Apologetics Series 2024 - Part 1: Can We Trust The Bible | Samuel Nesan & Andy Yeoh

Hey there, you're listening to the Generation's Church podcast. We pray that the

word of God today will challenge, change and channel you into your God given

destiny. Now let's get started. Let's discuss what is the Bible and so

for that, I'd like to invite us to slight you in the aid.

You're going to see the words let my people go in it. And it

goes back to the story of Moses in the Exodus, where God says to

Moses, go say to this king called Pharaoh, let my people go.

Now, Moses, is you know the story, He actually says to God,

I don't speak very well, as if you know, the effectiveness of

God's words depends on how well you and I can communicate it. And so

God says to Pharaoh, you ask your brother to speak for you. His

brother's name was Aaron. And so Moses is going to speak to Aaron and

say, this is what God told me to say to face, let my

people go. Now here's a question we need to ask when we define whether

or not it is the Bible. Is God's words? Is what God is

saying? Or rather, let me rephrase that is what Moses is saying to

Aaron is that God's words, because clearly Moses didn't go in the same voice

as the narrator in the movies let my people go. You know, he

didn't. He didn't do that, right. What he did is he probably

went and say, yo, bro, God has come to me to tell

me, to tell you, tell Pharaoh, let my people go. And

so the big question is is that God's words, because now Moses is using

his own language. Yeah, And that's that's the question we need to ask

because if it is no, then what we're saying is it is only God's

words, if it is word for word, whatever God says. But the

fact is, what Moses says to Pharaoh, or what Moses says to Aaron

is in fact God's words, even though Moses may use a different vocabulary,

because God is not just saying those words, He's speaking through his servant.

And so when Aaron takes these words to Pharaoh, Aaron is now going to

Pharaoh and he's going to say whatever the Egyptian equivalent is, you know of

ampuntuanku the royalty, what do you say to the royalty. He's going to

have to speak in a different language, different phrases, but he's going to

communicate this thing, let my people go. And the big question is what

Aaron says to Pharaoh is that God's word And the fact is yes. And

the way we know that is because right after Aaron had communicated that to Pharaoh

and Pharaoh rejects that, God sends the plagues, which eventually some few days

later, of course, Pharaoh changes his mind and says, you know what,

you can take your people and go. So God's word brought about the

effect of setting the people of is real free. But you notice it comes

through different speakers, different language. And I think here's where we get our

important point when we define scripture. Scripture is not just God's words. Scripture

is God's word communicated through his authoritative servant. We call those the prophets the

apostles, and when they speak, they speak. What is you know from

their vocabulary From the understanding that we've read first and Second Peter, they're very

different because they were not written by the same person. Fors Peter chapter five,

verse twelve. First Peter, chapter five, verse twelve tells us that

Peter got the help of Silas or Sylvanus to write for him. Because Peter

was a fisherman, he didn't write too. Well, you go to second

Peter, and the Greek is so strange. It's almost like a kindergartener wrote

that, because now we know that's Peter doing the writing himself. So and

so we see that God uses the different vocabulary. Luke rights with it.

If you look at Luke chapter one, it's it's solid Greek, it's it's

it's he uses words like prognoxis, diagnosis and oh yeah, he's a doctor.

That's why he uses that sort of language, right, and so he

look as a different vocabulary, and so God uses these people, but it

is ultimately God. So but I think that's the first point we need to

establish. So we just defined the Bible. So the Bible is not just

so I think there was a slight before that, right, this is maybe

you can go back to the slight before that. Like, so there the

different understandings of how the Bible came about, Like for example, number two,

dictation theory. We're not saying so that's not what we believe in that.

We're not saying that God dictated word forward to the person writing it.

And then how the Bible came about because as as you pointed out, first

Peter and second, Peter written about different person, so it sounds different.

He has a different feel because Peis was sufficient man, so he's he's a

bit rough with his language and he's not so articulate and and and all that.

Right, So we're not saying the Bible is a dictation like God gave

the words word for word to the person who's writing it. We're not saying

that Like number three, Dynamic Inspiration was saying that only the thoughts are inspired.

All the words are like I choose my words I want, so God

says, let my people go, and I say, uh yo leper ah.

So right, it's not It's not like I get to choose as a

writer to choose whatever I want to say, and only the thoughts are inspired.

That's not what we're saying. We're also not saying that the Bible is

only the word of God in matters of moral and faith and practice everything else.

We Tamba Paul added in his own things, and we're not saying that.

Uh. And we're also definitely not saying we're not we don't hold to

intuition theory, which is, there are these people who wrote the work,

the books. They were very wise people, very good intuition. They can

sense what God is saying and it is wroted what we believe in Number one,

verbal culinary inspiration. Verbal means every word in the Bible is inspired.

Every single word. I think Jesus is even the stroke. It's meant.

It is every word that is in the Bible is meant to be there.

Culinary means the full thing, all of it, all of it, the

sentence, structure, the placement of the words, the placement of the center

within the context, all of that is God intended. And of course the

inspiration means God breathed. That's where the inspirament comes from. So far.

