Why I Believe Part 2

Good evening, looks like we might get a little snow tonight, right? That's okay, I'm fine with that. You know, let me just open in prayer, just that song, Lead Me to the Cross, I mean I wish they could just go 20 more minutes, because that's what this is all about, you know, that's why we're here, that's why we preach, that's why we teach, that's why we worship, it's all about the cross. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray that tonight your word would be honored, Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit would convict, that your Holy Spirit would draw, dear Heavenly Father, Lord, bring back the prodigal son and the wayward daughter, Lord, just go out in the conviction and the power of your word, Lord, I pray that you just use me as a humble vessel, Lord, to preach your word, Lord, with clarity and direction, Lord, I pray that lives would be changed tonight, and would lead us to the cross, in Jesus' name, amen.

I might briefly recap, because I see some new faces, and that's kind of the whole reason why we recap, is with Saturday nights, we have 30, 40 people gone, and 30, 40 people new people, and so it's kind of interesting dilemmas I've explained before, but we've been in a series on answers for a confused church, and what we're doing is we're contending for truth in a post-modern culture. I mean, if you look at how many times Jesus said, I tell you the truth, it was something like 75 times in the New Testament, he said, verily, verily, I tell you the truth, but our culture wants to oppose the truth, but the church is called to stand for the truth, and having done all, stand, stand on the word of God. So we're in a series on answers for a confused church, and we talked about judging, right, when do you judge, in what situations do you judge, do you judge gossip, do you judge backbiting, do you judge, we talked about judging church discipline, we talked about judging elders, or choosing leaders, and the last point that we were talking about judging on was last week, we talked about judging sound doctrine, and that's one thing our culture doesn't like us to do, they don't like us to judge sound doctrine, and what I mean by that is a correct understanding of God.

We are called to do that, we are commanded to do that, to preach sound doctrine, to stand up for sound doctrine, Paul said, I've been appointed to defend the gospel. See, a lot of times we don't want to offend anybody, we don't want to upset anybody, we don't want to say anything controversial, just keep our mouth, you know, shut, but the Bible says, no, contend for sound doctrine, because we talked about last week, a proper understanding of God is fundamental. How you perceive God is fundamental to your faith, do you think God doesn't want us to have a correct understanding of Him, or His nature, I mean, all the different religions out there, and that's what, you know, with Christianity, when we say, you know, Christ is the only way, the only truth, the only life, sometimes we say it apologetically, you know, like, I know it's, yeah, but, you know, that's what, we're supposed to say it, He is the only way, the only truth, and the only life, no man can come to the Father except through Him, we don't have to apologize for it, we don't have to candy coat it, we don't have to run from it, Christ declared it, Paul declared it, why can't we?

We are commanded, and we referenced those two scriptures last week, if you have them in your notes, or you should have them in your notes, the importance of sound doctrine, Titus, he's talking about, Paul's talking about leaders, that we're to hold fast, holding fast the faithful word, as he has been taught, Titus 1.9, that he may be able, here's that word, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict, wow, the God of the Bible is actually saying, we are called, we are commanded to exhort, which is to challenge, we're called to challenge doctrine that's not sound, when they said that God is in, you know, in the trees, and in the planet, and God's within us, we're called to say, no, He's not, we're the creation, He's the creator, He transcends us, He doesn't live in a

little box here, He has created us, but we tend to worship the creation, instead of the creator, as we learned in Romans 1.8, so he said, that's the importance of exhorting, which is, you're basically convincing, and then you convict those who contradict, see, when you speak the truth in love, when you genuinely speak it in love, and you say, no, that's not correct, and here's why, that is supposed to convict the person, and they begin to think about, boy, maybe I've missed it, or maybe I didn't get it right, and I talked last week about not putting down certain groups, but I gave the example of the Jehovah Witness, and the Mormons, when they come to the door, I can't just agree, I have to say, here's where you're wrong, here's where you're in error, a lot of what you're teaching directly

opposes the Bible, if I keep silent and say nothing, by saying nothing, I say something, you realize that by saying nothing, we say something, I talked to you about the time I was at that Mormon Bishop's house for an hour and a half, and just listened, okay, and that makes sense, now let me show you the Scriptures and what they say, and they don't want to hear it, it's time to leave, it's time to get out of the house, why, because it's convicting, it's convicting, the truth can stand the test of time, truth does not run from questioning, it invites it, have you ever thought about that, people say, I don't know, I'm questioning the Bible, let's sit down, let's talk, but when you question a different belief or a different religion, they don't want to talk, they're not open for that, they

