Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, made this statement. He said, this volume, speaking of the Bible, is the writing of the living God. Each letter was pinned with an almighty finger and each word in it dropped from the everlasting lips Each sentence was dictated by the Holy Spirit. He's right. And that's what the Reformers believed. The Scriptures are the writings of the living God. They are His words. The Bible you hold in your hands, it's not the work of men, it's the work of God. And as such, they are true. And they are true because they come from a God who cannot lie, Titus 1-2. And they not only contain truth, but they are truth. Jesus affirmed that when he said in John 17-17, to the Father, your word is truth. Paul equally affirmed that when he said in Philippians 4-8, to think on what is true, what is honorable, what is right, what is pure, what is lovely, what is of good repute or commendable, any excellence and worthy of praise. What did he just describe? He just described the Bible. The Bible is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and commendable and excellent and worthy of praise. And both Jesus and him Wasn't referring to parts of the Bible, he's referring to the entire Bible, the whole Bible. There are some people that will say, well I accept parts of the Bible because there are parts that contradict themselves. Frankly folks, the contradictions are in your own mind, they're not in the scriptures. And they can be easily resolved with some time and study. The psalmist said this in Psalm 119 and verse 160. He said, the sum of your word is truth. And the entirety of your righteous ordinances is everlasting. Now you can't get any more clear than that. And those who came before us understood this. And they gave up their lives for it. And I told you last week that throughout the month of October, we're talking about the Protestant Reformation, we're talking about what happened on 1517, talking about the events that led up to it, talking about the events that happened, talking about the pre-reformers and the reformers themselves. We have a lot that we owe our debt to of them, as well as the Puritans. But we live in a day and age where none of this is being studied anymore. Churches are just kind of going about their business. They're getting involved in the culture. They're getting involved in what's going on in their world, and they're leaving behind so much history and so much that many have given their lives for. But listen, don't take my word for it. Let's listen to theirs. For example, John Wycliffe, he said this about Scripture. He said, since only the truth of scripture is infallibly true, it is derogatory to build on the teachings of men rather than on the sure rock of the word of God. And he gave his life for that. They hated him so much that later on they dug up his bones and burned them and scattered them in a river. That's how much hatred they had for him. And this was a man of God. This was a man who sold out for Christ. And you just hear his words. This is the only infallible truth. And he paid for it with his life. Another pre-reformer that paid for it with his life was John Huss. John Huss had a lot to say about the Bible. One of the things that he said that you'll find a lot of information on is this. He said, Seek the truth, hear the truth, learn the truth, love the truth, speak the truth, hold the truth, and defend the truth unto death. Seven times he referred to it as truth. And he said defend it unto death. And that's exactly what he did because he later said, for the sake of truth which triumphs over everything, I am willing to suffer death. Let me ask you, are you willing to suffer death for the truth? Well, they were. And he even said this, I trust in God Almighty that he will strengthen me in the truth of his holy word. Us, like other believers, believe that the Bible should be the ultimate source of truth rather than the Roman Catholic Church and their traditions and their papal decrees. He argued that everyone should follow their conscience and understand the truth even if it conflicted with church authorities. He saw the pursuit to defend the truth as a fundamental Christian duty. And he taught that knowing and living by the truth would set people free from spiritual bondage. Well, the Roman Catholic Church disagreed with him. They had him arrested. They executed him by burning at the stake. This all happened in 1415. Listen, it makes no sense for anyone to give up their lives for the Scripture if it's not true. That's foolish. Martin Luther even said, for some, it's hard to understand how the Bible can be infallible and authoritative since it was written by humans. But to God, humans were simply his pen writing his message. In other words, men have nothing to do with its infallibility or its authority. In fact, when men touch anything, they corrupt everything. And if man had anything to do with the Bible, it would make the Bible fallible, not infallible. It'd make the Bible errant, not inerrant. But there are no error in its whole or in its parts. You see, they were His instruments in writing it down. And the Holy Spirit used their style of writing, the Holy Spirit used their personality, their background, but He controlled every word. And it really wasn't like dictation, you know, where you go into a little trance and they're hearing everything and they're just right. It wasn't any of that at all. You get their personality when you read. Just like in seminary when you're studying and learning Greek, you know what book that they use to help you understand Greek? It's the Gospel of John because it's some