Hope Church LV Sermons
God I've got a Question :: Can I really trust the Bible
In April of this year, a young lady by the name of Lauren Green, who is a reporter with FoxNews.com, released a story covering a small survey that took place in America that went unnoticed by a lot of people. It was commissioned by the American Bible Society, and the subject of the survey was the state of the Bible in America in 2012. Lauren Green opened that article with this statement. The good news about the good book is that it is still the number one bestseller of all time with an estimated six billion copies sold. The not-so-good news, according to a new survey by the American Bible Society, is that the Bible has lost a bit of its prominence in affecting people's lives. As I read through that article, and as I looked through that survey, there was some depending on your perspective, alarming, eye-opening statistics. One of the questions that the survey asked, I want you to see on the screen, it said, "Do you strongly agree that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches?" That was one of the questions in the survey. It was just asked to Americans in general, "Do you strongly agree that the Bible is totally accurate in all the principles it teaches?" Across America, the poll revealed that only 44% of Americans believe that statement. But what was interesting as you broke it down over the generations, they looked at it from what they call the mosaics, 18 to 25-year-olds, the busters, 26 to 44-year-olds, the boomers, 45 to 64, and the elders, 65 and up. I didn't give it that title, somebody else did, so don't be mad at me, all right? But I want you to look at these statistics. People 65 and older answered that question with a 58% affirmative, but you notice something as you go through the survey. 45 to 64 went down to 46%, busters went down to 39%. The current generation, 18 to 25-year-olds, the statistic is only 30%. Here's what that means. With each passing generation, Americans trust less and less in the accuracy and the authority of the Bible. Maybe what's even more frightening, they narrowed that question to specifically just asking Christian Americans. You would think that asking Christian Americans that the percentages would be greatly different, but when narrowed to just asking Christians, Christians in America, only 55% of them strongly agree that the Bible is totally accurate in all the principles it teaches. Gallup, another pollster in the United States did a similar survey. Listen to what they found out. One out of five, 20% of Americans believe the Bible is an ancient book of fables, legends, history, and moral precepts simply recorded by men. And when Gallup narrowed that question to just asking unchurched people, the statistics shot up to over 60%, over 60% of people in America that are not church, they don't go to a church at all, over 60% of them have the belief that the book that you and I hold in our hands this morning, the Bible, is simply a book of fables and legends and myths and stories. When you begin to look at those statistics and you begin to understand America and its view towards the Bible, it begs a very serious question. This morning we begin a series through the month of September that's simply entitled God. I've got a question. And the question that we want to ask and try to answer this morning is, can I really trust the Bible? Can I really trust the Bible? Now, I want to read you some verses from the Bible and then I want to try to answer that question. If you have a Bible this morning, I want you to turn to 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 16 and 17, because these verses are very important to understanding what we're going to talk about this morning, because this is what the Bible says about itself. It's very important we understand what the Bible claims about itself. Here's what the Bible says, all scripture. It's a Greek phrase that refers to the totality of the Bible, both Old and New Testament. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reprove, for correction, for training and righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. First question I want to try to tackle this morning is, can I really trust the Bible? Now, I want to be intellectually honest upfront. I am someone who believes the truth of the Bible. If you're here today and you're a guest, I want to just shoot you straight right out of the gate. I am somebody who believes in the teaching of the Bible. I was raised in a Christian home. I was raised to know the truth of the Bible, but it wasn't until I was a freshman in college that I actually became a Christian. Very early in my freshman year of college, I was born again. I'd heard the truth of the Bible. I'd been taught the truth of the Bible, but it wasn't until then that I embraced the gospel, surrendered my life to Christ. And I was in a speech and communications class in college. And one of the assignments we had to do with speech and communications class, obviously, is about every few weeks, everybody would be made an assignment to get up and give a speech in class. And one of the speeches that we had to give, I don't remember exactly what they called that particular kind of speech, but I use it as an opportunity to take three minutes and share my testimony of having recently given my life to Christ. And so they didn't give us any parameters. So I just got up in the middle of our speech class about 60 or 70 students in the class, and I shared my story of recently embracing the gospel of Jesus Christ. And after I did that, out in the courtyard outside