Rick Warren - 7 Facts That Prove the Bible Is True

This is the book that says God made you to

love you. This is the book that says you can

be forgiven. This is the book that says, no matter

what problem you go through, God can use it for

good in your life. This is the book that tells

you how to get to heaven. Now, the Bible is

the most read book in the history. It's the best

selling book in history, and it is the most translated

book in history. Why is it the word of God?

How do we know it is the word of God.

We're going to look at that this weekend as we

start in your outline two Timothy, Chapter three, the Bible

says this, all scripture is God breathed, and it's useful

for teaching and rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. I'm

going to explain that in another week, so that the

Man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

We're going to look at this verse again next week,

but I want you to look at the phrase all

scripture is God breathed. Circle that word God breathed. That

word in Greek is theo nustos, theo meaning God nustos

being breathed. The Bible is God breathed. Now, what does

that mean? Some of the translations translated the scripture is inspired.

But we're not talking about an inspiring writer writing an

inspiring book. We're talking about God inspired this book. It

is God breathed theo nustos. Right now, you are listening

to the breath of Rick Warren. You're listening to my breath,

because what my voice is is breath coming up over

my vocal cords, vibrating those vocal cords and coming out

a sound. If I didn't have any breath, I wouldn't

have any voice. So the breath of Rick Warren is

the word of Rick Warren. It is the voice of

Rick Warren. And the Bible says that God's word is

God's very breath. It's not just a good idea. It

is God's word to us. And as a result of that,

Psalm one nineteen tells us this, all of your commands

can be trusted. Everything in the Bible can be trusted

as true because.

It comes from God.

Now, it's one thing for the Bible to claim that

it's the word of God. It's one thing for the

Bible to say it can be trusted.

But how do I know? Really?

I mean, really, how do I know this is the

Word of God. It's not just some bunch of fables

or a bunch of stories that were put together. It's

a valid, legitimate, important question, and we need to ask

before we ever start studying the Bible. How do I

know I can trust it? Time Magazine thought this was

such an important question it put it on its cover twice.

Here was a cover of Time Magazine a while back

that said, how true is the Bible? It's a good question.

This morning, we're going to settle this issue because there

are incredible proofs, evidences, and facts that you need to

know to help you make up your mind. So you're

not making up your mind based on what you've heard

other people say, but what the Bible actually claims for itself,

and what history, science, and all these other things teach

us about the Bible. We're going to look today to

start off forty days in the Word on inspiration, how

do I know I can trust the Bible? Well, there

are seven reasons. Pastor Tom's going to help me with

these this weekend, but I want you to write down

the first one. It is historically accurate. The Bible is

historically accurate, and for that reason, I know I can

trust the Bible. In other words, the Bible isn't just

doctrinally correct. It's not just theologically correct. It's not just

accurate regarding morals and regarding ethics. It's true history, real people,

real places, real time. It is true historically. Now why

is that even important? Because the Bible tells us this,

God cannot lie. God cannot lie. A lot of people

ask me all the time, is there anything God can do? Oh? Yeah,

there's a lot of things God can't do. God cannot

deny himself. God cannot not be God. God cannot lie

because God is truth. In fact, the Bible says this

on the screen Hebrews six eighteen. It is impossible for

God to lie because God is truth. The only reason

the universe works is because God is a God of truth,

which means stuff is true all the time. Can you imagine,

for instance, if the law of gravity only worked on

Tuesday and Thursday, it'd be a pretty weird thing. But

the laws of physics are true. God bought them up,

He created The laws of mathematics are true. God created

the laws of mathematics on which the universe runs. And

so God cannot lie. If this book has one lie

in it, it's not a godly book. It's not a

book of God, because God cannot lie. Psalm thirty three,

verse four says this, the word of the Lord is right,

and it is true. Now that's not only true and

right about salvation, it's true and rite about history. I

want you to give a warm welcome to Pastor Thomas.

He talks to us about this.

So how do we know that the Bible is historically accurate? Well,

by the same way you know any other history is accurate.

You just go by the tests of good history. For instance,

one of the ways that you test good history is

is it from eyewitness accounts? And historian would go in

and say, is this written down by somebody who saw it,

or is it second hand or third hand, or is

it a legend written down one hundred years later. The

Bible is primarily eyewitness accounts. That's why it's good history.

Moses was there when the Red Seas split. Joshua was

there when the walls of Jericho fell. The disciples of

Jesus stood in the upper room, sat in the upper

room and saw the resurrected Jesus appear. And then they

wrote down what happened, and we read about it. Matthew

was there and he wrote it down. John was there

and he wrote it down. Peter was there. He told

a guy by the name of Mark. He wrote it

down in the Gospel of Mark. And Luke talked to

all of them, including Jesus's mother, and heard about what

had happened. So it's eyewitness accounts of what had happened. Now,

the other test of history by which we know the

Bible as accurate is the extreme care with which the

Bible is copied. You may have heard people say, you know,

I'm sure was right when it was first written, but

it's been passed down generation after generation, all these changes

have come in.

You ever heard that.