don't want to hear it, they don't want to debate it, why, because it's not true, anything that is not true is a lie, and I can say that in love, we have friends, I've told you before, there are Mormon, Hindu, Buddhist, Jehovah's Witness, we have friends, we take them to dinner, have lunch, friends, but we can't fellowship, you see what I mean, we can't be united for the cause of Christ, because what a person believes directly opposes God's word, and don't get upset at me, that's what this says, not me, not my opinion, it's what the word of God says, that's why we're supposed to do that, we're supposed to exhort and convict those who contradict, well, contradict what, well, and I also talked about Galatians 1.8, but if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel than what you have

heard, let him be accursed, and that's a strong word, it's that word anathema in the Greek, let him be accursed, it's an accursed thing, so if we preach any other gospel, any other gospel, the Bible says, they're to be accursed, anathema, why is that, because any other gospel leads people astray, any other gospel, any other teaching that opposes God leads people astray, you might say, Shane, what is truth, well, John MacArthur would say, truth is that which is consistent with the mind, will, glory, and being of God, just remember that, truth is whatever is consistent with God, God's word says, man is sinful, man has fallen, the world says, no, we're great, aren't we such good people, we're actually gods ourselves, no we're not, so whatever God's truth says, the world often opposes it,

that's why he said, if anybody preaches any other gospel, and I don't always like to do it, but when error comes up, we are commanded to defend the truth, the problem is, a lot of people don't know how to defend the truth, so they get tongue tied, you know, what the Bible just says, and I believe it, and that settles it, well that's good, but you have to know what you believe and why you believe it, and I want to go back to that verse for a minute, just take a rabbit trail, he said, he's telling Titus, hold fast, because this is on my heart, it's been on my heart all week, hold fast, that you may be able by sound doctrine, by sound doctrine, by sound teaching, you may be able to convince those who contradict, and that's what's happening in our culture today, that's why young adults by the

millions are leaving the church, that's why when kids get into universities, they're being taught error and they're being drifting away from the faith, because they're not being taught sound doctrine, when a professor laughs at them for believing in a creator, they should be able to defend that position and say, no sir, we did not come from a premortal ooze, we're not two planets hit and we evolved, we should be able to defend that, the problem is kids are going in not knowing how to defend their faith, not knowing, oh I don't know, I was taught that, no, they should be able to defend in the universities go, but now they're being mocked and laughed at and ridiculed, if you say you're a Christian in the university, you'll be downgraded, you'll be scorned, you'll be ridiculed, the problem

is we're raising up a whole generation that does not know the word of God, that's why Paul said parents, parents raise your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, that word admonition is notothea in the Greek, it means to put in their mind the things of God, to put in their mind the conviction of the Holy Spirit, to put into them the things of God, that's your job, it's not to go earn six figures and build a house and have tons of cars and take vacations, it's to plant the things of God into the next generation, and I'm getting tired of people complaining, oh the church is this and we're losing a whole generation, yeah because we're not putting into them the things of God, we're not planting into their mind the things of God, as a man thinketh in his heart so is he, that's

what's happening, and I just listen to radio programs all the time that the universities, I mean kids are just going in there and it says kids are losing their faith, you don't really lose your faith, the problem is your foundation wasn't strong enough, they should be able to go in there and almost laugh at the professor, underneath they're like, oh I can't believe they believe this and here's why, look at creation, look at archeologically, we talked about that last week, scientifically, prophetically, you can prove this to make professors so upset that they just get mad and tell you to leave, because you can hit every single one of their arguments if we're teaching children, and a lot of people might say, I don't even know myself, that's why, turn off American Idol and get into this,

turn off Desert Housewives, I don't know if it's still on, but get into this, I mean let's be honest, we're entertaining ourselves to death, I've got a whole sermon on that, so I won't waste my time on that one, but think about it, and a lot of people, somebody came up to me I think a few weeks back and said, why do Christians, I mean they use such strong words like cult and heresy, but let's just think about a cult, if you just define what a cult is, it's any group or denomination that opposes the historical tenets of the Christian faith, that's all it is, if they don't teach Christ alone, saved by grace, God, if you don't have a right relationship, it is a cult, it's leading people astray, so it's not some weird word that we just pull out sometimes, it just means any group that does not

