Thank you, Lord, for your grace, and for your love, and all your grace.

All right, turn in your Bibles, if you would, to 2 Peter 1, 2 Peter 1, 16-21.

Actually...

Just focus on verse 21.

We'll get there just in a moment.

All right, you came back.

You're like Raiders fan.

You're a glutton for punishment.

So we're in a series called Dirt Road Discipleship.

Let me remind you why we call it Dirt Road Discipleship because when you take the dirt road, it's the road least traveled.

It's also filled with obstacles, potholes.

It's going to be a difficult road.

You got to be committed to it.

but the destination is going to be worth the journey, right?

So in this series, we've covered truth and we've covered the uniqueness of Christ.

And this weekend, we're going to cover probably, okay, at least the second most important issue when it comes to being a Christ follower, and that is the Bible.

So it's one thing to believe that God exists, that through general revelation, God's eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen in creation.

It's another thing to believe that God has revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

So a lot of people believe that, yeah, there is a God, but now we're saying that God has revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ, validated, confirmed through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the historical reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But now we're taking it one more step forward.

We're saying that God has revealed himself, his truth, his will, his expectations, his precepts, and your future in...

The scriptures, what we call the Bible.

Now that's a far cry from general revelation creation, belief in Jesus Christ validated by the resurrection.

And now we're saying that if you want to know who God is and you want to know what God expects from us and God's will for your life, you find that not in feeling or emotion.

You find that in the objective word of God.

So what's interesting is when I talk to people about Jesus today, it's very different than it was 20 or 30 years ago.

When I talk to people now, often after I've given a defense for God and the scriptures and the Bible, I will hear a person say, okay, Pastor Jeff, I got it.

God is real and Jesus is real.

Yeah, and the Bible.

Here's the deal.

Whether God exists and has revealed himself in Jesus Christ and the Bible is his word, whether that is true or not, I don't know.

You can call me agnostic, they would say.

But what I do know is I don't really care, okay?

Because what does it have to do with my life?

Nothing.

Now, you think about that.

What kind of existential culture would you have to live in rather than acknowledging the existence of God, rather than saying, wow, God exists, the creator of all things.

I wonder what he wants from me.

Rather than that, our generation says, okay, you're real.

What are you going to do for me?

Man, that is a whole different approach to God.

But it is a fair question when it concerns the scriptures.

How do we know beyond a reasonable doubt that the Bible is God's revelation to us, that it is unique among all books, that it has supernatural origins?

I mentioned a few weeks ago, now listen, I want to tell you, if you think the last two weeks have been tough, child's play, you've got to stay with me.

You've got to make yourself lean in.

and so that I don't have to keep going.

And there's a lot of material, but lean in.

And one of the reasons we record this is I know that I can shove all this in here because you can always go back and listen and watch later.

But there's a lot of information here because I only got one week on the Bible.

Then we're moving into prayer and the Holy Spirit and all the things you like.

So I was in seminary thinking, all right, now that I've come to this knowledge, wouldn't it be great if every time you open the Bible to prove that it was God's word, a little hologram of God came out.

Wouldn't it be great?

You know, like in Star Wars, Princess Leia.

And what would God look like?

I don't know.

Maybe there's just like a dove and the spirit of God hovers over the Bible.

Or maybe every time you opened the Bible, no matter what, there was like an angelic choir, you know, I don't know.

But I'm simply saying that if the Bible is the word of God, you should expect it to have God's fingerprints on it, right?

There should be something that you could take note of and say, wow, this is the word of God.

It should stand different than any other religious, well, forget that, any book ever written, there should be something different.

So I want to suggest to you.

that if the Christians are correct in their proclamation that the Bible is God's revelation to us as they proclaim for over 2,000 years, then a few things have to be true.

It has to be factual.

Here's the first.

The Bible should claim to be the Word of God revealed to us.

We don't want to make a claim for the Bible that it doesn't make for itself.

And just because the Bible does claim to be the Word of God doesn't mean that it is.

But this is where you start.

Does the Bible claim to be?

Just a few passages quickly.

In 2 Timothy 3.16, all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Now, this word God-breathed is the word theopneustos.

It comes from two words, theos, God, and neustos, which means breathed.

But the word put together is theopneustos.

means something that comes from way down deep.

So let me illustrate it just quickly because nobody ever did this when I was growing up.

Nobody ever explained this.

So everybody in the room take a deep breath and I mean take it deep.

All the way.

Oh yeah, that might wake some of you up.

Now let it out.

Now where did that breath come from when you let it out?

It came from down deep because it went in deep, it comes out deep.

This is what the Greek word means.

It means it comes from the deepest part of God.

It comes out of the mouth of God.

God breathes it out.

And then the other passage in 2 Peter 1 that I told you to turn to earlier, in verses 16 through 21, Peter is trying to give a defense for the authority of the word of God.

He says everything that's been written down, these things were written down not by fairy tales, but by eyewitness accounts.

And he talks about the fact that they were present at Jesus'baptism, and they were also present.

in the mountain of transfiguration, when the real identity of Jesus was revealed in the Shekinah glory of God.

And then he says in verse 21, important, for prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

First of all, prophecy, the word here is the word graphe.

So he's talking about that which is written, not that which is spoken.

