Rick Warren - Why Can I Trust the Bible_ 40 Days in the Word Pt.1

Good morning, Saddleback. It's good to see you all, and

if you'll take out your message notes, I want to

welcome you to forty days in the Word we're starting

this week. Yeah. We have been planning and preparing for

this for about a year and I'm very excited about it.

I want to say hi not only to our eight

Saddleback campuses that are joining us in all of our

locations this morning, but also to those of you who

are joining us online. And there are about four thousand,

five hundred other churches here in America that are going

through forty days in the Word with us, So I

want you to welcome those sister, forty five hundred churches.

Would you say hi to them too? And we're gonna

have a great time. This is going to change your life.

The next six weeks is going to change your life

during the forty days. If you want to understand how

it's going to change and why it's going to change,

I would encourage you to go online this week and

watch the vision message that I did Wednesday, Thursday, and

Friday of this last week, and it gives the behind

the scenes reasoning of why we do all the what

we do now. The heart of forty days in the

Word is going to be what we do in our

small groups, and we're going to be looking at some

material that's I'm going to teach you in your small

groups how to unlock the Word of God for yourself,

so you're not dependent upon me or anybody else, and

you're not having to say, well, that's just your interpretation.

I'm going to teach you how to interpret the Word

of God yourself, how to feed yourself from the Word

of God. So obviously you're going to want to be

in a small group. If you're not in one yet,

this is still not too late. You can go out

on the patio afterwards and sign up to be in

a small group. I'm very excited that already over one

thousand people in our church have signed up to host

new group. One thousand new groups are starting, and that's fantastic,

And I say to those of you who are new hosts,

who are joining the five thousand hosts who lead our

existing groups, welcome aboard, and we're glad to have you

part of that. You're just not going to learn as

much if you're not in a small group, because that's

the heart of what we're doing. For the next six

weeks in the Bible studies, the DVD studies, and the

small group curriculum we're going to be doing together. Now,

the second component in forty Days of the World, I

already mentioned this to you is a daily video devotional

on the Word of God. I went out and I

asked forty of the top Bible teachers in America to

videotape a five minute devotional. Starting tomorrow morning, they're going

to be available. And what you need to do is

go to forty four zero ditw dot com forty days

in the Word dot com and register and give me

either your email or your cell phone where you can

get a text and it doesn't matter to me which

one you want to use. And then each day for

the next forty days, I'm going to text you or

email you a link to that devotional. Day Now, tomorrow morning,

I'm teaching the first devotional, so we kind of start

with the Barlow and then we're going to raise it

for the next forty days with these top Bible teachers.

Then the third part of it, of course, is the

six weekend messages. And I hope you'll be here all

six weeks. Not only will I be teaching these but

across America, forty five hundred other pastors will all be

teaching the same text and the same topics from the

Word of God. 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 gonna explain that in another week,

so that the Man of God may be thoroughly equipped

for every good work. We're gonna 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 breaed 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

courts 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, 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. Look at

this one. Here was a cover of Time magazine a

while back that said, how true is the Bible? It's

a good question. And here's another cover of Time magazine

is the Bible fact or fiction? 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

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 him 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 write about salvation it's true. And

write 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's 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 secondhand 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 it 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 copyist 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 happen.

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 thousands,

six hundred and fifty three a's in this book, and

if it had one thousands, 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 books 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 know 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 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 Bibles.

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

talks about. They only had camels back then, so that

can't be right. In tell 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 hit Tites. There's this whole empire called the hit

Tites talked about in the Bible that was not talked

about anywhere else. So for centuries historians said the Bible

just made it up. Intel in the early nineteen hundreds

of professor by the name of Hugo Winkler discovered at

Boguskoy ten thousand clay tablets at the capitol of guess

what the hit Tites.

Now everyone believes in the hit Tits.

In fact, during a break in the game today you

can go on Wikipedia and 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 belooney about this in the world.

I want to spend a majority of time on this

point because people who think the Bible is scientifically and

accurate 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 ahead

of science. There are things in the Bible 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 astronomer. You know. Kepler said,

science is simply thinking God's thoughts after him. No 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, 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. No, no,

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, or stuff that they said it's

fine for a pregnant woman to take, and then ten

years later 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 hundred and 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 saw one forty 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 fidy 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. Copernicus

and Galileo and Columbus. The 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 every 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 thousand, 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.

In 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. Atlas held up the world Now part of

the Bible's writen 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 ella 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 thing. But 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 today that we know about. Job was

the first book written in the Bible. 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 there were

about a 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 Hipparcas 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 and he says that hipparcas. 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 of 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 thousand and twenty four twenty six stars. But two thousand,

six hundred years ago, in the Bible, God had said

this Jeremiah thirty three twenty two, the number of stars

are infinite. Hmm. I guess Tolemy 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, in 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 that 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. Today, we know you

give people blood when they're sick. It's the exact we

do the exact opposite of what they did for 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 thousands of years. But the

Bible knew it. In fact, back in Leviticus seventeen thousands

and thousands of years ago lou 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 Dalen, who was

the Greek doctor for two thousand years, except that his

idea basically that the heart was the 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 Ages 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.

I 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.

You put them outside the camp for seven days, and

if they're still sick, he says in the experts to

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.