teach the foundations of the Christian faith, that is a cult, that's a cult, when you say you're the only right church and you've got this new understanding of the gospel, and a lot of the Bible is good, but you're a cult, it's okay to say that, and heresy just means a self-willed opinion that opposes the truth, in other words, if somebody has an opinion that opposes the truth, and they're teaching that, that's heretical, the problem is, we got it backwards, when you hear words like William Tyndale and Martin Luther and John Huss and Whitecliffe and a lot of the reformers, many of those guys were burned at the stake because they were called heretics, the problem was, the church got it wrong, those men were bringing people back to the word of God, not further away from it, because they

wanted to get the word of God into the people's language in their tongue, they didn't want the church to just have this secret teaching and people couldn't learn, they were called heretics, but they're actually, that was a long terminology, because they were leading people back to the truth, many of the reformers in the early church, and you get into the Spanish Inquisitions and what was done in the name of Christianity, it's a mess, so just think about that, heretic and cult, I mean, I know they're kind of weird words, but that's all they mean, is groups that directly oppose what God's revealed word has said, you might say, well Shane, who's to say you're right, well the Bible, the Bible, this, how do you really know you're the right way, what about all these other groups, aren't they

sincere, yeah, but you can be sincerely wrong, think about that, and we talked last week about, archeologically, there's never been any find, archeologically, that has disproved the Bible, all these discoveries have proved the Bible, scientifically, prophetically, all these things prove the Bible, think about that, and we talked last week, you have to have a right understanding of God, truth invites questioning, and that's why we all just can't get along, all these different groups and movements and ecumenical, and let's get all the religions together, you can't, it doesn't work, because there's one faith, unity of the body, unity of Christ, unity of sound doctrine, just remember that, you guys hear this word all the time, unity, unity, why can't we be united, well unity comes from having

a proper understanding of God's word, we are united in this, and then when I'm united in this, I can be united with my fellow man, but if somebody teaches or believes things that directly oppose this, there isn't unity there, there's no unity at all, so let's get into what, let's get into this week, oh before I do that, I wanted to remind you guys, remember, all religions can be wrong, but all religions cannot be right, let me say that again, all religions can be wrong, but they cannot all be right, think about that, a lot of them claim exclusivity, right, they're the only right way, but they can't all be right, there can only be one way, one truth, one life, it's not like God created all this and just said, okay now go have fun, do whatever you want to do, so we showed how this is

accurate scientifically, prophetically, the consistency, if you guys weren't here last week, I encourage you to get a CD, we have them of last week's message because I go into more detail about the accuracy of the Bible and the conviction of the Holy Spirit, we feel that conviction before salvation, we feel that confirmation after salvation, the Spirit in us cries Abba Father, we see the consistency from Genesis to Revelation, there's so many truths there, that's why I believe, that was last week's message, why do I believe, why can I stand up here with the authority of God's word and proclaim this in the power of the Holy Spirit, because it's true, it's true, now if you have your Bibles, open to 2nd Timothy, 2nd Timothy, I'm going to go all the way to verse 16, 2nd Timothy verse 16, if

you don't have your Bibles you can just listen, I'll read it, all scripture, not some, not chosen portions, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable, here's the key, here's why the Bible was written, if any of you want to know, all scripture is given by inspiration of God, I hear a lot of people turning, I'm still in 2nd Timothy chapter 3 actually, verse 16, I was just checking to see if you were paying attention, page 1588 in my Bible, that doesn't help huh, ok 2nd Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and it is profitable, here's the reason we preach and we read and we teach, it is profitable for doctrine, which is a correct understanding of God, for reproof, to correct people, which is just kind of a different word for

correction, for instruction in righteousness, in other words how to live, come out from among them, be holy, be set apart, obedience brings power, think about that, obedience to God's word brings power to your life, if any of you right now are feeling distant from God, Bible seems boring, church is irrelevant, I'm not willing to worship, I'm just standing there wondering when it's over, it's because many times there's no obedience occurring to God's word, when you are an open rebellion to the word of God, there is no peace, there is no comfort, hard is the way of the transgressor, obedience brings power, when you submit your life to the power of the gospel, when you lead holy lives, now I'm not talking about perfection, I wouldn't be up here if I was, but I'm talking about those who want

to honor God in their holy lives, set apart, feeding their minds on the things that are pure and noble and honest, not making terrible choices all day long, you'll have the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit because obedience brings power.