So he's saying what has been written down did not have its origin in human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

So last week, we got to meet an elephant.

This week, we get to meet another friend of mine.

So this week, we get to meet the horse and carriage.

All right, the reason I brought this out is the Greek word pharaoh.

It's pharaoh.

It sounds like pharaoh, but it's pharaoh is the word translated carried along.

It comes, it's etymology.

Has to do with a horse and carriage.

If you look at any horse and carriage, as long as the horse is staying on the path, there's no need for the person who's guiding and directing the horses to pull very strongly on the reins.

Let the horse go.

And a lot of horses will know, here's the path, I'm going to stay on the path.

But if the horse starts to get off the path, Pharaoh, then you pull back the reins and you guide and direct.

This is the word used to describe the way the scriptures came to us.

God did not put the disciples or apostles in some kind of trance and their hand moved to write the scripture.

No, they were carried along in the sense that they use their research, eyewitness testimonies, and their different writing styles.

But God is responsible for the final product in that John 14, he told the disciples, when I go away, the Holy Spirit will come and will guide you into all truth.

He will jog your memory and help you remember everything that you've seen and heard.

So God is responsible for the final product.

The men and women who wrote the scriptures use their research, use their eyewitness accounts, but God is responsible for the final product.

That's what it means that they are carried along by the Holy Spirit.

They are protected from error.

And then in Matthew 24, Jesus himself says that heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Now, the first thing...

If the Bible is the word of God, God's revelation to us, the Bible should claim to be the word of God.

It most definitely does.

There are many other passages.

Let's keep going.

The second thing is the Bible should be accurate in its historical references.

Now, this is important.

I mean, if this is God's word and they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, then they got to get things right, correct?

Things got to be accurate.

Otherwise, it's just another man-made book.

Those, listen now, this is, wow, I'm at my 60.

This is 40 years of research I'm trying to get in about 45 minutes.

Listen, there's always been attacks on the Bible.

And those who attack the Bible are so frustrated that their attacks never stick.

Regardless of what your university professors told you, The writers of the gospel have been proven to be first-rate historians.

They are absolutely perfect in references to people, places, events, and rulers.

We have, you and I, the awesome privilege of living in a generation that can look back over history and see that every single time a historical reference has supposedly contradicted the Bible, that the biblical reference has proven to be the more trustworthy and accurate source Every single time, which is why archaeologist William F.

Albright states, there can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of the Old Testament tradition.

Friends, we continue to discover documents and artifacts from the ancient world.

And every time we make a discovery, it takes a few years sometimes, but the biblical record is confirmed again and again, which is why secular And religious scholars, not all of them, but those well-respected.

It's why secular and religious scholars who study literary works of antiquity have declared that if you can't trust the history of the Bible, you can't trust any ancient text.

Now, I've listed a few examples where archaeology is concerned.

I always like to bring up the Old Testament reference to the Hittites, an enemy nation to Israel, because historians said for years, that the Bible is wrong because we have no evidence of the Hittites.

Until 1906, when an archaeological dig uncovered and confirmed the existence of the Hittites, the dig unearthed the capital city and 40 other cities that make up their empire.

Which is why John McKay, who is the most trusted source, National Geographic, when they want to understand the ancient world, especially the geography associated with the ancient world, always looks to Dr.

John McRae.

And here's what John McRae says.

There's no question that archaeological findings have enhanced the New Testament's credibility.

No discovery has ever disproved a biblical reference.

The Bible is completely accurate in its historical references, and we should expect this if this is the word of God, if they indeed were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Now, I want to show you the difference here.

This is important.

Because the Bible is not just like any other religious text, book of philosophy, or historical book.

Consider the book of Mormon for a second.

It mentions vast civilizations.

It says that they existed from 600 BC and 400 AD.

It names tribes, cities, mountains, rivers, and cornages.

And yet not one single historian inside or outside the Mormon church has produced a single book.

piece of artifact or evidence that would sustain any of the claims of the Book of Mormon.

When you confront the Mormons with this, here's what they say.

That's just the way it is.

You have to accept it by faith.

That's called blind faith, and that is not the way the Bible uses the word faith.

Faith is the word pistis.

And in the Bible, this word means belief in the future based on the substance.

of the past or present.

Pistis refers to reliability for the future based upon the empirical evidence of the past.

In other words, why do you have faith the sun will come up tomorrow?

Because you've seen it come up a gazillion times.

Why do you trust that your car will start, unless it's a Ford?

Why do you trust that your car will start?

Because it started every morning for a long time.

Why do you assume the Raiders will lose?

I'm sorry, I just can't stop.

I just can't.

What?

Yeah.

So the Bible says that faith should be based on evidence.

From what is factual in the past, I can trust for what I do not see in the future.

So if I've kept my promises in the past, you'll trust me for the future.

If my faith in you is based on your past performance.

Now, let me ask you a question just quickly, kind of a side note.

Do you think God trusts you and me based on our past performance?

And yet he still loves us.

Oh, man.

That's another sermon.

Now, accordingly, my faith in the historical Jesus is not blind faith, but is based on, as we've talked about, historical records, trusted eyewitness testimony, powerful circumstantial evidence of the past.

