Can The Bible Be Trusted? Examining History, Evidence & Accuracy

Good morning, happy Sabbath to you all.

Sorry for a more lengthy reading than usual probably, but it's

important. So a couple of questions for

you. How many read this book?

All right, I would recommend this to everybody to read.

One of the reasons I'm going to recommend this is because

believe it or not, and some of you may challenge me on this,

but as you read it, I want you to think of the gospel of Jesus

Christ because it is in here. Amen.

This book is powerful. Not only does it go over the

Reformation and some of the other things, but it is full of

the gospel if you're open to the Holy Spirit leading you.

So I highly recommend that. If you don't have a copy, I know

Fred or one of the elders would be happy to or deacons would be

happy to get you a copy of that book.

It's also available online. You can listen to it via audio

or you can read it online, but I like paper, personally.

The other thing is my wife and I have a seminar that we're going

to be hosting coming up starting this coming Friday.

It's about the Paleo Hebrew alphabet and how it shows the

love and care of God for all of us.

It's going to be an online event.

I will make sure I send the invite to Fred and Joy and they

can send it out. If you're interested, you can

join up. It's an online event only.

It'll be it's four weeks. It's a Friday night and Saturday

night. I believe it starts at 6:00 each

of those nights and it lasts just an hour.

So just to let you know, all right, before we begin, let's

bow our heads. Father in Heaven, Lord, we are

so grateful for your Amazing Grace and your patience to us,

Father, and we are thankful for the words of life that are in

your holy scriptures. And Lord, as we open the bread

of life this morning, as we review it, we just pray for your

presence of your spirit, which inspired the words, and for your

angels, Father, to touch our hearts, to open us to hear and

to understand. Father, bless us with thy

presence and help us to leave here with a closer relationship

with you. I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

All right, so one of the things we're going to talk about is

exploring the trustworthiness of the Bible, historical, textual,

and personal perspectives. So this book, which is not

really just a book, it's 66 books, and then it's more like

an encyclopedia that was written by a vast number of people over

multiple continents over a long period of time.

And yet it is uniform in the message that it presents.

Now, as you can see from our Scripture reading this morning,

we're just going to go back there for a moment from Luke

Luke 24 · chapter mention

chapter 24, you'll notice in verse 27 that the word of God

says, and beginning at Moses. Beginning where?

At Moses and all the prophets. How many of the prophets?

All right, so that's from Moses. So that's Genesis through

Malachi, right? That's all those books he, Jesus

expounded to them in all the Scriptures, the things

concerning himself. So that means that the vast

majority of the Old Testament, somebody correct me.

The vast majority, you should have corrected me.

It's all the Old Testament is about who?

It's about Jesus. And the New Testament is about

who, Jesus. Amen.

All right, so let's get into this.

So we're going to begin investigating some of the

archaeological points now. That is probably way too small

for any of you to read, even me. Sorry about that.

I'll have to work on my presentation for next time to

make sure. The fonts are much, much bigger.

Anyway, so the Bible, we have more manuscripts for this book

than any other book that has been written.

Amen. And so that allows the scholars

to check and double check and compare and see what this word

has to say. And so we can trust that this

Bible that we have be at the King James.

Some of you may be King James only.

I am not a King James only. I happen to use the new King

James. You can call me a heretic if you

like, but that's OK. I also like the ESV, the NIV,

the NLT, and a number of other translations.

Why? Because some of the more modern

translations make it much easier to understand than the King

James. And for those of you that are

King James only, there are errors in the King James that

are corrected in the newer translations, just to let you

know. So it is not a perfect

translation. Is a good yes.

Is it poetic? Yes.

Did it help a lot of people over the years?

Yes. Can you be saved by reading it?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

But it is not the one and only. And I'll challenge you on that

because some of you who are King James only, let me ask you a

question. How do the Spanish people that

don't read English, what are they supposed to read?

The Russians and the Czechoslovakians and the French

that don't read English, what are they supposed to read?

Is it OK for them to read a translation that's not the King

James? My answer is going to be yes, it

is OK because they can find salvation in their native

language. All right, so to move on.

So textual integrity, transmission, it's been passed

down. So the people who wrote, who

wrote this down, who kept the records, were very, very

diligent in their work. They were called scribes and

they took their time. Did they make mistakes

occasionally in a punctuation? Yes, occasionally, but we have

enough of the writings down through history to know that

this Bible is reliable and accurate to what God was trying

to pass down to us. As they compare all of those,

those parchments that they have, they can see the consistency in

the coat, the coherence throughout the Word.

