2Timothy.3: 14—17. "Can we trust the Bible?"
A number of years ago our family toured France in our old 2CV car, well before Sat Nav, after a few hundred miles it was clear we were lost, but I wasn’t about to let on. Danielle told me to look at the map or ask for directions, I refused to listen, let’s face it men never ask for directions! I failed to listen, I failed to read the map, I had to stop swallow my pride , listen to the wise words of my wife and carefully read the map and trust it.
Reminds me that all of us are on a journey, so often we try to do things our own way, and we tend to get lost and confused and lose our bearings and so often we will fail to listen to others. Living without God, is failing to listen to Him .Because God has made it possible for us to not be lost, God has given us a map (The Bible ) get the best out of life to guide us and take us to our ultimate destination.
Who are you listening too? There are many voices competeing in the world that we live in today all competing for our attention and we are all indoctrinated by our own particular culture and circumstances. All of are bombarded with information 24/7 a big shaker in your world view right now is the state school is the Bible, who will have hold of your life for around 15 years or more and will indoctrinate you into a secular world view in regard to the sciences pointing to the Big bang and evolution – In regard to religion all are meaningless and the cause of wars, pointing you to a new morality to experiment between the sexes is good. They push you out like a tube of toothpaste no questions ask pre - programmed and indoctrinated to function as atheistic converts
Fact: Since 1900, the percentage of the world’s atheistic and non-religious peoples (agnostics, secularists, communists, and so on) has grown from 0.2 percent to 21.3 percent - in other words from less than one-fifth of one percent to over one fifth of the world’s population. This is the most dramatic change on the entire religious map of the twentieth century. Secularists, or people with no religious commitment, now form the second largest bloc in the world second only to Christians and catching up fast (at the rate of 8.5 million "converts" a year). Grenz, S., A Primer On Postmodenism, Leicester: IVP, 1996. Pages 1-10
A greater indoctrination that people are listening too today: lets watch….. ‘Who Am I’ video slot...........
TV viewing in USA and UK. TV Viewing average in America is 4 hours a day, 2 full months a year, 60% while eating dinner, more TV each year than spent at school. They watch 200, 000 acts of violence, they watch 16,000 murders by the time their 18. ( source national statistics)
And if you think were any better in the UK the average male watches 3hours a day the average female watches 2.15 hours of TV a day what is alarming that some children watch up to 5 hours of TV a day. Nobody is in a position of saying that you’re just indoctrinated by the Bible and that somehow you are neutral and impartial. For we are all indoctrinated the question is by what? ( Get two pairs of glasses: worldviews)
• As I was typing our this message my MacAfee virus check was running and that got me thinking that what we need to run right now.. You may well have a virus in regard to the Bible misinformed virus and tonight were going to try and debug with God’s help. XP and Vista System restore point
The Bible Facts: Worlds first published book – translated fully into over 2000 languages and as we speak it is being translated into others- over the centuries people have tried to discredit, but have failed – it has stood the test of time and has remained the best loved, bestselling book of all time.
1. Who wrote the Bible? Confused?
The Bible is made up of 66 books - 39 OT 27 NT- 1,500 years – 40 human authors – 3 languages – with remarkable unity It’s story and spirit is about the plan of God’s redemption for humanity. The remarkable unity of the Bible is that the human authors were guided by one divine Author God:
• We live in an age where 200 million emails criss-cross the planet every day, where the form of communication is ever changing and it has transformed the way people live and communicate, yet the amazing fact is that people are still willing to hear the voice of God through the Bible.
• Because all Scripture is God breathed v16.
The Bible is not a collection of Jewish myths, whispers or folklore about what God might be like. It’s not either the views or opinions of what spiritual people thought about God at that time. Neither is it that these people were inspired to write the Bible like Shakespeare was inspired to write his plays or Beethoven his uplifting music.
