Hot Topics // Is the Bible Trustworthy?

Well, in today's message, we are going to start off with a little bit of fun, is that okay?

Okay, so we're going to put a caricature, a picture of somebody up on the screen.

In fact, we have like five different ones, and Pastor Cody told me that if anybody gets all five of the caricatures right you can guess all five he will give you a hundred dollar bill on the way out.

So here we go.

Okay, you guys got this right.

Now everybody's like oh, yeah, let's go, all right.

So here we go, first person.

See if you guys can guess who is this on the screen, who are they?

Biden, okay, all right.

Little slow to the draw there.

Okay, we got Biden.

He's the first person up there, all right.

Next person Trump, okay, all right.

How many are two for two?

Anybody?

Oh, for two.

Don't raise your hand if you're over two, okay, all right.

Next person.

Next person Michael Jackson I heard of in the balcony.

First Michael Jackson, michael Jackson fans, All right, okay, here we go.

Sports fans is for you, so like it.

Lebron James, lebron James.

And then, last but not least, we have Taylor Swift.

Okay, taylor Swift fans in the room.

Taylor Swift, some toes, okay, so.

So, after the LeBron James.

After LeBron James picture there was a.

There was a blank space there.

So we put Taylor Swift that's a song, right, she got that.

It's a song.

It's a.

It's a song, right.

Any of you guys.

How many got at least three of those right?

You got three of those right, okay, how many got all five?

All five, wonderful, wonderful.

See all five.

Okay, see Pastor Cody.

Hundred dollar bills Who'd be giving them out?

Okay, we have some fun with some of these pictures and these different caricatures up there, but we know like that's not what Taylor Swift actually looks like, that's not what Joe Biden actually looks like.

It's like it twisted and distorted.

It's not really what they actually look like.

The reason why we show some silly pictures is because we live in a society right now where they've made a caricature out of scripture.

That's not actually true.

They've said things like scripture is filled with contradictions.

Scripture is anti women, scripture is pro slavery, scripture is, it's outdated and it's archaic.

Like we said before and I think it's worth repeating, is that the scripture is an old, it's timeless and because it's timeless, it's always timely.

It doesn't just tell us what's happened, it tells us what's happening.

Now we're in a series that we're starting today.

I'm pretty excited about it.

It's called Hot Topics.

We're going to talk about Hot Topics over the next few weeks, and what we're going to look at today is the hot topic of how do we know that we can actually trust the scripture.

Now here's, here's, a couple of things that we can talk about.

We can talk about the hot topic of how do we know that we can actually trust the scripture.

Now here's what the scripture is with.

The Bible claims Okay, second Timothy, chapter 3, verse number 16.

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

It says this all scripture is inspired by God and it's profitable for teaching that's what's right for rebuking that's what's wrong.

For correcting that's how to make it right and for training in righteousness, so the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

That's what the scripture says.

Now you may very fairly say oh well, the scripture says it is from God.

So that's basically like me saying, that's like me writing a document and I write on the document this is from God.

And then I go and tell you, hey, this document is from God.

And you ask me, how do I know the sacrament is from God?

Because it says, right, here is from God.

I think it's a lot of sense, right.

What do you do?

So we're going to do today is we're actually going to look at four extra biblical evidence that scripture is reliable, for will use the word for pillars of evidence.

Now I gotta say, guys, this is not going to be a seminary class, all right, so we're not going to go like super, super deep into the weeds because we only have about 30 minutes or so here.

But there are people like Josh McDowell and Mark Clark in Tim Keller that have wrote extensively on the subject that I would say look up some of the stuff that they're saying.

Look them up on TikTok or YouTube or something like that, and there's a whole lot more.

But what I do want to say about today, before we get into it, is this here's the hope for today.

One, I want to answer legitimate questions that you may have about scripture.

Two, I want to equip you to be able to defend your faith and some of you may hear this about the scriptures reliable, and you might say I know the scriptures reliable, I don't need to hear this message.

This one's not for me, pastor Nate.

Ok, but can you defend it If somebody were to go to your friend or say how do you know the scriptures reliable?

What would you say?

That's what I hope we accomplish today.

