Good morning, happy Sabbath to you all.
Sorry for a more lengthy reading than usual probably, but it's
important. So a couple of questions for
you. How many read this book?
All right, I would recommend this to everybody to read.
One of the reasons I'm going to recommend this is because
believe it or not, and some of you may challenge me on this,
but as you read it, I want you to think of the gospel of Jesus
Christ because it is in here. Amen.
This book is powerful. Not only does it go over the
Reformation and some of the other things, but it is full of
the gospel if you're open to the Holy Spirit leading you.
So I highly recommend that. If you don't have a copy, I know
Fred or one of the elders would be happy to or deacons would be
happy to get you a copy of that book.
It's also available online. You can listen to it via audio
or you can read it online, but I like paper, personally.
The other thing is my wife and I have a seminar that we're going
to be hosting coming up starting this coming Friday.
It's about the Paleo Hebrew alphabet and how it shows the
love and care of God for all of us.
It's going to be an online event.
I will make sure I send the invite to Fred and Joy and they
can send it out. If you're interested, you can
join up. It's an online event only.
It'll be it's four weeks. It's a Friday night and Saturday
night. I believe it starts at 6:00 each
of those nights and it lasts just an hour.
So just to let you know, all right, before we begin, let's
bow our heads. Father in Heaven, Lord, we are
so grateful for your Amazing Grace and your patience to us,
Father, and we are thankful for the words of life that are in
your holy scriptures. And Lord, as we open the bread
of life this morning, as we review it, we just pray for your
presence of your spirit, which inspired the words, and for your
angels, Father, to touch our hearts, to open us to hear and
to understand. Father, bless us with thy
presence and help us to leave here with a closer relationship
with you. I pray in Jesus name, Amen.
All right, so one of the things we're going to talk about is
exploring the trustworthiness of the Bible, historical, textual,
and personal perspectives. So this book, which is not
really just a book, it's 66 books, and then it's more like
an encyclopedia that was written by a vast number of people over
multiple continents over a long period of time.
And yet it is uniform in the message that it presents.
Now, as you can see from our Scripture reading this morning,
we're just going to go back there for a moment from Luke
chapter 24, you'll notice in verse 27 that the word of God
says, and beginning at Moses. Beginning where?
At Moses and all the prophets. How many of the prophets?
All right, so that's from Moses. So that's Genesis through
Malachi, right? That's all those books he, Jesus
expounded to them in all the Scriptures, the things
concerning himself. So that means that the vast
majority of the Old Testament, somebody correct me.
The vast majority, you should have corrected me.
It's all the Old Testament is about who?
It's about Jesus. And the New Testament is about
who, Jesus. Amen.
All right, so let's get into this.
So we're going to begin investigating some of the
archaeological points now. That is probably way too small
for any of you to read, even me. Sorry about that.
I'll have to work on my presentation for next time to
make sure. The fonts are much, much bigger.
Anyway, so the Bible, we have more manuscripts for this book
than any other book that has been written.
Amen. And so that allows the scholars
to check and double check and compare and see what this word
has to say. And so we can trust that this
Bible that we have be at the King James.
Some of you may be King James only.
I am not a King James only. I happen to use the new King
James. You can call me a heretic if you
like, but that's OK. I also like the ESV, the NIV,
the NLT, and a number of other translations.
Why? Because some of the more modern
translations make it much easier to understand than the King
James. And for those of you that are
King James only, there are errors in the King James that
are corrected in the newer translations, just to let you
know. So it is not a perfect
translation. Is a good yes.
Is it poetic? Yes.
Did it help a lot of people over the years?
Yes. Can you be saved by reading it?
Absolutely. Absolutely.
But it is not the one and only. And I'll challenge you on that
because some of you who are King James only, let me ask you a
question. How do the Spanish people that
don't read English, what are they supposed to read?
The Russians and the Czechoslovakians and the French
that don't read English, what are they supposed to read?
Is it OK for them to read a translation that's not the King
James? My answer is going to be yes, it
is OK because they can find salvation in their native
language. All right, so to move on.
So textual integrity, transmission, it's been passed
down. So the people who wrote, who
wrote this down, who kept the records, were very, very
diligent in their work. They were called scribes and
they took their time. Did they make mistakes
occasionally in a punctuation? Yes, occasionally, but we have
enough of the writings down through history to know that
this Bible is reliable and accurate to what God was trying
to pass down to us. As they compare all of those,
those parchments that they have, they can see the consistency in
the coat, the coherence throughout the Word.