The evidence of Jesus'resurrection is the reason that I trust him for my future.

It is the reason that you and I mourn, but we do not mourn as the world mourns.

This past week, David Tellez passed away.

He was one of our security guys.

Michael, myself, and Jesus were by his bedside just minutes before he passed away.

And I reminded the family, we got down on our knees on the bedside and we prayed.

And I just remind you of the same thing.

Yeah, we mourn.

But we don't mourn like the world.

This is not the end, but only the beginning.

But we have confidence in faith that it's only the beginning because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which we believe is a historical reality and has been validated through the truth of Scripture.

And it's so important to know, by the way, regardless of the claims made by those who oppose the Bible, do you know that even if we didn't have the Bible, that there are other trusted historical records?

in existence.

And if you and I didn't even have the Bible, we would still know by cooperating resources outside the scripture that there lived a man named Jesus born in Bethlehem in the house of David, raised in Nazareth, who was a Jewish teacher, that he performed miracles and exorcism, that he had a three and a half year teaching ministry with thousands of disciples, that he was crucified under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius.

Thousands upon thousands believed he rose from the dead.

His ministry and teaching spread beyond Palestine so that there were thousands and thousands of Christians in Rome by AD 64.

And Christ's followers included people from all walks of life, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, slave, and free, who worshiped Jesus as the one true God.

We know all of that without the Bible.

Christianity did not happen in a vacuum.

Eyewitness accounts could have been refuted.

Instead, Jesus'death, burial, and resurrection are confirmed.

The Roman historian Tacitus, the Jewish historian Josephus, the Greek historian Lucian of Samosota, and Sventonius, and plenty of the younger also, extra biblical historians that record facts about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

That's why when somebody comes to me like the Jesus seminar and says, you know, we have nowhere proved that Jesus even ever existed.

Let me say again, if I was as ignorant about their discipline as they are mine, they would laugh at me.

Well, that's ludicrous.

In fact, here's one of my favorite.

In my research in seminary, so this is back going when I was in the 30s, there's a historian by the name of Thales.

He was an early historian.

He wrote a three-volume history of the Mediterranean world.

His work is often quoted by Theophilus of Antioch, who died, we think, around 185 AD.

Most scholars date...

Thales or Thales is writing somewhere around 50 AD.

So he's a respected historian and he refers to something very unique in his writings.

He refers to the earthquake and darkness that occurred at the time of Jesus'crucifixion.

And there's this whole dialogue about how people are trying to tell him that it's nothing more than a solar eclipse, but he's very well educated and he said that's impossible for the season that we're in.

The sun and the moon aren't close together.

There's nothing in the heavens to block out the light of the sun.

This has to be a movement of God.

Interesting that a historian would validate something like that from the New Testament account.

What's the point, Pastor Jeff?

The point is simply this.

The Bible is history.

It's not legend.

Ancient legends and epics and myths don't begin like this, like Luke did in Acts.

With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have.

So when you read the Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, this reads like history.

C.S.

Lewis, after reading the Bible, said this, and I quote, I've been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, and myths all my life.

I know what they're like.

I know none of them are like this.

Now, I've already mentioned the Book of Mormon, and I'm going to take a lot of time, but you need to understand something else.

There are other religious books.

claimed religious books, for instance, like the Vedas, the Hindu scriptures.

They are filled with myths and legends, but that's on purpose.

It doesn't claim to be strictly historical, and most of it cannot be verified.

It is unverifiable.

By the way, one of the most interesting claims the Hindu scriptures make is that people from other worlds existed before us and were much more advanced and modern than we are.

Now, without any kind of Proof to substantiate any kind of belief in any kind of alien peoples.

And especially that they were much more advanced, technologically speaking, than we are in the modern day.

How can we, you know, when you hear, the point is, when you hear something like that, how can you validate or invalidate that?

The Quran was written in the common era 610 to 632 AD.

Notice, the Quran was written at least five centuries after the Bible.

You with me?

One man wrote it.

His name was Muhammad.

While he's having an epileptic-type seizure, and there's foaming at his mouth, and I'm just recording their history, I'm not making this up, he says that Allah dictated the Quran to him.

It has stories about Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.

It's written 600 years after the New Testament.

It even affirms that the Bible is a good book.

And yet, if you had both books in English, you had the Quran and you had the Bible, And you knew nothing about any religious ideas.

And you came upon the two books and you read the Bible and then you read the Quran.

Here's what conclusion you'd make.

Wow, this book seems like it's enamored with this book and wants to correct all the mistakes.

You with me?

The Quran is written by, here's what we know factually.

The Quran is written by one man.

It is poorly written.

It has a lack of clear narrative structure.

It has this unexplainable inconsistency, not to mention horrible grammar.

I mean, I'm being as nice as I can, but Islamic scholars for the hundreds of years had tried to rewrite the Arabic language in order that the Quran would seem more holy.

But it is not a historical book in the way that the Bible relates history.

It's more of a commentary.

on how things ought to be.

You know, the conversations that we have with people in both Islam and Hinduism, they are very frustrating.

Remember what I told you too, don't go out of here with this information and know enough to be dangerous and be rude to people.

Remember, there's no use cutting a person's nose off and then giving them a rose to smell.