See, in this hot topic series we're going to cover things like human sexuality and abortion and racism, and next week we're going to talk about the epidemic of busyness in our society and how we're so busy and what does scripture say about that.

And I want today to lay a foundation for the rest of this series, because the scripture is going to be our foundation and if we don't know that this is accurate, then we can't really build off of anything.

So today we're going to get into four pillars.

That shows that we can trust the scripture.

If you are ready to hear these pillars, would you say amen, amen.

So I'm going to do, I'm going to grab this stool over here.

We're going to be a little teachy today.

Is it all right if we're a little teachy today?

A little teachy today, we're going to get into these.

Here's the first pillar archaeology.

First pillar is archaeology.

Here's the deal.

Down through the centuries there have been some very fair, very fair objections about scripture's reliability because of the lack of archaeological evidence, and skeptics had two main pieces of things that scripture talked about that there was not proof of.

One was Pontius Pilate.

You guys remember Pontius Pilate.

He was the Roman governor that held Jesus to be executed and there was no evidence for him.

And people were like there's no evidence for Pilate, he didn't exist.

Well, in 1961, in Caesarea, which is a city north of Jerusalem, there were archaeologists.

They uncovered a Latin inscription right here you can actually go see it in the museum and this refers to Pontius Pilate and actually specifically says he is a Roman governor.

This is a big objection.

Here's another one.

Another big objection that people had was the Hittite Empire.

In fact, in the Old Testament, like 50 times it mentions the Hittite Empire.

That's a lot like 50 times.

They couldn't.

For centuries they couldn't find anything in the Hittite Empire.

Until late in the 1800s they actually found the capital city of the Hittite Empire.

This is in modern day Turkey, modern day Turkey.

They found the capital city and they've excavated it and you can go see some different parts of it.

It's actually pretty cool in different places of the Hittite Empire.

And these were two massive objections.

And what archaeology has done is archaeology has shown time and time and time again that scripture is reliable.

And a couple hundred years ago or, excuse me, there was a.

It was 100 years ago, rather.

Somebody found a old ancient tablet in Jerusalem.

There's a lot of archaeology in Jerusalem.

It's one of the oldest cities in the world and they went to go get this thing checked out and they were like is this old?

What's this all about?

What does it say on there?

Well, come to find out.

It was actually thousands of years old and it dates back and it writes they give this entire writing about a battle that took place when the Moabites revolted against the northern kingdom in Israel.

And what's really interesting is, if you go to 2 Kings, chapter three, the Bible records the exact same incident, just as it's described in this document that was found about 100 years ago.

There's the deal.

These are just three examples and I could go on and I could give you like 20, boom, boom, boom and put half of you guys to sleep.

But here's what's important to know Nelson Gluck, who was a world-renowned archaeologist, well-respected top of the game, top of the food chain, the LeBron James of archaeology.

This is what he said.

He says it may be stated categorically that there's no archaeological discovery that has ever contradicted a biblical reference.

In fact, as there's more archaeological discoveries.

It just builds more and more of a case that the scripture is reliable because of what they're discovering.

In fact, they're archaeologists.

They'll open up the scripture and they'll say, okay, this is here, they'll uncover it, they'll dig something up and it will be right there.

About 10 years ago, I had the awesome opportunity to go to Israel.

I'm curious any guys who have been to Israel before?

Israel, what's Israel?

And we had a tour guide and his name was Avi Avi.

He was like with us for nine or 10 straight days.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm a person.

I ask a lot of questions.

Any question askers in here?

Okay, so all of us drove our parents crazy right, I'm not the only one and so our tour had about.

There was like 50 of us.

So we were loading up on this tour bus and I was always trying to get to sit right next to him.

I'd ask him all of these questions nonstop and I could just kind of see you know, this guy just stopped asking me questions.

We get to the last day and we've seen so many things in Israel.

Man, my mind's like exploding.

And he's shown us all this stuff.

We're walking.

I looked over and I said.

I said, man, this place is pretty incredible.

I said, man, there's all this archaeological evidence.

Because what we did is we just looked at all these archaeological digs and things and I was a nerd.