If you hear that, you know someone hasn't just hasn't

taken the time to study it, to look into it,

because when you look into it, you find out the

extreme care with which the Bible is copied. The Old

Testament copys the scribes, and when they would copy these

scrolls from one to the other, they would copy it

like we would copy a xerox copy. It had to

be exact, and they had this long list of rules

that had to go by to make sure that it

was exact. Rules, like when they had a scroll, it

had had a specified number of columns throughout it, so

it would always be the same, and the link of

those columns always had to be from forty eight to

sixty in linked, and it always had to be thirty

exactly thirty letters white, so they could always check it

out to make sure that it was always right. They

had this rule that you had to copy letter by

letter and not word by word, so that well, you know,

on your phone, like it does text prediction and sends

the wrong word to somebody, the word you didn't want

to send. They wanted to make sure that didn't happened.

So they could only copy letter by letter, and they

went by these tests to make sure that it was right.

After they copied it. They knew in a book how

many letters of the alphabet were in each book, So

for instance, like our letter A, they would know that

there were one thousand, six hundred and fifty three a's

in this book, and if had one thousands to six

hundred and fifty four when they counted it, they threw

the scroll away and they started over. They were so exact.

They knew the middle letter of the first five books

of the Bible, the Pentitude, they knew the middle letter

of the whole Old Testament, and after they copied all

of this, they would go to that middle letter and

count forward and backward, and if it didn't come out

exactly the number it should, they'd throw it away and

they'd start over. That's how exact they were. There's a

lot of reasons we can ways that we can see

that they're exactly. But one of the ways we can

see is through something called the Dead Sea Scrolls. We've

all heard of those. What's so significant about the Dead

Sea Scrolls? Well, the Dead Sea Scrolls were written about

one hundred years before Jesus, and they have in them

copies of all of the Old Testament book except Esther,

all the other Old Testament books. When we found those scrolls,

the earliest copies we had before that were from nine

hundred years after Jesus of many of those books. So

there's this thousand year gap. All of a sudden, we

get to check out how much change came in in

those thousand years. You don't wonder how much, about five percent,

and that was almost all and just in the spelling

of words, the spelling of names. Over a thousand years,

those copies were proved to be right as they copied

again and again and again and made it right. It's

another proof of the historical accuracy of the Bible. Another

proof is in archaeology. You look at archaeology and it

proves again and again that the places and the people

and all that the Bible talks about are true. It's

not fiction. You can go and find these places. We've

dug up these places, the Areopagus where Paul was, the

theater in Athens where there was this riot, We've dug

them up. We can see them today. The pool of

Saloon where the blind men was healed, portions of Herod's temple,

all these places that are talked about in the Bible.

They've dug them up. We can see them. The Book

of Acts is all about his historical accuracy. Luke an

historian as well as a doctor. As he wrote the

Book of Acts, he talks about fifty four cities, thirty

nine countries, and nine different islands, complete historical accuracy. One

of the great things about how archaeology it works with

the Bible is how it's again and again shown that

actually the Bible is more accurate than our ideas of history.

There's been many times when we've had an idea of

what's historical and said, well, the Bible must be wrong,

and the Bible's proved itself to be right. For instance,

for a long time, historians said, well, we're not sure

that guy named Solomon lived in the Old Testament, and

we're certainly sure they didn't have horses like it talked about.

They only had camels back then, so that can't be right.

Until at Megiddo they discovered one of Solomon's chariot cities

with thousands of stalls for guess what, horses, So the

Bible was proved right. One of the greatest, probably the

greatest example of that, is an empire called the Hittites.

There's this whole empire called the hit Tights talked about

in the Bible that was not talked about anywhere else.

So for centuries historians said the Bible just made it up.

Utel in the early nineteen hundreds, a professor by the

name of Hugo Winkler discovered at Boguskoy ten thousand clay

tablets at the capitol of guess what the Hittites. Now

everyone believes in the hit Tits. In fact, during a

break in the game. Today you can go on Wikipedia

you can read about the hit Tites.

Not only is the Bible historically accurate, it every time

archaeology backs it up, but it is scientifically accurate. That's

the second reason the Bible is scientifically accurate. Now, there

is so much misunderstanding and boloney about this in the world.

I want to spend a majority of time on this

point because people who think the Bible is scientifically inaccurate

mean a they've never studied the Bible, and b they

probably don't know science.

Because the truth is.

God always sets up the laws of science, and he

made sure that his word does not contradict the laws

of science. Now, the Bible was not given to be

a scientific textbook. Obviously, you don't study the Bible to

build a rocket, and the Bible doesn't use scientific language.

But the Bible never, never, never.

Gives bad science quack science, not once in over sixteen

hundred years in which this book was written, does it

give bad science. In fact, it is always a head

of science. There are things in the the Bible says

were true that we just discovered one hundred years ago.

Two hundred years ago, three hundred years ago, Johannes Kepler,

the famous mathematician, the famous astronoer.

You know.

Kepler said, science is simply thinking God's thoughts after him.