This information is for you to become educated in this, not to use it as ammunition to crucify people.

And one of the things that frustrates scholars, theologians, pastors, when they talk to people of different faiths, is I remember having a conversation with a young man in New Zealand when I was doing just a two-day conference for Campus Crusade.

And he came up to me afterwards and he said, you know, you shouldn't say what you said about the Quran.

That'll put your life in danger.

And I said, well, let me ask you something.

How do you know that the Quran was written by God?

And here's his answer.

Because it is the word of God.

How do you know it's the word of God?

Because it's the word of God.

That's the answer.

What do I do with that?

Buddhists don't really have a religious text, but they do have a collection of writings called the Tripitaka. And the Tripitaka communicates beliefs, but it's not a history book, nor does it claim to be.

It's a commentary on the philosophy of life.

When Robin and I were in India a few years ago, We walked into a place called the Jewel of India.

Now what the Jewel of India is, it's a place that our guide takes us because he's probably struck a deal with the owner that if we buy something, he gets his cut.

You've been in those places.

If you go to Israel, you're going to find that all the time.

But when I went in, I noticed this statue that looked like this and the name of the statue.

I mean, the reason I was inquisitive is because I see these everywhere in almost every shop and it's called Ganesha.

And it's the Hindu God who removes obstacles.

And I asked the gentleman there, I said, can you tell me about this statue?

I'm very respectful.

And yeah, and here's what he told me.

He said, here's how the Hindu God removes obstacles, which is why store owners have them.

If there's any obstacles to making a profit, you pray to this God.

And evidently, Shiva and Parvati are the gods of destruction.

Parvati...

is lonely one day.

This is the myth.

This is the story.

Actually, not myth to him.

This is set in stone.

Pavarti, the god, is lonely because her husband's away all the time.

So, she creates a son out of clay.

So, Shiva, her husband, returns home, but Pavarti is somewhere else and the son prevents the father that he doesn't know and the father doesn't know the son because she made him out of clay from seeing his wife.

Shiva, in anger, decapitates his own son, but he doesn't know it's his own son.

When he finds out, he's devastated, so he takes the first thing that he sees, which is an elephant, and attaches the head to his son.

The son becomes known as Ganesha and is worshipped as the remover of obstacles.

Now, as I'm listening to this story, I'm thinking, wow.

But I said to him, and sir, do you really believe that story?

Oh, absolutely.

I said, why?

He said, because it's true.

See, how can you test that?

See, that's not the way the Bible is written.

Claiming to be the revelation of God doesn't make it so.

Feeling that something is the word of God does not make it so.

There has to be objective proof.

There have to be evidences that point toward a conclusion.

It's got to be testable.

Now, here's where the rubber hits the road.

You with me?

Here's where the rubber hits the road and probably one of the key points of understanding Christianity.

Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and all other primary religions understand that the Bible and Christianity are in direct opposition to their teachings.

Remember what I said last week?

The person who says all religions are fundamentally the same and only superficially different is not part of any of the major world religions.

So each claim, each religion claims that they want to respect Jesus as a prophet or religious leader.

But they demand that he's not the son of God, nor did God raise him from the dead.

Now, why do they insist on this?

Very simple.

Because if Jesus is the son of God truly, and God caused him to rise from the dead, that would make Jesus the ultimate king, and it would make their religion null and void.

Why?

Why would it make their religion void?

Because if the Bible is true, every other religion is, at its core and fundamental belief, false.

This is where the religious world joins forces with the secular world and seeks to discredit the Bible.

At this point in the sermon, someone in that field would say, yeah, Pastor Jeff, the Bible is an historical book in its original form.

Now stay with me.

This is perhaps the most, this is the climactic point.

Yes, Pastor Jeff, the Bible is an historical book in its original form, but it's been changed from its original form.

Oh man, how many times do I hear this?

And I would say, Can you show me in what places it's been changed?

And here's their answer.

Wherever we say and wherever it conflicts with our teachings, especially in places where it claims that Jesus is God in the flesh.

Islam makes this claim again and again because it's well aware of what the Bible actually teaches.

Now here's the question, and this is the point of this message.

Has the Bible been changed?

And if so, where's your proof?

And if I say the Bible has not been changed, I have to offer my proof as well.

I want you to take a look at something.

Here's where the journey starts.

So we've got this graph on the screen.

What is listed here on the far left are common works of literary antiquity that are well accepted as accurate.

I want you to notice the date that they're written and then the earliest copy of that manuscript that we have.

And look at the time span between these documents that if you go to university and you read these works, your professor is going to tell you there is little to no question that these documents, these copies accurately reflect the originals.

And yet look at the time difference.

In some cases, a thousand years before we have the first copy of the original.

Man, a lot can happen in a thousand years.

And then you go down to the bottom and you see the New Testament.

And this is why scholars arrive at this conclusion.

First of all, it's written in the same generation that the events occurred.

Second, the earliest copy we have is in the second century, somewhere around 130.

Actually, we have something called the John Ryland Manuscript in the British Library today that's dated 103.

And then the difference between the original and the first copy is less than 100 years.

And then look at the number of copies, folks.

Look at the number of copies.

8, 10, 20.

Then you get down to the Bible, 5,600.

The accuracy of those copies that we have when you contrast and compare is 99.5%.