Let me go back again, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Why Paul? Well, because the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. And then he says, Timothy, I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead in his appearing in his kingdom.

See, make no mistake about it, he will judge us, it's not this mild, meek, turn the other cheek Jesus, it is like John said, I saw heaven open and behold a white horse and he who sat on it was called faithful and true and he judges the nations, he judges us. A.W. Tozer said many years ago, I love him because he is my savior, but I fear him because he is my judge. See, that's a healthy respect and a healthy balance of God.

Paul said he is going to judge at his appearing and at his kingdom. So he said, because of this Timothy, because the souls of man are on the line, preach the word. In a nutshell he said, preach the word Timothy, be ready in and out of season for the time will come and it's here now when they will not endure sound doctrine.

The world doesn't want to hear it, they want to shut it up, shut your mouth, all these laws are being passed. I bet you'll see the Bible begin to be, they'll want to get rid of it, they'll want to get rid of Christian radio. I'm not being alarmist, I'm just being real.

They want to silence us. So that's why he said, Timothy, be ready in and out of season for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but they will heap up for themselves teachers that tell me what I want to hear. Tell me what I want to hear.

Tell me it's okay to do all this stuff and say all this stuff. If we don't come to church sometimes and not get convicted, something is wrong. When I'm putting messages together, I get convicted.

I need to be nicer to my wife and my kids. Conviction is good, that's what the Bible does. It convicts.

And then my job is to come up here and preach and convict some more. And as I'm preaching, I get convicted. So if conviction is a bad thing, always remember this, the Bible convicts before it saves you.

It condemns you before it frees you. Always. There's always conviction and condemnation, not for bad, but to bring us to repentance.

Who's going to repent if they're not convicted? Nobody. Who's going to put their trust in Christ if they're not convicted and challenged? Nobody. Nobody.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires. See, here's what people do. Tell me what I want to hear, Oprah.

Some of the guys on there, I don't know to laugh or cry. I don't watch it, I heard, okay? But according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, basically what does that mean? That means tell me what I want to hear. What's the newest craze? What's going on? Tell me.

I'm looking for teachers who tell me what I want to hear. That's why you have to be careful. Just because a church is a mega church and huge doesn't mean the gospel is being preached.

Sometimes it could mean he's telling them what they want to hear. So they look for those type of people in the last days. And they look for teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and they'll be turned aside to following fables.

Think about that. He's saying in the last day people are not going to want to hear this. Does this sound like our culture? Don't tell me what God's Word says.

Don't tell me what the Bible says. I don't want to hear any of that junk. Tell me that I'm a nice, good person.

Tell me that God is within me. Tell me that I'm going to be a God someday. Tell me all these wonderful things.

It's a lie from the pit of hell. They will not endure sound doctrine, so people look for people to tell them what they want to hear. So back to why I believe with that versus the foundation.

You might say, well Shane, all scripture is given by God. Yeah, but who put the Bible together? Who's to say you're right? What about all these other? Well, I'm getting there, trust me. But get next week's CD for sure because I cover a lot of ground up to this point.

Now I'm often asked, well how would God communicate? Think about this. People say, well how do you know? I mean, how would God communicate? And let's think about this. How would a God, a creator, Jesus said he's not a person, he's spirit.

And those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Here's that word again, truth. Jesus said, I tell you the truth 75 times.

This was written so that you would know the truth. You think there's something to that? See, but we suppress the truth. We don't want to hear it.

But the truth, it's the truth that sets us free. So what God would do is, I mean people say, well what about audibly, dreams, visions, the written word, all these different things. It always has to do with the mind.

God communicates through man. I mean if you study the mind, the ability to process information from years ago and be able to bring it up, respond, taking it, I mean the mind is absolutely amazing. That's why Paul said, oh wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of sin and death? But with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

See, our mind, that's how God would communicate. So in the Old Testament you saw visions and dreams and God maybe spoke audibly. Why? Because the mind, I see a vision or have a vision or a dream or audibly, it's filtered through my mind, is it not? For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.

