God Speaks

When God speaks, life begins. Last week we focused on the existence of God, and this week I just want to harp on that. That idea or concept when we think about God in our mind. When God speaks, life begins. Last week, we asked some very important foundations on the new series that we're going through about believe. What should we believe? What is the foundation to our existence? What am I truly holding on to as an individual, hoping for eternity and a better future in this life? Last week we talked about the topic God Exists. We simply asked three important questions. How do we know God exists? Where did God come from? And if God does exist, how do we explain evil in this world? When we found as we began that journey together, is because as God has spoken, we as people have received the opportunity to know him. It's only because God has spoken that we even have the privilege to. Acknowledge him in our life. The very first chapter of Genesis, in chapter one and verse one, it says, in the beginning God created. The word created is Barak. In the Hebrew it means out of nothing. And the existence of God was demonstrated through us. As God spoke, life began. And in understanding and looking at this world, we see there is purpose to it. There is intelligence to it. There is order to it. Therefore, there is a greater creator behind it all.

And in creating this world, he also created man. And as God spoke in Genesis chapter one and verse three, God would say, and let there be. And through the power of His Word, when God spoke, life began beginning in verse three, it goes to the seven days of creation. And God said, and it happened. And God says, and it happened. And God says, and life begins until he gets to the point of his last crowning glory of his creation, which is man. And he says, the Triune God speaking to him says, self says, Then God said, let us make man in our image. And then it goes on to say, in the image of God, he made him. In verse 27, God creates man. In verse chapter two and verse seven it says, then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living creature, and not only from the intelligent design of this world can we recognize an intelligent designer. Through the creation of man, we have come to understand that there is a God. There is a longing within us to stand in awe of things that are glorious within the nature of man. We desire good to triumph over evil without anyone having to teach us about it. We go to the movie theaters and we watch glorious movies about John Wayne winning the day, right? Where did that come from? I would suggest it's because God spoke and life began.

And in creating within us as creatures the spirit that he breathed into us. It says in chapter two and verse seven, we have a desire to connect with him unlike any creature he's created upon this world, because in all his design, he never took the opportunity to breathe into him his spirit, his breath of life. That's why we, as today, as we gather for church on Sunday, to praise God's name and grow closer to him. We also don't find our animals of the home leaving to also attend their worship facilities. God breathed into us something special that connects us to him as our creator God. God speaks and life begins. As God reveals himself to us, he is made known to us. The idea of looking into creation and seeing God's existence, the idea of looking in man and seeing and God and His existence is referred to as theologians by theologians as general revelation. But the great thing about God is that he didn't just stop there. Because if God had stopped there just generally creating an idea for us as who he is, we would be left to speculation. What more could we know about this God? And the reason we're able to even begin in Genesis chapter one, and an understanding of who God is together is because not only has God spoken and created everything that exists today, but God has also written his word for us, the Bible.

Today I'm going to talk more specifically about God's revelation. We refer to the Bible as special revelation. God becoming more specific to us as people. Not only did God reveal himself through special revelation within the Bible, he also revealed himself in special revelation through Jesus, which we'll examine later into the not too distant future. Four key questions I'm just going to simply ask about the Bible today. Why would God want us to have a Bible? What is the Bible? Is the Bible really God's Word revealed to us as the Bible that you carry today? Really trustworthy to examine. Because if we're saying that God has revealed himself generally, but he's revealed himself specifically in creation, for us to know him as he's created within us a spirit, a desire to want to draw near to him. And this is God's words to us. We as people should find ourselves craving and yearning after it. Why did God give us a Bible? Why do we have a Bible in our hands today? The first is we've harped on. It is because God wants us to understand his revelation. God wants us to know him specifically, rather than just guessing about the nature of God and leaving it up to speculation. God has revealed himself so that we as people may know him fully, as much as our finite minds can comprehend.

It says in Deuteronomy chapter six and verse one, now this is the command, the statutes and the rules, that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk, by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Moses is writing to the people of Israel. He's saying, listen, this is God's word. God has given me his exact words to reveal to you. I'm sharing it with you, not so that you just harbor God's Word for yourself, but it becomes your responsibility as God reveals himself to you, to display and to teach the character and nature of God to other people. In Deuteronomy six seven he says, it first begins with your family, wherever you are, whether you're walking, whether you're sitting, and whether you rise in the morning. God's directional word should be upon your lips. Goes on and says in Titus two one but as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Sound doctrine is a very important in the understanding of who God is. Last night, to pump myself up for a message like this, I watched a movie called Religious Religiousness. Have you ever seen that movie? It's an anti-God movie, right? A lot of speculation thrown out about God that is untruthful towards God, with a lot of preconceived ideas about the questions relating to God, with no clear understanding of why we're even asking the questions that we're asking.