Now, what do we mean by that?

What do we mean by 99?

Hold on, Pastor Jeff.

Whoa, you've just shocked my world.

But if the Bible is the word of God and the copies have...

5% error, does that mean that God is 5% in error?

No.

What we call the inerrancy and infallibility of the scriptures only refers to the original copies, the originals.

You say, but Pastor Jeff, we don't have the originals in completion.

That's why the number of copies that you have is important, because you can take these copies, contrast and compare and realize, wow, they all say the same thing.

You with me?

So now we can know that what we're reading actually reflects the original.

Not only that, My goodness, we got 5,600 copies and fragmented copies to compare.

And, you know, when you're talking about the 5%, by the way, just quickly, it's important that you know this 5% has to do with a misspelled word.

It has nothing to do with the original context or the story.

Think about that.

Okay, Pastor Jeff, I don't know what you just said.

I appreciate it, but I have to go back and listen.

Okay, think about it like this.

You have your favorite book that you read, and it was originally written 300 years ago, or let's say it's, hey, let's go back.

Let's say the book you like to read right now was written 300 years before Jesus was born, and the copy you have, you bought at your local bookstore.

And then someone's walking around in some ancient ruins over in the Middle East, or I don't know, wherever, and they find a copy of your book.

that you're reading today, and it was written over 2,000 years ago.

So you pick it up to read it, and you notice they're identical in message and story, and they're perfect in exact words.

What are you going to conclude?

You're going to say, man, the years and years of copying this book is remarkable.

It's not tainted with error.

It maintains its integrity, which is why the Dead Sea Scrolls were such an important find.

Oh my goodness, the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Now, let's go back for a second.

I'm sure the team back there, they're wondering, where are you?

Well, let's go back to after the graph that I just showed you.

With this many manuscripts, we are able to contrast and compare.

And the latest manuscripts compare well with the earliest ones.

That's our point.

But do you know what happened when we found...

You ever get really excited about something, your heart starts beating, and you just calm down?

When we found the Dead Sea Scrolls, between 1946 and 1956, we were able to date these scrolls.

Now, just quickly, how do we date something that we find?

Well, there's paleography, which means that we look at the manuscript, and we notice a particular writing style or letter formations, and then we know that that writing style...

And those letter formations were used during this time period.

Or sometimes it's by physical and chemical analysis.

In other words, the material on which the manuscript was written, it could be papyri, it could be stone, it could be wood, and the color of ink.

So we know by the writing style and what it's written on, we can date it within a pretty good precise time frame.

And there's carbon-14 and AMS that are advanced today and many other techniques.

But the point is, paleographies...

Uh, attributed these tests to the Dead Sea Scrolls, and they found that the Dead Sea Scrolls, without question, could be dated all the way back, minimally, 300 years before Jesus was born, and most probably 600 years before Jesus was born.

Now you say, what's the big deal?

Well, that means the book of Isaiah, which we had in its completion in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Now it means that we know the book of Isaiah was written long before Jesus was ever born.

We say, why is that important?

Because that's where the messianic prophecies are.

And scholars for years said, oh, there's no way the book of Isaiah was written before Jesus because the prophecies are too detailed.

So the book of Isaiah, somebody came along and wrote it probably 300 years after Jesus to match up the prophecies.

Do you know how this shocked the scholarly world?

When they said, sorry.

You're wrong.

Isaiah was written minimally 300 years before.

That's three centuries, folks, and most probably 600.

So here's what they concluded, and I quote, the Dead Sea Scrolls do a lot to validate the Old Testament due to the fact that they are nearly identical to the versions of the Old Testament we read today.

And because they are dated to 300 to 400 years BC, before the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, Old Testament critics often asserted that many Old Testament books were written well after their events allegedly occurred, sometimes even as late as 1000 AD.

The Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed that these books were written around 300 BC at the very latest.

That is particularly important for prophetic books like Daniel.

Old Testament critics asserted for a long time that Daniel must have been written well after, when we say 0 AD, we mean at the turn of the Common Era, because its prophecies about the Roman Empire are so unambiguous and vivid.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls lends credence to the book of Daniel being actual prophecy.

Sir Frederick Kenyon, the former director of the British Museum, said the last foundation...

of any doubt that the scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed.

Because of time, I can tell that I'm never going to make it.

I'm going to have to skip a lot.

You're going to have to be patient with me.

But I have so much more information.

We mentioned Dr.

Simon Greenleaf, who's the founder of Harvard University School of Law.

And we mentioned previously that he wrote a book called The Treaties on the Law of Evidence.

And in this book, and by the way, it continues.

to be esteemed by many great legal scholars as the greatest volume ever written on the empirical evidence to prove or disprove historical truth claims.

And you know what he says about the Bible?

First of all, he says, after he made his research, the New Testament accounts of Jesus'death, burial, and resurrection exist today with effectively the same text with which they were originally written in as early as 28 years after the events took place.

This evidence presumes for us that the gospel accounts are reliable.

The burden then, and I love this, for proving that these documents are not accounts of the actual events, rests upon the opposing parties who allege these claims.

And that's why you have groups like the Jesus Seminar.

Hey, do you remember the movie, The Da Vinci Code?