In other words, God established the laws of physics, and

then we discover them. God established the laws of biology,

and we discover them. God established the laws of mathematics,

and we discover them. One of the reasons why we

know the Bible can be trusted is because it's scientifically accurate.

And the reason it's accurate is.

Because the laws of the universe were invented by God,

so he obviously understands them, even in years past when

we didn't, because for thousands of years we've misunderstood different things. See,

the one thing about truth is it never changes. But

the one thing about science is it constantly changes. There's

nothing more worthless than an obsolete science book. I guarantee

you that the science book you had in the third

grade is not being used in the third grade today,

and a lot of things in that book are no

longer believed or even taught. Nothing is more worthless than

a five year old computer book. You can find them

on any garage sale, and nobody wants them because things

get out of date so fast. They get out of

date so fast. Science things that we thought we believed,

we now know more about it, and we go, oh well,

In fact, in medical science it happens all the time.

I had to go to a doctor this week and

he was talking to me about a particular condition and

I said, oh, well, then I assume we're going to

do this, this and this, and he goes, oh, no,

we don't.

Believe that anymore. I said, you got to be kidding me.

Everybody knew that, don't know, we don't believe that anymore,

and we don't use that in medicine anymore. How many

articles have you read that now say that something you

thought was good for you now causes you cancer, yes, right,

Or stuff that they said it's fine for a pregnant

woman to take, and then ten years later ago it's

not fine.

Science constantly changes.

Do you know if you've ever been to Paris, you've

probably gone to the Louver, the famous art museum and library,

world class library. Do you know that in the Louver

Library there's one section that has three and a half

miles of obsolete science books. Three and a half miles

because stuff they thought was scientifically fact fifteen hundred years

ago was disproven a thousand years ago. And what we

thought a thousand years ago was disproven seven ninety fifty

years ago. And what we thought twenty five years ago

was proven ten years ago. And what we thought ten

years ago is now changed to today. And if you

had been reading the Bible a thousand years ago or

seven hundred years ago or five hundred years ago, what

the Bible says would not have matched the science of

that day because it wasn't up to date. God understands

stuff even when we don't, and his rules don't change.

The Bible says this and some one eight.

Let every created thing that's the whole universe, give praise

to the Lord, for he issued his command. God set

these rules in motion, the laws of thermodynamics, the laws

of physics. He issued his command, and they came into being,

and he established them forever and ever, and his orders

will never be revoked. The second law of thermodynamics doesn't work.

Today and not work tomorrow.

It always works because it was true and it was

made by God.

Truth doesn't change, you know.

In eighteen sixty one, there was a very famous book

that came out called fifty one Incontrovertible Proofs that the

Bible is scientifically inaccurate. It's a very famous book, Fifty

one incontrovertible scientific facts that we know this is eighteen

sixty one that the Bible does not agree with. And

we know that the Bible is scientifically inaccurate. The only

problem is today, one hundred and fify years later, you

couldn't find a single science on the science on the

planet who would agree with any one of those incontrovertible facts.

They have all been disproven by science. Truth does not change.

Now. One of the proofs.

That we know that this book is not simply man made,

that this book came from God, that God directed men

and women to talk and speak and wrote write things down,

and we know that it's the word of God.

Is what's not in it? What's not in it?

Because if this were a human book, you would expect

it to be filled with scientific facts of the prevailing day,

but they're not here.

They're not in the book.

For instance, for thousands and thousands of years people believed

that the Earth was flat. It wasn't until Copernicus and

Galileo and Columbus that people realize the world's not flat,

it's round, it's a sphere, it's a ball. And so

you would expect the Bible to say the Earth is flat,

because it was in existence and being written during those

thousands of years when everybody thought the world said not ever,

single verse in the Bible says the Earth is flat,

not at all. In fact, it says the exact opposite.

Two thousand and six hundred years ago. God said this

in the Book of Isaiah.

Forty, verse twenty two.

God is enthroned above the sphere of the Earth. Two

six hundred years ago. The Bible says the Earth is round,

the Earth is a sphere, the Earth is a globe.

Long before anybody knew it everybody when that was written,

nobody believed it, but God said it, and it was

true whether anybody believed it or not. For thousands of years,

people believed the earth had to be held up by something,

and depending on the culture you were in, you got

certain different beliefs on what held it up. For instance,

if you were Greek, in Greek culture, you believe that

the world was held up by a giant named Atlas. Okay,

we all know who Atlas is. That Atlas held up

the world. Now, part of the Bible's written in Greek.

Atlas isn't in the Bible. Why because it's not true.

So it's not in the Bible. You would expect that

during that time it would have somehow found its way

into the Bible, but it's not there. For thousands of years,

the Hindus believed that the Earth sat on the back

of giant elephants, and that when the elephants moved, that's

what caused earthquakes. Now they said, well, what did the

elephants stand on.

I'm not making this up.

You can find in any science or encyclopedia. They believed

that the giant elephants stood on the back of a

giant sea turtle, and the giant sea turtle stood on

the back of a giant sea serpent who swam through

a cosmic sea.

Now, that was the prevailing.