Now I said all this archaeological evidence that scripture is true, that it's reliable.

I said, but in America a lot of people say that it's not.

What would you tell them?

These guys in his 50s classy guy looked at me like I was an idiot.

He says tell them just to come to Israel, because there's all this archaeology, archaeology that points to the validity of scripture.

Second pillar of evidence is scientific laws, scientific laws.

We have a society that creates this false dichotomy science or faith.

What are you going to pick?

Science or faith?

These are at odds with each other.

But here's the reality Science and faith actually makes a beautiful marriage together.

If you've heard that science and faith are at odds with each other, they're not.

In fact, scripture declares all these scientific declarations before they were actually discovered.

I just want to give you a few real quick.

First of all, is that life is in the blood, that life is in our blood.

In Leviticus, chapter 17, it says for the life of a creature is in the blood.

Leviticus 17 · chapter mention

For 3,000 years, medical practice was something.

One of the medical practices was something called bloodletting.

It's exactly what it sounds like.

They would let all your bad blood out.

Can you imagine this?

You go to the doctor, you have a cold.

They say I know the problem, you have bad blood, let all your bad blood out.

They would do things like that and lots of people died.

This practice actually originated with the Egyptians.

It's a horrible way to treat people, but scripture tells us that life is in the blood.

No blood, no life.

How about another one?

The earth is round.

Isaiah 40, verse 22.

Isaiah 40:22

God is enthroned above the circle of the earth.

Its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.

It took us all the way until Mr Christopher Columbus in 1492 sailed the ocean blue to discover that the earth is round.

Here's another one the earth is suspended in space.

Job 26, verse 7.

Job 26:7

He stretches the northern skies over empty space.

He hangs the earth on nothing.

Scripture said it.

Astrologists discovered it years and years later.

We have the pillar of scientific laws, we have archaeology, we have scientific laws.

Third pillar prophecy Fulfill prophecy.

Well, nobody would object that the Old Testament was written before the New Testament.

So even like your most staunch secular person that maybe is an atheist, agnostic, totally respect them would say you know, the Old Testament was written before the New Testament.

In the Old Testament there was specific prophecies of things that would happen Like this is going to happen, not, this might happen, not, this possibly could happen.

This is going to happen.

And specifically about Jesus, there was like over 300.

300 that weren't just prophesied but were actually fulfilled.

Okay, prophe a prophecy is a prediction.

There's over 300.

I just want to give you three just for fun, okay.

So Micah 5, verse 2, it says Jesus would be born in Bethlehem.

Micah 5:2

In Luke, chapter 2, guys guess where Jesus was born?

Luke 2 · chapter mention

Zachariah 11, jesus would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver.

And Matthew 26, he was betrayed for 30 pieces of silver.

In Isaiah 53, jesus would be buried.

Jesus, the suffering servant, isaiah says, will be buried in the grave of a rich man.

In Matthew 27, he was buried in the grave of Joseph of Ereba, the rich man.

Now, the odds of 300 prophecies being fulfilled are very, very small, in fact.

Let me just show you how.

What are the odds of this?

How many of you have ever driven through the wonderful state of Texas, texas, anybody from Texas?

Okay, cool, right, okay.

Okay.

So you've ever driven through the wonderful state of Texas?

I have never done that, but I have heard it's rather long, I have heard it's rather boring and it's kind of hot.

Now the state of Texas is really really big and let's just suppose.

Let's suppose we took 100 trillion, 100 trillion half dollars and we dispersed them all across the great state of Texas.

We got some Texas barbecue before we did that and then we picked up one of the half dollars and we marked it with the sharpie, we set it up into an airplane and the airplane dropped it randomly over Texas.

So now 100 trillion silver dollars in Texas.

It would cover the state in two feet.

Two feet of half dollars.

And we were to drop you off in the middle of the state and we were to say you got one shot, buddy, find it, pick it out.

What are the chances that you would actually pick out that silver dollar?

Probably not very high.

The exact same chances that one person could fulfill all those Old Testament prophecies and Jesus did.

What is the show?

This shows the reliability of scripture.

Here's another prophecy that we see coming to person around us right now Matthew 24.