Oh yeah, The Da Vinci Code.

The only movie I know that you walk out dumber than you were when you first came in.

If you remember right, it claims that Jesus was clearly a human teacher who was made into a resurrected God by the government and religious leaders so that they could unite and have power over the people.

There are so many problems with this, the one of which the gospels were written much too early to be legend.

As we said before, when Luke wrote his account, remember these letters were circulating.

So let's say John writes about the resurrection of Lazarus.

You know, They're writing these messages in the same timeframe where they happen.

They can always go back to Bethany and say, hey, is it true that Jesus calls Lazarus to rise from the dead?

I mean, you'd remember that, wouldn't you?

I mean, that kind of be what you're known for in your town.

You change your name to Lazarus town.

But more importantly, in Philippians 2, Paul quotes a hymn of praise.

So remember, The Da Vinci Code says, you know, the Bible never communicated.

The early church didn't believe that Jesus was God to be worshiped, and they just concocted a plan with the Romans by the time that Constantine is emperor to combine, to have power manipulation over the people.

The problem with that is all the way back in Philippians 2, one of the most famous Christian scriptures, you'll notice that Philippians 2 is set apart in parenthetical phrase.

And the reason is, is because Paul is actually quoting a hymn.

He's not writing something original.

He's including a hymn about Jesus'divinity, a deity that goes like this.

He says, in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.

Rather, he made himself nothing.

By taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on the cross.

And the problem is this hymn was written before Paul wrote the book of Philippians.

So to say that somehow the authors later on made this up is ridiculous.

This was something that was happening within the same time frame, same generation.

You know, John Somerville, the real historian, says this.

Dan Brown says that the emperor Constantine imposed a whole new interpretation on Christianity at the Council of Nicaea in 325.

That is, he decreed the belief in Jesus'divinity and suppressed all evidence of his humanity.

This would mean Christianity won the religious competition in the Roman Empire by an exercise of power rather than by attraction it exerted.

In actual historical fact, the church had won that competition long before that time, before it had any power, when it was still under sporadic persecution.

If a historian were cynical, you would say Constantine chose Christianity because it had already won and he wanted to back a winner.

On and on it goes.

You can't walk around in the time of Jesus and circulate letters that claim that Jesus was crucified, that he did miracles, that he raised Lazarus and Bethany, that Jesus rose from the dead if these things were not true.

I mean, have you ever wondered, one of the arguments that got me about the resurrection is, my goodness, the Jews wanted to stop the spread of Christianity.

The Romans wanted to stop it so desperately they killed the Christians.

If you wanted to stop Christianity, there's only one thing you needed to do.

Go get the body of Jesus.

who did not rise from the dead and put it on a cart and will it downtown Jerusalem, Christianity would be over.

And that's why there are no Jewish polemic resources that deny the existence of an empty tomb.

They know it was empty, historically speaking.

Now, all right.

What's the story in the Bible where time stood still?

Do we have any people of faith?

Let's move on to the final point.

I have to.

If the Bible is God's revelation to us, the Bible should claim to be God's revelation.

It does.

If the Bible is God's revelation to us, it should be historically accurate and supernaturally preserved.

It has been, it is.

The Bible, if it is God's word, should not only be accurate in history, should not only claim to be, but there should be something supernatural about it.

And there is, and this is how I'm gonna end, but would you stay with me, please?

Now that we know we can date the Old Testament books with accuracy, men who lived 1,000 years before Jesus was even born were able to deliver and record more than four dozen prophecies about the life, death, and ministry of Jesus.

Listen, all of which came true to the detail.

Do you understand?

Now, here's the problem.

We're not talking about general prophecies like Nostradamus.

You ever heard of Nostradamus?

He was a famous French apothecary.

And even his best predictions were so general that some of them were bound to come true.

If you were to say to me, I predict that the sun will rise, you got a pretty good chance.

If you say, I predict an earthquake somewhere sometime in the future, you got a pretty good chance.

If you say, I predict the angels will not win the World Series in 2025, there's a pretty good chance, right?

I predict the Raiders will not win the Super Bowl in 2025 again.

But to be fair, I felt it's time to be fair to Raiders fans.

Do you know the Raiders did win the Super Bowl 1977, 1981, and 1984?

So there you go.

I gave you your bone.

But Nostradamus, one of the most famous prognosticators, claimed that there would be a great earthquake in California, May 10th, 1981.

A prediction that was reported May 6th, 1981 in USA Today.

Now you'll notice that no earthquake occurred on that day.

But the truth about Nostradamus'prediction is that he doesn't actually mention a country, a city, or a year.

He spoke of a rumbling earth in a new city and a very mighty quake.

Now, considering the thousands of earthquakes that happen all the time, the chances of this occurring were pretty high, and he still got it wrong.

This is the way modern-day prophets typically work.

They make a prediction so general that the chances of them coming to fruition are high.

And when they do get specific, they are just dead wrong.

Okay?

There's another popular psychic self-proclaimed prophet, Jean Dixon.

She was popular in the 60s and 70s.

And she predicted that red China would plunge the world into war over Kamoya-Matsu occupation in October 1958.

Wrong.

On October 19, 1968, Dixon assured us that Jacqueline Kennedy was not considering marriage.