So can the Bible be trusted, right?
Archaeological has anybody heard of the oh, Fred, help me with
this one. What's the video?
We just that pastor just recorded Thunder in the Holy
Land. Anybody heard of that video?
Thunder in the Holy Land. All right, so the very first
video. So I just gave Joy a set of
memory sticks that they're going to, you're going to be able to
duplicate. And it has links to the videos
and it also has the studies that go along with it.
And those studies and the videos are awesome.
They start off with the case of the archaeological evidence that
we have for the validity of the stories in the Bible, Amen.
So historically it is reliable. And the more archaeologists
research in Israel and other foreign countries over there,
they find remnants to support what this word says, Amen, Amen.
So we see all that now, historical reliability.
We know that, you know, one of the books that archaeologists
take with them, when they go over to the Middle East, guess
what book they take? They take the Bible.
You know why they take the Bible?
Because it has never been wrong when they're doing
archaeological digs. It has helped them actually.
So we see archaeological evidence supporting ancient
cities that have on earth inscriptions collaborate history
and artifacts validate events. They've found all sorts of
stones. And if you watch the the first
episode of Thunder in the Holy Land, they will go over a
massive amount of archaeological evidence that support the
scriptures and they'll explain what they found over the years.
Now there's been more found since that video was produced,
so the evidence continues to grow.
When they compare it with external historical records,
they find that the biblical accounts are accurate and then
right. They find the historicity is
reliable, that the civilizations that the Bible talked about
actually did exist, even though for a while some of them were
only listed in the Bible. But as archaeologic, well, digs
happen, they found evidence of the things that the cities and
the places that the Bible talked about.
So it gives it validity even though the naysayers said they
didn't exist. Well, lo and behold, the
archaeologists found evidence over time, and they continue to
find evidence. Amen.
Preservation of ancient manuscripts.
There's centuries of preservation.
They found the Dead Sea Scrolls a number of years ago, which as
they examine them actually matched up to the translations,
the scripts that they had that predated those and those that
came after. So there's validity that keeps
coming up as they go through all those textual integrity and
transmission process of copying. We talked about the little
earlier. The scribes use very meticulous
methods to copy what they wrote down.
Occasionally there would be, as I said, a little difference.
But of all the little differences, they don't add up
to changing the story, right? There are change challenges in
translation. So when you translate the Greek
and the Hebrew and the Aramaic into other languages, there are
some challenges because it's not always an exact translation.
Sometimes you have to go thought for thought right to use a
little language to embellish to help it under us understand what
they were trying to say. But the meaning is still there.
So they are very, and there's a lot of rigor in the
translations, cause causes of manuscript variations, hand
copying of the manuscripts. The scholars do comparisons and
they use specific techniques to validate the translations that
they have to reconstruct the original text as it is.
When they go through all those manuscripts, they use what's
called textual criticism seeks to identify the the original
text through careful manuscript evaluation.
So they compare it all. You know, it's sort of like if
anybody's ever seen the movie God's Not Dead, Anybody see
that? See that movie?
Well, there was a series, and in one of the series, I think it
was the second or the third one, they actually had an
investigator, a former police investigator who looked into
dead cases, right? And he said the reason he became
a Christian was because when he read the Scriptures, especially
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, they were not exactly the same.
And as an investigator, he had the experience to realize when
you talk to witnesses, if their story is exactly the same, guess
what that means that they probably planned it.
But when the stories vary a little bit and there's minor
differences here or there in the way it is, it gives validity to
the witness's testimony, right? And that's from somebody who did
the dead case research. So the scholars use rigorous
rigor. Yeah.
Good analytical techniques to access manuscripts.
Sometimes I just can't get those words out right.
There is consistency across all 66 books telling the same story,
right? Despite the diverse authors and
context, the Bible maintains consistent themes such as
redemption, justice, faith, creating a coherent narrative
through its books. The New Testament consists of
about 27 books, mainly written in Greek, right?
And who wrote the majority of those books?
Who can tell me? Paul.
Paul wrote the majority of those books, right?
And we also have fulfillment of prophecies.
Has anybody read the book of Daniel?
Anybody out there read the book of Daniel?
Well, if you read the book of Daniel and you follow those
prophecies, you can see that the Bible has been 100% accurate as
far as what it's said up to date.
And that tells you that the statue in Daniel two, who can
tell me where we are in that prophecy?