the classroom, once class dismissed, I was confronted by a young man in the class. He told me he was offended by what I had done, because he was an atheist. Now, I was raised in a small town in the Bible Belt of America. I'd never met an atheist before. I mean, he didn't have a black cape or anything. He didn't look anything like what I thought he was going to look like. As a matter of fact, he looked normal. And we begin to have a dialogue about what I had shared. And he began to ask questions, and he began to probe, and he began to dig deep. And let me tell you what I realized about myself. In that moment, I'd given my life to Christ. And the only thing I could say when somebody said, "Well, why do you believe that? Or what's your authority for that?" The only thing I could say is, "Well, this is what my mom and daddy always told me." And can I just be honest with you, Christians? That's just not good enough. You see, the atheist, the Christian, the Muslim are all ultimately people of faith. You say, "What do you mean by that?" Well, we all put our faith in something. You see, even the atheist who says there is no God can only believe that by faith because he can't prove it. So by faith in something, he has established that as the foundation from which he will live his life. You see, the real question when you're talking about faith is not what you believe, but why do you believe what you believe? What is the authority for your belief system? So that encounter with the atheist set me on a course to study why. Why do I believe what I believe? And I want you to know something. I stand here today before you 22 years of preaching the gospel, the Word of God. And I want you to know I believe the Bible today more than I've ever believed it in my life, but not just because my momma and daddy taught me the truth of the Bible. I want to this morning give you four reasons why I believe the Bible. Here's the first one. I believe the Bible because it is the most reliable collection of ancient writings. I believe the Bible because it is the most reliable collection of ancient writings. Now there are those who would say you cannot trust the Bible because it is not reliable. You cannot trust the Bible. One out of every five Americans would say you cannot trust the Bible because it's just a collection of stories and fables and myths. It's filled with error. It's been passed down through the generations. It's changed. It's been reviewed and revised. And we don't even know what the original manuscript said. Now anybody who would make that claim, anybody who would make that claim has not done an honest analysis of the historical accuracy of the Bible. I want to prove it to you. When historians and scholars are trying to determine the historical accuracy of ancient writings, they look primarily for two indicators. You with me? When historians and scholars look to prove the historical accuracy and the veracity of an ancient writing, they look for two primary indicators. Number one, how many copies do we have of that manuscript? That's the first thing they look for because in the ancient times they didn't have copying machines. They didn't have fax machines. The way that they would pass around a piece of literature or a piece of writing is one person would write it down and then they would hand it to the next person and they would write it down. They'd give it to the next person. They would write it down. So to try to identify historical accuracy, scholars and historians try to find how many copies do we have because the more copies we have, the more we can compare the content of the copies to see if there's been a variation throughout the generations of the copies. It makes sense? If you win me so far, not your head, all right? I know this is deep water for early on Sunday morning. Here's the second thing they look for. The amount of time that exists between the earliest manuscript we have and the original date of authorship. All right? You with me? So how many copies do we have? And how long of a period of time passed between the original writing and the earliest copy that we have? Because the longer the time gap, the more room there is for copy mistakes and errors to get passed down, right? If you got that nod your head, all right? Say, "Hey, man, I didn't know I was coming to science class this morning, right?" All right. Now, let me give you some examples of what I'm talking about. How many of you have ever heard of a man named Plato, right? We all have been impacted by the writings of Plato. The Encyclopedia Britannica says that Plato helped lay the foundations of natural philosophy, science and western philosophy. Plato was a Greek philosopher and mathematician that lived around 400 BC and his writings helped lay the foundation for much of the natural sciences, things like physics, much of the information that we have, much of the understanding that we have in the realm of science and physics can all be related back to the writings of Plato. Anybody remember a time in your physics class in high school when your teacher stood up before you and said, "I'm not really sure about this stuff because we don't know if we can really trust the writings of Plato." Do you ever remember that? Let me show you on the screen. How many copies do we have of the writings of Plato? Seven. What is the time gap between the time when Plato originally wrote it and the earliest one of those seven copies that we have? 13 hundred years. Is that good or bad, huh? Well, let me give you something to compare it to. The writings of Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar wrote a commentary on the Gaelic wars which to this day is the primary historical source for those wars and it also provided us with the most detailed surviving eyewitness account of a military campaign from history. Many of us in school, if you were a student of history, I majored in history in college. If you studied history, you were exposed to and required to study the writings of Julius Caesar and the history of the Gaelic wars because it is such a classic piece of ancient literature. How many copies of Julius Caesar's Gaelic wars do we have today? We have a whopping 10. What is the time gap between the original writing by Julius Caesar and the earliest manuscript we have? 1,000 years. So we're getting better. Now, anybody ever remember your history professor saying, "You know, we're just not sure Julius Caesar's a real person." We're just not sure you can trust what we understand. I mean, if you do some study of our government, much of our government is based on the civilization that Julius Caesar was writing in, a lot of our societies framework has been established from this period of rule. Let me give you another example. Homer. Everybody remember studying Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in English class? I know some of you remember it. I can tell by the look on your face when I say it, right? I mean, you almost need to throw up bucket, right? Just talking about it. I said that one time and a little English teacher came up to me and said, "How dare you say that about the Iliad?" In the Odyssey, it's one of the classic pieces of ancient literature. And I said, "Well, I just didn't have you as my teacher to help me understand how awesome it is." I mean, when you're in 11th grade and they hand you a story that's like the books like this big, now, why do I bring up Homer's Iliad? Here's why I bring it up. Not counting the Bible. Homer's Iliad is the litmus test. It is the, not counting the Bible, the most documented, provable source we have from antiquity. It's the best of the best that we have to offer. Homer's Iliad, we have today 643 manuscript copies and the time gap between the earliest copy that we have and the original authorship is only 400 years. Now, makes those other ones look like they need to prove themselves a little bit, right? Now, don't miss this. From history's perspective, from all of the writings of the ancient Greek and Roman world, Homer's Iliad is the absolute best proof case we have except the Bible. How many copies do we have? How many manuscript copies of the New Testament that was recorded during the exact same time period? How many copies do we have? 24,000 manuscript copies. Now, you see at the bottom, over 5,600 of those copies are complete whole manuscripts. Others, we have portions of one book of the New Testament or we have one book by itself. If you put them all together, we're 24,000 copies, almost 6,000 complete. That's 10 times the best we have to offer. You know what the time gap is from the earliest manuscript we have to the original authorship? 50 years. Now, listen to me. You can choose to not believe the Bible. You can choose to not agree with the teachings of the New Testament. You can choose not to believe in the person of Jesus Christ, but what you cannot do is say that people of faith are simply uneducated, blind people who have thrown out fact, science, logic, and reason, and just following blindly what somebody's telling them. Listen to me, the Bible, the New Testament in particular, is the single most documented source from ancient Greek civilization. There is no other book. Now, here's what that means. If we are going to say, the Bible is a book of fables and myths and legends, and we're going to throw the Bible over here and say, "You can't trust it. You can't believe in it." Let me tell you what that means. We have to do. We have to take every historical piece of evidence we have from ancient Greek and Rome, and we have to throw it all away and say, "We can't believe any of it." Listen to me, Christian. You do not have to check your brain at the door to follow Jesus Christ. And students, listen to me. Students, I want to talk to you. You're about to, some of you graduate and head to college where you will be outside of the safety nest that you've kind of been in in your home, where you've been taught the Scriptures and taught the Bible, and you're going to be challenged and bombarded. Listen to me. I challenge you to do this. Don't take anybody's word for it. You study it for yourself. You do not have to check your brain at the door. You are not unintelligent for believing in the authority and the accuracy of the New Testament. It stands the test of historical criticism. Now, listen to me. If we didn't have a single one of the 24,000 copies, 300 years after the writing of the New Testament, the early church fathers sat down and began to write commentaries on the New Testament. In those commentaries, we have 95 to 98 percent of the New Testament recorded in those commentaries. And here's what that means. If we didn't have a single one of the 24,000 manuscript copies, with simply the early church fathers' commentaries, we would still have more evidence than Homer's Iliad to prove the accuracy and authenticity of the Bible. The evidence is over. Listen, if you throw this out as a book of fables, you have checked your brain at the door. Let me give you a second reason why I believe the Bible. It's historically accurate. It is historically accurate. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible records for us hundreds, if not thousands, of real historical events. And the Bible does not do it in vague generalities. The Bible does it in specific detail. The Bible often gives specific names of leaders or generals or prophets or kings. The Bible gives the specific details of what took place. The Bible gives dates of military conquests and world tragedies and all these incredible events. The Bible names specific places. I mean, dates, names, places. Did you know that there have been over 23,000 archaeological digs? 23,000 archaeological digs directly related to the historical events of the Bible and not one single historical dig has ever proved an event in the Bible to be untrue. I want you to think about that for a minute. There are those in the world who would love to once and for all shut the Bible up and have us put it on the shelf as a book of fables and stories. Don't kid yourself to think that they aren't out there looking for the evidence to do that. 23,000 archaeological digs and not one event in the Bible has been proven untrue. William F. Albright, William F. Albright is one of the greatest archaeological minds that the United States of America has ever produced. William F. Albright has a PhD from Johns Hopkins University. He directed the oldest American Research Center of Near Eastern Studies in the Middle East. Upon his death, his impact in the field is so great that they renamed that American Center for Near Eastern Studies in the Middle East, the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research. The man is an expert in his field. Listen to what he said. Archaeology is a vast subject today having specialized faculties, institutions, textbooks, and specialized journals all around the world. In the last century, rationalist critics were of the general opinion that with the growth of this subject, the Bible will be disproved and rejected eventually. But just the opposite has happened. Things disputed by the critics have turned out to be the way they are described in the Bible. Now listen to the next sentence. The Bible history was confirmed like no other ancient book in the world. Also, there have been many cases when the wrong notions of the archaeologists were corrected by the Bible. There is at least one case in which a non-Christian archaeologist became a Christian when he saw the amazing accuracy of the Bible. I believe the Bible because it's historically accurate. Number three, I believe the Bible because it was written down by eyewitnesses. All of the New Testament, the vast majority of the Old Testament is written down by people who saw it with their own eyes, heard it with their own ears, experienced it firsthand themselves. These are not when you read the Bible. When you pick it up and read it, I want you to understand something. I hope you never read the Bible the same way again. When you pick the Bible up and read it, you are reading something that has been documented from antiquity as a reliable, credible source. When you read the Bible, you're reading something that through 23,000 archaeological digs has been proven to be accurate historically. And when you're reading the Bible with that kind of credibility supporting it, you are reading the writings of people who saw it with their own eyes, heard it with their own ears. These are first-hand eyewitness testimonies. Now, I'm a big fan of the crime drama on TV. I love a good crime drama, and I've loved it. My dad raised me. That's all I've ever watched. I think on television. I mean, all the way back to Quincy and Colombo. I mean, all I've ever watched is crime dramas going up. And the greatest of them all, Andy Griffith, right? I mean, I've watched all the crime dramas. Today, I'm fascinated by CSI and law and order and the mentalist and all these crime dramas. I love watching them, but you know what will run a crime drama really quick? I mean, the show is over as soon as the credible eyewitness shows up, right? I mean, you got a high witness. You may have a crime, but you got no more drama. Now, we've already unpacked intellectual credibility. From a historical scholarly standpoint, you have to accept at least even if you don't believe every, you have to say it's credible. These are eyewitnesses, and we don't have time to go into all the detail, but a lot of these eyewitnesses died for what they wrote. Now, it's one thing to believe a lie that's passed on to you from generation to generation, and you die for that lie. We see it happen in the name of religion all the time. It's something else to be somebody who saw it yourself, and you know whether it's a lie or the truth. Listen to what John said in 1 John 1 verse 1. He said, "What was from the beginning? What we've heard, what we've seen with our eyes, what we looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life, and the life was manifested. And we have seen and testified and proclaimed to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us, what we have seen." How many times he says it over and over again, what we have seen, what we've heard, we've proclaimed to you so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowships with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, these things we write. It's not like Christians in the day that this was written were the majority opinion. They were the extreme minority of society. Wouldn't it make sense from a logical standpoint that if this minority sect in society rose up and wrote all this stuff down, wouldn't it just make sense that somebody in the majority would have written something down saying, "Nah." Here's the other side of that story. Did you know? And you study it for