Okay, So when we say the Bible, we mean this book that contains

God's inspired word. Yes, written by human beings that God used, but

not just any human being. He's authorative writers that he's chosen and carefully,

you know he's chosen, he disappointed to write the words of God right absolutely,

And there were plenty of authenticating factors network surround these people to show that

they were actually authorized by God. For example, in Moses' case, he's

got the signs and wonders because Pharaoh doesn't believe it's from God. But how

does Pharaoh get convinced at the end of it all that it really was God

speaking in the first place. Well, God tells Moses, when you do

these signs and wonders and I've inflicted on Egypt all that I'm going to do,

then Pharaoh will know that I am the Lord. So God expects the

authenticating factors to come around his servant to convey that. And once Moses is

able to do signs and wonders, parting the Red Sea, bringing the plagues

on Egypt, all these count towards authenticating that that is really God's messenger.

In a New Testament, however, we have a different authenticating factor. These

apostles were handpicked by Jesus, and Jesus was intentional in keeping the number to

twelve, not more, which is why when Judas was lost, it was

imperative that the number got replaced. That's why the first thing in the Book

of access to get the number back to twelve again. But you notice after

that when James one cares about the number anymore, because that number is once

and for all film it's twelve, right, So the apostle Paul is the

twelve slash. Let's just say he's the twelve Apostle, right, and you

leave it at then maybe if there are more questions from there, we can

take it further. But so the point is in the New Testament, the

authenticating factor is Jesus choosing his twelve and they become his authoritative agents. As

Jesus himself says in Matthew, behold, I send you prophets. Those are

the prophets He's sending out. So we have these authenticating factors. And on

that basis, this is whatever they wrote. All of it was regarded as

scripture the very moment it was written. Yes, things are so important to

differentiate where we say that we don't mean like the like the words in the

Bible. For example, salt. We're not saying because the word salt is

in the Bible, therefore salt is now a holy word. Right, I

mean, if I can write the word salt in my essay and doesn't make

it a holy word. But we're not talking about the We're not saying the

words in the Bible itself, like individual words, sentence, structure, or

structure. But the I guess the wordings put together, you are assault like

salt and light of the earth. When you put together. Those are God's

words, Those are Gods saying that that's got some message. Yes, so

that's what we mean when we mean when we talk about the Bible. Right?

Absolutely, should we move on to trustworthiness? If you let's let's talk

about trustworthiness before. Before we talk about trustworthiness, I want, I think

it's best for us to discuss how do we measure trustworthiness? Right? Because

I think I'm pretty trustworthy? Don't you think? I'm not going to put

a poll on that one. But the point is that there must be a

way to evaluate whether we're trustworthy or not. And the question is how,

oh do you do that? Well, in two ways you can do that,

and I'll tell you the more common way that happens. The more common

way that happens is when we decide, by our own human reasoning what is

or is not trustworthy. So what we do is we say, well,

let me see what makes sense, and what's the next do words? This

makes sense to me? To me because I think if you take this approach

and say, well, let me decide for myself, what we're essentially doing

is saying we are the determining fact of what is true and what is not

and for all intents and purposes. I want to reject that today we don't

get to decide what is true or what is false. The truth is the

truth, regardless of what anyone says, and what is false is false regardless

of what everyone says. Right, it is true regardless. But the big

question is, then, if I am not the king of reason to determine

what is truth, how can we know that? Well? I think the

simplest way to begin here is to say that first and foremost we must let

God define for us for himself what is truth, and we can test what

God says, but we cannot judge it by an external standard. Let me

explain what I mean. So if someone says, well, I think the

Bible is true because historians have proven whatever you want to add behind that,

right, ABCDE, what we've essentially done is said the historians are the authoritative

ones. Because the historian said so, and the Bible agrees with what they

say, the Bible is true. So we've made the historians the king.

And you can do that to science and say, well, this is what

sign says, and since the Bible lives up to that, well the Bible

is true. But I want to say that the Bible stands on its own

authority. The reason is this, And I do have a slide for this,

not sure where it is, but let me let me pull this up

just so you know. We've got eighty eight slides over here. And that's

that's the reason why we and this is the light version. We've condensed it

to eighty eight. Okay, this is light number sixty three or sixty four.

A picture of someone swearing, right, So let's let's put that up

here. You go, that's right. So if in the in the US

when a president gets sworn in, he puts his hand on the Bible and

he swears. If God were to swear, who does he swear by?

Sorry himself? But then you go, isn't that circular God swearing by himself?

Well, it is a pick careful attention to what I'm about to say.

X. Not all circularity is wrong? Why Because if someone tells you

all circularity is wrong, that you cannot use a circular system, then what

have they just done? They have said that you cannot use a circular system

on what basis? I said? So, isn't that circular? The very

charge that you cannot use circular reasoning is in self a circular reasoning. Let's

take time to process that a little bit. Okay, digest that a little

bit. So when we say circularity automatic, now I think circularity is mostly

wrong, except when it comes to ultimate facts. Ultimate facts, absolute facts

you can't escape, right, the circularity will be there. For example,

if you believe I'm a real person, on what basis do you believe that

your eyes so? But your eyes is telling you what your eyes is telling

you, right, that's circular. Ultimately, all truth is circular in the

absolute sense. And once you establish that, we build on it, and

so you cannot question the found You can only question the foundation by saying is

it consistent? It consistent? So God is allowed to swear by himself.