of the most simplistic of Koine Greek. John's writings were that. And what do we have in John's gospel? What does John do in presenting Jesus to the world? He presents him as the Word made flesh. He presents him as God incarnate. The Holy Spirit controlled everything that was written down. Second Peter 121 says, For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." They were carried along by the Spirit. They were controlled by Him. He controlled every word and He called it His Word because that's what it is. It's God's Word. It's God's truth. It's infallible. It's inerrant. It's authoritative. It's true. And you can't make that claim about other writings. They may contain truth, but they are not absolute truth like the Bible. There are no errors. And all the Reformers believed this, from Luther to Melanchthon to Zwingli to Calvin to Cramner to Knox to Beezer to Booser to Tyndall. Luther consistently emphasized the Bible as the sole infallible source of divine truth. He said this, the truth of scripture and all Christian doctrine is to be judged by no one but scripture itself. You judge the truth of scripture with scripture. John Calvin, who was the French reformer, he said, let this be a firm principle. No other word is to be held as the word of God and given place as such in the church than what is contained first in the law and the prophets, then in the writings of the apostles." We have such a rich heritage. But unfortunately, much has changed. Some churches have embraced pluralism. when it comes to truth. These are the more liberal or progressive types of churches. They acknowledge multiple paths to truth. And they're even open to interfaith dialogue. where they don't have a problem at all with people that disagree with them, they find some kind of common ground. And I remember years ago, there was a document called the Evangelicals and Catholics Together, and there were a number of evangelicals signing on with the Catholics, and then there were people like Sproul and D. James Kennedy and John MacArthur, and these men come along and said, wait a minute, we can't do this. We can't join hands in those things because we have a great divide between us in doctrine. And if we come together and embrace and fight some of these wars together, it's going to confuse people. They're going to think we're embracing Roman Catholic theology when we're not. And so they had to stay away from that. But some theological movements have been influenced by things like postmodern philosophy, leading to more emphasis on personal experience. That's why, when I was talking about this a few weeks ago, people would say, God said to me. That's postmodern thought right there. That's this personal experience, being personal with the narrative, and less on absolute propositional truths. Listen, I really don't care what God said to you. What I care about is what did God say, period. And if He said it to you, He said it to me. And that's where interpretation comes in. A lot of people, they want to read the Bible and jump straight into application without ever interpreting it. They think automatically they know what it means. And some things are that forthright. And you can understand them pretty plainly, but there are some things that take some time, some things that take some work, take some digging. So that becomes a huge problem. I personally believe it's satanic and demonic. And that's why we're where we are today in the church. Many churches have abandoned the Bible as absolute truth because they are more interested in a pragmatic approach to reaching people than going by what the Bible teaches. They do everything by what is pragmatic. And I've seen this all my Christian life. And I have been sitting in many churches and going, wait a minute, but what about the Bible? People get so hung up in traditions. One church that I was at, you know, they had the thrones up here on the platform. I don't call this the stage. This is not a stage. I am not up here performing for you. I hate the way the room is set up because you're all looking at me as if you're critiquing me. probably are right we should be more like a circle because you know you look at the back of each other's heads I'm the one that gets to look at the front of you and then you are a sight that's why I take my glasses off so I can't see you now I'm just teasing I can see you you're just a blur you got a halo around you I need to see this But this is what has happened. There's been an abandoning of truth. And we can't abandon the Bible and trade it for cultural approaches to reaching man. When we were part of the Southern Baptist Convention, this is one of the things that I pointed out. Resolution 9 that they voted on in 2019. You remember that resolution? They were trying to adopt critical race theory. Critical race theory is a Marxist doctrine. By the way, if you wanna know anything about Kamala Harris and her family and her history, they were Marxists. If you don't know what that means, look it up. It's not good. It's not good at all. And this was something that SBC were embracing, and this is what they said. They wanted to use it as a tool for evangelism and cause it to be subordinate to scripture. But the problem is it was incompatible with scripture. It didn't support the teaching of Scripture, and it would never bow to Scripture. You can't have these two opposing forces together. It's like taking the back of two magnets and trying to press them together, and you've got that force pushing it away. Well, that's what was going on. In fact, in 2021, they supposedly abandoned that whole idea, but There's still tension with it today. There's