You're going to hear of wars and rumors of wars.

Heard of that lately.

See that you're not alarmed, because these things must take place, but the end is not yet, for nations will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

Places Sound, sound like something, guys, prophecy prophecies a pillar.

Archaeology is a pillar.

The scientific laws are a pillar.

Archaeology is a pillar.

Fourth pillar is this the time the New Testament was written?

There's overwhelming evidence that the New Testament was written somewhere between 20 and 50 years, 20 and 50 years after the life of Jesus Christ.

Even in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, paul argues for the historical basis of the resurrection based on the fact that people actually the people that he was writing to actually saw him alive.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

So this is what he says.

He says Jesus resurrected and he says you guys saw him, like you saw that he actually did this.

Now, if you're writing a document that's false and you're writing a document that you're making it up, you're not going to lean into the credibility of this event by the witnesses.

If the witnesses didn't witness it, you wouldn't do that.

I mean, let's say this, okay, for example, you guys remember September 11th 2001.

Remember September 11th?

Terrible day, terrible day, it's a little bit like thousands of people died.

Now can you imagine if somebody wrote a blog or they wrote a book and they were going to write this and they were to say 9-11 didn't actually happen.

It's all made up, towers didn't go down, nobody died, not true?

This is what you would say Most of you.

Some of you are young.

You don't remember 9-11, right, it's the most that you would say.

You would say not true.

I saw it.

I remember Seventh grade Walked into my parents' room.

Tv was on.

Mom, why is there smoke going from that building?

My mom says that's the World Trade Center in New York City.

I say what's the World Trade Center?

She says two really tall buildings.

Look what's going on.

I remember that.

I remember a year later going to Ground Zero and seeing big old cranes and excavators literally removing the millions of pounds of steel a year after it happened.

I saw that with my eyes.

You cannot tell me that didn't happen.

I saw it when Paul writes between 20 and 50 years later.

If it was not true, all the witnesses said no, that didn't happen.

I saw Jesus.

I was in Jerusalem around 33 AD.

I was there.

It did not happen.

But the fact that he wrote at the same time period, where those people that are alive, where they could have either they could have disproven shows proof that the Scripture is reliable.

I mean, gosh, at that point Jesus had so many haters, like the haters could have been like now, bro, we were there.

On top of this, there's over 5,000 preserved manuscripts of the New Testament alone, which is more manuscripts than any historical writer that lived during this time period.

We could say this unequivocally.

Nobody can deny this.

The New Testament is the most well-attested piece of ancient literature in the world.

Here's the deal, guys.

You do not take my word for it.

Study it for yourself.

You don't take my word for it, but here's a really fair question that we need to ask If the Bible is trustworthy, what now?

If this is actually from God, then what do we do with it?

Here's what this means.

This means that this has the answers for life.

But this also means and this might be a little uncomfortable is this is if the Bible is from God, then it's our authority.

We don't like authority, do we?

No, I don't when.

When you're driving and you hear a siren and you look up in your rear view mirror and you see the flashing lights right behind you and you get the sinking feeling in your stomach.

You don't think.

I just love authority in my life.

This is wonderful.

At the end of the year, in your paycheck, when you look at how much taxes are taken out, some of you just stop looking.

I don't even want to think about it.

You don't.

You don't look at the taxes and you don't say I'm so glad I'm under the government's authority, take more.

You don't do that.

But here's something about authority I don't know if you realize this Is that you don't choose if you live under authority.

You just choose whose authority you'll be under.

You don't choose if you'll be under authority, you just choose whose authority you'll be under.

Senior graduates from high school don't like my parents' rules.

Don't like that they have to be under a certain time.

Don't like that they're looking at my cell phone.

I'm tired of their authority.

I'm going to go join the Marines.

Just transfer authority Now.

We live in society right now.

That says that your life is about one thing.

This is what your life is about.

Your life is about self-actualization, self-fulfillment, whatever that looks like.

So, whatever you want, whatever you feel like doing, whatever you desire, that's what you need to do.

Hey, nobody can box you in, nobody can give you any boundaries, nobody can tell you you're wrong, and if it makes you happy, you better do it.