Attitude in the world for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

It's not in the Bible, even though the Bible was

being written during this time. Why because the Bible leaves

out the lies. The Bible tells us that Moses was

skilled and schooled in all of the wisdom of the

ancient Egyptians because Moses was adopted as the son of

Pharaoh's daughter, so he went to the best schools in

ancient Egypt and was taught what was the prevailing science

of that day. Now, the Egyptians were flat out brilliant.

They built the pyramids, They were masters at architecture, at engineering,

at astronomy, at a none other things. But they were

The ancient Egyptians were dead wrong on what held up

the earth because ancient Egypt believed that the earth was

held up by five pillars. Certainly Moses was schooled in

that science because he went to the best schools in

the land as Pharaoh's grandson. And yet not once in

scripture do you find the earth is held up by

five pillars.

Why?

Because it's not true, And so it didn't make it

into the Bible. The prevailing science of the day didn't

make it there. In fact, the oldest known writing to

man is likely the Book of Job. It's the oldest

literature in existence that we know about. Job was the

first book written in the Bible. The books the Bible

are not in chronological order. Job is the oldest book

and in Job twenty six, verse seven, the oldest known

literature in the human race. It says this God stretches

the sky over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing.

Who told job? How did he know? That everybody knows

the earth is flat and it's on the back of pillars.

It's not why because the Bible only always tells the truth.

I'm reinforcing this because I want you. It is sheer

nonsense to say that the Bible is scientifically an accurate.

That means you just don't know the Bible.

For instance, for years, it was the accepted science that

they were about one thousand stars in the universe, and

that they could be counted, that the number of stars

were finite. In fact, one hundred and fifty years BC,

a guy named Hiparcas counted him, and he wrote a

very famous dissertation one hundred and fifty years BC saying

that there are one thousand and twenty two stars in

the universe.

That's it, And it was accepted.

For a long long time that there were only one

thousand and twenty two stars in even but it doesn't

say that in the Bible. Three hundred years later, one

hundred and fifty years BC, a guy named Ptolemy does

it again and he comes out. He says that hiparkas.

That guy's a kook. He's a nut. There are one

thousand and twenty six.

He found four more stars. Shoot, they found planets this year.

I read an article just a couple weeks ago where

a guy said the number of stars in the universe

is infinite. It is widely accepted today that there are

more stars in the universe than there are grains of

sand on the planet Earth. They cannot be counted. Now,

we didn't know that. I mean, everybody accepted there are

one thy twenty four twenty six stars. But two six

hundred years ago in the Bible, God had said this

Jeremiah thirty three twenty two, the number of stars are infinite.

Hmm. Guess Polemy didn't read that one.

Or anybody else for thousands of years, but it was

there because.

It is the truth. It is always the truth.

I mean, I could go into so many different areas

into biology and show you what the Bible says about biology,

into chemistry, show you what the Bible says about chemistry,

into medicine. You know, for many years people believed that

too much blood in your body made you sick. For

thousands of years, this was an accepted custom, and they

did what was called blood letting.

You know what I'm talking about, how.

That they doctors would doctors would cut a sick person

and bleed them, thinking that was going to make them healthy.

That was accepted science. Everybody knew that was true. It wasn't,

but everybody knew it was true science. And you cut

the blood, and it was because of Hippocrates. And for

two thousand years and Hippocrates, they believed that all illness

came from four bodily fluids yellow bile, black bile, red blood,

or blue flim. And it also those four fluids also

controlled your temperament. Nobody believes that anymore, but for two

thousand years that was scientific proof, and so people thought, well,

you have to bleed people to get the bad stuff out.

Many people don't know our first president, George Washington, was

killed by doctors bleeding him to death.

That's how he died.

George Washington had a heart problem and doctors didn't know

what to do, so they did the common science of

the day and they bled George Washington. He didn't get well,

so a few days later they bled him again. They

cut him and bled him. He didn't get well, so

a few days later they bled him a third time

and he died.

From blood loss.

Now today we know you give people blood when they're sick.

It's the exactly we do, the.

Exact opposite of what they did for a thousands of years.

You give people blood because we know the life source

is in the blood, and good blood makes people feel

better that that's where the life comes from.

It's called a transfusion.

We give people blood today, But they didn't know that

for a thousands of years.

But the Bible knew it.

In fact, back in Leviticus seventeen, then thousands of years

ago leu Veticus seventeen eleven, God said this, the life

of every creature is in its blood. How did Moses

know that? That wasn't known for a thousand We didn't

even know that blood circulates until around sixteen fifty. It

wasn't until the seventeenth century when William Harvey discovered that

blood circulates. For thousands of years, nobody even thought it circulated.

Everybody bought into Galen, who was the Greek doctor for

two thousand years, except that his idea basically that the

heart was a source of heat, but nobody knew that

actually pumped blood, and yet thousands of years ago, the

Bible says the life of every creature is in its blood.

They should have just read the Bible.