still people on the sidelines advocating it. And as long as you have liberal presidents, you will have that kind of stuff going on. But there are some that are in it, and they are fighting it, and I praise God for them. There are many that have not caved to it. Do y'all remember Adrian Rogers? Adrian Rogers was a Southern Baptist pastor. I remember hearing him in person down at First Baptist at some of the pastor conferences that they would put on. Well, in his time in the SBC, he was a staunch fighter for the Bible. Listen to his statements about the Bible, and you tell me what you think of him. This is what he said, and he fought against liberals and progressives But he said this, and I'm just going to read a series of quotes by him. He said first, the Bible is not the book of the month. It's the book of the ages. He said the Bible is not a book we just read. It's a book that reads us. The Bible is not a book of science, but when it speaks on science, it speaks accurately. The Bible is not a book of history, but when it speaks on history, it speaks accurately. The Bible is not a book of philosophy, but when it speaks on philosophy, it speaks profoundly. The Bible is God's love letter to us. The Bible is not meant to be displayed in a museum, though we do like going to the Museum of the Bible, don't we, and looking at all those ancient texts. But it's not meant to be displayed in a museum, but to be displayed in your life. You're gonna live it. The Word of God is like a lion, he says. You don't have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose and the lion will defend itself. The Bible is not a book to be criticized. It's a book to criticize us, to explain us, to be comprehended, to be believed, to be obeyed and declared. The Bible is worth fighting for. And I agree with his assessment. And let me tell you why. Because as absolute truth, the Bible makes this claim. Here's the claim the Bible makes of itself. It is the word of the living God. Now I don't know how you think about that or what implications that you're thinking in your mind, but I know in my life, I have thoughts about that statement right there, that what I'm holding in my hands is the word of my creator. I mean, this is amazing. You know, we live in an age where we have a completed canon right here. We have Old and New Testaments all completed. We didn't get it in fragments. We got it as a whole, one book. And it's just an amazing book. We know the Bible is God's word because God himself says it's his word. And if you begin with Moses and the Ten Commandments, he spoke to all the Old Testament prophets. He commanded them to write down his words. Phrases like, thus saith the Lord, or God spoke these words. That appears over 2,000 times in the Old Testament. Thus saith the Lord. God spoke to me. God spoke these words. Now see, they could say God spoke to me, and we have example where he did. But we don't have examples of that today. That's more of a subjective thing. And it's very hard to disprove because it's based upon an experience. But listen, all experiences are subject to scripture. Just because you had this experience doesn't mean that that was the truth. And you have to come to scripture and let the scripture define if that was a biblical experience that you're claiming. In the book of Exodus, with 40 chapters, God spoke all these words, that phrase appears 160 times. In addition to that, the Old Testament contains over 1,300 direct references to the prophets speaking God's Word. The New Testament also contains over 300 direct quotations and 1,000 indirect references from the Old Testament, all declaring that this is God's Word. We even hear in Hebrews 1 and 2, or Hebrews 1, 1, and 2, where the writer says this, God, after He spoke, Long ago to the fathers, who are the fathers? It'd be like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the patriarchs. In the prophets, now we're into the major and the minor prophets. In many portions, many ways, signs, miracles, dreams, visions. He says in these last days, He's spoken to us in His Son, the Lord Jesus. People are looking for these kinds of things today. That's why the charismatic movement, the Pentecostal movement, is so popular. That's why Joel Osteen fills a former basketball stadium, one of the largest churches in America. It's because they tell people things that are not actually true. They're telling people things that they feel. They're telling them things that what they want to have. It's all about them. It's a me-centered theology. It's not a God-centered theology at all. But when you look at Hebrews 1, 1 and 2 right there, that is indicating that both the Old and the New Testament are speaking the words of God. We even hear in Psalm 12, 6 this declaration that the words of the Lord are pure words. See, that's why we can't say that man had his hand really in this. All man was was an instrument in writing it down. But God made sure that they didn't taint it in any way. And therefore his word is pure. Just like when the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and overshadowed her so that that child would be the holy child. Her sin did not involve or taint him in any way. Throughout the book of Genesis, we hear this phrase, God said. We hear that repeated over and over, and that demonstrates that the biblical text is the very word of God. Now there's a passage that we looked at the last couple times, 2 Timothy 3, verses 15 and 16, and you remember that that passage right there affirms that all scripture is breathed out by God. It's God's Word. Now, it's even important to note that inspiration applies only to the original