The Bible is a book which is God breathed: It’s a divine revelation from God Himself to humanity. This book owes its origin and contents to His divine breath. As God breathed the breath of life into Adam, he has spoken His word to us through men who were filled with the Holy Spirit
2Pet1:21. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God, as the Holy Spirit carried them along. Bishop Handley Moule wrote “The breath of God was in each ‘scripture,’ as mans breath is in his words, making them to be the vehicle of his thoughts.”
c). Divine origin is supported by prophecy.
We’ve got to remember that the Bible was written over a period of 1500 hundred years with over 40 different authors living in different epochs of history yet all these authors under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit would write and foretell about the future life, death , resurrection and return of Jesus Christ:
Men like Moses who lived 1,500 years before Christ who said a prophet would be raised up greater than Him , King David who lived 1,000 years before Christ who foretold the death and resurrection of Christ , Daniel who lived 500 years before Christ and foretold the return of Christ and many others who wrote about Jesus Christ have been fulfilled.
In fact there are 322 specific prophecies in the OT about Jesus Christ and many of these prophecies have already been fulfilled and documented in the NT of the Bible. This might not seem much too you, but I want you to get your head around this fact.
If only 8 prophecies were fulfilled the likelihood of that is 1in 10 to the 17th power.
A simple way to understand this would be to say imagine having over a quintillion chocolate chip cookies covering the entire breath of the United Kingdom 2 ft deep. Then take one choc chip cookie take all the choc bits out and toss it back into the cookies – then stir it all up – then blindfold yourself and walk from Lands end to John a groats, stopping once to pick up a single cookie. The chances of you picking the choc less chip cookie 1in 10 to the 17th power Its unthinkable and its the same as just one person fulfilling 8 prophecies
• But remember Jesus didn’t fulfil just 8 prophecies in one lifetime he fulfilled 322 recorded and 29 of them in one day. That is a fact!
1. The argument: The Bible has been copied through the centuries, it can’t be trusted.
Can we trust the Bible? Firstly the scribes who wrote down the scriptures were professionals at their job, they were meticulous, no error were never left unchecked and rectified, they were dedicated to accuracy. Present day scholars are able to test for accuracy in a number of ways.
a. Fact : In 1947 the dead sea scrolls were found these scrolls were written by a Jewish group called the Essenes, who lived 200 years before Christ. All the documents found in the Qumran caves were OT in nature or inter testament period ( unlike what Dan Brown states in Davinci) dated by palaeographers to 125 BC within the find was a complete scroll of Isaiah. Prior to this find the oldest copy of the Hebrew OT text is the Massoretic text of Isaiah Which is a 1000 years older (916 AD) . The impact of this discovery is immense to the statement can the Bible be trusted? Because this older version is identical with just a few spelling changes.
b. Fact : The Septuagint 250BC (Greek OT) which also substantiates the accuracy of the more recentr Hebrew Massoretic text.
c. Fact :Over 500 complete copies of the NT are available and more that 24,000 partial books the earliest copy being 125 ad that’s written within 100 years of the life of Jesus Christ. In comparison the writings of Homer who was one of the most widely read author of antiquity with the Iliad comes in a distant 2nd with which was written 900 BC with the earliest copy dating 400BC that’s 500 years later than the original with only 643 manuscripts to support it. The historical documentation of the reliability of the Bible is overwhelming no works of antiquity come near it…
2. The argument: Archaeology has proved the Bible wrong
These type of statements were wide spread in the 19th century
a. Fact: more archaeology discoveries are made to support the Bible than the latter. Archaeologist Nelson Gluek made 1,500 discoveries using the Bible as a guide, He even states that no archaeological discovery has ever been made that contradicts the historical content of the Bible . Fact
b. Josh Mc dowel wrote, ‘After trying to shatter the historicity and validity of the Scripture, I came to the conclusion that it historically trustworthy. If one discards the Bible as being unreliable, then he must discard almost all literature of antiquity. P73 Evidence that demand a verdict
3. The argument The Bible is just simply brainwashing
Induced with persuasive words and emotional presentations. They often see the Christian evangelist as Psychologist manipulating weak minds to conform to the teaching of the Bible.