In the Daniel 2 prophecy, who can tell me where we are?
Anybody the toes, I would say the toenails, right?
I think we're about in the toenails right now.
So if you want to get some encouragement, read Daniel
chapter 2 and ask Fred or Joe or Phil or one of the leaders in
the church to have a study with you to show you how the Bible
has shown us down through history what is about to happen.
Amen. So we have prophetic
reliability, multiple authors, all unified in what they say,
the core teachings, right? The Bible shows remarkable
agreement on the core teaching and historical events,
indicating A unified message. Despite its complexity, personal
and societal impact has changed people's lives.
Anybody ever met a drug addict who's been set free by the Lord
Jesus personally? All right, right.
Jesus has done many things. Anybody experienced Jesus in
their life, setting them free from something?
Anybody. All right, for the rest of you,
let Jesus help you because he can do amazing things.
Amen. Amen.
I can only, I won't even give any time to the devil and what
he had me in years ago, but I can tell you that Jesus sets us
free. Amen.
All right, so it has influence on law and ethics.
You know, most of the laws in the United States, Guess what?
They're based on most of them. They're based on the
commandments and what the scriptures teach.
It has impact on art and literature, and it has a role in
social movements. Testimonies of transformation,
power, personal testimonies. I have met countless people who
have had an experience with Jesus who has totally
transformed their life, right? Unlike any other book.
And yet people say this book is just an old book from 2000 years
ago. No, no, no, no, it is powerful.
The word is powerful. We're going to look at some
scriptures in just a moment about that.
So Psalm 119 one O 5 says your word is a lamp to what?
My feet and a what a light to my past, so that this word will
show us where we should be walking right in the safe path.
Proverbs 30 verses 5 and six said Every word of God proves
true. He is a shield to those who take
what refuge in him. Do not add to His words, lest He
rebuke you and you be found a liar.
So the word gives us a pathway to walk.
And why does God want to give us a pathway to walk?
Why does he want to show us the way to walk?
Why would he? Anybody.
This is a teaching session. I'm not just lecturing here.
You got a you got a dialogue with me?
A little bit, yes. In the back to see salvation.
All right. Anybody else?
He loves us, right? What?
How does a parent treat their children?
Well, good parents. How do good parents treat their
children? There are bad parents out there.
A few. Why does a parent try to teach
their child what's safe and what's unsafe?
Why do they do that? Because they love them, right?
A parent will tell a child, don't put your hand on the stove
when it's the flames there or it's red.
Why would they tell them that? Because they're going to get
injured, right? A parent would tell a child,
don't run out into the street unless you stop and look both
ways and make sure there's no traffic coming.
Why do they tell him that? Because they care, right?
So when God gives us direction in his word, he's giving us
direction because he cares about us.
He's not trying to take things away.
He's trying to help us be happy and safe.
Amen. Now John 1717, sanctify them
through thy truth, Thy word is So what is he saying in in John
1717 that you and I can be sanctified?
If we're in this word? This word is powerful.
It is A2 edged sword. It's going to cut us to help let
us know what we've done wrong, but it's also going to empower
us through the word to be able to walk the way Jesus walks.
And some of you go, no, I don't believe that.
Well, then, you don't believe the word because let's skip down
to the third verse. Second, Peter 14 says, and
because of his glory and excellence, He has given us
great and precious promises. These are the promises that
enable you to share His divine his what?
His divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by
human desires. So what is God telling us there
in second Peter one to four? What is he saying to us?
He's saying what? It's only by his work.
He's telling us in second Peter one to four, that you and I can
have the same character as Jesus Christ.
That means that we can have victory over the besetting sins
that are besetting us right now. Wow, that was really quiet.
I know that's sobering, right? Because you're saying I don't
know how to overcome it. You don't overcome it in your
own power. You overcome it by the power of
the Word of God, right? 1st Thessalonians 213 And we
also thank God consistently for this, that when you received the
Word of God, when you did what? When you receive it.
So you need to receive this to have the victory which you heard
from us. You accepted it not as the Word
of men, but as what it really is, the Word of God which is at
work in you believers. So if we allow this Word to soak
in to us, we can have victory. John 539 says you search the
Scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life.
And it is they which bear witness of me.
So Jesus is saying that you and I can have victory if we spend
time in this Word. Now I'm going to tell you some
things I told my congregation back where I come from, three
angels. Is that a lot of us, and I'm
going to get down and dirty here.