autographs of Scripture, not to the Bible writers. There are no inspired Scripture writers, only inspired Scripture. And one of the phrases that we hear frequently is the phrase, the Word of God. That occurs over 40 times in the New Testament. It's equated with the Old Testament. It's what Jesus preached. It's what the apostles taught. It's what the word the Samaritans received and were given by the apostles. It was the message the Gentiles received and preached by Peter. It was the word Paul preached on all of his missionary journeys. He had three of them. It was the focus of Luke in the book of Acts who recounted its wide and rapid spread. Paul was also careful to tell the Corinthians that he spoke the word as it was given from God and it had not been adulterated and that it was a manifestation of truth. And Paul also acknowledged it as the source of truth. And that was the source of his preaching. God's word is inerrant. It's infallible. It's absolutely true. It's therefore totally, get this, trustworthy. One of the things I have sought to establish here, and even in my home, that this is the binding authoritative word right here. What this says is what we are to do. Now, do we always do it? Unfortunately not. But this should be the desire of our heart, is to obey God in his word and do it exactly as he says, and that's especially in the church. There are things that churches do that are not in the Bible. There are things in the Bible that the church doesn't do. And that has always driven me mad. And I've had to go to counseling over that. No, I'm just teasing. I did talk to a good friend of mine, and he was a pastor, and he was the one that married me and my wife, and he was my pastor at one time, and I went to him one time. I was going to a really big church. There were 3,000 people there, and I was explaining some of my issues, and he told me this. He says, Steve, you need to understand something. I never got it when he said it to me, because I was always the little kid going, but why? But he told me, he says, Steve, you need to realize this. It takes like a mile to turn around a ship. I think we were talking about that one day, right? How long it takes to turn around one of those big ships. And he was talking about the church too. It takes a mile to turn this stuff around. But again, I was just over there, why? Why can't we just start teaching it, saying it? Let's quit surveying the Bible and let's teach it. You know? Let's teach it expositionally. Now, I sat in that church for a year, and I listened to them go through books of the Bible, and I know we went through Ephesians in six weeks, chapter a week. I know Romans, they went through that book, and they skipped chapter nine. You know what's in chapter nine? Election. They skipped it because they didn't understand it or agree with it. How can you not agree with it? When God says, through Christ, Jesus said, you did not choose me, but I chose you. We didn't choose him. We couldn't. We were dead in trespasses and sins. Dead people don't do anything. They're dead. Right? They can't respond to anything. They can't respond any longer. To try to say that they can wake themselves up is beyond me. I've never seen that happen. Now, we have examples in the and the Bible of people that were resurrected. On the day that Jesus died on the cross, there were many in the tombs that were opened up and they came and appeared into the city. Boy, I bet that freaked them out. See, the Scripture is God-given. And since it's God-given, it guarantees its quality at the source and at the original writings. You know, we don't have the original writings anymore. They were written on parchments and they just couldn't be preserved for how long it took, for how much time has passed, let's just say that. So there were copies, and I want to talk about that. But keep this in mind, God is true. God is impeccable. God is reliable. And if that's true about Him, then that's true about His Word. His Word is impeccable. His Word is Inerrant and infallible and authoritative and reliable. And what you think about God's word reflects what you think about him. Think about that. What you think about God's word is really what you think about him. But we see that the Bible makes this claim. This is the word of the living God. And because it's God's word, it is historically reliable. Now, before I show you how it's historically reliable, let me talk about some other ancient documents that the world looks at. This is what is called a bibliography test. In a bibliography test, you have a couple parts to it. You look at the internal parts, you look at the external parts, you look at external material, things like that. Now, let's start with that. Let's talk about ancient documents. There are three, basically, I want to mention. The first is the histories of Tacitus. Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman historian. He was a politician. He lived in the late first and second century. He was considered one of the greatest Roman historians, known for his concise and eloquent writing style. And one of his major works among four was called Histories. It covered a period from 69 to 96 AD. And they were considered very accurate accounts of events which occurred in the Roman Empire during the first century. Well this and his other major works give us a substantial amount of facts that we know concerning the Roman Empire. And currently there are only 20 copies of his major work annals. And there is one copy of a collection of his minor works. The earliest copy of his major work was almost 1,000 years after the original was written. You think, wow, that's pretty good. Now see, they don't have originals either. They just have copies. So you take 20 copies, okay, and then one copy of a minor work, and you find that, well, you got about 1,000 years in the annals from its original, and then when you go with that one minor copy, that's about 900 years. And the world hails that as a great work. Well, it is, to have something that old, and to get that close to the original. But you have others that got closer in their works, like the works of Pliny the Younger. He was a historian in the first century. His histories is currently supported by seven different copies. I only have seven, not 20 like the other. And the earliest was made 750 years after the original. You say, well, it's coming down. It's getting closer to the originals. And that sounds really good, too. And then you take the works of Homer. Homer was an ancient Greek poet. He is credited with composing two of the most important works of ancient Greek literature, which is called the Iliad and the Odyssey. Well, his work, the Iliad, it was written in 800 BC. And the earliest copies that we have date 400 BC. So there's a time gap of 400 years after the original. Wow, we are really getting close. There are 643 copies of his work. Again, copies. But out of the three examples, this would be the best example of a historical work dating 400 years after the original. And all scientists treat this work as a reliable document. You got your shoes on? Because I'm ready to blow you away now. Listen to this. Let's start with the New Testament. Manuscript evidence for the New Testament is far more superior than any ancient writing. So what's the closest we got so far on an ancient document? 400 years. We have over 24,533 copies of the New Testament. That is in Koine Greek, the manuscripts, their copies, the earliest copy. You ready? It dates 125 AD. That's 25 years after the original. There is no other document on the planet that gets that close. When I first learned that, I was like, wow. I mean, I got goosebumps on goosebumps. Because it was telling me, I can trust this. This is reliable. Now, it gets just as good when you look at the Old Testament. Prior to 1947, the earliest existing copy of parts of the Hebrew Old Testament came from the Cairo Codex, which was written about 895 A.D., and since the latest events of the Old Testament were supposed to have been occurring approximately 450 B.C., this represents a pretty significant time lag between the originals and the first available copies. But in 1947, what happened? They found the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Quamaram Caves. These scrolls contain copies of parts of at least 500 ancient books. This is the oldest manuscripts that we find, even of Old Testament texts. And one of the scrolls that they found had a complete copy of the book of Isaiah. They dated it. to 125 BC. Isn't that amazing? The version of Isaiah proved to be word for word identical with the standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95% of the text. The 5% variation was mostly slips of the pen, variations in spelling of words. In over a thousand years then, the book of Isaiah was copied faithfully. So look at what we have here. It is historically reliable. We get that close to the original. I mean, you want the original if it's available, but it's not available because they're all destroyed, so you have to go buy copies. And listen to all the copies of those other ancient documents that they had. And now listen to how many we have of the New Testament, almost 25,000. And you know what the difference between our Bibles are? It's just which text did they use to translate. See, I'm using a New American Standard Bible, and I'm using it on purpose because this is the oldest. See, you want older. The King James is not as old as this. And I know the King James is popular, and don't get me wrong, it's beautiful. It's got the Elizabethan language that we don't speak. I don't say to my kids, cometh thou hither? Where hast thou been? You know, I'm just making fun of that language. But we don't talk like that, right? And some people think that there is more of a reverence with the language, and that's okay if you want to think that. And I've even heard people pray in King James language. You probably have heard it, too. I used to listen to D. James Kennedy when he was here before God took him home to glory, and he used King James Bible, and he prayed with the King's language, the Elizabethan language, and that's fine. But this is a totally different text, the Alexandrian text versus the Texas Receptus. That's why sometimes when I read from this, and you're reading from yours, if you're using the King James, there may be some word, well, there is word variations, and there are some words that are even missing. And it's not that the writers, or rather the translators of the New American Standard are trying to leave things out. You just have to understand the set of manuscripts that they're translating from did not have what you're reading. And they examined those texts as well, and they went with what was the oldest. The most accurate translation. Now I know I'm using it. But it's this one. In fact, a new update to this just came out called the Legacy Standard Bible. I think Ron's using it. And I have a copy of it as well, and I look at it a lot. And I love how it takes the Old Testament name for God the name Yahweh, and it actually, instead of doing what it's doing in our translation, just capitalizing it in all capitals, it's actually using the word Yahweh. And I love that. And it's using it where it's used in the Old Testament. So the Bible claims to be the Word of God. It is historically reliable. William Green puts it this way, it may be safely said that no other work of antiquity has been so accurately transmitted. This is how much I care about this book, definitely personally in my life living it, but I don't like anybody, not even my family, to walk into my study and sit anything on my Bible. I don't sit things on my Bible. I just have that kind of reverence for it. This is not like any other book. I mean how many books do you have that have 40 different authors that agree with one another? They don't exist. 