During the Middle Age, there was the Bubonic plague. The

bubonic plague killed one fourth of Europe. One out of

every four people died during the Black Plague because we

didn't understand germs, and we didn't understand contagion, and we

didn't understand infection, and we didn't understand quarantining people. And

so they had sick people with the bubonic plague who

were contagious, sleeping right next to healthy people, and people

just kept dying because we didn't know about germs and contagion,

and it became an epidemic and then a pandemic. Should

have read the Bible, because thousands and thousands of years

before the bubonic plague, God had said in Leviticus thirteen,

verse four, this put an infected person in quarantine for

seven days. That's thousands of years before we even knew

what germs were. God was saying, here's how you take

care of people who get infected with an illness. Put

him outside the camp for seven days, and if they're

still sick, he says in the next vert, keep him

out there for another seven days. Nobody understood quarantine because

nobody understood germs.

But God was right. I could go on and on.

The Bible is always scientifically accurate. It is always ahead

of science. The Bible says this Proverbs thirty verse five.

Every word of God is flawless. Mine aren't, yours aren't.

Human beings aren't. But every word of God is flawless.

In fact, it's not only flawless. Psal'm twelve six says this,

The words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined

in a furnace of clay and purified seven times.

It's like, is that the right word? Is that? The

right word is purified seven times?

My wife Kay wishes i'd speak like that, because see,

often my mouth gets in gear before my mind gets engaged,

and I say words that are flawed.

But God's word is flawless.

We know we can trust the Bible because it is

historically accurate, archaeology confirms it, and it is scientifically accurate.

Number three, we know we can.

Trust the Bible because it is prophetically accurate.

It is prophetically accurate. What does that mean.

It means that the promises and are the predictions in

the Bible always come true. Now, the Bible is filled

with literally thousands and thousands of prophecies where God says,

this is going to happen at such and such a time,

in such and such a way. And over all of

the centuries, thousands of these prophecies have already been fulfilled,

every one of them exactly as God said, and some

of them are still yet to be fulfilled. You know,

there are over three hundred prophecies in the Bible about

Jesus the Messiah. Up to a thousand years before he

was born, and up over a thousand year period, three

hundred prophecies said things like this is when he'll be born,

this is where he'll be born, this is how he'll

be born. You can't control that if you're trying to

make yourself the Messiah.

You didn't choose where you were born.

This is how he'll die, and the manner he'll die,

and what he'll die from, and all of.

The over three hundred prophecies.

If what are the odds of me making three hundred

predictions about you and every one of them coming true,

The odds are so astronomical you couldn't write that number down.

You see, it takes more faith to believe it all

just was a coincidence than to believe that God planned it.

It takes an enormous faith to believe it's all just random,

that it all just happened without a designer, without a creator.

Thousand years before Jesus came and died on the cross,

David in one of his psalms describes what death by

crucifixion is like. Now he didn't use the word crucifixion

because nobody knew that word. But a thousand years before

the Romans are even thinking of crucifixion, David describes what

the death of a CRUCIFIXI of life?

How did he know? That?

Only God could have told him? Look at these verses.

The Bible says in Second Peter, no prophecy ever originated

from humans. In other words, guys did just said around

and go, hey, let's think this one up.

Write it down.

No prophecy ever originated from humans. Instead, it was given

by the Holy Spirit as humans spoke under God's direction.

You know, during.

Bible times, nobody wanted to be a prophet. You know why,

because the law was this In Israel. A prophet of

God had to be correct one hundred percent of the time,

and if you were wrong just once, then you were

considered a false prophet and would be put to death.

So nobody wanted to be a prophet because you had

to be accurate of the time. Now there are a

lot of people claim to be prophets today. There are prophets,

false prophets, nonprofits.

Okay.

I mean, by the way, let me just give you

a little tip. Don't ever trust the psychic who asked

for your name. I mean, if you're so psychic, you

shouldn't ask for I have to ask for my credit card.

You should just know it and don't say, well I

know all about you. Okay, then tell me what my credit.

Card number is. Then then I'll believe you.

Okay, it's prophetically accurate. Jesus said this in Matthew twenty six.

But all this is happening to fulfill the words of

the prophets.

As recorded in scriptures.

Jesus said, it's all coming true, just like God predicted.

Revelation twenty two.

John says, the Angel said to me, these words are trustworthy,

this prophecy. These words are trustworthy. You can trust it

and they're true? Why because it from God, the Lord

sent his angel to show his servants the things that

must soon take place. It is prophetically accurate, and the

odds of all these prophecies happening and just the way

they did over thousands of years is astronomical.

Number four.

The fourth reason I know that the Bible is trustworthy

is it is thematically unified. It is thematically unified. What

I mean by that it has the same theme through

the entire book, from cover to cover, from Genesis to Revelation.

It is the same theme of redemption from Genesis to

the end. Jesus is the star, and it is a

thematically unified book.

You so, what's the big deal about that?

I know a lot of books that carry the same

theme from the beginning to the end, written over sixteen

hundred years by forty different authors.

I don't think so.

You see, this book was written over one thousand, six

hundred years, from the first book to the last, by

forty different authors on three different continents, in three different languages,

and they didn't know about each other.

How do you think they all got the same story.

When they wasn't even collected in one book until a

thousand years later after they died in the Old Testament.