The question is do we have evidence that he is faithful to what he's wears.

Because if he says I'm going to do this and he does not do

that, we know he's a fraud. But if he does say he will

do this, and he's able to bring this in past, bring this to

past historically, we now have the evidential framework of showing this is really God's

work, and it's got to some days up. Now I do have a

slight for this. We're going to pull this up real quick to some days

up. The way we can test whether a message or a book is God's

word or not is let me see pull this up. The way we're going

to do this is by let me see if I can get this up real

quick. Number one, establishing is it able to predict the future? Is

it able to predict the future? If it's able to predict the future,

that's one way we can be certain that it is God's words. Get the

exact one, I think, and he knows which slide I'm referring to.

But is it able to predict the future? Thirty seven? Is it all

right? Slight thirty seven slide thirty seven, let's get that up. Yes,

that's all so. Yeah. One of the things I'll say is this,

is it able to make predictions about the future, Because if God cannot

predict the future, he's not at all. Now. I didn't say that.

The Bible says that God himself says one of the tests that God says.

If you go to Isaiah chapter forty one, worse twenty one Isaiah forty

one, verse twenty one, God puts tests on the false gods. He

says to them, tell them, tell us the things that are do that

we may know that you are God's Does he not say that? Isia forty

one twenty one? Tell us what's going to come? If you really are

God, tell me the future, because you're control auntie, are you not?

So if you can tell me, then I know your God. So

the test of deity, according to God himself, is that he's able to

predict the future, whereas according to my Bible, the false God predict the

future. Now we go to test number two, and do you want to

take us to test number two? What's all right? So fulfilled? If

God says that act an acts has not happened. God didn't say it.

That's in Deutronomy eighteen, verse twenty to twenty two. If someone speaks on

God's behalf and say this will happen, we started a lot didn't. During

the last election, the US election presidential election. I was in the US

when that happened. I was studying in the US, and you know,

everyone was saying God. All these people were saying, I God told me

Donald Trump is going to win this one. And we waited and waited,

and he didn't win. Already lost and you know what he say. The

reason he lost is because you didn't have enough faith, right, you didn't

have enough faith. Well, if God said it, it'll be true regardless

of whether you have faith or not. It's God's words. So well.

Deuteronomy tells us if someone says God says he will do this and it doesn't

come to pass, you know, it's not God's words, so passy.

I think on that basis, we can safely say that if we find anything

false prophecy in the Bible and error a lie, we can throw this book

out and say it is not God's words. I think that's the challenge that

we have, that we can say to the world, this Bible is completely

free from error because God cannot make mistakes, and his own word says he

can't make mistakes. And when you look through the rest of scripture. The

challenge is for the skeptic, the one who says I don't believe in God,

to say, how is it my Bible is able to predict the future?

And we'll give an example of that later, how is it able to

bring it to pass? And why is there no errors in this book at

all? I think that's the evidential Framewook we work in. So I've actually

covered two and three. Win that one. Go but go ahead fast her.

Okay, great, So let me look at some questions and see if

we can address some of them right now. Will there ever be a sequel

to the Bible? No? Well, no, because if the answer is

yes, that will suggest that God is not complete, He's not perfect.

He means something like like our mother's or fathers. Ah, forgot one more

thing to ask you to why God's not God? Is God's not like that?

It is complete? There's no addition, no subtractions. Well so in

a way yes, yes, Actually Revelation, the end of Revelation makes it

clear, don't add, don't subtract. Yes, which it seems to me

to me now, I interpret that to me that John writing the Apocalypse in

Revelation understood it to be the final book of scripture. And mind you,

he was the last surviving apostle when he did that. Okay, so there's

quick answer to that. There will be no sequel. We have the full

Bible. This is all we need. The nineteen books excluded, like the

Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Gospel of Philip, and

the gospwel of and Mary excluded. Why so right in our YouTube channel explain

international with extensive long videos. I think we've done about close to twenty hours

worth of content on just those additional books as well. You look at the

book of Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter.