But the important thing about it is what got off track was sound doctrine. Truth. When truth is lost, we can't understand fully as God would desire for us to comprehend him as people. The better we understand God in our lives and in our existence, the more freely we can worship him and the more purposeful we can live our everyday lives in this world. For the reason which God created us. God gave us the Bible not for speculation but for revelation. He desires to make himself known to us. And not just revelation as well, but it points us in direction. There is a truth. There is a foundation in which you can base your life upon, of which is solid, of which can be tested and proven. And first Thessalonians 521 we've said and reflected before in this message, prove all things, and hold fast to that which is good. God isn't looking for people to walk in blind ignorance in this world, and use faith as an excuse for stupidity. God's truth can be tested. God's truth can be examined, and we find a foundation upon it for which we can rest and pursue direction for our lives. Numbers 2319 God is not a man that he should lie, or a son of man that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? I like Malachi three six.

It says, I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob aren't going to be consumed. When God gives us a truth, when God gives us a promise, God doesn't waver or change in that truth. Truth is absolute and truth is timeless. Truth will endure forever. That's why when God records his scripture to people, it not only related to the people in which it was written, but it becomes important for us to follow after it as well, some 1500 years after it's recorded. Why? Because truth is absolute, according to God. God gave us revelation for us to understand. God has given us direction to pursue him. But not only that, God has also given us protection. You know, there are a lot of crazy people in the world that I've even experienced in my own life. Come to me and tell me what it is that God needs me to know, to make myself a better person, right? You ever had that an encounter person who had an encounter with God? What do we do when we encounter people who reveal to us some truth that they think God has spoken to them? By what tool do we have to measure crazy thoughts or actions if they're inaccurate? According to God? The Bible. The Bible is our source of protection. The Bible keeps us from straying and believing things that are false and contrary to the nature of God, what he would desire for our lives.

It says in revelation two two, I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be an apostles, but are not, and have found themselves false. Acts 1711. Listen to what it says about describing these individuals character. The Jews were more look at this word noble than those in Thessalonica, because they received the word with all eagerness. What you're doing today great. And examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. And so when I stand up before you today and I deliver a message, whoever it is, speaking on behalf of God, representing some thought or truth that they claim that God has taught you. God's desire for you is to dig into the truth and discover whether or not it's accurate for yourself and whether or not you should be believing it. That's right. That's noble. God doesn't want ignorant people. And when I look at the greatest command in the Bible, it says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul. That's wonderful. Emotionally charged. Run after God with your spirit. But he also says, love the Lord your God with all your mind. God gave you a mind for a reason. When it comes to faith, we don't just abandon the mind in which God has given us to given us to embrace whatever belief just seems right to us emotionally at the time.

There is truth that can be made known, and we'll talk more about that in a minute and how we can examine that in the Bible. Why does God want us to have the Bible? It's for revelation for us. It's for direction for us. It's for protection. What is the Bible? Father, I ask you to describe for someone today what the nature of the Bible is all about. Could you just, in a concise statement, tell someone what the Bible is or what it contains? The Bible is a collection of 66 books from all sorts of genre of literature, compiled into one work, as if you were to walk into a library, and you were to see all the sections in which scripture or which books are categorized in. That is like the Bible. Within the Bible you find books of poetry, books that are narratives, parables, books that are just songs, letters, books that are, that are laws, books that are apocalyptic, books that are prophetic. All these genres of literature, all 66 books coming together to compile the Bible. If you were to look within the categories of the English Bible, it's broken into sections. Your Bible is categorized according to topic. The first five books are the Books of Law. The next 12 books are the Books of History. The next five books are books of poetry.

The next 17 books are books of prophecy. Then you have the four Gospels. Then you have one historical book on the church. Then you have 23 epistles or letters. Do you know why Paul's letters are categorized the way they are in the New Testament? You know your Bible is not written in chronological history. You can buy a chronological Bible, but they break it down according to category. Paul's books from Romans down to some would debate. Hebrews are placed within the Bible according to the size of the letter. It's really clever, isn't it? There's room in that Bible. Put them together, compile that literature according to the size of the letter. And then to conclude, there's one apocalyptic book at the end of your Bible revelation. It's written on three continents. It's written in three languages written in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. It took over 1500 years to write the Bible, and there are over 40 authors that compiled the work together. Your Bible is divided between an Old and New Testament. Just note in the early church they didn't refer to your Bible as Old and New Testament. It was one testament. A few hundred years after Jesus, a man came along and titled it the Old and New Testament. After. After the quote of Jeremiah 3131, which reminded Israel that God would bring forth a new covenant for them to follow. By testament it means covenant.

It's the old covenant. Everything that happened previous to the life of Jesus and the New Covenant, everything that was fulfilled in the life of Jesus. Within your Bible, you're going to find over 100 chapters. Those chapters aren't inspired. When the writers came along, they didn't write a sentence and say, number 13, chapter two. Those were added a little bit later in history. Around the 13th century, some scholars came along and inserted the chapters that we have in our Bible today. And the reason was, is they wanted to give us sort of an address, like if you were to give someone directions to your house, how do you find where you're talking about? So when we talk today and we share portions of Scripture, we don't have to flip through an entire book to find it. We can just turn right there and discover it together. In the 1500s, they begin to add verses to Scripture as well. Over 31,000 verses are found in your Bible. Three fourths of which are found in the Old Testament. What is God's word? You have an understanding of what it's about, and it's important if you desire to read and understand and grow in God's word, that you don't just wake up every morning and just turn to a page and read it. That's the equivalent of picking a book out of a library, going home and reading two pages, and then returning the book from whatever section of that book you wanted to read.