Now here's the thing this mindset, this philosophy, I would even say this theology, has profoundly failed us as a society and has tragic consequences.

Even right now, almost every other week there's a well-known periodical like the New York Times, like the Atlantic, something one of these well-known, respected newspapers that are secular, right about what this mindset and what this philosophy of life is doing to us.

Now here's what this mindset does it makes you the ultimate authority of you Sounds kind of good, right, I'm the authority, I can do what I want.

I'm good.

If you're.

Just why this is dangerous?

Because you have limited knowledge, limited experience and fickle emotions.

Have you ever?

Have you ever done something in your life that you were convinced you should do?

This is what you should do.

And now you look back on you doing that and you're like what was I thinking?

Me too, I mean.

You look back and in the moment it just felt so right.

You were like listen to your heart.

You were what happened?

You look back now and you're like what was I thinking?

That's what you were doing.

You were making the decision based on your limited knowledge, limited experience and fickle emotions because in that moment you were convinced that's what you should do.

If you weren't convinced, you wouldn't have done it.

And now you look back and you're like what was I thinking?

Here's an uncomfortable truth, but here's the truth you have to embrace if you're going to spiritually mature or embrace spiritual maturity.

This is it.

You are not the best authority of you.

Some of you just got uncomfortable.

Some of you are feeling this you are not the best authority of you.

This is why because, even though we like to think of ourselves as smart and experienced, we still have limited knowledge, limited experience and fickle emotions.

I like to think of myself as I'm late.

I read a lot of books, I talked to a lot of people.

I sit on the stage for 30 minutes and try to not put people to sleep, but you know what I have limits of knowledge, limits of experience and fickle emotions.

This is why we need a in the terms of a 12 step program.

We need a higher power.

This is why any 12 step program, any sobriety, they're going to point you to something higher.

Why?

Because you need something that will ground you.

You need something that will give you a foundation, you need something that will give you direction, and sometimes what can happen is Jesus followers can say you know, I know this is what scripture says here, but my heart is telling me this over here Okay, this is what you're doing.

You are making your limits of your limits of knowledge, limits of experience and fickle emotions your authority.

I know what scripture says here, but I don't really understand this.

I mean, nobody's doing this anyways, I'm going to do this over here.

Okay, then you are making yourself or culture your authority, with its limits of knowledge, limits of experience and fickle emotions.

So what are you going to do?

I close with this.

There's one of two ways we approach and relate to scripture Every single person in this room.

There's one of two ways.

One, we let scripture be the authority over us.

We let scripture tell us what's right, what's wrong, what leads to life, what leads to death, what we should do, what we shouldn't do.

We let the scripture be over us and the scripture judge us.

But there's another way.

We stand over the scripture and we judge scripture and we say, mmm, that's good, that's archaic, that makes me feel good.

That's uncomfortable.

It's no good that that makes sense.

That doesn't make sense and we put ourselves as authority over the word.

Now here's why this is really dangerous.

God doesn't bless people.

God blesses a place and God blesses a position, and the place that God blesses is under the authority of the word.

This is the place that God blesses under the authority of his word.

And so in your life you're like I want God to bless me.

I wish God would bless me.

God, how come you're not blessing me?

That's not the question.

The question is am I living under the authority of his word?

The question isn't God giving me more blessings?

The question is is it my obeying what his word says?

The question isn't God, how come you won't do this and that for me?

Here's the question Am I looking over scripture like this, or am I letting scripture be over me as my authority?

Because some of us right now, we know we need to be baptized.

We know we need to express our faith in Christ through baptism.

This is what the scripture says.

We're like I don't really know whose authority are we under.

Some of us, there are places in our life like we know we need to be giving financially.

This is what the scripture says.

We're like I don't really know.

Some of us we know what the scripture says about how we handle our sex lives.

We're like I don't really know.

We know what scripture says about engaging with the church, but we're like I don't really know.

I'm kind of busy.

Here's what I'm saying, guys.

I'm saying God blesses a place and the place is under his word.

So let me ask you this morning where are you not under his word?

If this is reliable and it is then we need to submit to the authority of his word.

Let me pray for you.