A lot of us spend a lot of time watching things that are not
helpful to us. Let's be honest, all right, And
a lot of us go and watch pre digested things all day long
that are really good. 3 Angels, Hope Channel, some TVI could go
on. There's a whole list of them,
but you know what? It is written voice of prophecy.
Are they good? Yes, but you know what you're
eating baby food, you're eating pre digested studies, right?
What we need to do is we need to be in this word.
Yes. I'm not saying those programs
are bad. They are good.
They are uplifting. But if you really, really want
to know Jesus, pick up a Bible and get into it.
Fred talked about it this morning, right?
So. One of the people that started
the revolution of Bible, William Miller.
Here's your challenge. Guess how many times a year he
he read through this word 4 * a year cover to cover.
He would read this right. And Fred told a very good story
this morning and I'm going to share that for those of you who
missed it. Right, you need, I'd suggest you
come to Sabbath School. It was great.
Fred, thank you for that class. Right.
So here's William Miller and he's basically a farmer.
He was in the military, doesn't have a lot of education.
And a pastor goes, I don't want that guy to come into my church.
He's he did never been to theology school.
Many heard him speak and he's like, wait a minute, what did
Fred say? He goes, I want to see this
guy's library. Where is he getting all this
information from? So he goes and he visits William
Miller. William Miller had two books in
his library, in his study, two books.
Guess what? He had the Bible and a
concordance. That was it.
And through the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, a
great awakening happened because one man was willing to get into
the Word. He didn't just read this four
times a year. He started in Genesis 11 and
William Miller his self says that he would not proceed to the
next verse until he understood the verse he was on.
So not only did he read this, but he studied it from cover to
cover, one verse at a time, using his concordance to help
him understand what the Greek or the Hebrew or the Aramaic said.
And he studied. And because he studied, he was
able to be used by the Holy Spirit to start a great
awakening. Amen.
So I want to read something to you that I found in another book
I'm reading. And it's interesting.
And I'm going to be, I'm going to be frank.
Some of the people I know very well may disagree with me.
But you know, as Avenus, sometimes we are so focused.
Well, let's do a quiz. Let's see.
Let's let's do a quiz. Turn to read if you have your
Bibles or your phones. Revelation 14.
Who can tell me what Revelation 14 is?
The three angels messages, right?
It gets into the three angels messages.
So let's do a quiz. I've been taking a class from
the Pennsylvania Conference on the three angels messages, and
it's a radical class. I do mean radical.
It really is. So Revelation 14, starting in
verse 6. Then I saw another Angel flying
in the midst of heaven. So what is the Lord saying here
through His Word, right? There's an Angel flying in the
midst of heaven, right? Having the what?
The everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth,
to every tribe, tongue and people, and saying with a loud
voice, fear God and give glory to Him for the hour of his
judgement, has come and worship him who made heaven and earth
and the sea and the springs of water.
So what is the main message of the first Angel flying in the
midst of heaven? What's his main message?
This is not A to worship God. What else?
Somebody else to share the gospel the Great Commission most
Adventists right and I've done this test before most Adventists
are going to go well. The first message is fear God
and give glory to him. No read the verse verse 6.
I saw another Angel and Joe and a few others got it right in the
midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel, we are to
preach the gospel of Jesus first, leading to reverence for
God. Give glory to Him for what He
has done before the judgment comes.
We need to start with the gospel as our foundation for every
single Bible study that we do. If we can't show Jesus and how
it relates to his character and His love for us, don't teach the
lesson because all you're doing as is Jesus said to the
Pharisees, is you're making him twice a son of hell as you are
yourself. We've got to be into the Word to
show it about Jesus because from cover to cover in this book,
it's all about Jesus and his love for us.
And if we can show that in our 28 fundamental beliefs, we have
no business teaching anybody else anything.
I want to read something to you from one of our founders of this
denomination years ago. And you're saying he sounds a
little, I'm sounding a little heretical.
Well, you know, when you study and you look at the history,
sometimes you learn things that you didn't know before.
So this is about Elder James White.
So he had an epiphany and I didn't have time to get the
slides, but he had a slide that he put up years ago.
Some of you may be familiar with it.
It was called The Way of Life. He gave it to the pastors as a
way to teach evangelism. And prominently in that first
slide that he created, it was it was slide, it was a piece of
paper about yay big, right? Guess what was prominent in that
picture? What was the most prominent
feature in that picture? Anybody remember that has seen
it? That's the second one.