You just don't get the story right. You don't comprehend the totality of what's being expressed within that book from just a couple of pages. And so when you turn to God's Word, it's important that if you're in the New Testament and you're reading the epistle or an or a letter that you read through the entirety of the letter, you just don't skip around because there's a thought that is carried along throughout that entire passage or that genre of literature. We have the Bible. God has given to us the Scripture. We understand what the Bible contains. But the big question that we really have to answer ourselves, answer for ourselves today is the Bible really God's Word revealed to us? Because we're talking about this morning, taking your entire faith in which you're going to live out your life and placing it upon a book that you may or may not understand to be trustworthy. Is it really God's Word revealed to us, and can we trust it? It's been thousands of years since Jesus has walked this earth. How do you know your Bible hasn't been changed? Those are important questions. And so when we consider that just the foundation of beginning to ask the questions, we start with this idea. If the Bible doesn't claim to be God's Word revealed to us on its own, then we don't need to be teaching it. That's right.

What does the Bible say about itself? How can we come to understand it? Well, the Bible views itself. First of all, I would say as authoritative. Listen to these verses, Proverbs 30 and verse five. Every word of God proves true. First Peter two two as newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the Word of God, so that you may grow. First Peter 125 but the word of the Lord endures forever. Ephesians 617. The sword of the spirit is the Word of God. Hebrews 412. The Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two edged sword. God's word is authoritative. Not only that, God's Word is also promised to be fulfilled. It says in Matthew 518 for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Jesus is saying the statement, if you if you look when Jesus says jot or tittle, you guys might be wondering what in the world that is. Well, if you think about in our English language, we use what we call a period. And if you if you have the size of a period, that's a jot or tittle. It's the smallest expression in the Hebrew language. And Jesus is saying even the tiniest stroke that is written in my word, all of it will be fulfilled. It goes on and says, and one of the most powerful verses that talk about the inspiration of Scripture is in second Timothy 316.

It says, All Scripture is given by inspiration, and it literally means in Greek. All Scripture is God breathed. These are God's words and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. Note, note the descriptiveness of life in the latter half of the verse. Whatever you're doing in life for teaching, if you need corrected in your life, the Word of God will work in your life to do those things. It's literally it says all Scripture is inspired. Meaning, when we look at the New Testament writers, we don't necessarily say that the New Testament writers were inspired as much as the words that God gave them to write down were inspired. God gave them his words to reflect on his pages for us as people, and they are all his words. At church we would use this term, or in theologian theology circles they would say it's the verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture which they mean every word. Verbal plenary is fully inspired by God. Every period, every sentence, every thought that is carried. It's all inspired by God. If you're wondering how this happened, the Bible goes on to explain how this inspiration took place. It says, knowing that this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. Meaning these guys weren't just inspired or encouraged like a songwriter is or like Beethoven was.

He didn't feel one day wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks, the key of C, let's compose. That's not how it happened. I feel inspired. God came into the to the lives of these individuals and inspired them the very words he wanted them to write. In Scripture it says, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. If you were to read in the Old Testament, you would see a common theme created throughout the entire Bible as prophets spoke forth. They say, thus saith the Lord over 430 times in the Old Testament. Thus saith the Lord, meaning, it's not me saying this. It's God. These aren't my words. These are God's words. Thus saith the Lord. Prophecy wasn't carried along by men and their will, but it was spoke as God revealed it to them. If I were to give an idea or an illustration of what we mean by the Holy Spirit working in their lives. In acts chapter 27, the same word for carried along is also used in Greek for driven along. At the bottom of this of this verse it says it's referring to the to the Apostle Paul on a ship that's being shipwrecked. And it says, after hoisting it up, they used supports to undergird the ship. Then, fearing that they would not, they would run aground on the citrus, whatever that is.

They lowered the gear and thus they were driven along. It refers to this passage of Scripture as men on a boat, and they're working from to not be shipwrecked, but ultimately what's driving them along as they're working not to shipwreck. This boat is the wind. They are not in control of this wind. This wind is forcing them exactly where this wind wants them to go. But these men are still active in the boat. We look at the Bible. We recognize that God is a creative God because within Scripture, what we find in these pages is that he uses people of all sorts of backgrounds to reveal to us his words. He uses men who love to speak through songs or poetry, like David, to use their creative abilities to still express his very words. He uses people like Luke, who is a doctor, to write the book of Luke or acts to write a very detailed, precise, documented account of all the historical things that are happening around him, just like you would expect a doctor to do. Yet through Luke, he gets out the very words he desires for us to have. To the point when Paul comes to the book of Timothy, he can write. Listen guys, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Everything is God's words. What was Jesus's view of the Bible? Jesus said in Matthew 518 that we just read this for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle shall in no way pass away from the law till all be fulfilled.