So can the Bible be trusted, right?

Archaeological has anybody heard of the oh, Fred, help me with

this one. What's the video?

We just that pastor just recorded Thunder in the Holy

Land. Anybody heard of that video?

Thunder in the Holy Land. All right, so the very first

video. So I just gave Joy a set of

memory sticks that they're going to, you're going to be able to

duplicate. And it has links to the videos

and it also has the studies that go along with it.

And those studies and the videos are awesome.

They start off with the case of the archaeological evidence that

we have for the validity of the stories in the Bible, Amen.

So historically it is reliable. And the more archaeologists

research in Israel and other foreign countries over there,

they find remnants to support what this word says, Amen, Amen.

So we see all that now, historical reliability.

We know that, you know, one of the books that archaeologists

take with them, when they go over to the Middle East, guess

what book they take? They take the Bible.

You know why they take the Bible?

Because it has never been wrong when they're doing

archaeological digs. It has helped them actually.

So we see archaeological evidence supporting ancient

cities that have on earth inscriptions collaborate history

and artifacts validate events. They've found all sorts of

stones. And if you watch the the first

episode of Thunder in the Holy Land, they will go over a

massive amount of archaeological evidence that support the

scriptures and they'll explain what they found over the years.

Now there's been more found since that video was produced,

so the evidence continues to grow.

When they compare it with external historical records,

they find that the biblical accounts are accurate and then

right. They find the historicity is

reliable, that the civilizations that the Bible talked about

actually did exist, even though for a while some of them were

only listed in the Bible. But as archaeologic, well, digs

happen, they found evidence of the things that the cities and

the places that the Bible talked about.

So it gives it validity even though the naysayers said they

didn't exist. Well, lo and behold, the

archaeologists found evidence over time, and they continue to

find evidence. Amen.

Preservation of ancient manuscripts.

There's centuries of preservation.

They found the Dead Sea Scrolls a number of years ago, which as

they examine them actually matched up to the translations,

the scripts that they had that predated those and those that

came after. So there's validity that keeps

coming up as they go through all those textual integrity and

transmission process of copying. We talked about the little

earlier. The scribes use very meticulous

methods to copy what they wrote down.

Occasionally there would be, as I said, a little difference.

But of all the little differences, they don't add up

to changing the story, right? There are change challenges in

translation. So when you translate the Greek

and the Hebrew and the Aramaic into other languages, there are

some challenges because it's not always an exact translation.

Sometimes you have to go thought for thought right to use a

little language to embellish to help it under us understand what

they were trying to say. But the meaning is still there.

So they are very, and there's a lot of rigor in the

translations, cause causes of manuscript variations, hand

copying of the manuscripts. The scholars do comparisons and

they use specific techniques to validate the translations that

they have to reconstruct the original text as it is.

When they go through all those manuscripts, they use what's

called textual criticism seeks to identify the the original

text through careful manuscript evaluation.

So they compare it all. You know, it's sort of like if

anybody's ever seen the movie God's Not Dead, Anybody see

that? See that movie?

Well, there was a series, and in one of the series, I think it

was the second or the third one, they actually had an

investigator, a former police investigator who looked into

dead cases, right? And he said the reason he became

a Christian was because when he read the Scriptures, especially

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, they were not exactly the same.

And as an investigator, he had the experience to realize when

you talk to witnesses, if their story is exactly the same, guess

what that means that they probably planned it.

But when the stories vary a little bit and there's minor

differences here or there in the way it is, it gives validity to

the witness's testimony, right? And that's from somebody who did

the dead case research. So the scholars use rigorous

rigor. Yeah.

Good analytical techniques to access manuscripts.

Sometimes I just can't get those words out right.

There is consistency across all 66 books telling the same story,

right? Despite the diverse authors and

context, the Bible maintains consistent themes such as

redemption, justice, faith, creating a coherent narrative

through its books. The New Testament consists of

about 27 books, mainly written in Greek, right?

And who wrote the majority of those books?

Who can tell me? Paul.

Paul wrote the majority of those books, right?

And we also have fulfillment of prophecies.

Has anybody read the book of Daniel?

Anybody out there read the book of Daniel?

Well, if you read the book of Daniel and you follow those

prophecies, you can see that the Bible has been 100% accurate as

far as what it's said up to date.

And that tells you that the statue in Daniel two, who can

tell me where we are in that prophecy?