These are ridiculous gospels past Andy, right, because well, for one,

in the Gospel of Thomas we see that only men get to go to

Heaven. I'm not sure how you women feel about that, right, maybe

let us know. And yes, it wasn't actually written by Thomas, right,

it wasn't because it was written in the second century. Thomas was dead

in India at the early part of the first century. So that's that's quite

a big reason why we know that there can't be Thomas's book. Yes,

okay, his claimed to be a book of Thomas, but Thomas didn't right,

Yes, unlike look it is within my look and Matthew's within my Matthews

Okay, no, absolutely. Just to add up to that, which is

one interesting fact is that in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus promises that Mary

Magdalene will be saved, which that creates a well, actually, it's not

a gospel. I think it's Is that a gospel of Thomas? It's a

related gospel. There's the disciples get upset. Why is it that Mary is

here and Jesus says nobody, I'll convert her into a man so that she

gets saved. Yes, when you read those stuff, you realize how ridiculous

those writings are. Now one more thing I want to point on, and

this is important. You don't you take for granted our New Testament writings because

you've not read those those funny gospels. When you read those phony gospels,

right, you to realize how wonderful our New Testament is. For example,

what's the biggest, the greatest story of all the gospels? The top of

it, not the feeling of it is one even bigger than that, The

great story that all our gospels almost to the crescendo, the resurrection, right,

the resurrection is the story that all of the gospels lead up to.

That's the climax of the gospels. Now here's the question. Which gospel tells

you how the resurrection took place? And I love the silence, None of

it, none of it, Not one of the gospels tell you how the

resurrection took place. One moment Jesus is in the tomb, the next moment

is out. You know why they don't tell you that they didn't see it,

right, They only report what they saw. That's why they don't tell

you about jesus childhood. They were not there. The only one guy that

gets into detail with Jesus' childhood is Luke. But there's a reason why Luke

gets into it because Luke was writing this around the time he was in Ephesus.

And we know from church history who else was in Ephesus. John?

Okay, because we know that even in the Book of Revelations, John writes

to the church in Ephesus. Guess who was with John that John was taking

care of in his ministry, Mary, John is writing in that place,

and so it's likely, in fact, very likely that Luke actually spoke to

Mary. And that's why he's the only gospel give you access to what happened

in Jesus's early childhood at the age of twelve. None of the other gospels

can because they didn't really speak Terry. Now, the false gospels give you

incredible stories about the resurrection. The Gospel of Peter says that when Jesus rose

up, the cross came bouncing behind Jesus. Those are the ridiculous stories.

Did you have? One gospel says he terrified the Roman gods. He was

spooking them as he came out. And so the gospels give us eyewitness accounts

and they're reliable for that very reason. Just one more thing, the Book

of Enoch. I hear this all the time. What about the Book of

Enoch? Friends? The Book of Enoch is a Greek book. Enoch did

not know Greek. He was seventh from Adam. This was long before the

Greek language was invented, so we know it's not from you know, relating

to what we have covered earlier, someone asked to what extent can we trust

the disciples recollection of the life and ministry and words of Jesus. So we

kind of touch on that, so we can address this. I think we

can also relate this question. How do we know if the Bible we have

now is the complete version? And then someone else asked the words and the

story of Moses is still based on words written in the Bible. But I

think this person means written by human beings? Right, How can we be

sure that it is God's words? Can I kind of can we address all

these tree together? Shall we? Yeah, let's do the last one as

well, because that's I think the last one is fantastic. It's a great

question. How do we know that what Moses wrote was actually God's words?

Yeah? Because Moses supposedly wrote Genesis or something. Yes, and the Moses

obviously wasn't there. Yes, So how can we trust that because you just

said that Luke was an Irish witnesses. They interviewed the very people that were

there, like Mary, but Moses, Yeah, I think it's actually the

same principle, right, Moses did interview the eyewitness? Okay, who was

there? God? God? Well, and now here's the thing right past

the end, We've got to say, does it meet the standards that we

lay down? Can it predict the future? Because if you can predict the

future, it also can tell you the past. Same system. So is

there evidence that what Moses wrote was God's word? Let's do that, Okay.

I want to ask this question. Did Abraham have the Gospel with him?

Did Abraham have the scriptures with him? Did Abraham have the scriptures with

him? No? No, did Abraham believe that the Messiah would come and

die in Jerusalem, they would be raised on the third day, that he

would die, That that the Messiah would die in Jerusalem on Calvary as a

sacrifice for his sins. Did Abraham have all that information? What? What

should we say to that past? How did he know that he knows this?

The fact is, what if I told you he absolutely did. Well,

let's let's go with Galaians three eight for this, like maybe someone would

would kill us up for us. Galatians chapter three was eight. Did Abraham

have the scriptures? And what you're going to see, friends, is one

of maybe a hundred examples to give you an authenticating evidence for the Bible from

the Bible itself. So let's go Galatians three eight. Someone read please,

Oh there you go. It's it's right here. So let's shall we all

read this together? You okay with that? Let's do this one two,

three? And the scripture? Foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith,

preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying in you all the nations shall

be blessed. Friends, What preached the gospel to Abraham? It doesn't say

God, what preached the Gospel to Abraham scripture. Did Abraham have the scriptures

with him? He did, see. I know you're scared to say that

because we think Moses wrote it. Well, there are plenty of things that

I'm going to show you that was handed to Moses. Okay, you guys

ready for this. This is going to be an adventure. Let's go to

Genesis twenty two. You're going to see internal evidence that Abraham not only believed

that the Messiah would come, he believed the Massiah would come. He believed

the Massiah would die in Jerusalem on Calvary. He believed the Massiah would be

raised on the dead from the dead on the third day. And he believed

that he would die as a forgift, as a sacrifice for his sins.