Jesus saying, listen, heaven can go, earth can go by. My word is so powerful that this is going to endure. What I'm saying to you is significant. And for three, when it comes to when Jesus goes into the garden, he's tempted by Satan. Or you're familiar with the story in chapter four when Jesus goes to defeat Satan, Jesus doesn't just say, Satan, I'm going to sock the snot out of you. I'm Jesus, right? What Jesus does is he begins to quote Scripture. He says, and when the tempter came to him, he said, if thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. And this is Jesus's response. But he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. To defeat Satan, Jesus says, it is written and he quotes from Deuteronomy in Luke chapter 11 and verse 51. This is important to understand the canonization of the Old Testament. Jesus says, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah. Referring to Scripture Abel is the first prophet killed in the Old Testament. Zechariah is the last prophet killed in the Old Testament. Zechariah is the last portion of Scripture written in our Bible.

And so we examine according to what Jesus says he's describing for us the totality of what the Old Testament is, the Bible in which Jesus would have read from. Not only does Jesus have statements about scriptures, we look within the Bible. The other apostles do as well. It says in first Timothy 518 For the Scriptures say, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages. Paul is writing, quoting from the Bible. The first part of the phrase, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out his grain, is taken from Deuteronomy chapter 25. The next part for it says, the scriptures say the laborer deserves his wages. Paul is quoting both of these as Scripture, and this comes from the New Testament. In the book of Luke, Paul is referring both to the Old Testament and the New Testament as Scripture. Second Peter in 315 and 16, our beloved brother Paul, also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you. Paul has written unto you guys also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to understand. Have you ever read Paul's letters and been like, what is Paul talking about? That's okay, because Peter says, sometimes it's hard to understand which they that are unlearned and untestable rest as they do also the other scriptures. You see what Peter's saying about Paul's writings? He's saying all the epistles that Paul writes are difficult to understand sometimes as the rest of Scripture.

Peter is referring to Paul's writing in this context as being Scripture, as the Bible, really God's Word revealed to us. I would say this morning that the Bible seems to say so. The Bible reflects to us that its entirety and purpose, and being written to us as people is for us to understand that it is God's words. The question we ask then is can we trust it? Can we trust the few thousand years that have since passed, since the time Scripture was written to the time we live today? How do we know that the Bible is reliable? One of the things I would first share is the work of translations. Do you know that today we don't have any of the original writings of the New or Old Testament? Some 66 books make it up and no original manuscript has ever been found. We have no original copies. Let me use an illustration for a minute before we start getting worried about that. Jesus himself, in the Old Testament when he walked on this earth, would have used a translation. He had no direct copy of the original Old Testament Hebrew Bible. If in America today a terrorist came out, I don't know why it has to be a terrorist, but let's pretend he comes and he goes to the museum where the Declaration of Independence is kept, and he decides to destroy the Declaration of Independence.

The original copy. What are we as people going to do? I mean, our country is going to fall apart, right? We all know the rules that we wrote down to start this whole thing has been just decimated. We can't even think about putting it back together. This thing has been burned to pieces. How are we ever going to function again? You know, on the inside, the answer to that is pretty easy. Declaration of independence was only not. Not just copied once, right? Declaration of independence has spread throughout historical books and even our schools, our public schools. As children, we read from it. I mean, it's possible for us, though the original copy is destroyed, that we can then piece together what the original copy contained just by taking all the rewritings of the Declaration of Independence to examine and see that it's true in its original form. Same is true with the Bible. 2000 years since the time of Jesus. And do you know, today we have over 25,000 manuscripts of the Bible. We have over 5000 of those written in Greek, over 10,000 written in Latin. We have multiple translations into the second and third century in different languages. Very early on, Rome had conquered the known world. We've heard the concept all roads lead to Rome. And the early church, when it began to spread, it spread all over the Roman Empire, connected by these roads and into various people, groups of different languages.

And these different languages began to write for themselves. The Bible in their own language, to the people could read it. And we have manuscripts that have survived since the second and third century of these, of these writings existing in their language in addition to the Greek and Latin. We even have specific translations that become significant to understand the importance and trustworthiness of the Bible. And having over 25,000 manuscripts, maybe some of the more important ones. I could point to you this morning. You've heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Important for us today, because Dead Sea Scrolls date back 200 years before the time of Jesus. You know at the time that Jesus walked the earth and even into the 1950s, one of the claims that people placed against Christianity came from the prophetic statements that a messiah would come, he would die on a cross, he would be resurrected from the grave, and he would ascend into heaven. No way a man could do that, they would say, and no way you could ever prove that, because you don't have a manuscript that dates older than Jesus. And someone came along and wrote these prophecies about Jesus later, after he fulfilled all of them. So that way people in future history would look back to him and begin to worship him as if it was a god until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found 250 years up to before the time of Jesus walked this earth.