The truth of the matter is that what people perceive as brain washing is what is called Christian conversion. ( being born again Jhn 3:3) The Bible is a book with the aid of the Holy Spirit brings transformation into lives of countless millions of people....
• Philanthropist travelling through the jungle meets up with a group of tribal people and to his amazement it appears they are reading the Bible. So he goes over to them and tells them, “you don’t want to believe anything you read in that book, we don’t believe in it anymore.” The tribal leader replied, “ You see that pot over there? Well if it wasn’t for that book you would be in it right now!”
The amazing fact of the matter is that when the teaching out of this book is explained, expounded, examined, and engaged in a spirit of humility a dramatic transformation can often take place in the lives of those it is applied too 2Tim 3:15 -16. And it continues to be a source of guidance for a Christians in their daily lives, with its ability to teach, to rebuke, to correct and to train in the life of those who have experienced this inner transformation.
• Subjective conversion: Twelve years ago I was converted (Christian experience) my life has changed.
You might be saying it’s just wishful thinking?
Well Josh Mcdowell says we can test it? Imagine someone stood up and said, “ Since I have a stuffed tomato down into my trainers my life has changed, I’ve got a peace, love and joy that I’ve never experienced before, not only that I can run a 100 metres in 10 seconds flat. It’s hard to argue against somebody like that if their life backs it up, especially on the running track
He goes on to say there are two questions we need to apply to a subjective experience: Let’s apply it to the stuffed Tomato principle
1. What is the objective reality for the subjective experience? A stuffed tomato in my trainer
2. How many other people have had the same subjective experience from this objective reality? How many other people in this Room, on this camp, in the vicinity, in this country ,in this world have experienced the peace and joy and increased track speed from the stuffed tomato in their trainers?
Now let’s apply these two principles to my Christian experience First question....
1. What is the objective reality for the subjective experience?
The objective reality is identified in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Who was crucified and died for our sins and rose again on the third day as an objective reality in history. I can believe that Christ is now living in me because he was raised from the dead in history.
2. How many others have had this same subjective experience from being related to the objective reality of Jesus Christ?
Unlike the stuffed tomato the evidence is overwhelming: All those in this room please stand, at current in this world there are around...................who have had this subjective transformation as a result of the objective reality of Jesus Christ.
This is why Christian conversion it is more than just wishful thinking, this is why it more than just a product of ones imagination because the subjective nature of conversion can be backed up in the objective truth of History which records the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ found in this book the Bible. And He has impacted people’s lives throughout the world for centuries with the Christian experience of conversion.
• Remember my journey back in France, where I need to stop going in the wrong direction, I needed to listen to the advice from Danielle and begin to look at the map to get to our destination. It wasn’t easy thing to do I had to swallow my pride and admit I was wrong but once I picked up that map and trusted in it I did a U-turn and got us all to our destination.
Maybe tonight you need to do the same thing? Maybe you have been living your life without God? You’ve got the wrong spectacles on .... Failing to listen to Him? But make no mistake you’ve been listening to someone... God says in his word come let us reason together.... God has not left us without evidence... He is reasoning with you tonight, it’s the Christian faith is not all subjective but it’s an objective faith and you re called to engage your minds....
Tonight it’s time to stop, to do a U-turn because God is speaking to YOU. It’s time to swallow your pride, to listen, to humble yourself before God and acknowledge that your lost without Him trust in the Lord Jesus Christ who died for your sins and Rose again. In so doing you will find new purpose, new direction, a new love and eternal destiny secured. What spectacles are you wearing? This Book is the Map to all those things the question? Are you listening?
May God help you to do so Amen.
Pastor A Vaughan @ cbchurch.org.uk
