Can You Trust God's Word?

Can You Trust God’s Word?

2 Peter 1:16-21

II Timothy 3:16

This morning I want to answer the question: “Can You Trust God’s Word - The Bible.” People today have many different views of the Bible and of the Christian life.

Signs found in church parking lots:

1. Free Trip to Heaven. Details Inside!

2. How will you spend eternity - Smoking or Non-Smoking.

3. It is unlikely there’ll be a reduction in the wages of sin.

4. If you’re headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns.

5. If you don’t like the way you were born, try being born again.

6. If you can’t sleep, don’t count sheep - Talk to the Shepherd.

And the two signs that are relevant to today’s message are:

"Dusty Bibles lead to Dirty Lives. "

"Fight truth decay. Study the Bible daily."

Biblical Bloopers - slightly false scriptural insights from children of Christian and Jewish faiths:

- In the first book of the Bible, Guinessis, God got tired of creating the world, so he took the Sabbath off.

- Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree.

- Noah’s wife was called Joan of Ark.

- Lot’s wife was a pillar of salt by day, but a ball of fire by night.

- Moses led the Hebrews to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients.

- The Egyptians were all drowned in the desert.

- Afterward. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Amendments.

- The First Commandment was when Eve told Adam to eat the apple.

- The Fifth Commandment is "Humor thy father and mother."

- The Seventh Commandment is "Thou shalt not admit adultery."

- The greatest miracle in the Bible is when Joshua told his son to stand still and he obeyed him.

- Solomon, one of David’s sons, has 300 wives and 700 porcupines.

- When Mary heard that she was the mother of Jesus, she sang the Magna Carta.

- When the three wise guys from the east side showed up, they found Jesus and the manager.

- Jesus was born because Mary had an emaculate contraption. St. John, the Blacksmith, dumped water on his head.

- Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which is "Do one to others before they do one to you."

- The Bible says a man is only supposed to have one wife. This is called monotony.

It’s important to know the truths of the Bible and not get the scriptures confused or mixed up.

Why do Christians study the Bible and work to pattern their beliefs and lives according to this one book? After all there are many self-help books and many religious books available. Why give the Bible so much authority in your life?

There are lots of books in print with the word "Bible" in the title that have nothing to do with what we’re talking about. There’s "The Beauty Bible," "the Freshwater Fisherman’s Bible," "The Golfer’s Bible," “the Rifleman’s Bible ” even "The Cooking Bible." The Bible I’m talking about is the Old and New Testaments.

Can You Really Trust the Bible?

More than 50,000 different books are published in the United States each year. They cover every subject imaginable, from artichokes to zucchini, from anthropology to zoology, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. People who trust the Bible say it is different from any other book ever published. They say it is the only book authored by God and the only book that shows us how to know Him, how to live, and how to receive eternal life.

Many people don’t agree. They think the Bible is flawed and unreliable, and obviously not written by God. From time to time you hear different people saying:

"The Bible is not scientifically reliable." A person who thinks this way feels that the Bible is full of scientific errors and therefore cannot be trusted in spiritual matters either.

"The Bible is historically inaccurate."

"The Bible is outdated." Not many books are still being printed today that were finished 2,000 years ago.

"The Bible is the work of man."

Can you trust the Bible to be the very Word of God? Turn to 2 Peter 1:16-21 – We have the words of the Apostle Peter.

I. The Bible is Not Cleverly Invented Stories. 1:16

The writer of the Second Letter of Peter had to contend with the dark mood of despair and hopelessness in his own day. He knew that at one time the Christian community had been alert, looking for the imminent return of Christ, but at the close of the first century there was not much enthusiasm for the future

Confronted with the mood of skepticism concerning the last day, Peter affirms in clear-cut terms "the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Verse 16 – “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”