40 different authors. Now I want to talk about its theological coherence, its unity. Because that's amazing right there. 66 books that comprise your Bible. 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament. They span a period of 1,500 years. 40 different authors. That alone right there is a strong indicator of divine inspiration. Just that fact right there. But the Bible presents a unified theological message. And I want to give you three of them real quickly. Consider first the theme of sin. It's traced throughout the Old and the New Testament. In the Old Testament it's introduced in Genesis chapter 3 with Adam and Eve disobeying God by taking of that forbidden fruit. And then it's seen spreading all throughout humanity, culminating in the flood where God destroyed all man and creatures. The Old Testament further develops it through the institution of the sacrificial system. They were to have offering after offering after offering. They had even a sin offering. I mean, it was gory. All these different sacrifices. You know, the night that Jesus would be crucified was the Passover. And when they crossed over that Kidron Valley, they would have seen the blood that came from the thousands of lambs that had been slaughtered. because it would drain down into that brook. And when they crossed over it, it was just blood. And here Jesus would go to the cross and he would be the ultimate of all sacrifices. He is the Lamb of God who was slain. The New Testament builds on this theme. It reveals that Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice who takes away the sin of the world. Again, a unifying theme between Old and New Testament. Romans 5, 12 to 21 demonstrates how Christ's death on the cross deals with the problem of sin introduced in the Garden of Eden. I was planning on reading it, but since I'm fighting the beast again on the wall, I'm gonna leave it to you. So it's Romans 5, 12 to 21. I think I put it on the back of your bulletin. But listen to this, 1 Corinthians 15, 21 and 22. For since by a man came death, that's speaking of Adam, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead, that's speaking of Jesus. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. There's a unity there, theological coherence. Let me give you another theme, the theme of redemption. This too is woven throughout scripture. The Old Testament speaks of God's plan to redeem His people. We see an example of this in the Exodus from Egypt, Psalm 7835, which if you go in to read Psalm 78, you see it recounts the history of Israel and all the dumb things that they did and the unbelieving things that they did, and it cost them and cost many of them their lives because of what they were doing, the grumbling, the complaining, and so forth. But it says in Psalm 7835, and they remembered It's like they came to their senses that God was their rock and the Most High God their Redeemer. If you read the book of Judges, that's what you see. You see this cycle. They would get involved in sin. God would send an oppressor. They would cry out to God. He would send a deliverer. They would have a period of peace and then all of a sudden they'd do it all over again. And it just kept following that same cycle. And the book of Judges ends this way. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Isaiah speaks very extensively of God as the redeemer of his people. He does this 13 times in chapters 41 to 63. He says in 43.1, but now, thus says the Lord your creator, O Jacob, and he who formed you, O Israel, do not fear, for I have redeemed you, and I have called you by my name. You're mine. Isaiah emphasizes that Israel's Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, the Lord of Hosts. And building upon this, the New Testament affirms that God is the Redeemer of Israel. And then you hear Paul, the Apostle Paul, who was trained in the Old Testament. He says this, Titus 2.14, Jesus gave himself up for us that he might, what? Redeem. Redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself a people of his own possession. Now that's echoing the promises of the Old Testament where God is the redeemer of his people. Psalm 130 verse 7, O Israel, hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is loving kindness and with him an abundant redemption and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. But you see that coherent theme as well. A third and last one is the theme of the Messiah. Think about this. Beginning at Genesis 3.15 and continuing all throughout the Old Testament into the New is the steady progression towards the revealing of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. The Old Testament spoke of a coming Messiah. The New Testament tells us that Jesus is the fulfillment of all of those prophecies. Listen, I think that's so important, and I wrote it in the flyleaf of my Bible. Years ago, there are 333 prophecies about Christ in the Old and the New Testament. When He came the first time, He fulfilled 109 of them, and when He comes back, He will fulfill the remaining 224. What's the