yourself. There is not one. There is not one credible that passes the test of historical criticism. There's not one credible writing from antiquity that debunks or deproves anything we have written in the Bible. I mean, just think about that from a logical standpoint, this little bitty group of people wrote all this stuff down, and 2,000 years later it's the most documented source of antiquity, and it's not like it's just more documented than the rebuttal. There is no rebuttal. Does that not strike you slightly odd? Number four, I believe the Bible because it comes from God. The Bible says of itself all scripture is inspired by God. It literally means it's God breathed, meaning that when we read the Bible, we're not simply reading the words of man. We're reading the very word of God himself, the understanding of the early church, the men that saw it with their own eyes and wrote it down. Here was their understanding that the Spirit of God rested on and in the prophets and apostles and spoke through them so that their words did not come from themselves, but from the very mouth of God. They spoke and wrote in the Holy Spirit. God used men to write the Bible, their personality, and their style, but the author was the Holy Spirit of God. Listen to the way 1 Peter wrote it down in 2 Peter 1, but know this first of all that no prophecy of scripture was a matter of one's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. Now I know what some of you are thinking. Here we go. I knew he'd get here eventually. Now he's claiming that this is the book from God. No. That's what the most documented source of antiquity that has stood the test of historical criticism that was written down by our witnesses says about itself. You've got to deal with that. You see, when you approach the scripture from an intellectual standpoint and you do the historical analysis and you research the data and you come to the conclusion that it is a reliable historical source. Now you've got a bigger problem. You've got to deal with what's on the inside. You don't have to like it. You don't even have to believe it, but I challenge you to do this. You better make sure the authority for what you believe stands up at least as good as the authority for what this book says. The book claims of itself it is from God. And it did just make that claim once or twice. It makes it over and over and over again in multiple places in the Bible. We're reading it here in 1 Timothy or 2 Timothy. We just read it in 2 Peter. It's claimed in other places, both old and New Testament, all through the book of Psalms. Well, is there any proof pastor that this is a book that comes from God? Is there any evidence to that fact? Well, of course. Let me give you two. The way this book was written. There are a lot of other books out there that claim to be books from God, right? But did you know there's something similar about all the other books that sets the Bible apart from it? You know what it is? All the other books were written by one individual or that one individual and their immediate followers in one time period. For example, the Quran. One of the largest religions in the world is the religion of Islam. Next weekend we're going to tackle the question, do all religions ultimately lead to heaven? I encourage you to come back next week, bring somebody with you. The religion of Islam claims to have a book from God called the Quran. I have sat down in the Middle East and had conversations with devout Muslims about the Quran. The Quran was supposedly written by Muhammad and messages that he personally received himself and wrote down. One man, one time period. Mormonism. Mormonism is in our city here in many places around the world. Mormonism claims to have a book, the Book of Mormon, that's also a book from God. The Book of Mormon was authored by one man, Joseph Smith, who claimed to have received a vision on tablets from an angel and he wrote it down and it's since been passed on to those that follow that faith. One author, one time period. The Bible, by comparison, was written down in 66 different books. On three different continents, Asia, Africa, and Europe. In three different languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, by 40 different authors over a span of 1500 years. Now I want you to think about that. You know what that means, right? They didn't all get together and compare notes and make sure we're all going to say the same thing. I mean, you would expect if one person in one time period sat down and wrote something they said was from God, you would expect that from beginning to end, that book would speak with consistency and yet none of the other books stand the test of historical criticism and the Bible written over a period of 1500 years, meaning that some of the authors did not even live in the same millennium with each other. From the book of Genesis, all the way to Revelation speaks with one consistent message of redemption from God through the person of Jesus Christ. What is the explanation for that? How do you describe that? Well, there's only one way all Scripture comes from God. There was another atheist by the name of Josh McDowell. When Josh McDowell was in college, he was confronted by some Christians about the gospel. And Josh McDowell was angered by what they were saying. And so Josh McDowell, as an atheist, dedicated 1000 hours of his life. Five months, he said, "I am going to devote my life for 1000 hours to disproving the claims of Christianity and showing once and for all that the Bible is a book of fairy tales and myths." So for 1000 hours, the atheist Josh