Psalm 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 thee

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, don't. 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 addictions 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 doesn'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 crucifixion of life? How did he

know that? Only God could have told him? Look at

these verses. The Bible says in the Second Peter, no

prophecy ever originated humans. In other words, guys did just

said around, go hey, let's think this one up, write

it down. No prophets he 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 one percent 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 how fast 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 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. What's

a 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 storyn'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, Mohammed. 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 oney 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

bys 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, Deuteroni,

first five books of the Bible written by Moses, beginning

with Moses, and all the 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 of 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

scripture's 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 gonna 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 gotta 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. The smallest letter, not the least stroke

of a pen, will disappear from the law until 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

is real, and that Jesus also confirmed as he taught

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 Gomoron 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, Sodomon, 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 or 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, it is not

the Bible you trust, but yourself.

And I don't know about you.

I found that my emotion, 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 Theonostus is

that it has survived all attacks, and that makes it

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

the most derided, the most 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. 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 undertack 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 will 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. Be 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 Girltaire 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 Voltaire.

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. It's for

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

settles it. 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, Isaac,

I don't want that to be called immoral. Well, it

doesn't matter whether I want it or not. God says

his 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 copasetic. 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

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 noe 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 the I

don't believe him isn't going to stop that 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

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 going to 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 going to 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't,

It's that I don't want to accept it. 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? 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 work in your life?

Everything turning out the way you want? 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 to box with 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 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 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.

Now do you see why we're going to do forty

days in the word. Three things you need to do.

Number One, if you're not in a group, you need

to run to the patio in just a minute and

sign up to get in the group. If you want

to start a group, we'll help you with that. You

can fill up fill out one of the cards, the

registration cards in your program and take it out to

the patio. Second, you need to go online to forty

diitw dot com and sign up for the daily devotions.

The first one starts tomorrow morning. It's a video that

I do and I'm gonna explain it to you. If

you're would you like me to do number seven? I'll

tell you what I thought. We were running out of time,

all right, Sit back, everybody, buckle up. The seventh one

is the dearest one to me. It's the most subjective one.

But it's the one I have seen personally the most,

and that is it is transforming power. It has transforming power.

Nothing can change the lives of people like the Bible.

Your life has been changed by tens of thousands of

lives been changed. I've seen flat out drunks, irresponsible addicts

get their life clean and sober because they started reading

the Bible. I have seen the most self centered, narcissistic

it's all about me. Men who abuse and misuse women,

think only of themselves and would rip off anybody simply

to make themselves feel better. Read the Bible have their

lives transformed and become godly husbands, wonderful dads, and upstanding

citizens in the community. If I thought that you could

change human behavior by laws, I would become a politician.

But I have zero faith in politics to actually change

the greatest problems on the planet. Because you can make

all the laws in the world, it isn't going to

change the heart. You can make a law that outlaws

racism and bigotry, but no law is going to turn

a bigot into a lover. God's got to do that.

God's got to change his heart. And I've invested my

life in the heart changing business. And I've seen it

happen thousands of times because of this book. It changes people.

You would never imagine it could change. Jesus said it

like this, John on the Bible, on the screen, John

eight thirty one. Jesus said, if you continue in my word,

if you continue in my word, then you're my disciples indeed,

and you will know the truth, and the truth will

make you free. I want you to be free. Now.

You know what's the most amazing thing is secular universities

all around the world have the second half of this

verse printed in stone on buildings. Universities all over the

truth will make you free. And then they ignore God

and ignore the Bible. They forget the first part. If

you continue in my word, you will know the truth,

and the truth will make you free. Not just if

you go out and make up your own opinion, you

watch Oprah and you write an article that'll set you free.

If you continue in my word, you will know the truth.

Because this book never lies to you. It always tell

you even when I don't like what it says, even

when I disagree with it, even when it hurts, and

even when it's uncomfortable it will always tell me the truth.

That's why it's called Holy Bible. Do you believe everything

you read online? No? Do you believe everything you watch

on TV? No? Do you believe everything you read in

the newspaper and in People magazine? No? You believe in

everything is written about me? Yes? Don't. Why do we

spend more time reading and watching stuff we know is

a lie than reading what we know is the truth.

I'm going to ask everybody who's going to be a host.

I want to congratulate you in advance. We have over

five thousand small groups and a thousand new groups. If

you're going to be a host during forty days, I

want you to stand up and stay standing for a

minute so we can applaud you. Can you just stand

up for a minute and applause you're going to be

a host. Great day, Thank you guys. Now, stay standing,

stay standing for this minute. I want you to look

around at these people. Do these people look super spiritual? No,

they just look normal. Anybody could be a host. You

can go outside and say I'll be a host now.

Because you hosts are going to need to get this

box filled with all the stuff. I'm dismissing you from

class early. You can leave right now and go on out,

because I want you to get first shot at the

table to pick up your materials for your small groups.

The rest of you look up here on the screen.

Colossians three sixteen is our memory verse for this week.

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to teach on this in the

first devotional. Colossians three sixteen says, let the Word of

Christ dwell in you richly. I remember to memorize you

always say the reference before and at the end, and

you say it aloud we learn orally. So let's say

this verse all out, Colossians three sixteen. Let the word

of Christ dwell in you richly? And where is it?

Colossians three sixteen. By the way, what is Colossum three sixteen.

Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly? And

where is that verse found? Colossians three sixteen. I want

you to memorize that versus week. In fact, I want

you to take sixty seconds right now to think about it.

I want you to look at this. I'm going to

ask our singer to come on out and just sing,

and we'll sing and we'll give our offerings. But while

we're doing that, I want you to look at this

and memorize this verse, and then we will close