Let's good. Genesis chapter twenty two was one. Now it came to pass

after these things that God tested Abraham and he said to him, Abraham,

and he said, here, I am worse to Then he said, take

now your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the

land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the

mountains of which I shall tell you, friends, why does God need Abraham

to offer burnt offerings. Burnt offerings are only offered for since right, so

did Abraham sin? Okay? And Abraham was perfect, wasn't he all right?

I mean God told him Genesis twelve, leave your family and land that

I will show you. And Abraham obeyed, right, well kind of.

He brought a lot with him, and Lot's life became a living nightmare.

His his dogs committed in says with him, his son in laws got destroyed

in Sodom and Gomorrah, his wife became Ajinamoto pillow of salt. And so

if you ask Lot why all this tragedy, he would tell you this.

I followed Abraham. That's what happened. God told him, leave your family,

Abraham brought him along, made his life a nightmare. Sorry, I'm

going to ruin Sunday school for a lot of us today. Now, God

told him to go to the Promised Land. Abraham was a man of faith.

Amen. He goes to the Promised Land. But then he's a famine,

so he makes a U ten and goes back to Egypt. In Egypt,

there was a contest that year husband of the Year what and Abraham was

actually the winner because he goes to Egypt and he says to his wife,

you have very beautiful They're going to ask you who you are. Just say

you're my sister. If they want to take you, go with them.

That's that's literally what Abraham did, right, Husband of the year. How

many people, how many women here? We want to say, I want

to be the wife of Abraham. Man of faith? Huh, man of

faith. Gosh, we're destroying all the Sunday School lessons we learned. Now

you come to the you come to the next stage. Pharaoh nearly, I

mean, if you look at Abraham, I've been taken away for good.

She's going to become one of his in his in his prisons or in his

haroms, Abraham's wife as one of his concubines. You ask Sarah, Sarah,

what's some lessons you can give for us? Sarah will say, don't

trust that man. Don't trust that man. Look at what he did to

me. Now, Pharaoh nearly committed sin that night. God had to appear

too Pharaoh to tell him, don't do that. That's his wife. And

if you ask Pharaoh, what lessons do you have for us? Don't trust

Abraham, man, don't trust Abraham. You guys getting a pattern here?

Long story todd. Abraham has a son to Hagar called Ishmael, and later

we know the story. Hagar and Ishmael are about to die in the wilderness.

Why what is the life lesson we learned from Hagar? Don't trust Abraham?

Man studying to see a pattern. Abraham's life was not perfect. He

lived a life of sin. He obeyed God in some parts. And then

God says to him, Look, if you want to be in a right

relationship with me, you guys ready for this. Your son must die.

If your son doesn't die, you don't get to be in a right relationship

with me. The only way you get in a right relationship with me,

your son must die. And I don't just want any son. I want

your only son, whom you love. Friends, Isaac is not his only

son. Ishmael was the older son. Did God make a mistake? No,

he was speaking of another son. And I'll show you from the text

later. Not only that he is to go to the land of Moriah and

offer him there as a sacrifice. Friends, this is Moses writing. He

asked, how did Moses know? What? Evidence that Moses was writing God's

words well, let's go to let's scripture tell Us, second Chronicles, chapter

three, verse one. Please, It says, now Solomon built the House

of the Lord, of the House of the Lord on Jerusalem on Mount Moriah,

the threshing floor. So we know where Mount Moriah is. Moriah is

in Jerusalem, the very place, yes, Second Chronicles three one. Now

Solomon began to build a house of the Lord at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah.

Mount Moriah is where the temple is. And friends, do you know what's

right outside the temple on Mount Moriah? So little hill it's called Calvary.

Same place. So God told Abraham, not only if you want to be

in right relationship with me, your son must die. Your son's got to

die in this place. You can't say Jerusalem or Calvary, that's a later

word, Mount Moriah. Abraham has to travel there to offer the sacrifice on

that spot. Now, let's go back to Genesis twenty two. Where's four

please Jerusalem. Well he began to go. Abrahams took his sons and his

servants and went. On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes.

He saw the place from afar. Remember this, God pronounced a death sentence

on Isaac and on the third day, Abraham reaches the place significant the word

third day, because nowhere else it gives us a timestep only there. We'll

come back to that. What does Abraham do Verse five? He says to

his servants, stay here with the donkey the lad and I will go yonder

worship, and we will come back to you. We will come back to

you. Did Abraham believe his son was coming back? Yes? Now,

if you go to Hebrews now due to time, I'll just tell you this,

write this down and go back and read this Hebrew's eleven seventeen to nineteen.

Hebrews eleven seventeen to nineteen says that Abraham knew that Isaac had to die

because God had said he must die for his sins. But he also realized

that the promises were going to come to Isaac. So which means, after

Isaac dies for my sin, what's going to happen? After he died for

my sins, what's going to happen? He'll be raised from the dead.

Abraham believed that fact. You know what, let's go to verse nineteen.

