God's Not Dead: Is Faith Blind? Series

GOD’S NOT DEAD: IS FAITH BLIND?

A. What sets a believer apart from a non-believer is our FAITH.

1. Hebrews 11:6- “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must

believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”

ILLUSTRATION:

In the spring of 1991 I had the privilege of going with other ministers to Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (now the capital of the Slovak Republic) on an eight-week mission effort. We established an English Bible Study Center in the city where we taught conversational English classes using the Bible as a text.

Since many Slovakians were eager to learn how to speak English more correctly, the English Bible Study Center served as an open door to teach these people the gospel. Most of the students who came to these classes were Catholics, and some from other RELIGIONS. Several of the students were atheists or agnostics who came only to sharpen their English speaking skills.

One young man in particular, a self-professed atheist and a former Communist sympathizer, was somewhat indignant about my using the Bible as a textbook to teach conversational English. He described it as a fairy-tale comparable to Mother Goose. He was satisfied to stay in the class as long as the discussion was about the English language.

When some of the students began asking more questions about the Bible story being read than they were about English, he became irritable. The last day he was in class was when we were reading about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. His last words as he stormed out the door were: “Only children would believe such a lie!”

2. So, is our BELIEF in God a LIE? Are we NAÏVE in our FAITH? Have we been DECEIVED?

COMMENT:

According to that young atheist in my class we have. He thinks that Christians are naïve little children who can’t tell the difference from Jesus Christ and Humpty Dumpty.

B. The problem with many UNBELIEVERS is that they think the FAITH that a Christian has in the Bible as

being God’s Word is BLIND—it is a FAITH that has no EVIDENTIAL BASIS.

1. They misunderstand passages like:

a. Hebrews 11:1- “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

b. 2 Corinthians 5:7- “We live by faith, not by sight.

COMMENT:

Now, it’s true that we can’t SEE God, and we certainly didn’t WITNESS God CREATING the UNIVERSE. However, our FAITH in God and His written WORD is far from being BLIND FAITH.

2. In the movie Josh Wheaten is having to defend his FAITH in God before his Philosophy class because he refused to write the words “GOD IS DEAD” and give it to Professor Raddison.

WATCH THIS VIDEO CLIP AS JOSH PRESENTS HIS OPENING ARGUMENTS.

C. I want us to take a look at the AUTHENTICITY of the Bible, as I attempt to prove that our BELIEF in God and His Word if not based on BLIND FAITH.

MESSAGE:

COMMENT:

We need to understand that Judaism and Christianity are historical religions. Therefore, the

Bible is more than a book about MORALS and ETHICS, it is a history book authenticated by:

I. RELIABLE HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS

-Matthew 5:18- “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of the pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything accomplished.”

A. There are literally tens of thousands of Old and New Testament manuscripts that have been

preserved spanning hundreds and thousands of years with minute variations of content.

1. This within itself is a miracle.

a. Think about this for a

ILLUSTRATION:

If I were to ask everyone here to get out a spiral notebook and a pencil and start writing word for word the book of Genesis, there will be MULTIPLE mistakes made along the way. Complete

sentences will be left out, words will be inverted. Punctuation will be missed and incorrect.

Yet we have thousands of complete and partial New Testament MANUSCRIPTS that were copied and re-copied by different people over centuries with a whopping 99.5% accuracy rate, according to EXPERTS.

b. The PROCESS was very simple.

COMMENT:

The churches that received a gospel or a letter from the original writers, would, in turn, meticulously copy it and send it on to the next church where it was painstakingly copied again and sent on to the next church and so on. Thus the manuscripts passed down from one generation to the next, all with very few differences in content.

The only explanation that I can think of for such ACCURACY is that God guided the hands of these SCRIBES to preserve His writings throughout the AGES.

2. Also the abundance of complete and partial MANUSCRIPTS of the New Testament is important.