We have the Dead Sea Scrolls. Contained within those Dead Sea Scrolls are important passages of scripture, like Psalm 22 to 24 or Isaiah chapter 53, which describes the very exact nature and the things that would take place that culminated in the death of Christ. Not only do we have the Dead Sea Scrolls, but we have other manuscripts that are important as well. Top left is a manuscript by John Ryland found in 130 A.D. of the Book of John. This is just a section of the book, but it's the earliest dating that we have of the book of John that dates back 40 years before the after the book of John was written. Matthew chapter 26. We have a section of Matthew 26 dating to 68 A.D. within a couple of years after Matthew was written. The same with Mark 64 A.D.. Have you ever wanted to go view these manuscripts. You can go view Matthew and Paris. You can go view John in a in a library in England. These are just small portions of manuscripts. This is how small that they can get when archaeologists discover it. But we don't just have small portions as well. We also have entire works of the New Testament. For me. You know what the most shocking thing is about these manuscripts? By the way, I didn't mention another man by the name of Hosea Callahan, who found eight manuscripts, all dating of different portions of Scripture, all dating within ten years of when those books were written.

But when I look at manuscripts that we've just scrolled through very quickly, my immediate thought is to think about the early church, because at the time that these guys carried these passages of Scripture, of which we have 25,000 copies today, to own something like this would be to put a bounty on your head. The very person wrote these words could have also been the very person that died in the Coliseum after Jesus. It's astounding to me that even today, thousands of years later, we're still discovering manuscripts from the early church. These people laid it all down so that today I could have an enormous amount of manuscripts to look back throughout history, to see how the Bible has been kept and preserved and recorded at the expense of their own life. There was a man by the name of Diocletian who came along at the end of the third century. Diocletian's goal. He was just the last real ruler that came before Constantine finally passed the Edict of Milan, legalizing Christianity and allowing Christians to finally worship freely without having to have the fear of death over their heads. For 300 years, they endured this persecution when it maximized to its highest peak by the by this man named Diocletian. He's on record throughout history, stating several times that his life goal is to wipe Christianity off the face of this earth and destroy every copy of the Bible that exists.

When Diocletian died and Constantine came in to rule, one of the first things Constantine asked was for a copy of the Old and New Testament. Do you know, within the first 24 hours, Constantine had over a half a dozen copies of the Old and New Testament in his hands? Diocletian's efforts were unsuccessful. Not only do we have early manuscripts of the Bible, we also have early church fathers. Do you know when the apostles died off? The apostles made disciples just as Jesus did. Jesus's last command to them was to go into the world and make disciples. And so the disciples did Peter, James, John, Paul. They all went into the world and make disciples. Even John, who lived the longest, wrote the last two books of the Bible, the Epistle or the Gospel of John in Revelation, Before dying shortly before 100 A.D. he made disciples. One of his disciples was a man by the name of Polycarp. Existing today, we have all of Polycarp's writings, but not just him. Early church fathers that just pour throughout all of history. If we were just to look at the early church fathers that existed within the first few centuries, they quote passages of Scripture over 1 million times in their writings. It's possible, if we never had another manuscript of the Bible that existed today, if we had nothing at all to go back into history and look at the writings of the early church fathers and compile the entire work of the Bible, we wouldn't know where the words go because they have no verse references to where they're at.

But the entire Bible is quoted within the early Church Fathers. A man by the name of Irenaeus 100 A.D. said this about the Bible. God has given us the gospel in fourfold form. What is he talking about? Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They refer referred to it at the singularity as the gospel in four fold form, but held together by one spirit. A man by the name of Clement of Rome in 96 A.D. said this. Take up the Epistle of the Blessed Apostle Paul. What did he write to you? Corinthians. At the time when the gospel first began to be preached in 96 A.D., Tertullian, who came along, said this. The apostle has used the same words in writings referring to the Apostle Paul, for he was guided, of course, by the same spirit by whom the book of Genesis was drawn up, as we were all the divine Scriptures region says. In addition, for the proof of our statements, we have taken the testimonies from that which is called the Old Testament, and that which is called the new, which we believe to be divine. Writings. Jesus never argued over the Old Testament.

He simply accepted from Abel to Zechariah. The early church history displays to us thousands of manuscripts in the preservation of Scripture that has existed throughout time in the early church. Fathers continue to follow and like themes, sharing with us what the Bible is. Ignatius and Marcion, who were ruling in or helping in the early church in the second century, called the New Testament. Books. The books of the Gospels and of the apostles. When you find the writings of these early Church Fathers from this first century on into the third century, they continue to write and reflect to the church themselves, never saying they're writing scripture, but what they say is they're writing to these guys is read the works of the apostles. Those are Scripture. We're writing these things to you to understand what the apostles have given to us. Those are Scripture. You know, if we're going to be honest with all these manuscripts that exist, over 25,000 manuscripts, one of the questions I simply ask is, do any of those manuscripts contain any errors? And if they do, how do we handle that? And this is something I'm basing my life on. And if these manuscripts contain errors, I want to know. When you look within history, what we find is that there are mistakes in these manuscripts. And 99.9% over 99.9% of these mistakes are just simple spelling errors. Could you imagine if, as a church, if we're part of the early church and the Apostle Paul has just written to you a letter, and I'm up before you this morning and I'm going to read it to you, and you know that I'm about to read Scripture.