McDowell studied it. And I want you to look on the screen at his conclusion. The Bible was written over a period of about 1500 years in various places stretching all the way from Babylon to Rome. The human authors included over 40 persons from various stations of life, kings, peasants, poets, herdsmen, fishermen, scientists, farmers, priests, pastors, tent makers and governors. It was written in a wilderness, a dungeon inside palaces and prisons on lonely islands and in military battles, yet it speaks with agreement and reliability on hundreds of controversial subjects. Yet it tells one story from beginning to end, God's salvation of man through Jesus Christ, no person could have possibly conceived of or written such a word. At the end of his 1000 hours of study, Josh McDowell devoted his life to Jesus Christ and has spent the last 40 years traveling to college campuses all over the world, defending the authority and the truth of the Bible and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Millions of people have read and heard the writings and teachings of Josh McDowell. You can go study him and look at his story on your own. You can find it for yourself. You don't have to take my word for it. There's evidence that this is a book from God by the way it was written, but there's also evidence this is a book from God by what was written in it. Have you read this book lately? I mean, when you understand the historical accuracy of the Bible and how it stood the test of historical criticism and that it was written down by our witnesses, man, there's some stuff in here that's hard to swallow, some of it literally, right? Jonah and a well, I mean, there's some stuff in here that's like, what? But probably the most amazing of all the things contained in the Bible that it is just all inspiring are the prophecies concerning the coming of a Messiah into the world that were recorded in the Old Testament. And I wish I had more time this morning, but in the Old Testament, there were over 50 specific prophecies concerning the Messiah who would come. These prophecies were written down between 200 and 1500 years before the Messiah came into the world and they were specific prophecies that were so detailed he had no control over them. I mean, it wasn't like one day he'll show up wearing a blue shirt. That's not the kind of stuff I'm talking about. I'm talking about hundreds of years before Jesus came into the world. Men sat down and wrote specifically things like in the book of Isaiah, he would be born of a virgin. That's a pretty tall order. You don't see that every day. In the book of Micah, 600 years before Jesus was born, Micah said what city he would be born in. I don't know about you, but I didn't have any control over where I was going to be born. Did you get to pick yours? I mean, if I did, I'd probably pick Alabama, but I didn't get to pick Alabama. I didn't have a choice over that. In the book of Genesis in Jeremiah, over a thousand years before Jesus was born, they specified his ancestry that he would be born of the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from the tribe of Judah in the house of David. Did you get to pick your grandparents or your great grandparents or your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents? I mean, this is stuff that was totally out of his control. 600 years, 600 years, don't miss this, 600 years before crucifixion was invented as a means of execution. In the 22nd Psalm, the Psalmist describes that the Messiah will be put to death through the means of crucifixion and he describes it in detail. Listen, 600 years before the world ever saw anybody crucify. The prophecies that we're talking about from the Old Testament are so incredible and so awe-inspiring. If you take all 50 of them and add them together, mathematicians would tell you it is a mathematical impossibility for one person to fulfill all of them. Now, to give you some kind of box to put that in, I want to ask a question this morning. What are the odds? We live in Vegas, right? Let's just take the eight most difficult prophecies. I mean, the things that were the most far-fetched, the things like I've already talked about. What are the odds of one man fulfilling just eight? Well, there's a mathematician named Peter Stoner who wrote a book called Science Speaks and in that book he did the equation and he said the odds are one out of ten to the 17th power or one out of one hundred quadrillion. Now, that's the odds of one person fulfilling just eight. Now, I can tell that number didn't just wow you this morning, so let me give you a box to put it in, all right? In his book, he gave us an illustration. A hundred quadrillion silver dollars would cover the state of Texas two feet deep. Now, let's mark one of them with a red X, stir the pot, blindfold you, and say take off. You got one shot walking the state of Texas in two feet deep of silver dollars to grab the one with the red X on it. And Jesus didn't just fulfill eight. He fulfilled them all. How do you explain that from the most documented source of antiquity? Well, I'll just tell you what it says about itself. All scripture is inspired by God. Let me quickly ask and answer a second question. I hope we've answered the question, can I trust the Bible? Here's the second one. Is the Bible applicable to my life today? In our text, Timothy writes and he says all scripture or Paul writes to Timothy and says all scripture is inspired by God and then he says, and it is profitable. It's profitable. It's a word that means useful, helpful, advantageous. You see, sometimes we look at this book