So that's how God's going to communicate and what better way than reading, processing through our mind that we can pass down. I mean to me it makes perfect sense. Like why doesn't he just write something on the sky? Probably because we wouldn't believe it.

Oh that's not God, that's some aliens. And we blame everything now. I mean I told you guys a few months ago, another rabbit trail but it's alright, they're interviewing some of the top minds in the world today wondering that they don't believe in God.

Well how do we get here? And Gary, remember we were talking about this. Well I think aliens brought us in on the back of crystals. What? What? You want to know why? Because this convicts.

They don't want there to be a Lord because they want to be Lord of their own life. That's the bottom line. That's the bottom line.

They don't want to give up the so-called good life. They don't want to bow to their need to a creator. And that's what happens.

And what happens, we talked about last week, is when we confirm this archeologically, scientifically, prophetically, now we're going to get into the validity of this. So I believe that's why God used the Bible. It's a written word that we read and through our mind we can understand it.

And it's passed down. We say, well who's to say the Bible's correct? Well I'm glad you asked. First let's look at the Old Testament.

I won't spend too much time here because the Old Testament really isn't under as much scrutiny as the New Testament. A lot of people doubt the Bible. They say, I don't know, it's put together by a bunch of guys, I mean, it's good for you, it's got some good teaching in it.

But if you look at the Old Testament isn't as, you know, the Da Vinci Code and all that garbage, if I may use that term. There's another book out, the Da Vinci Deception. Why don't you read it to kind of balance that one off.

But they talked about really questioning the New Testament. But the Old Testament, all you really need to know is what Jesus said, for it is written. Jesus confirmed the Old Testament.

He confirmed the law and the prophets. He said, I didn't come to abolish that, I came to fulfill it. Jesus quoted the Old Testament continually.

And in the Old Testament we see Genesis, we see the creation of man, the fall of man, the redemption of man, the chosen people. We see Exodus, those people leaving the land of Egypt. We see numbers, them being numbered and led astray.

We see Deuteronomy, or Leviticus I put, I forgot about, but Leviticus talks about the Levitical priesthood. That's why God initiated that, because without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. So all this is consistent.

And then you get to Deuteronomy where God says, if you honor my commandments, if you obey my voice, if you hearken diligently, I will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And then we get into Judges and Joshua and Ruth and 1 Samuel, Kings and Chronicles that talk about the children of Israel. And then the prophets, the major prophets, who called the children of Israel back.

So we see a consistent theme there, and all Jesus did was confirming. He said, it is written, you shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Haven't you read? Isn't it written? To me that's proof enough.

If Jesus quoted it, that's good. Not only that, we talked about a lot of the archaeological discoveries are found from the New Testament. If you read some of these books on science and how they see that the universe is expanding and that the sun is actually decreasing.

Who started the sun? Who started the universe? All this stuff is so consistent that you almost have to have more faith not to believe it, to be quite honest with you. So you look at the Old Testament, it really isn't disputed. Christ confirmed it.

Not only that, the Jewish tradition has passed it down. We talked about the Dead Sea Scrolls that they found, the book of Isaiah, the same book of Isaiah we read today. But then if you get into the New Testament, the New Testament, how do we know what we're reading is valid? Well, first you have to remember, it is consistent with the Old Testament.

It's not like we have the Old Testament and then this New Testament that really, okay, the Old Testament, the New Testament reveals what was already foretold in the Old Testament. They go together, they're interwoven. You can't really read one without the other.

I would encourage you to always be reading in the Old and always be reading in the New Testament. Now with the New Testament, this is what eyewitnesses, you could not, it could not be a book in the Bible without eyewitnesses that actually saw the event. We're like saying, well, Shane, they could just say that.

But remember from last week, these are men who actually died, died, hung upside down, beaten beyond recognition, had their brains gashed out, drugged across, because they wrote a lie? Absolutely not. So they had to be eyewitnesses. All of them were eyewitnesses.

Paul, you might say, well, he came later. He did, but I believe he is the twelfth disciple. They chose Matthias or Matthias, however you want to pronounce it.

What happened is when Judas hung himself, killed himself, they said, okay, the Scripture must be fulfilled, going back to the Old Testament again, that another take his place. So they said, well, gosh, I mean, let's just pick somebody. Isn't that like what we always do? We don't count on God.