The next day, to the surprise of everyone, she got married.

Mrs.

Kennedy wed Aristotle Onassis.

Wrong again.

She said...

that World War II would begin in 1954, that the Vietnam War would end in 1966, and that Castro would be banished from Cuba in 1970.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again.

The point I'm making is bookshelves are filled with self-proclaimed prophets and their general predictions.

And in most cases, so-called modern prophecies are typically untestable.

A number of events could be seen to have fulfilled what had been predicted.

In fact, stay with me.

A study concerning psychics in 1975 showed that out of the 72 general predictions made by the world's top psychics, only six were fulfilled in any way, and those six predictions could have been made...

by anyone with a general knowledge of world trends and an understanding of historical patterns.

Okay, that's not the kind of prophecy we're talking about in the Bible.

Stay with me, this is the end.

The only plausible explanation for the fact that men who lived hundreds and hundreds of years before the major events could look down the pike and say, with certainty, this is going to happen in this year, during this time, and in this fashion, and get it right every time.

The only way.

It's supernatural intervention.

These are not, if you've ever read the Bible, these are not general predictions.

These are very specific in nature and they're testable because they've already been fulfilled.

And because we can date the prophecies when they were given and date the fulfillment of the prophecies, because Luke writes a trustworthy historical record, we can now know.

By the way, Nostradamus, one of the specific proclamations he did make is he said the world is going to end in 2025.

But the prophets of the Bible, they went out on a limb and they said, under the inspiration of God, we're going to tell you what is specifically going to happen up the pike several centuries.

Now, let me give you a couple examples.

You stay with me.

They foretold Jesus'lineage right down to the house into which he would be born.

Now, let me read Isaiah.

We read it in Christmas, but look carefully.

For to us, a child is born, to us, a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.

Okay, that's very general, you would say.

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Okay.

Of the greatness of his government and peace, there will be no end.

Wow, so this is a never-ending kingdom.

He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and holding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.

the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

When you use the term on David's throne, you're referring to the throne of David, the rightful heir to David's throne from the house of David.

And some people say, well, yeah, I like that, but why doesn't it just give us his name, Jesus Christ?

Because Jesus Christ are titles.

Jesus means Yeshua, Savior, and Christ means King.

Jesus, Yeshua is a very popular name.

And these are two names that are given to the Messiah throughout the Old Testament.

These prophecy even pinpoint the exact place of his birth, Micah 4, Bethlehem.

It specifies his ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, from the tribe of Judah, from the house of David.

But one of my personal favorite ones, if you ever want to investigate this, turn in your Bible sometime to Zechariah 11, verse 12 and 13, where Zechariah, who we know lived 500 years before Jesus was ever born, was born in Babylonia, returned to Judah in 538 BC.

And he prophesied that Jesus would be betrayed by a friend for 30 pieces of silver.

That's pretty specific.

Thrown down, not placed in the temple.

That's pretty specific in the house of the Lord.

And that the money would be used to buy a potter's field.

Come on, man.

That's pretty specific.

David wrote details about Jesus'death.

He mentions his betrayal.

And what's amazing, as I said before, this is the third time I'm going to say this, David prophesied that the would be executed by way of crucifixion, and the Romans hadn't even invented it yet.

Psalm 22, for instance, I got to finish this.

You're the holy one, so let me finish.

In Psalm 22, that we now know by dating, was written somewhere between, actually, it was written over a period from 1440 BC to 530 BC, so at minimal, 500 years before Jesus was ever born.

Look at what the spirit of God told David.

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering and familiar with pain, like one from whom people hide their faces.

He was despised and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God.

David is moving into theology now, that there's no way he would have known unless God had revealed it to him.

Stricken by him and afflicted, but he was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds, we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray.

Each of us has turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

It goes on and on.

Look at verse 8.

Yet who of his generation protested?

They didn't.

They said, away with him, crucify him.

But look at verse 9.

He was assigned a grave with the wicked, because remember, cursed is he who hangs on a tree, and with the rich in his death.

He was buried in Potiphar's fill.

Right?

Joseph of Arimathea owned the grave, right?

Actually, I meant a potter's fill, not Potiphar.

though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth, yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer.

Go on down a little bit.

He will see his offspring and prolong his days.

He will justify many.

The entire Psalm 22 is not merely a prophecy about what will happen, but why it will happen.

Something that the Old Testament Jews did not fully comprehend.

They were not looking for a suffering servant.

They were looking for a Messiah King to rule over the earth.

This is nothing about a king.

This is about a suffering Messiah.

Most critics of the Bible now know that you cannot make an argument that the books of the Old Testament were written any later, 500 B.C.

And so now they have turned their attention to other attacks.

Let me just give you one of them.

They say, okay, I love this.

They say, okay.

All right, there's evidence that Jesus did fulfill all 48 specific prophecy and all 88 general prophecies.

But you ready for this?

This is serious scholarship, but he manipulated his life to do it.

He knew the prophecies.

So he knew that when Messiah rides in and they're shouting Hosanna, he's supposed to be riding on a donkey.

So he had the disciples get a donkey.

Okay, I'll give you that.