Hebrew Let's get let's let's go start with seventeen Hebrews eleven seventeen. By faith

Abraham, and he was tested off a up Isaac. And he who had

received the promises, offered up his only begotten son, was eighteen, of

whom it was said, this is the promise in Isaac, shall your seed

be called Verse nineteen, concluding, friends, this is what Abraham concluded,

that God was able to raise him up even from the dead. And notice

what it ends there from which he also received him in a figurative sense,

the ESV says, and figuratively speaking, he did receive him from the dead.

Question on what day did he receive him back from the dead? Third

day? Abraham believed the resurrection on the third day, You bet he did.

Now let's go to verse six Genesis twenty two. Six. Abraham and

the son are going to go back up that hill. And what does Abraham

put on his son as they go up that hill? Abraham took the wood,

laid it on his son, and they're going up together. So as

Isaac goes up that hill, he's carrying the wood on his back. Familiar

scene. He's going up together. In fact worse nine. Let's go to

worse nine Genesis twenty two, Verse nine when he came to the place of

which God had told him. Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood

in order, and bound his son and laid him on the altar on top

of the wood, which means Isaac carries the wood up the hill. When

he gets there, the wood is laid down and Isaac is put on the

wood, fastened too the wood. That's exactly what happened to Jesus. He

got fastened to the cross when he was up. And it's about to kill

the son. The angel says to him this interesting phrase verse eleven. But

the Angel of the Lord's called to him from heaven, said Abraham. Abraham.

He said, here, I am nix Wis. Do not lay the

hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that

you fear God in all this. What he didn't know. Now only I

found out you fear God, seeing that you've not withheld from me your son,

your only son, from me. And now, friends, I want

to leave you with this. This is the proof that you have that Abraham

had the scriptures, and the scriptures were passed down to Moses. Let's go

to worse fourteen. Let's go wors thirteen first, because Abraham is going to

get a substitute. Abraham lifted up his eyes and he looked. Behold,

behind him was a ram. Where was the ram? Caught in the ticket

by the horns? In other words, the ram? What was around the

ram's head, thorns, bushes, thorns, branches, is something to see.

All the pictures come in right there. This is not New Testament,

friends, this is the first book of the Bible. It's called Genesis.

Christian is now this is the big question. Did Abraham think, oh,

great story, man, guys, you didn't know what happened back there.

You know, this is a fantastic story. I had to sacrifice my son,

but didn't happen. No, Abraham actually believed this was going to take

place in the future. Let's go to worse fourteen. So Abraham called the

name of the place. What did he call it? Let's say it all

together. The Lord will provide past tense of future tents future. In fact,

not only was it future tense, because Abraham is expecting it to be

in the future. Look at what Moses says, as it is said to

this day. Moses is writing almost five hundred years later, till this day,

half a millennium later, we keep saying this over and over again,

on amount of the Lord it shall be provided. Did Moses ever go there?

No, because Moses was in Egypt. Moses never reached the promised land

that's in Jerusalem, did well. None of the people of Israel when Moses

was writing, had haven't been dead. This was a foreign land to them.

And yet he knew the Messiah would have to die in Jerusalem on the

third day, rise again for the forgiveness of sins, and that this was

going to take place. All of the details, the wood, the fastes,

thing on top, and that is the evidence we have, friends,

that this is the word of God. Our Muslim friends practiced this. Do

you know that Hari Raya adil Hadha they kill, They commemorate the same story.

But this is the evidence we have. They are Muslim friends. With

all due respect to them, they cannot tell you the deeper meaning of why

that is. We can tell you that it's a foreshadow of Jesus Christ.

That's how we know for a fact that the Bible is God's word. It's

able to predict the future passer and it's able to bring it to pass.

That's the internal evidence today we're focusing on a Bible, so there's no sequel

to the Bible. There's no Bible version number two. Uh. Someone asked,

why did they stop writing a Bible? Because it's complete so we don't

have to write Yeah, okay, are there actual answer this question? Are

there actual secular evidence that proves the events that happen in the Bible? So

I think what it ask is like, did they find the chariot wheal?

Like, you know, are their archaeological evidence their scientific evidence is there?

Did they find fossils of Peter? Or I think that's what they're asking.

Are there external evidence that the events happened, the events mentioned the Bible happened,

because oh, because if it did, then we can prove that the

Bible is it's true. Plenty plenty, so many. But here's the thing.

One of the questions, the ways you know, the Christian gets asked

all the time is that are there non Christian evidence? They don't want it

to be even a Christian evidence, you know it must be non Christian saying

it, well, actually we do. But here's the thing. If the

non Christians actually produced that, they would not remain non Christian. Right.

So the reason like For example, Paul wrote about a resurrection that could be

actually said a non Christian sauce, but well, when he saw the evidence,

he became a Christian. He didn't stay non Christian. So it's very

hard to say, well, do you have a non Christian sauce that's like

uh that that that's like basically kind of saying, well, do you have

someone that who saw these things and yet was not convinced that happened. Can't

It doesn't work out that way. But speaking of circular evidence, let me

give you a few historical sources that affirm the death of Jesus by crucifixion.

