Bible out of culture, you have
Speaker 1: basically destroyed most of the major music, most of the
Speaker 1: major art, and most of the major architecture. For almost
Speaker 1: two thousand years, it is the source of our culture.
Speaker 1: You speak the English language you do because of the
Speaker 1: King James version of the Bible. If the King James
Speaker 1: Version of the Bible had not been written, you would
Speaker 1: not be speaking the way you speak right now. But
Speaker 1: four hundred years ago they published the King James version,
Speaker 1: and the words you use today most of those words,
Speaker 1: many of them were made up in the King James version,
Speaker 1: and most of those words came out of that book,
Speaker 1: out of the Bible. Jesus said this in Matthew twenty
Speaker 1: four to thirty five. Heaven and earth will pass away,
Speaker 1: but my words b ill never pass away.
Speaker 2: The only thing on this planet that's going to last
Speaker 2: is the Word of God. It's eternal.
Speaker 1: Everything else is going to burn up, but the Word
Speaker 1: of God is eternal because truth is lasting forever.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Voltaire, the famous French philosopher, is a brilliant man, flat
Speaker 1: out brilliant man. He was an atheist, but he was
Speaker 1: flat out brilliant. He wrote a number of tracks deriding
Speaker 1: the Bible and Griltaire made a very famous statement in
Speaker 1: which he said, one hundred years from today, the Bible
Speaker 1: will be a forgotten book. Everybody's forgotten that quote After
Speaker 1: Voltaire died, for nearly one hundred years, his homestead was
Speaker 1: used as the book depository for the French Bible Society.
Speaker 1: They sold bibles out of his house. It's now a museum.
Speaker 1: People have forgotten volt tear. Nobody forgets the Bible. Heaven
Speaker 1: and earth will pass away. My word will never pass away.
Speaker 1: One Peter won twenty four to twenty five. The grass
Speaker 1: withers and the flower falls away. In other words, the
Speaker 1: contemporary stuff, it just wilts. Today's news is worthless tomorrow.
Speaker 1: You don't read last week's newspaper. It didn't worth anything.
Speaker 1: And so he said that that stuff, that the temporary,
Speaker 1: contemporary stuff, it doesn't last, wither's f our faith.
Speaker 2: But the Word of God stands forever.
Speaker 1: And the truth will always be the truth, whether I
Speaker 1: believe it or not, it's the truth. I could say
Speaker 1: I believe the moon is made of cheese. Now we
Speaker 1: know and have proven that the moon is made of rock.
Speaker 1: We've brought rocks back from the moon. And no matter
Speaker 1: how much I say I believe the moon has made
Speaker 1: of cheese, it doesn't change it.
Speaker 2: It's still made out of rock. I told you that I.
Speaker 1: Once saw a bumper Stickert said, God said it, I
Speaker 1: believe it.
Speaker 2: That's set up.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a dumb way to say it, because really
Speaker 1: what you ought to say is God said it. That
Speaker 1: settles it whether I believe it or not, because whether
Speaker 1: I believe it or not doesn't change it at all.
Speaker 1: The fact is there are a lot of things that
Speaker 1: are true. I don't want them to be true. So
Speaker 1: I say, well, I don't believe it because I don't
Speaker 1: want it to be true. It doesn't make it not true.
Speaker 1: I don't want that to be called immral. Well doesn't
Speaker 1: matter whether I want it or not. What God says
Speaker 1: is moral is moral. What God says in moral is
Speaker 1: not immral, and it's he gets to make the choice.
Speaker 1: He's God and you're not. I could say to you,
Speaker 1: I don't believe in the law of gravity.
Speaker 2: It's just fine for you.
Speaker 1: And you may be a religious person, but I don't
Speaker 1: need the law of gravity. So, you know, let's all
Speaker 1: be copa setic. What's good for you is good for you,
Speaker 1: what's good for me is good for me. I don't
Speaker 1: believe in law gravity. So you and I go up
Speaker 1: on the you know, the Empire State building, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to say, I don't believe the law how gravity
Speaker 1: applies to me because I don't believe in it, And
Speaker 1: so I jump off the Empire State Building. Now, as
Speaker 1: I'm floating down at a rather rapid speed, about the
Speaker 1: one hundredth floor down, a guy looks out the wind
Speaker 1: and goes, how's it going, Rick, And I say, so far,
Speaker 1: so good. And that's the way most people are living
Speaker 1: their lives.
Speaker 2: You see.
Speaker 1: God gives you the freedom to totally thumb your nose
Speaker 1: to Him and rebel against Him your entire life. But
Speaker 1: that's not the end of the story. You can run
Speaker 1: from God the rest of your life, but then you
Speaker 1: can't run anymore. Sorry, You're going to come face to
Speaker 1: face with God one day, whether you believe in him
Speaker 1: or not.
Speaker 2: And all of that I don't.
Speaker 1: Believe him isn't going to stop that event from happening.
Speaker 1: And the truth is, at some point, I'm my face
Speaker 1: is going to hit the ground.
Speaker 2: And the truth is, you don't break.
Speaker 1: God's laws, they break you. When I ignore what God
Speaker 1: says in his inspired, in errant, infallible word, When I
Speaker 1: ignore what it says because I don't like that part,
Speaker 1: I only hurt myself.
Speaker 2: I don't hurt God. I only hurt myself.