But could somebody please explain to me?

how Jesus could control the fact that the Sanhedrin offered Judas 30 pieces of silver to betray him, that how did Jesus control his ancestry or his place of birth or his method of execution or the soldiers gambling for his clothing or that there would be false accusers at an invalid trial or that his legs would remain unbroken or that he could be born precisely when he was or that the Sanhedrin would use the money for the betrayal to buy a potter's field.

The only plausible explanation is this Bible is the word of God.

And that's why, listen, that's why the Bible is the most published book in world history, the most single translated book in world history, has survived bannings, eradication attempts by kings, princes, and rulers, and why today people all over the world are pouring over this book.

Now let me finish.

I am going to finish.

When I meet Christ followers, I meet three types.

The first type is they don't see the Bible as God's word, but as a book that contains some of God's word.

You with me?

Which makes them the judge.

They're still God.

Listen now, that's why you have churches that affirm the sin of homosexuality, lesbianism, sex before marriage, and adultery.

Because they have a very low view of Scripture, and when the Bible contradicts their truth, their truth supersedes.

Okay?

In our church, all are welcomed here because all are sinners, and nobody's better or worse than anybody else.

And that's why I always hesitate to say something like this, because I'm afraid it will chase those who are not yet at that place where they understand the teaching of the Bible away.

I don't want you to chase away.

Because if we only let Christians in, if we only let people who weren't sinners in church on the weekend, there'd be nobody here except Michael.

And so that's, and Michael knows better, doesn't he?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But the...

The power of the Word and the Spirit, which we're going to talk about when we do our message on who's the Holy Spirit, work together to transform us.

Second, there's a second group.

They see the Bible as God's Word, but have very little knowledge of what it says or how it can transform them.

The thing about Muslims are, by the way, a great majority of Muslims are very kind and considerate and loving people because they are nominally Muslim.

They actually don't know what the Quran teaches.

They just love the Quran.

In the same way, there are a lot of Christ followers who have a Bible and respect the Bible, but have no idea what it really says or teaches.

They are what we call nominal Christians.

They see the Bible as a list of do's and don'ts, as a moral guide, and they see themselves as justified under it.

But they don't pour over it.

They don't understand its transformational power.

They read the Bible for knowledge only or occasional encouragement.

And then third and finally, there's a group of people, and this is what this series is about.

Listen, this is my last statement.

They see the Bible as God's word and they dive into it every day to discover the words and thoughts of God.

And as a result, they're being changed.

So when they encounter the Bible, they say, oh, man, they're not perfect people.

Believe me, they're sinners saved by grace.

But they say, man, I got to deal with my anger.

Man, I got to deal with the same-sex attraction.

Man, I've got to deal with my desires to sleep with this woman I'm not married to.

Man, I got to deal with my inability to forgive.

I got to deal with this hesitation I have to love my enemies.

I got to learn to trust Jesus more.

You see, when they discover any area of their life that contradicts the truth of God's word, because it is God's word, they know they got to participate in the hard work of spiritual transformation.

Now I had a bunch of examples of people, but I'll give you the last one.

Alice Cooper.

Oh my goodness.

Man, when I was growing up, Alice Cooper concerts were straight from the devil.

That's what we, I mean, he would, he would slice off the heads of mannequins on a guillotine.

He would impale dolls.

And how many of you remember what he would do, the disgusting things he would do with rats and excrement?

This was a horrible dude, but something happened to him.

He picked up the Bible and he started reading.

And now he said, and I quote, yes, it's true.

I was reborn because of all those who believe in Christ, live a new life and have a different perception of their own existence.

And you know, I wouldn't be mentioning this unless I'd done my homework on this guy.

He's legit.

He's been transformed.

And you know what his favorite verse of scripture is?

Of course it is.

2 Corinthians 3.18.

And we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the spirit.

Okay.

You did well.

Campuses, you did well.

I went long and I know it.

This is the word of God.

This is the word of God, okay?

What are you doing with it?

And everything, the reason we did it, everything I say from this day forward, if it accurately reflects what is in this Bible, no matter how you feel or what culture says, we gotta change.

Amen?

Amen.

Father, thank you for today.

Thank you for your love.

Thank you for...

delivering to us your revelation so that we could know the mind, the purpose, the hopes, maybe not perfectly, but as God has chosen to reveal those things to us, that we don't have to guess about salvation, that we don't have to guess who Jesus is, we don't have to guess who God is, that you've revealed these things to us, not only in the person of Jesus Christ, validated by his resurrection, but in the truth of your revelation to us, the Bible.

And may we never forget this message.

And no matter what we hear, to always be reminded that although there will be naysayers, although there will always be those who attack the Bible and those who claim to be Christ followers who don't follow it, we know this is the revelation of God.

And we can trust that we're reading as it was originally written and it has the power to transform us.

And everybody said in Christ's name.

We hope you enjoyed today's message.

If you want to know more about what it's like to be a Christ follower, I want to encourage you to go to oneandall.church.com to get more information, as well as to reach out to us to walk alongside you in this step.

I also want to encourage you to download our One and All app, as we have so many resources there for you, like our daily devotionals, our conversations, podcasts, as well as the sermons, and to know what is happening here.

at our church so you can get plugged in.

We hope you have a great rest of your week and we'll end as we always do with one hope, one life in Christ.