I can give you Josephus, who says that at this time they crucified Jesus.

Is what Josephus says. That's Josephus is a Roman historian, Jewish hit

person, and a Roman historian. Sus Seutonius was another Roman historian that wrote

about it. Jesus suffered the extreme penalty under our procurator Tacitus Cornelius. Tacitus

Tacitus was the one that wrote that Jesus suffered the extreme penalty under the hands

of one of our procurators, ponscious Pilot Syrian philosopher around the same time says

the Jews crucified their wise king. After that their kingdom was destroyed. Can

list citations after citations, including Jewish citations. One of the famous ones is

the Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrian fIF forty three A. It says that Yeshue was hung

on the eve of the Passover, and it describes why the Jews had to

kill him because they felt he was a threat to them. This is Jewish

sauce, and so we've got plenty of sauces pas ahead pass Andy four to

substantiate that. Yeah, someone asks, what if they twisted the story?

So I have to assume that they mean the apostles, the prophets who wrote

what if they you know, they were naughty and they twisted the stories and

they added some things. Is that even possible? Is it possible some of

the writers of the Bible twisted the stories, added something that's not supposed to

bear, stuff like that, right, And I think that relates to the

other question that asked, how was the entire Bible compound? So how do

we get the Bible? Basically? How do we get the Bible? So

did they did what was including the Bible? Ever get twisted? Is there

a word means? What if there was a typo? And then how do

we get the Bible? You should answer that question, go for it faster.

You can start first, and let's let's let look at my notes.

Yeah, okay, let's let's let's do that. So yeah, So the

question is how do we know that our Bible is not tempered with externally?

And also how do we know these guys accurately reported all that we see?

Well, here's the thing, if they genuinely were eyewitnesses of these things,

they would be crazy to think they can temper it and get away with it.

Now the other way we know for certain, I think, or at

least uh, this is good circumstantial evidence that they didn't temper with it.

He said, all of them were willing to die for their You're willing to

die for their faith. Right, they lived in a time where this was

not a profitable business to be in. Right, to be a missionary was

to sign your death wish, essentially, and not just a nice death.

You know, in the US you have lethal injection, which is fancy way

of going out. But back then they became lion food. Very easily.

Uh. And and that's not a nice way to go. Uh. And

these guys were willing, they were willing to do that. In fact,

you have some pretty crazy uh stories about early Christian bishops who learned from the

disciples. One of them was John's disciples, Ignacious, Ignacious of Antioch.

He's being taken to roam, to be to be thrown into the arena and

to be killed, and he's writing to the church saying, don't you dare

pray for my release? I want to go, you know. And of

course Ignacious, we think was a bit it was a bit, a bit

too eager for the punishment that he was coming to him. But he's he

he goes on to say, because if if for any reason, the lions

don't attack me, I would poke them and provoke them until they attacked me.

You know. Of course Ignatius was a little bit hyper on that regard.

But the point is, you see the attitude. These men were willing

to die for what they believed in. They were confident about it so much,

and you can't rationally say that they would have this level of confidence had

they been fabricating the facts. Now it's possible that they could be lied to.

Maybe someone lied to them and they were so confident. But here's the

thing. Who lied to them? They were eyewitnesses, right, No one

told them this, They saw it for themselves. So when you put that

together past, I think you've got pretty good evidence that that there was not

tempering going on. These guys were faithful to the point they were willing to

die. But the other poet, Christian, is an interesting one. How

they did come down to us? Yes, And the way it came down

to us is because the churches, when they received the writings of the apostles,

they circulated them by writing and copying down. And as a result for

that, you have approximately today between let's actually, we do have the stats.

We have between twenty to twenty five thousand manuscripts surviving today. We have

the stats for you in the slides. So you have you have all of

these ancient guys and their writings. How many copies do we have of Pliny

seven? How many copies do you have of Plato's writings seven to this day?

That's a lot, mind you. The number one, the champion of

this is homers Iliad at the bottom here. The earliest manuscript we have is

five hundred years later, and we have a whopping six hundred and forty three

copies today. That's well in terms of accuracy, this is by liberal skeptics

ninety five percent accurate. But for the New Testament, and actually the number

is not actually accurate. Here the New Testament, the earliest copies come around

a well one hundred and thirty ady, which is less than one hundred years.

The earliest copy of the Gospel of John is actually called p. Fifty

two, so very small document that you can find in the Ryland Library in

Manchester. Here's the thing that Rylan copy p. Fifty two was written thirty

years after the Gospel of John was written. So we have super early documents

that come close to the facts. And how many manuscripts do we have,

Well, it's not five thousand, because five thousand, six hundred is Greek

manuscripts, got plenty of other manuscripts Latin, et cetera. The numbers come

closer to thirty thousand. So the evidence, the weights of the copies that

we have past is just so much that we really even skeptics are saying essential

evidences were not tempered. But we know that we're just thinkling with the details.

They have pretty good evidence and backing to come up with trustworthy translations.