Let's just do it ourselves. So they cast lots, pick this guy we never hear of again. But then Paul has his Damascus Road experience, knocked off his beast and said, Lord, what must I do? And he met the risen Savior and he wrote most of the New Testament.

So he was an eyewitness to this. Not only that, not only do we look at the eyewitness, we look at the message. See, this, to me, this was one of the things that really did it for me.

This message reaches all people, all times, all cultures, all creeds, all continents. This is truth. To the African jungle, to the tundra, to the shores of California.

I mean, this message, if this was just the invention of men, they would have wrote it based on where they lived. I mean, it reaches everybody. The truth is the truth.

The next thing that's interesting is we have more proof of the New Testament than any other ancient writings, period. As a matter of fact, there's 24,000 old manuscripts we have. And the closest second is Homer's Iliad with 643.

We don't question those guys. Oh, great story of Homer's Iliad. But we have 24,000 manuscripts of the New Testament in our possession.

Also, the early church fathers quoted the Bible. These are guys like Justin Martyr, Polycarp, Jerome, Ignatius, Irenaeus, all these guys that came right after the disciples in the first century, second century. They quoted the New Testament, the Old Testament.

They quoted the Bible. It's been said that we could probably write the entire Bible. Now, I didn't verify this, so let me say, I'm speculating, but I think going off of memory, I think we could write the entire Bible, not just the New Testament, by the writings of the early church fathers.

If you didn't even have the Bible, you just had the writings of early church fathers, you could grab their commentaries, you could grab everything they wrote, and you'd be able to put the Bible together. So they confirmed it. I mean, the guys who lived that time, they confirmed it as well.

And then what comes up a lot is the Council of Hippo in AD 393 and the Council of Carthage in AD 397. This is what a lot of that Da Vinci book was based upon. A council came together and they said, we'll pick these gospels, we'll pick these books, they give us more power, they put down men and women.

It's like, they chose all these books at this council, and that's how we got the Bible. But all the council did was they recognized these are the 27 books that have been authentic and have been taught since the conception of the church. That's all the council did.

They didn't choose all these books, they just said, these are authentic. These are the manuscripts that have been passed down for the last 300 years. So you see the difference? It wasn't they were like, choosing all these different, well, let's take the gospel, no, we don't want the gospel of Thomas, we don't want the gospel of Judas, let's take this and gospel.

No, they just said, these 27 books are what the church has been teaching for many, many centuries. And they just kind of put their stamp of approval on that. Also unique in its survival, no other book has been challenged, burned, tried to get rid of than the Bible.

I mean, if that doesn't tell you something, nothing else does. I mean, they tried to get rid of this book over and over and over again. Now, we're going to get into an interesting topic.

Translations, or how do we get the new, the Bible and how do you know it's all reliable? But what happened is, right after Jesus' time, you know, maybe 80, probably 80, 90, 80, 100, 110, 120, all these letters that we read, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Philippians, all these letters went out. That's how they got word of reading and it got through our mind and that's how they got these letters out. And also they translated them for missionary purposes like we do today.

Greek, you hear Martin Luther, he did the German New Testament. You've got, you'll hear the Latin Vulgate from Jerome, it's where the Roman Catholic Church gets some of their stuff. And all these, you know, but these are later.

But earlier, the manuscripts went out. All the Gospels, the messages went out. And they started to translate them in their own language.

So what happened is all, just picture all the books of the Bible are out there. This side, you guys are going to be, they break it down between the Alexandrian text, the Byzantine, and the Western. But that might get a little confusing.

So we'll say the minority and the majority. And what that means is, in this region, from Alexandria in Egypt, they collected all these manuscripts of the Bible. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, they have all these manuscripts.

Okay, so I'm going to take these, all these manuscripts and put them up here. Okay, follow so far? And then over here, it's a different region. It's the majority of the text.

This group has a lot more manuscripts. They've got a lot more of them. It's really the Alexandrian school of text and the Antioch, where Paul was from.

It's all this region. They put these manuscripts together. So here's a whole bunch more.

Now remember though, this is the majority. So there's more of these. There's more of these.

But these are closer to the cross. What I mean by that is, even though these are in the minority, they were written closer to when Jesus actually lived. These were written later.

And there's few discrepancies. No discrepancies whatsoever on anything foundational. Nothing.