And so this morning you come to church with what you have to write on, which isn't, by the way, paper. Right. They didn't have that in the early church. If you had paper, what it was reads, beaten down into a flat form and to write to write upon. It's about the equivalent of writing on concrete, right? About about that same type of surface level. If you didn't have if you didn't have papyrus to write on, you would write on animal skin. If you didn't have animal skin to write on, you would write on wood or clay. And could you imagine the type of utensil you'd have to use to write? It is not BIC. Bic has not been around for 2000 years. It was the old quill and the ink, right? And as you're riding along upon these manuscripts, you get to those jagged edges and all of a sudden your pen skips and maybe a jot or tittle is left out can change the pronunciation of the word. How then, do we know as people whether or not that's just a spelling mistake or just an incorrect translation? That's not changed the entire Bible? Well, the way that we do that is we look at all the manuscripts that exist in that time period.

We have 25,000 manuscripts. We can see out of 24,999 that exist, that when we look at all these passages, this guy spelled this word wrong right here, but all these other people spelled it right. Maybe because there's a hole in that manuscript and there's a bump there. Maybe he spelled out a spelling mistake. They call that textual criticism. Over 99.9% of the mistakes that are found in the manuscripts are the variants. They say that are found in the manuscripts are spelling errors. What about the point? 1%? What is that? I mean, is it something that I just need to abandon Christianity altogether? How do you how do you know that? Well, the point 1% was a common mistake that was often made within the early church is the switching of titles or names. For instance, if I were reading to you a story about Jesus Christ, and as I say it to you and you're riding along with your quill, all of a sudden I got ahead of you and you got to dip your ink again real quick and write. You write the name Christ Jesus instead of Jesus Christ. There's the switching of his name title as well. In addition to that, if I'm writing and reading to you Scripture, and you get to those one of those portions of Scripture where the Apostle Paul we find, as Peter said, it's difficult to understand.

You're wondering, what in the world does Paul mean by this? And you insert a commentary. Note to yourself they consider that a variant within a manuscript, not a mistake, but a variant that would consider that a part of the mistakes. And looking at the totality of Scripture in your Bible today, if you write footnotes within your Bible, it's that equivalent as the Bible is translated and you want to understand Scripture more, you make a little note to yourself to understand, well, how do we know this person? Didn't this person wrote a commentary? What we do is we take the group of scriptures that came from that period. In that era of time, we compare those scriptures and we look at, okay, this guy just wrote a commentary to himself for this section to understand, but all these other manuscripts exclude it. It's the Bible. Trustworthy. My conclusion from that would be yes, but that we don't just have to leave it there. There are additional ways to understand the inerrancy of Scripture. There are proofs. Today, archaeology continues to validate Scripture. Just this week I was reading an article that came from Israel. Israel now entered back into the time period in which they allow people to go excavate as archaeologists. Guess what city they've uncovered? Gath. Do you know who lives in Gath? The Philistines. Goliath was from Gath. They've begun to excavate the city of Gath. And you know what they found as they began to excavate the city of Gath.

A temple that had collapsed by its pillars. Do you know in the Old Testament who pushed pillars to collapse a temple on the Philistines? Samson. Archaeologists haven't come out to say that it was specifically Samson who pushed over the temple. And it's not a Christian who's doing the archaeological digging. But suggestions to us, as we look at the archaeology would be Samson pushed that over. King David was believed in the Old Testament to be a fictional character until recently in Assyrian stone dating back to the ninth century was discovered, and on this stone it said the words The King of Israel and the House of David. People have claimed that the Old Testament flood of Noah was a false statement. It was fictional work as well, until they found Babylonian Babylonian documents describing the same flood. The Sumerian kings listed and described the kings that ruled during that period and during that flood. After the flood happened, the kings that began to rule in Samaria again described that the lifespan of the people was much shorter than previous to the Noahic flood. That's how we go from Methuselah living 900 years, to David living 100 years. Interesting extra excavation has revealed that other than the Bible 11th tablet of Gilgamesh epics the Ark as well, taking on animals, birds sent throughout the course of the flood. It landed on a mountain.

They sacrifice and offering to it when the ark landed, just like our Bible describes. Ebla found an archive in northern Assyria in the 1970s. It records for us the patriarchs from 2300 BC that are found within the Old Testament. The Hittites, believed to be false people until described and found records of them in their capital city found in Turkey. The Assyrian king named Sargon was once believed to be a mythical king. Then Sargon's palace was found. Sargon attacked Ashdod and describes to us in Isaiah 20 that a very event was found described in the palace walls. Fragments of this capturing of Sargon of Ashdod was recorded as a memorial in the city of Ashdod itself. Archaeology supports the Bible. Do you know you can get on eBay today and buy biblical artifacts? The widow's mite for $10 with a certificate of authenticity. I mean, what religious book does that? Ebay of all places. There's a well that's referred to in the book in the New Testament, which Jesus went and healed a man. It was a well that they considered a wishing well. Archaeologists discovered it last year, and they say there are so many artifacts around this well that date back to biblical, historical records that they have to take buckets and scoop it out and go through each individual bucket, because there is an unlimited of artifacts they find within the contents of the bucket. Not only does archaeology support prophecy supports having manuscripts dating older than Jesus.