In the Daniel 2 prophecy, who can tell me where we are?

Anybody the toes, I would say the toenails, right?

I think we're about in the toenails right now.

So if you want to get some encouragement, read Daniel

Daniel 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2 and ask Fred or Joe or Phil or one of the leaders in

the church to have a study with you to show you how the Bible

has shown us down through history what is about to happen.

Amen. So we have prophetic

reliability, multiple authors, all unified in what they say,

the core teachings, right? The Bible shows remarkable

agreement on the core teaching and historical events,

indicating A unified message. Despite its complexity, personal

and societal impact has changed people's lives.

Anybody ever met a drug addict who's been set free by the Lord

Jesus personally? All right, right.

Jesus has done many things. Anybody experienced Jesus in

their life, setting them free from something?

Anybody. All right, for the rest of you,

let Jesus help you because he can do amazing things.

Amen. Amen.

I can only, I won't even give any time to the devil and what

he had me in years ago, but I can tell you that Jesus sets us

free. Amen.

All right, so it has influence on law and ethics.

You know, most of the laws in the United States, Guess what?

They're based on most of them. They're based on the

commandments and what the scriptures teach.

It has impact on art and literature, and it has a role in

social movements. Testimonies of transformation,

power, personal testimonies. I have met countless people who

have had an experience with Jesus who has totally

transformed their life, right? Unlike any other book.

And yet people say this book is just an old book from 2000 years

ago. No, no, no, no, it is powerful.

The word is powerful. We're going to look at some

scriptures in just a moment about that.

So Psalm 119 one O 5 says your word is a lamp to what?

My feet and a what a light to my past, so that this word will

show us where we should be walking right in the safe path.

Proverbs 30 verses 5 and six said Every word of God proves

Proverbs 30:5

true. He is a shield to those who take

what refuge in him. Do not add to His words, lest He

rebuke you and you be found a liar.

So the word gives us a pathway to walk.

And why does God want to give us a pathway to walk?

Why does he want to show us the way to walk?

Why would he? Anybody.

This is a teaching session. I'm not just lecturing here.

You got a you got a dialogue with me?

A little bit, yes. In the back to see salvation.

All right. Anybody else?

He loves us, right? What?

How does a parent treat their children?

Well, good parents. How do good parents treat their

children? There are bad parents out there.

A few. Why does a parent try to teach

their child what's safe and what's unsafe?

Why do they do that? Because they love them, right?

A parent will tell a child, don't put your hand on the stove

when it's the flames there or it's red.

Why would they tell them that? Because they're going to get

injured, right? A parent would tell a child,

don't run out into the street unless you stop and look both

ways and make sure there's no traffic coming.

Why do they tell him that? Because they care, right?

So when God gives us direction in his word, he's giving us

direction because he cares about us.

He's not trying to take things away.

He's trying to help us be happy and safe.

Amen. Now John 1717, sanctify them

through thy truth, Thy word is So what is he saying in in John

1717 that you and I can be sanctified?

If we're in this word? This word is powerful.

It is A2 edged sword. It's going to cut us to help let

us know what we've done wrong, but it's also going to empower

us through the word to be able to walk the way Jesus walks.

And some of you go, no, I don't believe that.

Well, then, you don't believe the word because let's skip down

to the third verse. Second, Peter 14 says, and

because of his glory and excellence, He has given us

great and precious promises. These are the promises that

enable you to share His divine his what?

His divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by

human desires. So what is God telling us there

in second Peter one to four? What is he saying to us?

He's saying what? It's only by his work.

He's telling us in second Peter one to four, that you and I can

have the same character as Jesus Christ.

That means that we can have victory over the besetting sins

that are besetting us right now. Wow, that was really quiet.

I know that's sobering, right? Because you're saying I don't

know how to overcome it. You don't overcome it in your

own power. You overcome it by the power of

the Word of God, right? 1st Thessalonians 213 And we

also thank God consistently for this, that when you received the

Word of God, when you did what? When you receive it.

So you need to receive this to have the victory which you heard

from us. You accepted it not as the Word

of men, but as what it really is, the Word of God which is at

work in you believers. So if we allow this Word to soak

in to us, we can have victory. John 539 says you search the

Scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life.

And it is they which bear witness of me.

So Jesus is saying that you and I can have victory if we spend

time in this Word. Now I'm going to tell you some

things I told my congregation back where I come from, three

angels. Is that a lot of us, and I'm

going to get down and dirty here.