Not even, no foundational doctrine is in question. They'll say things like, one translation will say, Jesus did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. The other translation will say, Jesus came to call sinners.

They leave out the word repentance, but it's implied in the verses preceding. So let me bring this home. This side, the majority, is where we get the King James, New King James, New American Standard Bibles.

It's called the received text. What has been received, the majority text. So we have all these manuscripts from this region.

That's where we get our Bible from. You've got teachers like John MacArthur, Jack Hayford, very solid people using the majority text. But then, now you hear the NIV Bible, or the ESV, the English Standard Version, who Alistair Begg uses.

You might have heard that name. John Piper endorsed it. Mark Driscoll endorsed it.

So you've got some heavy hitters on this side as well too. These manuscripts were closer to the cross. That's where the translations came from.

So there's a little variation from the text, certain things and certain words. What happens is, that's why some groups say that the King James is the only, please don't get me wrong, I actually love the King James. I memorize verses from the King James.

I love the language. Not by might nor by power, but my spirit sayeth the Lord. It's a little tongue twister.

Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit sayeth the Lord. Blessed is the man who walketh not in the countenance of the ungodly. Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.

The anger of man worketh not the righteousness of God. I love the King James, but there are some proponents who say it is the only text. These other ones are in error.

This side is in error. But the problem is, and I brought this little book, the reason is the King James only, we had to translate for our modern language. That's why the 1611 King James has been translated, updated to the new King James.

And then you have the New American Standard. All these versions use the same text. But then these other versions use the NIV and ESV, they use the minority manuscripts.

So in a nutshell, there are two different New Testaments per se. There are slight differences, just enough to where it's going to require a new translation. So the NIV writers go off of these manuscripts.

The New King James or King James only, they go off of these manuscripts. Does that make sense? Maybe, okay. And then there's something else called dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence.

And that means, are you taking the Bible and translating it word for word for word? That's dynamic equivalence. I'm sorry, that's formal equivalence. That means you're taking the word for word.

Both of these are word for word, so that's good. But then the other one is a thought for thought, like the New Living Translation or the Message Bible. Even Eugene Peterson, in his introduction to the Message Bible, will say, this is not an exhaustive study Bible, this is just his opinion on it.

So if you do have the Message Bible or the New Living Translation, I would encourage not to use those for study purposes. Those are just more like a commentary, what do people think, but actually get the Bibles that translate word for word, not thought for thought. Because thought for thought can kind of differ.

Say, well, I think he meant this, or I think he meant that. So, but back to the King James Only debate. There are some groups that believe that the King James Bible is the only Bible that we're in error.

I'm in error by reading the New King James. And I just want to bring this book that reads, actually shows that the King James Bible questions, it doesn't question, but the clarity of Christ's deity is only in six, well let me read the whole thing. In James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, there's a similar chart which he compares the King James, the NIV, and the New American Standard.

Of twelve references to Christ's deity, the New American Standard is clear ten of twelve times, the NIV is clear eleven of twelve times, and the King James is only clear six of twelve times. And these are people just looking at the clarity of the text. In other words, the people that believe that King James Only is the only way, they don't, they think that all the other versions are corrupt, and that we're corrupting, we don't really talk about Christ's deity, we teach the perpetual virginity of Mary, and all these different things, when really it's not the case.

They come from the same manuscript. See, and that's one of the things that the King James version, look at all these words that they took out. They used to have, if we read the King James, you'll see words like silel, caotes, sacbut, brigdes, crucabat, gleed, nitrate, almug, neasing, trowel, curl, ambagus, clops of fat, wimples, hole's mouth, ouches of gold, and then he said, I fetched a compass, which doesn't mean to go find a compass, but it means to turn around.

So you look at all these words that we don't use anymore. We don't know what they, I mean, I don't know what these words were, do you? Without looking them up. So that's why the new translations, they begin to put our own modern vernacular.

The problem is, there was a homosexual on the NIV board, but she was for literary purposes only, not linguistics, and once they found it out, she was asked to leave, so she didn't have any thought in the material and the translation, so that's what a lot of this side uses, that argument. You know, look, they're trying to alter God's Word, so I appreciate their zeal and their passion, but these new translations, as long as they remain true to God's Word, are not a bad thing. You see, all these translations have one consistent message, one consistent message.