We have verses that tell us in Genesis 12 he will descend from Abraham. He will descend from Judah. He will be called the Son of God. He will be raised from the dead. He'll be crucified, mocked, and pierced in Psalm 22, accused by false witnesses in Psalm 35. Hated by his accused in Psalm 69. Betrayed by his friend. Given vinegar to drink. He will uh. Kings will pay homage to him when he is born. Psalm 72. He will be rejected. He will be a descendant of David. He will be born of a virgin. He will make the blind see and the deaf to hear. He'll be mocked and spat upon. He'll be rejected and killed and silenced before his accusers will be born in the city of Bethlehem, which only has a couple thousand people sold for 30 pieces of silver and forsaken by his disciples, all prophesied about Jesus. And that is just a snippet of what prophetically was proclaimed about Christ. No book does that. Science declares the accuracy of Scripture as well. It's said in Isaiah 40 and verse 22, it is God who sits above the circle of the earth. The people below must seem to him like grasshoppers. It was Galileo in the 1500s, thousands of years after this portion of Scripture was written that first said, maybe, maybe the Bible suspends in space rather than riding on the back of a turtle.

Of which Christians could say, Galileo, read Isaiah 40 and verse 22. Matthew Maury is considered the father of oceanography. One day he was sick. He had his son read to him the Bible in Psalm eight and verse eight. Maury noticed the expression that said the paths of the sea. Upon hearing that when he became well, Maury got up and he went to the ocean, and he began to look for the currents of the ocean, and Maury discovered the paths and the currents that existed within the seas. Maury went on to write the book. The book that's still used today in colleges on oceanography and the currents of the waves. Is the Bible speak? It's not a science book, but it does speak on scientific proofs and it helps validate Scripture. Not only do we have science, not only do we have archaeology, not only do we have prophecy, but what we also have is this absolute honesty. We have men like Moses writing about his about his experiences with God in a very humbling way, committing and admitting to us as people that he had killed someone. King David writing to us Psalm 51, revealing to us as people that he had committed adultery. It's honest and it's persona because it's inspired by God, revealing to us the very nature of these people. The Bible has continuity. It took over 1500 years, three different continents, 40 different authors to write, and one theme throughout scripture.

In Genesis three, after man's sins, we see that Jesus has promised to come to this earth to die for our sins, to. Revelation. When Jesus returns triumphantly as a king to rule over this world, as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. One theme throughout all of the Bible, the truth is declared declared by these people at a great expense. They had very little to gain by following after Christ with their lives, other than the fact that it was truth for the lives to contain. In First Corinthians 15 three, Paul even writes that Jesus appeared to over 500 witnesses at the time in which Paul wrote this portion of scripture, those witnesses were still alive. People could validate the resurrection of Jesus before 500 people by talking to the eyewitness accounts. It's also life changing. Throughout history, we see thousands of people whose lives have been changed through the expression of Scripture and its promise that God will sustain it. And throughout history, as we've examined, God has. In Matthew 518 it says, not one jot or tittle will pass until God has fulfilled it all. But as the Bible is, the last question to ask before we draw conclusions is the Bible missing any books you ever turn to? The History Channel? One of the things the History Channel likes to tell us is that there are other books that have been excluded from the Bible. Of which I would say it's a very liberal approach to what history tells us about Scripture.

The Old Testament ended around 435 BC, under the reign of Artaxerxes and the time of Queen Esther, and after that time the nation of Israel went back to their own city. After being carried captive by the Babylonians, they go back to their own city and rebuild Jerusalem and Church fathers. Church historians reflect upon that event, and they say to us that the prophets have been silenced since the time of Artaxerxes. Josephus himself even says in his works Against Apion he. He says that they have kept succession of history, and have recorded that as Jewish people, but the prophets have been silenced since the time of Artaxerxes. The books, like the Apocrypha, are often mentioned as books that were excluded from Scripture that should be in there. If you pick up a version of the Catholic Bible today, you'll find noted within the Catholic Bible, a section of books that we call the Apocrypha. How in the world did those get in the Catholic Bible? Scripture ended around 435 BC. After that point, all the apocryphal books were written. It's interesting when you read the Old Testament, you'll never find one New Testament author quotes any apocryphal books. Jesus himself over 300 quotes contained in the New Testament from the Old Testament. And all that you find in those quotes are the books that you have in the Old Testament validating to us that we have the books that God intended? Jesus never debated, even at the time that Christ was alive.

435 years of the silence. Jesus never debated the works of the Old Testament that he had at the time. So how do we do away with the books that are apocryphal? How do they come to be included in the Catholic Bible in the 16th century? You'll remember there was a man by the name of Martin Luther. He led what was called the Reformation out of the Catholic Church. Martin Luther goes before the Pope for his trial. And there's a man who is even his accuser, a lawyer that puts the charges against Martin Luther. Martin Luther himself didn't acknowledge the Apocrypha as Scripture, as history hadn't. To this point. Even the man who was prosecuting Martin Luther wrote, wrote an article to the Pope dedicating a commentary of the entire Bible and excluded the Apocrypha because he didn't consider it works of God. Martin Luther took such a dogmatic stance against Catholicism, against the Apocrypha, that in retaliation against Martin Luther, at that point the Catholic Church instilled it into their Bible. The Apocrypha books were written. Everything contained within Apocrypha were written well after 435 BC, during the silence of the prophets. Not intended for us to be Scripture. What about the New Testament? What about the Gospel of Barnabas or the Gospel of Mary? The Shepherd of Hermas, or the Apocalypse of Peter, or the Epistle of Barnabas, or the Epistle of Clement? What about those? Those are mentioned by the History Channel a lot.