The first one was the 10 commandments hanging from the
tree. That's the first one.
And as he prayed, he came to a conclusion that that was not the
focus that we needed to be presenting.
And he had a big burden. I'll read to you his burden just
a moment. So they commissioned after he
died, he had spoken to Ellen White about his burden, about
how he wanted to be talking about more of the gospel, right,
and more about Jesus. And he began to teach that he
had a burden for our pastors to personally know Jesus Christ and
present Jesus and not the commandments first, always about
Jesus 1st. And so the second Commission was
about the cross was front and center and in way in the
background were the 10 commandments because the Bible
is all about Jesus. So I want to read a little
something to you about what he went through.
It says with some there is an unutterable yearning for the
soul for Christ. And the writer is 1 in this
class. So this is Brother White,
Brother James White and somebody writing about him.
With some of us it has been business work and care giving
Christ but little room in the mind and in the affections.
So what was happening? They were so busy doing their
stuff that they had little time for Jesus.
With others it has been nearly all theory, dwelling upon the
law and the prophets, the nature and destiny of man, and the
messages, while destitute to an alarming degree of the
indwelling Christ. So, and Sister White talks about
this where she said we had become as a denomination as dry
as the hills of Gilboa because we have been preaching the law,
the law, the law, and we have forgot the law giver who wants
to have a personal relationship with us and fill us with His
Spirit so that we can reveal Him to a world in sorrow and in
need. He goes on.
Our preachers need more encouragement.
They should preach Christ more, They should know more of Him
upon whom all our hopes of success here and of heaven
hereafter depend. 2 summers. Now this is a different author.
2 summers. I spent with him, James White in
Colorado. During the last few months.
I was with him about 8 weeks, so that I had the best of
opportunities to know him thoroughly.
In our travels together, he often mentioned the mistakes he
thought he had made in his life, and as we prayed alone together,
he would weep over them. Have any of us ever spent time
weeping over our mistakes, asking God to forgive us?
James White did and pleaded for grace to be a true Christian
man. He often said to me privately,
and also spoke of it over and over in nearly all his sermons
this spring and summer, that he felt he must be more tender
toward his brethren, more compassionate toward the erring,
that he must cultivate more love for Christ and more patience in
his trials. As all will remember, whenever
he preached the last few months, he dwelt largely upon the faith
in Christ and the boundless love of God.
That was one of our founding Fathers burdens as he came to
the end of his life was to lift up Jesus to everyone he met and
to embed Jesus in every message he preached from here from the
pulpit. So as we leave ourselves today
and we close this service, I want to reiterate Second Peter
1/4 And because of his glory and excellence, he, Jesus, has given
us great and precious promises in this word.
And these promises will enable you to share in his divine
nature. And so I'm going to ask you a
question. Now.
Don't raise your hand, please. I'm not here to embarrass those
who don't raise their hands. But I'm going to ask you a
question I asked my Sabbath School class last week, and I
want you to think about it. Don't respond hastily.
In your mind, I want you to think about this, but would you
be willing to pray the following prayer?
Lord, do whatever it takes to save me.
I want you to think about that. Don't respond hastily.
I want you to think about that question.
Lord, do whatever. That may mean I lose my job.
That may mean I get deathly sick.
That may mean I have to go through persecution as Paul did.
I don't know what it means for each of us, but if you want to
get serious about being with Jesus in heaven and having the
joy here on this earth as Paul did, study, study Paul and and
Barnabas as they went into prison, as they were, as they
were beaten and whipped. What did they?
They were singing songs of joy. Why?
Because they had an abiding relationship with Jesus Christ.
And no matter what Paul went through, he knew whom he loved
and who loved him. And so that's the question for
us today. As we close, would you be
willing to ask the Lord to do whatever it takes for Him to
fill you with His Holy Spirit? That is the thought for today.
Father, we are humbled by all those in past history who have
taken the time to provide for us and to protect this Word which
we have access to. Lord, there was a time when
anybody who owned the Bible could be killed for owning 1 and
yet we have free access to it, Father, online, on our phones
and in written form. And we are so grateful and we
thank you for the promises in there that we can have victory
over sin if we just allow You to live in US.
What I ask for you to bless all those that are here and those
that are online. Speak to them Father, encourage
them and help them to see what you can do for them, to bring
them the true joy and the blessings and the happiness that
you so much want to do. Bless them and keep them until
we meet again. I ask and pray in Jesus name,
Amen.