Christ and Christ alone, saved by grace, not by works. So all the translations are reliable if it's a good translation, what we just talked about. There's one message, one message.

The problem is, see, the message is perfect, but the messengers aren't, right? A lot of, you know, I'm not going to come up here and give a perfect sermon. Never, ever going to happen. The messenger is not perfect, but the message is.

So we can look to this, we know that the message is perfect, but there are discrepancies in the manuscripts, just from handwriting and copying them down, that they differ on some slight issues, and that's why you have different translations, but the message is perfect, without a question of doubt. The last thing that I want to talk about on why believe is, and I'm going to be talking about this, you guys saw your postcards in there, in your bulletin about my, I'm giving my testimony on March 26th, I'm not really looking forward to this, but if you have friends or, you know, people that haven't really been in church before, it might be a good time, because it's not real threatening, so we say, right? But, I'm going to do that, I'm going to give my testimony, but that leads me to the last point on why believe is you can't argue a changed life. See, people like John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace, he was a slave captain with a slave ship, and when Christ grabbed him, he turned his whole life around, he turned his whole life around, and said, I was blind, but now I see, he saw the wretchedness of what he was doing, and you see, it's, these changed lives, there's no greater witness than a changed life, even the French skeptic, Rousseau, said, I must confess to you that the majority of the scriptures astonish me.

The holiness of the evangelist speaks to my heart at such striking characters of truth that had it been the invention of men, the inventors would be greater than the greatest heroes. This French skeptic, who never turned his life over to Christ, could see that the power of the gospel, the changed lives, was so powerful, so powerful, that that in and of itself, the lives that are radically changed, in and of itself, is another reason why I believe, and as the worship team comes up in Jordan, and they conclude, I just want to, you know, kind of challenge you with that last point, the changed life, do you know, do you guys realize that knowing about Jesus is not enough? Let me say that again, knowing about Jesus, knowing about this, is not enough. It doesn't change your life, because I can know something, but not do it.

And there's a lot of people, a lot of people, I'm going to talk about that with my testimony, but, I mean, so many scriptures jumped out at me when I finally turned my life over to God, that, you know, just because you live in a Christian home, or go to church now and then, or own a Bible, doesn't mean that you'll stand in front of Christ, he'll say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Jesus said, many will come to me in that day. Many will come to me in that day, and he'll say, depart from me, I don't even know you.

I don't even know you. And so if a person's life hasn't been changed, I don't mean radically changed in doing what I'm doing and preaching, I just mean, if the gospel message from when you believed it, or if it hasn't changed you, if you're not different, or if you're raised in a Christian home, and you're not, you're just like the world, you have to question, have I truly given my heart to Christ? Because you see, genuine faith, if a person has genuine faith, it's reflected in a transformed life. It's reflected in love for God and his word.

So if the life has not radically changed, we have to question, do I truly know him? Or am I just playing the game? I mean, if somebody asked me, I'd say, sure, I was a Christian, but if it has not radically changed your life, and if this personal relationship that God talks about, he says, who believes on me, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water. And I want to know in a nation that says 85% Christian, where are they all? Where are they all? The problem is because many profess to know him with their lips, but their hearts draw nigh. They know, they say that they're Christians, they say this, but their hearts are so far from him.

They've never truly surrendered their life. They've never truly given their life to Christ. So Bernie, if you hit the lights and as Jordan's guys can start worship, I'm just going to be up here and I want to pray for any of you that might need, you know, just to not even commit your life to Christ, but just, you know, you've been away from God for so long, it's time to come home.

You want to just fully surrender on. I can tell you, I mean, you watch how somebody worships God. They're just like this, yeah, yeah, whatever, what time is this over? You're not drawing near the Father.

You're not filled with the Holy Spirit. Your life has not radically changed. You have not surrendered all.

You have not totally surrendered your life. You're just going through the motions. I just pray, dear Heavenly Father, Lord, right now, I just pray that you begin to convict us, Lord.

Show us our hearts, Lord. Show us those individuals, dear Heavenly Father, that need to surrender all. Lord, need to surrender their entire life to you, Lord.

Say, I give you everything. I want a hunger and thirst for righteousness. Lord, we also pray for those who might not know you, Lord, that you would just begin to tug on their heart, dear Heavenly Father, that they would confess you, Lord, and their life would be radically changed from this day forward.

We just pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.