How do you think they knew that?

You see, it'd be one thing if one person wrote

this book. See the Quran was written by one person, Muhammed.

The analects of Confucius are written by Confucius. The writings

of Buddha are written by Buddha.

You would expect them to be uniform.

The Bible was written by forty different people in every

age and stage of life, as I said, on three

different continents, in three different languages, over one thousand, six

hundred years, and they got.

The same story.

This book was written by poets and prophets. It's written

by princes and kings. It's written by sailors and soldiers.

This book was written by attorneys and a doctor an MD.

It's written by kings. It's written by prisoners. It's written

by common people. It's written by prophets. All kinds of

people wrote the Bible, and it was written in all

kinds of locations. Some of the Bible was written in

a cave, some of the Bible was written on a ship.

On ships, some of it was written in homes.

Some of us written in palaces, some of it was

written in prison, and.

They all come up with the same theme. You got

to be kidding me. It has the same theme.

Of redemption from cover to cover over one thousand, six

hundred years. You couldn't get a more diverse group fishermen

and tax collectors and scholars and businessmen an over a

period of over almost two thousand years coming up with

the same story.

I mean, let me give you an example of this.

If I were to take fifty pieces of paper right now,

and there's sixty six books of the Bible, but let's

just say I were to take fifty pieces of paper,

and I were to hand them out to people today,

and I said to each of you, I want you

to tear this piece of paper any way you want to,

in any shape you want to. I'm not gonna tell

you how I'm gonna use it, and I.

Just want you to tear it into shape.

And so you tear it up in a shape, and

then I take the fifty pieces back. What would be

the odds that all fifty of those pieces of paper

would form a perfect map of the United States of

America and the fifty states.

You wouldn't believe it. You'd say it's trick.

The odds are too astronomical to just accept that they

all unify and fit together. But the Bible's more than that.

It was on many places, many people, and many centuries,

and yet it all fits together with the same unified theme.

Here's what Jesus said, Luke twenty four. Beginning with Moses.

That's the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Viticus, Numbers, Juteroni,

first five books of the Bible written by Moses, beginning

with Moses, and all the prophets. That's the rest of

the New Testament, I mean of the Old Testament. Jesus

explained to them what was said in all the scriptures

concerning himself.

Did you get that?

See, most people think the New Testaments about Jesus and

the Old Testaments about Israel wrong. The New Testament wasn't

even written when Jesus said that. He's talking about the

Old Testament. It says he went through all the scriptures

and showed what it said about him. The story is

about Jesus from beginning to end. The pictures, the metaphors,

the analogies, the illusions, everything in scripture from the beginning

of the end is about God's plan to redeem people

and build a family for eternity.

It all began with him. The star of the story

is Jesus.

You can see him in every book and John six,

verse thirty nine. Jesus says, you search the scriptures because

you believe that they give you eternal life.

But the scriptures point to me.

Now, remember New Testament hasn't been written when he said this,

He's talking about the Old Testament.

All the scriptures point to me.

Now, while we're talking about Jesus, Tom is going to

come and talk to you about the fifth way that

we know we can trust the Bible is the word

of God.

Fifth way I know I can trust the Bible is

because it's confirmed by Jesus, because Jesus trusted the Bible.

You may have heard somebody say, you may have even thought,

you know, I trust what Jesus said. I'm just not

sure about those other guys. Well, here's the challenge to that.

Jesus trusted the rest of the Bible. So if I

trust Jesus, then I'm going to trust the rest of

the Bible. Because Jesus trusted the rest of the Bible.

Jesus proclaimed the Bible as a unique book above all others.

Look at this next verse in your outline, Matthew five eighteen.

Jesus said, I tell you the truth, and tell heaven

and earth disappear. Not the smallest letter, not the least

stroke of a pen, will disappear from the law and

till everything is accomplished. Jesus looks at the Bible and says,

it's going to last until the end of the time.

It's going to accomplish what God wants to accomplish in

this world. Here's what Jesus had to say about it.

Up on the screen. John ten thirty five. Jesus said,

let's read this one together. Jesus said, scripture is always true.

Jesus proclaimed the truth of the Bible. And when Jesus

talked about the truth of the Bible, I've got to

listen to that in my own life. When Jesus says

that every sentence and word of the Bible is true,

that's why I believe that every sentence and word of

the Bible is true. When you read how Jesus talked

about the Bible with people, he would often base his

argument about the truth of the Bible on a single

sentence or even a single word from the Bible. So

he believed every single sentence, every single word. So why

wouldn't I? Because I trust Jesus. And when Jesus talks

about the Bible, he doesn't just talk about poetry and history.

He talks about it as something that's life changing. Look

at this next verse up on the screen, Luke, Chapter eleven,

verse twenty eight. Here's what Jesus had to say. Blessed

rather are those who hear the word of God and

do what and obey it? And do it so not

just read it like poetry, Oh isn't that nice? But

obey it because God wrote it to our lives. Jesus

as he talked about the Bible, he talked about it

as a real book, talking about real people in real places,

where the real gods who's really at work in our lives.