A lot of us spend a lot of time watching things that are not

helpful to us. Let's be honest, all right, And

a lot of us go and watch pre digested things all day long

that are really good. 3 Angels, Hope Channel, some TVI could go

on. There's a whole list of them,

but you know what? It is written voice of prophecy.

Are they good? Yes, but you know what you're

eating baby food, you're eating pre digested studies, right?

What we need to do is we need to be in this word.

Yes. I'm not saying those programs

are bad. They are good.

They are uplifting. But if you really, really want

to know Jesus, pick up a Bible and get into it.

Fred talked about it this morning, right?

So. One of the people that started

the revolution of Bible, William Miller.

Here's your challenge. Guess how many times a year he

he read through this word 4 * a year cover to cover.

He would read this right. And Fred told a very good story

this morning and I'm going to share that for those of you who

missed it. Right, you need, I'd suggest you

come to Sabbath School. It was great.

Fred, thank you for that class. Right.

So here's William Miller and he's basically a farmer.

He was in the military, doesn't have a lot of education.

And a pastor goes, I don't want that guy to come into my church.

He's he did never been to theology school.

Many heard him speak and he's like, wait a minute, what did

Fred say? He goes, I want to see this

guy's library. Where is he getting all this

information from? So he goes and he visits William

Miller. William Miller had two books in

his library, in his study, two books.

Guess what? He had the Bible and a

concordance. That was it.

And through the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, a

great awakening happened because one man was willing to get into

the Word. He didn't just read this four

times a year. He started in Genesis 11 and

William Miller his self says that he would not proceed to the

next verse until he understood the verse he was on.

So not only did he read this, but he studied it from cover to

cover, one verse at a time, using his concordance to help

him understand what the Greek or the Hebrew or the Aramaic said.

And he studied. And because he studied, he was

able to be used by the Holy Spirit to start a great

awakening. Amen.

So I want to read something to you that I found in another book

I'm reading. And it's interesting.

And I'm going to be, I'm going to be frank.

Some of the people I know very well may disagree with me.

But you know, as Avenus, sometimes we are so focused.

Well, let's do a quiz. Let's see.

Let's let's do a quiz. Turn to read if you have your

Bibles or your phones. Revelation 14.

Who can tell me what Revelation 14 is?

The three angels messages, right?

It gets into the three angels messages.

So let's do a quiz. I've been taking a class from

the Pennsylvania Conference on the three angels messages, and

it's a radical class. I do mean radical.

It really is. So Revelation 14, starting in

verse 6. Then I saw another Angel flying

in the midst of heaven. So what is the Lord saying here

through His Word, right? There's an Angel flying in the

midst of heaven, right? Having the what?

The everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth,

to every tribe, tongue and people, and saying with a loud

voice, fear God and give glory to Him for the hour of his

judgement, has come and worship him who made heaven and earth

and the sea and the springs of water.

So what is the main message of the first Angel flying in the

midst of heaven? What's his main message?

This is not A to worship God. What else?

Somebody else to share the gospel the Great Commission most

Adventists right and I've done this test before most Adventists

are going to go well. The first message is fear God

and give glory to him. No read the verse verse 6.

I saw another Angel and Joe and a few others got it right in the

midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel, we are to

preach the gospel of Jesus first, leading to reverence for

God. Give glory to Him for what He

has done before the judgment comes.

We need to start with the gospel as our foundation for every

single Bible study that we do. If we can't show Jesus and how

it relates to his character and His love for us, don't teach the

lesson because all you're doing as is Jesus said to the

Pharisees, is you're making him twice a son of hell as you are

yourself. We've got to be into the Word to

show it about Jesus because from cover to cover in this book,

it's all about Jesus and his love for us.

And if we can show that in our 28 fundamental beliefs, we have

no business teaching anybody else anything.

I want to read something to you from one of our founders of this

denomination years ago. And you're saying he sounds a

little, I'm sounding a little heretical.

Well, you know, when you study and you look at the history,

sometimes you learn things that you didn't know before.

So this is about Elder James White.

So he had an epiphany and I didn't have time to get the

slides, but he had a slide that he put up years ago.

Some of you may be familiar with it.

It was called The Way of Life. He gave it to the pastors as a

way to teach evangelism. And prominently in that first

slide that he created, it was it was slide, it was a piece of

paper about yay big, right? Guess what was prominent in that

picture? What was the most prominent

feature in that picture? Anybody remember that has seen

it? That's the second one.