We simply just respond in one thought towards those books. The Apostle John died in 95 A.D. after writing the last book of the Bible. All the other books throughout history that people have attempted to say needed to be inserted into Scripture weren't written until after the death of the last apostle. The Shepherd of Hermas. Gospel of Barnabas, or, excuse me, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Gospel of Thomas all have a date later than 100 A.D. when no apostle is on this earth any longer. So the early Church Fathers would reflect back and say, read the writings of the apostles. Those are Scripture. And today we have other books that people try to jump on the bandwagon of what Christianity was developing and receive fame from it and write false books, Gnostic books. They often refer to them as all existing after the time of the apostles. In your New Testament, what we have contained are books that are authored or led by the apostles. Do we have the Old and New Testament? I think history says to us, yeah, we do. Do we need to raise objections and ask those questions about the Bible? I think it's healthy to do taking the time as a church today and examining these historical works and asking these questions are important for us, because people bring these accusations against the Bible, and us ourselves need to go home and rest assured, is the Bible trustworthy? Can I really read it? Has it been changed? Can I place my faith upon it and live by it? I think as you examine history, though, people may have attempted to write books that weren't included, though early mistakes may have been made, spelling mistakes may have been made in manuscripts.

The preservation of the Bible has been kept. So what's important for us this morning? Let me take all this head knowledge for us today and make one big conclusion for us. Okay. Thank you for staying with me and allowing your brains to be stretched today. I know it's a little different than what we do usually at church, but what does the Bible mean for us? First, I would say you have a foundation to believe upon. And can I tell you, one of the one of the disheartening things for me as a Christian is when I watch people who don't know Jesus, who are searching for God, come before a Christian and begin to ask them questions about God. And the Christian really doesn't have any idea. I mean, if you're talking about following after Jesus, not just being a Christian, but being Christ like God has given you a mind to understand His Word. All this stuff that we talked about today, if it's the first time you've ever heard it as a believer, I could tell.

I just need you to know it's important that you continue to reflect on this as a Christian because people ask these questions. You yourself may have even asked these questions at some point. It's important to have a solid foundation of understanding what the Bible is about, if you're going to base your life on it. We have a foundation for belief. We look at the Bible. In addition to that, God still speaks today. The Bible tells us that the Word of God is living and active. God wrote a truth that is timeless. That's not only important to the people that it was written, but it's important to us today because truth is absolute. God still speaks to us today through His Word. It's wonderful because if any crazy person comes before us, we can say, that's not what God says, man. There's no way I'm believing that God wants to experience wants us to experience him relationally. God breathed into your life, His spirit giving you the ability to connect with him better and more than any other creature created on this earth. God wants you to know him. God has revealed himself to you so that you may understand him. God has given you the ability to connect back to him spiritually, to communicate to him. That's what a relationship with him begins with. And that's what a relationship with him, how it grows and what it looks like.

God's word is given to us that we may experience him relationally. But last and I would say this is the most important. God's word gives life. When God speaks, life begins. When God says something to us that speaks within our spirit, it creates life. It says in Psalm 33 and verse six by the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. In Genesis one, in the beginning God created, and it says in verse three, God said, let there be. When God spoke, there was life. In Genesis or John chapter one, Jesus compares himself to the Word of God because he understands God's words to be so powerful. And it says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was with God. And in verse 14 it tells us, and the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. Jesus equating himself with the word. When God speaks, life begins. Jesus spoke, and he brought to this earth life. And in second Timothy 316, all Scripture is given by inspiration. Here's the thought I want you to take with you today throughout your week. What we want to encourage people to do is just be in the Word of God and let it transform. Because when God speaks, life begins. So this morning we got a lot of information about the Bible.

But we don't come just for information. We come for is transformation. God transforms us into his image as we meditate and reflect upon the purity and truth of who he is. And Peter and Paul wrote in second Timothy 316, All Scripture is God breathed Scripture. When God spoke in the beginning, His word created life. When Jesus came into this world as the Word of God, his life creates life. When God wrote to you His Bible, when you're reading those pages and you're knowing its truth, God is breathing upon you his life. God has given you a spirit to connect to him in the way that spirit grows, as you allow it to breathe its life into your world. Paul wrote in Hebrews 412, The word of God is living and active. When you look at the Bible, do you view it as some archaic writing that has no relevance to you today? Paul is saying to the believers, listen, this thing breathes life into your world. This thing is the foundation of our world. This thing is trustworthy for us to believe, allow it and give it the opportunity to breathe life into your life. How do you feel right now toward your relationship with God? What we desire for our church is we want people to have the Bible in their hand. The Holy Spirit in our heart, Jesus on our horizon, and our lives being changed because we're taking the time to allow His Word to speak into our life. Let's close in a word of prayer.