Up on the screen, let me just put for you

just a real quick list of some of the people

and places that the Bible talks about as real and

that Jesus also confirmed as he talked that were real.

Jesus believed in the prophets. If you want to write

down a couple of these verses, I'll leave that up there.

For a couple of seconds, he talked about all the

prophets being really talked about Daniel being real. Jesus believed

in Noah, everything that happened with the flood. He talks

about that. He believed in Adam and Eve. Jesus believed

in the tragedy of Sodom and Gomor and what happened there.

He taught on that he believed in Jonah and what

happened there. Now here's the interesting thing, particularly those last

four Noah, Adam and Eve, Sodom and Gomora, Jonah. Those

are the most disputed stories in the Bible by people

who say, oh, it's just a bunch of fables, and

they're good stories, they're good moral stories, but they didn't

really happen. Well, Jesus believed they really happened. In fact,

he used some of these as illustrations of the fact

of what was going to happen in his resurrection. If

Jesus really believed in Jonah, I believed in what happened.

Now.

I don't know how God created a fish that could

swallow a guy, but he did. He did. I trust

in it because Jesus trusted in it, and it always.

It sort of makes me smile when two thousand or three,

four thousand years later we look back at the Bible

and we go, well, you know, I'm going to trust

that part, and I'm not going to trust that part

based on my subjective or emotional feelings. I'm going to

accept that part and I'm not going to accept that part.

Jesus trusted it. Jesus trusted it, and so I trust it.

Augustine said, if you believe in the Bible what you

like and you don't believe what you don't like, is

not the Bible you trust, but yourself. And I don't

know about you. I've found that my emotions, my opinions

are not always trustworthy. I trust Jesus. He trusted the Bible.

That's one of the main reasons why I trust the Bible.

The sixth reason that you can trust the Bible as

the absolute authoritative word of God God breathed Theonustus is

that it has survived all attacks, and that makes it

an unusual book. The Bible is the most despised book,

the most derided, denied, the most disputed, the most dissected,

the most debated, the most outlawed. The most destroyed, the

most banned book ever in history. Millions of people have

died because they refuse to give up their Bible. People

were killed. It was illegal. It's still illegal in some

countries like today. You take a Bible into Korea, you

can get killed for it. North Korea, not South Korea.

South Korea is a Bible country, but North Korea, you

take a Bible in you can get arrested, thrown in jail,

and you can be killed for it. This Bible has

been underttacked for century after century after century by every

imaginable thing you can imagine, and yet it is still

the most read book in the world, the most published

book in the world, the most translated book in the world,

the best selling book in the world, and it is

still making a difference in people's lives. The Bible is

the source, the greatest source, single source of music. The

Bible is the greatest single source of art, and the

Bible is the greatest single source of architecture throughout history.

If you take the Bible out of culture, you have

basically destroyed most of the major music, most of the

major art, and most of the major architecture. For almost

two thousand years, it is the source of our culture.

You speak the English language you do because of the

King James version of the Bible. If the King James

Version of the Bible had not been written, you would

not be speaking the way you speak right now. But

four hundred years ago they published the King James version,

and the words you use today most of those words,

many of them were made up in the King James version,

and most of those words came out of that book,

out of the Bible. Jesus said this in Matthew twenty

four to thirty five. Heaven and earth will pass away,

but my words b ill never pass away.

The only thing on this planet that's going to last

is the Word of God. It's eternal.

Everything else is going to burn up, but the Word

of God is eternal because truth is lasting forever.

You know.

Voltaire, the famous French philosopher, is a brilliant man, flat

out brilliant man. He was an atheist, but he was

flat out brilliant. He wrote a number of tracks deriding

the Bible and Griltaire made a very famous statement in

which he said, one hundred years from today, the Bible

will be a forgotten book. Everybody's forgotten that quote After

Voltaire died, for nearly one hundred years, his homestead was

used as the book depository for the French Bible Society.

They sold bibles out of his house. It's now a museum.

People have forgotten volt tear. Nobody forgets the Bible. Heaven

and earth will pass away. My word will never pass away.

One Peter won twenty four to twenty five. The grass

withers and the flower falls away. In other words, the

contemporary stuff, it just wilts. Today's news is worthless tomorrow.

You don't read last week's newspaper. It didn't worth anything.

And so he said that that stuff, that the temporary,

contemporary stuff, it doesn't last, wither's f our faith.

But the Word of God stands forever.

And the truth will always be the truth, whether I

believe it or not, it's the truth. I could say

I believe the moon is made of cheese. Now we

know and have proven that the moon is made of rock.

We've brought rocks back from the moon. And no matter

how much I say I believe the moon has made

of cheese, it doesn't change it.

It's still made out of rock. I told you that I.

Once saw a bumper Stickert said, God said it, I

believe it.

That's set up.

Well, that's a dumb way to say it, because really

what you ought to say is God said it. That

settles it whether I believe it or not, because whether

I believe it or not doesn't change it at all.

The fact is there are a lot of things that

are true. I don't want them to be true. So

I say, well, I don't believe it because I don't

want it to be true. It doesn't make it not true.