The first one was the 10 commandments hanging from the

tree. That's the first one.

And as he prayed, he came to a conclusion that that was not the

focus that we needed to be presenting.

And he had a big burden. I'll read to you his burden just

a moment. So they commissioned after he

died, he had spoken to Ellen White about his burden, about

how he wanted to be talking about more of the gospel, right,

and more about Jesus. And he began to teach that he

had a burden for our pastors to personally know Jesus Christ and

present Jesus and not the commandments first, always about

Jesus 1st. And so the second Commission was

about the cross was front and center and in way in the

background were the 10 commandments because the Bible

is all about Jesus. So I want to read a little

something to you about what he went through.

It says with some there is an unutterable yearning for the

soul for Christ. And the writer is 1 in this

class. So this is Brother White,

Brother James White and somebody writing about him.

With some of us it has been business work and care giving

Christ but little room in the mind and in the affections.

So what was happening? They were so busy doing their

stuff that they had little time for Jesus.

With others it has been nearly all theory, dwelling upon the

law and the prophets, the nature and destiny of man, and the

messages, while destitute to an alarming degree of the

indwelling Christ. So, and Sister White talks about

this where she said we had become as a denomination as dry

as the hills of Gilboa because we have been preaching the law,

the law, the law, and we have forgot the law giver who wants

to have a personal relationship with us and fill us with His

Spirit so that we can reveal Him to a world in sorrow and in

need. He goes on.

Our preachers need more encouragement.

They should preach Christ more, They should know more of Him

upon whom all our hopes of success here and of heaven

hereafter depend. 2 summers. Now this is a different author.

2 summers. I spent with him, James White in

Colorado. During the last few months.

I was with him about 8 weeks, so that I had the best of

opportunities to know him thoroughly.

In our travels together, he often mentioned the mistakes he

thought he had made in his life, and as we prayed alone together,

he would weep over them. Have any of us ever spent time

weeping over our mistakes, asking God to forgive us?

James White did and pleaded for grace to be a true Christian

man. He often said to me privately,

and also spoke of it over and over in nearly all his sermons

this spring and summer, that he felt he must be more tender

toward his brethren, more compassionate toward the erring,

that he must cultivate more love for Christ and more patience in

his trials. As all will remember, whenever

he preached the last few months, he dwelt largely upon the faith

in Christ and the boundless love of God.

That was one of our founding Fathers burdens as he came to

the end of his life was to lift up Jesus to everyone he met and

to embed Jesus in every message he preached from here from the

pulpit. So as we leave ourselves today

and we close this service, I want to reiterate Second Peter

1/4 And because of his glory and excellence, he, Jesus, has given

us great and precious promises in this word.

And these promises will enable you to share in his divine

nature. And so I'm going to ask you a

question. Now.

Don't raise your hand, please. I'm not here to embarrass those

who don't raise their hands. But I'm going to ask you a

question I asked my Sabbath School class last week, and I

want you to think about it. Don't respond hastily.

In your mind, I want you to think about this, but would you

be willing to pray the following prayer?

Lord, do whatever it takes to save me.

I want you to think about that. Don't respond hastily.

I want you to think about that question.

Lord, do whatever. That may mean I lose my job.

That may mean I get deathly sick.

That may mean I have to go through persecution as Paul did.

I don't know what it means for each of us, but if you want to

get serious about being with Jesus in heaven and having the

joy here on this earth as Paul did, study, study Paul and and

Barnabas as they went into prison, as they were, as they

were beaten and whipped. What did they?

They were singing songs of joy. Why?

Because they had an abiding relationship with Jesus Christ.

And no matter what Paul went through, he knew whom he loved

and who loved him. And so that's the question for

us today. As we close, would you be

willing to ask the Lord to do whatever it takes for Him to

fill you with His Holy Spirit? That is the thought for today.

Father, we are humbled by all those in past history who have

taken the time to provide for us and to protect this Word which

we have access to. Lord, there was a time when

anybody who owned the Bible could be killed for owning 1 and

yet we have free access to it, Father, online, on our phones

and in written form. And we are so grateful and we

thank you for the promises in there that we can have victory

over sin if we just allow You to live in US.

What I ask for you to bless all those that are here and those

that are online. Speak to them Father, encourage

them and help them to see what you can do for them, to bring

them the true joy and the blessings and the happiness that

you so much want to do. Bless them and keep them until

we meet again. I ask and pray in Jesus name,

Amen.