with a sense of negativity. God gave us this book to help us. He gave us this book to be advantageous to us. He gave us this book to answer those questions that we are wrestling with. Let me just quickly list you four ways the Bible is useful in your life and I'm not going to spend near as much time on these as I did the first part. I'm just going to list them for you. Number one, the Bible teaches me the truth. Paul writes and he says it's profitable. It's useful for teaching. It's a word that means to communicate authoritative truth. We may not agree or always like what the Bible has to say, but here's what the Bible says. In the Bible, we find the answers to life from the author of life. It teaches us the truth. Number two, the Bible convicts me of wrong. He says it's profitable for teaching and for reproof. It's that idea of the Bible as a mirror. It's that idea of it's convincing us of error. You look in the mirror, what do you look at when you see in the mirror? You see what's wrong, right? This morning before you came to church, you looked in the mirror and probably said, "Oh, my Lord, how am I going to get all this together in time to be there for the first song?" Right? The mirror shows us what's not right. Let me tell you why God gave us the Bible. God gave us the Bible to teach us the truth about life and He gave us the Bible to show us the things in our lives that were wrong, but listen to me. Not wrong as a condemning looking down my nose at you, you're wrong, but wrong in that I made life for you to enjoy it and you're getting out of bounds and if you get out of bounds, it's not going to help you. It's going to hurt you. Let me show you that. Number three, the Bible restores my life and sets me on a path to success. It's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction. The word correction means to set up straight or to set up right. You see, the Bible doesn't just teach us the truth and show us what's wrong. The Bible gives us the answers to make it right. When the Bible says, "Don't do something," the Bible says, "Don't hurt yourself." When the Bible says, "Do something," the Bible says, "Help yourself." Number four, the Bible's God's primary tool in producing Christ in me. It's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. That word training is a word that has to do with discipline or instruction. It's the idea of training or raising up a child and producing character in that child. The Bible says of itself that God gave us this book specifically as followers of Jesus. And let me just, I know my time's gone, but let me just say this. Listen to me. If you're a Christian today, don't let today's message be fodder for you to use to win an intellectual argument with somebody. Let me tell you what this message y'all to do for you today. It ought to break your heart over the apathetic attitude we have towards the book God inspired and gave to us as his people. We have books, we have Bibles on the shelves of our homes that never get opened in case there's unless there's a crisis. In many situations, we should just put the Bible behind a glass case that says break in case of emergency. May today's message not inspire you to go win an argument. May today's message inspire you to passionately pursue the truth of God's word daily. Here's the last question I'm going to close. What then is the message of this book? I mean, if we take an honest look at it, it stands the test of time. It's the most documented source of antiquity. It's been proven historically accurate. It's written down by our witnesses and based on all that evidence, it also says it's a book that comes from God and there's actually evidence in the book that it is a book that comes from God. Can you give me some insight into what the message of the book is? Well, there's a cliff notes section in here in the Gospel of John chapter 3 verse 16. It's kind of the whole book in one sentence and I want you to listen to what it says. And I want you to hear this in light of the evidence that I've laid out for you today. This isn't what I'm telling you. This isn't what the friend who invited you here today is telling you. This is what the most credible, authoritative source that we have today from God is saying to you. Here it is. For God so loved world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. You see, here's what the book says. No matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter what you've done. God loves you and he loves you so much that even though you and I had sinned against the God who wrote this, even though we'd sinned against the God who made us, even though we deserve to die and spend eternity separated from this God, this book says that that same God loved you and me anyway and he loved us so much that he took all of our sin on himself in the person of his son Jesus Christ. And on the cross Jesus Christ died for our sin but he did not stay dead. This book says that on that Sunday morning Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. He defeated death, hell and the grave and because he lives the Bible says now you and I can turn from our sin. We can put our faith in the gospel that is written in this book. We can be forgiven of our sin and we can be given by grace a personal relationship with the God who wrote it. Listen to me, that's not my idea, that's not the philosophy or strategy of this church, that's what the book says. It's what the book says. So my question for you this morning as we close, have you ever embraced the person of Jesus Christ and his gospel that is found in the pages of this book? you [BLANK_AUDIO]