So this is the kind of thing we're working with. That's why the thirty

thousand manuscripts matter. It's reliable and trustable. That really illustrates this. And

here one of the philosophies that the manuscript experts use is they go with the

majority reading for the most part, So where the majority is because you will

notice where the copies make mistakes. There are reasons why they make mistakes.

Sometimes it's an ice skip problem where their ice skip over the words. And

also bear in mind that the way the Old Testament was transmitted and the New

Testament is very very different. In the Old Testament, it was transmitted by

professional scribes right the New Testament as well, but later during the Monastic Age,

Christians had professional monks who were scribes. But for the early parts,

earliest Christians during the Roman Persecution were just hearing and writing, and they made

plenty of mistakes as they werore because they was scribbling away for their lives.

And because of that, you have a lot of variance, but these variants

never affect essential doctrines. I had the opportunity of sitting with bart Erman,

who is the world's leading eightiest skeptics of the New Testament. He's like New

York Times bestseller eightist skeptics. And as a video, if you go to

the internet and you search bart Hmann says, no to essential doctrines, have

they been corrupted? It's an interview where I had with Erman, and Irmann

says no, the essential doctrines are not affected at all. Zero. He

says, but but they are variances. Now we admit they are variances.

But as Pastor ended, it really pointed out so well, you can just

look where the errors are, look at a majority reading in the manuscript.

You can reconstruct the whole thing, no problem at all. I think that's

what we have for the authentication and the reliability of the New Testament. Okay,

do we address how the Bible came about? How how maybe his canon

city? Like, how did the like, how did who decided the Tenna

nine books who's going to be in the Old Testament and the seven books going

to be New Testament? Wasn't it some a bunch of guys, old men

who old men who just and then you know, they had their meeting and

then I don't know what happened there, right, And let let's take it

that real quick. So the way that the Bible was put together, it

didn't happen instantly. So the first place we had really where the whole thing

came together was in three ninety two eighty in a city called Hippo, North

Africa. And the reason it took so long was because the manuscripts needed to

be compiled. Right, So bear in mind John is writing in Asia Minor,

which is modern day Turkey. Paul was in Rome when he died,

Peter was in Rome. You've got others in Alexandria, in Egypt, North

Africa, you have some in Jerusalem, you have some in Syria, in

Antioch, and so it takes a while to put all of these manuscripts together

into a complete Bible like the one we have today. So the reason it

took long was because the guys in the East they didn't have telegram or WhatsApp

right, they had to literally go when they had come back, and Asia

wasn't there too to help. So it takes a long while to travel around

to compile this documents together. But when these documents arrived, there was zero

doubt whether these were scripture or not? Why Because if it was written by

the apostles, it's scripture. We don't get to decide whether a book is

scripture or not scripture. The only question we need to ask is this,

did the apostle write it? If the apostle wrote it, it scripture.

So for example, thought experiment, if we discovered a book today, a

letter, let's say, a missing letter of Paul to Corinthians. Let's say

we happen to discovery right on the way out, you stumble on one of

these this this marbles or the tiles, and then you discover Paul's Missing Letter

to the Corinthians. Right, happens to be in Generations church for some reason,

but it's there. You take it up. Now. The only now

should we added to the Bible? Yes? Or no? Should we add

it to the Bible? See some of you not sure? You don't need

right. If it's written by Paul, it's it's scripture. You and I

don't get to say whether it's scripture or not. The only thing we get

to say is whether it's written by the apostle. Exactly. Yeah, And

okay, of course we don't have to. We don't have the length of

time to go into how do we know, like, for example, how

do we know wrote Luke and that there's ways to and it's all on your

YouTube channel. Well it's all, well the simple way you know that Luke

wrote look and that even the apostles, So that's okay, for example,

will use it since Pastor Andy brought up look, yes, do we know

for a fact? Or let's put it this way. Does the Bible say

that Luke is scripture on the same level as the Old Testament? Does the

Bible say that? Does the Bible say that the Gospel of Luke is scripture

on the same level with the Old Testament? Does it say that, Yeah,

let's try that again. Does the Bible actually say the Gospel of Luke

is scripture on the same level with let's say, the Loss of Moses.

Most of you said no, Actually the answer is yes. First timity five

to eighteen for scriptures is do not muzzle the oxes. It trades out the

grain, and the laborer is worthy of his wages. The first citation where

is it taken from the Bible? Will actually include a note? Where's the

first citation? Taken from Deutronomy chapter twenty five? The second citation is taken

from Luke chapter ten, verse seven. So Paul quotes the Gospel of Luke

and says four Scripture says he quotes the Law of Moses, and he quotes

Luke chapter ten, verse seven. Or there you go first tventy five to

eighteen, for the scripture says you shall not muscle an ox when it trades

out the grain. That's deutronomy twenty five and the next one and was eighteen

the laborer Deutronomy twenty five vers four. Is it the second one? The

laborer deserves his wages is Luke chapter ten, verse seven in the Greek identical,

which means the apostle Paul recognized Luke as scripture long before three ninety two.

I think that that's how we can know. Past Andy. Thank you

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