I don't want that to be called immral. Well doesn't

matter whether I want it or not. What God says

is moral is moral. What God says in moral is

not immral, and it's he gets to make the choice.

He's God and you're not. I could say to you,

I don't believe in the law of gravity.

It's just fine for you.

And you may be a religious person, but I don't

need the law of gravity. So, you know, let's all

be copa setic. What's good for you is good for you,

what's good for me is good for me. I don't

believe in law gravity. So you and I go up

on the you know, the Empire State building, and I'm

going to say, I don't believe the law how gravity

applies to me because I don't believe in it, And

so I jump off the Empire State Building. Now, as

I'm floating down at a rather rapid speed, about the

one hundredth floor down, a guy looks out the wind

and goes, how's it going, Rick, And I say, so far,

so good. And that's the way most people are living

their lives.

You see.

God gives you the freedom to totally thumb your nose

to Him and rebel against Him your entire life. But

that's not the end of the story. You can run

from God the rest of your life, but then you

can't run anymore. Sorry, You're going to come face to

face with God one day, whether you believe in him

or not.

And all of that I don't.

Believe him isn't going to stop that event from happening.

And the truth is, at some point, I'm my face

is going to hit the ground.

And the truth is, you don't break.

God's laws, they break you. When I ignore what God

says in his inspired, in errant, infallible word, When I

ignore what it says because I don't like that part,

I only hurt myself.

I don't hurt God. I only hurt myself.

You see, the fundamental question, the most important question you're

going to ask yourself in life is what is going

to be the final authority for my life? What is

going to be the final authority for my life? You

need to decide that. I recommend you decide today. Is

it gonna be the word or is it going to

be the world? Am I going to listen to what

God says is true? Am I going to listen to

public opinion or my own set of feelings. Who's gonna

be the authority in my life? God or me? Because

see when I say I don't really accept this book,

it's not that I can, It's that I don't want

to accept. And the reason I don't want to accept

it as my authority is because I want.

To be boss. I want to be Lord. I want

to be God of my own life.

And I don't want God telling me what's moral and immral,

what's right and what's wrong.

I want to do it my way. I want to

be Lord.

Okay, so let me ask you how's that working for you?

Out?

Is that solving all your problems has all your stress

and worry and and you know, irritations vanished because you're God.

If you're God, you're in charge. How's that working in

your life? Everything turning out the way you want it?

I don't think so to rebel against God is flat

out stupidity. You're not going to win that battle. Your

arms are too short the box of God.

So the big question is what's going to be the

authority of my life? Now?

Why is the inerrancy and the infallibility and the flawlessness

of God's words so important? Because, friends, if this book

is not true, you're in a heap of trouble. And

so am I because my salvation depends on this book

being right, and so does yours.

This is the book that tells you your life is

not an accident. Science doesn't tell you that.

This is the book that tells you there is an

overarching purpose for your life.

Science doesn't tell you that.

This is the book that says God made you to

love you. This is the book that says you can

be forgiven. This is the book that says your past

can be forgiven, you can have a purpose for living,

you can have a home in heaven. This is the

book that says, no matter what problem you go through

God can use it for good in your life. This

is the book that says there is a reason for hope.

If this book is a lie, you're in a heap

of trouble, because this is the book that tells you

how to get to heaven. The Bible says in Romans

chapter twelve, this do not conform any longer to the

pattern of this world. It's talking about the world's way

of thinking, the world's worldview. It's the opinions and this

you know the attitudes of the world. Don't conform any

longer to the pattern of this world. But be transformed

by the renewing of your mind. You're either a conformist

or you're a transformist. You're either conformed to the way

the world thinks, or you're transformed by the truth. He says,

be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll

be able to test, You'll be able to know. This

is how you make good decisions and approve what God's

will is is good and pleasing and perfect will. God's

plan for your life is good. God's plan for your

life is pleasing, and God's plan for your life is perfect.

But you're only going to know it through the perfect

word of God.

Let's bow our heads.

I want you to settle this issue today, to accept

the Bible as the flawless word, as the final authority

for your life, because if you don't, then you're basically

making it on your own opinions of what You're setting

yourself up as the authority. And I would ask you again,

how's that working. How's that working in your life? You

find it pretty effective? I would pray this prayer right now.

Say it in your mind, Dear God, from this day forward,

I will accept the Bible as your flawless word to me.

I will make it the final authority for my life.

Not what television says, not what popularity says, not what

I feel like doing or what I think sounds best.

I'm going to make the Bible the final authority for

my life, even when I don't understand it, even when

it's not popular, even when it's not easy, or even

when I don't like it.

You are God, and I'm not.

Thank you God for loving me enough to speak to

me through your word.

Thank you that you are not silent.

Thank you that you spoke through about forty men and

women over sixteen hundred years on three continents and three

languages to tell me one story that you wanted me

in your family, and you wanted me to know you,

and that you made me for a purpose. Thank you

that you're not silent. I want to love your word,

I want to learn your word, and I want to.

Live your word.

Use forty days in my life to set me on

the right path. In your name, I pray Amen.