Speaker 1: You see, the fundamental question, the most important question you're
Speaker 1: going to ask yourself in life is what is going
Speaker 1: to be the final authority for my life? What is
Speaker 1: going to be the final authority for my life? You
Speaker 1: need to decide that. I recommend you decide today. Is
Speaker 1: it gonna be the word or is it going to
Speaker 1: be the world? Am I going to listen to what
Speaker 1: God says is true? Am I going to listen to
Speaker 1: public opinion or my own set of feelings. Who's gonna
Speaker 1: be the authority in my life? God or me? Because
Speaker 1: see when I say I don't really accept this book,
Speaker 1: it's not that I can, It's that I don't want
Speaker 1: to accept. And the reason I don't want to accept
Speaker 1: it as my authority is because I want.
Speaker 2: To be boss. I want to be Lord. I want
Speaker 2: to be God of my own life.
Speaker 1: And I don't want God telling me what's moral and immral,
Speaker 1: what's right and what's wrong.
Speaker 2: I want to do it my way. I want to
Speaker 2: be Lord.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let me ask you how's that working for you?
Speaker 2: Out?
Speaker 1: Is that solving all your problems has all your stress
Speaker 1: and worry and and you know, irritations vanished because you're God.
Speaker 1: If you're God, you're in charge. How's that working in
Speaker 1: your life? Everything turning out the way you want it?
Speaker 1: I don't think so to rebel against God is flat
Speaker 1: out stupidity. You're not going to win that battle. Your
Speaker 1: arms are too short the box of God.
Speaker 2: So the big question is what's going to be the
Speaker 2: authority of my life? Now?
Speaker 1: Why is the inerrancy and the infallibility and the flawlessness
Speaker 1: of God's words so important? Because, friends, if this book
Speaker 1: is not true, you're in a heap of trouble. And
Speaker 1: so am I because my salvation depends on this book
Speaker 1: being right, and so does yours.
Speaker 2: This is the book that tells you your life is
Speaker 2: not an accident. Science doesn't tell you that.
Speaker 1: This is the book that tells you there is an
Speaker 1: overarching purpose for your life.
Speaker 2: Science doesn't tell you that.
Speaker 1: This is the book that says God made you to
Speaker 1: love you. This is the book that says you can
Speaker 1: be forgiven. This is the book that says your past
Speaker 1: can be forgiven, you can have a purpose for living,
Speaker 1: you can have a home in heaven. This is the
Speaker 1: book that says, no matter what problem you go through
Speaker 1: God can use it for good in your life. This
Speaker 1: is the book that says there is a reason for hope.
Speaker 1: If this book is a lie, you're in a heap
Speaker 1: of trouble, because this is the book that tells you
Speaker 1: how to get to heaven. The Bible says in Romans
Speaker 1: chapter twelve, this do not conform any longer to the
Speaker 1: pattern of this world. It's talking about the world's way
Speaker 1: of thinking, the world's worldview. It's the opinions and this
Speaker 1: you know the attitudes of the world. Don't conform any
Speaker 1: longer to the pattern of this world. But be transformed
Speaker 1: by the renewing of your mind. You're either a conformist
Speaker 1: or you're a transformist. You're either conformed to the way
Speaker 1: the world thinks, or you're transformed by the truth. He says,
Speaker 1: be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll
Speaker 1: be able to test, You'll be able to know. This
Speaker 1: is how you make good decisions and approve what God's
Speaker 1: will is is good and pleasing and perfect will. God's
Speaker 1: plan for your life is good. God's plan for your
Speaker 1: life is pleasing, and God's plan for your life is perfect.
Speaker 1: But you're only going to know it through the perfect
Speaker 1: word of God.
Speaker 2: Let's bow our heads.
Speaker 1: I want you to settle this issue today, to accept
Speaker 1: the Bible as the flawless word, as the final authority
Speaker 1: for your life, because if you don't, then you're basically
Speaker 1: making it on your own opinions of what You're setting
Speaker 1: yourself up as the authority. And I would ask you again,
Speaker 1: how's that working. How's that working in your life? You
Speaker 1: find it pretty effective? I would pray this prayer right now.
Speaker 1: Say it in your mind, Dear God, from this day forward,
Speaker 1: I will accept the Bible as your flawless word to me.
Speaker 1: I will make it the final authority for my life.
Speaker 1: Not what television says, not what popularity says, not what
Speaker 1: I feel like doing or what I think sounds best.
Speaker 1: I'm going to make the Bible the final authority for
Speaker 1: my life, even when I don't understand it, even when
Speaker 1: it's not popular, even when it's not easy, or even
Speaker 1: when I don't like it.
Speaker 2: You are God, and I'm not.
Speaker 1: Thank you God for loving me enough to speak to
Speaker 1: me through your word.
Speaker 2: Thank you that you are not silent.
Speaker 1: Thank you that you spoke through about forty men and
Speaker 1: women over sixteen hundred years on three continents and three
Speaker 1: languages to tell me one story that you wanted me
Speaker 1: in your family, and you wanted me to know you,
Speaker 1: and that you made me for a purpose. Thank you
Speaker 1: that you're not silent. I want to love your word,
Speaker 1: I want to learn your word, and I want to.
Speaker 2: Live your word.
Speaker 1: Use forty days in my life to set me on
Speaker 1: the right path. In your name, I pray Amen.