probability of one, just one coming to pass? I was sitting in a store yesterday. I was waiting on my truck to be worked on. And any of y'all ever seen that show Deal, No Deal? Howie Mandel. I don't really know a whole lot about it, because I don't watch that stuff, but it was on the TV while I was sitting there, and I was kind of watching it, and they were in that game show that you pick this briefcase, from what I could tell, and you're hoping that it has this huge amount of money listed in it, and then you've got to pick all these other ones to make sure that you don't run out what your credit is, so you can win what's in that box. You're hoping that that is the greater amount. We don't have to do this with the Bible or do this with our understanding of Jesus being the Messiah. I mean, this is clear. Listen to some of the verses that talk about this. You take Andrew, one of the disciples. After he witnessed that day, being there with Jesus, remember he spent the day with him, he comes back and he goes and finds his brother Peter. And it says in John 141, he found first his own brother Simon and he said to him, we have found the Messiah. Which translated means Christ. That's what Christ means when you see it in the New Testament. It's the Greek word Christos. It means anointed one. The Hebrew equivalent of that is Mashiach. What's that sound like? Messiah. So when you see that, Jesus Christ is talking about Him being the anointed Messiah. Later in Matthew 16, 15, I think he got the message because Jesus asked him, who do you say that I am? And Peter spoke up before anybody else could. He said, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And what did he just say? By what I just told you, you are the Christos. You are the Messiah. You are the Messiah. When Jesus had an encounter with the Samaritan woman in John four, After she said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ, and when that one comes, he will declare all things to us. Kenneth Copeland, by the way, he's a word-faith false teacher, he said Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah. Here's what Jesus said to the woman at the well. I who speak to you am he. In fact, in Greek, it doesn't even use the word he, it just says I am. The one speaking to you is the I am. I think my response would have been the same response John had when he saw in Revelation 1 the glorified Christ and he fell down like a dead man. You know, that's what amazes me. People that go on TV and they say, I saw the Lord. And like the guy in California says that when he goes into his bathroom and he starts shaving, Jesus comes in and puts his arm around him. And I love what John MacArthur says, do you keep shaving? If the historical Jesus of the Bible came and put his arm around you, would you continue to shave? No, you would drop dead because you would fall down so hard and hit your face on the sink, it would knock you out. But that's the kind of silliness that's going on today. You got guys that say that they had a vision of heaven or they died and they came back and say, listen, I've got a report to tell everyone that there are no toilets in heaven. I hear stuff like that and I think, blasphemy! That's what you got to say when you supposedly died and went to heaven and came back? That's all you can tell us, that there are no toilets in heaven? Alright, great, I hate going to the bathroom anyway. Man, that's all you got to report? That's all we got to look forward to? Well, this coherence, it can just go on and on and on. I just want to limit us to three. The Bible claims to be God's Word. It's historically reliable. It's theologically coherent. There is no reason not to trust it. None whatsoever. You can bank your life on what's written in this book. When Jesus says, that if you confess me as Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised me from the dead, you will be saved? That's exactly what he meant. When the Bible says that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life, that is what the Bible says. The Bible says, whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Do you believe that? So this is what the pre-reformers, the reformers of the Protestant Reformation affirmed. And listen, if none of these things were true, they died in vain. And if it's not true, we're sitting in here in vain. You know? But we believe the Bible to be true. It is the truthful word, unlike any other. As Roman 3, 4 says, let God be found true though every man be found a liar. Do you know him today? Is he your Lord and Savior? Is he your master? Is he your redeemer? Have you trusted him with your life? Are you trusting him for heaven? Have you trusted him for forgiveness of your sin? Have you poured out your heart to him and confessed your sin to him? Acknowledging what the Bible says. See, when the Bible says to confess, That's the Greek word homologo. Homologo means to say the same thing. So it's like this. When you're confessing him as Lord, you are saying the same thing the Bible says about Jesus being Lord. You're agreeing with scripture. When you confess your sin, you're saying the same thing the Bible says about your sin. You're agreeing with scripture. You're not trying to hide it like Adam did. You're not trying to cover it up like many others do. You're bringing it out in the open. You're acknowledging it. You're acknowledging that you're a sinner. You need the Savior. You need to be forgiven of all your sin. And you need to come to Jesus and Jesus alone for that forgiveness. If you never come to Him, you'll never be saved. If you never come, you'll never be saved. If you just sit back and adore all of the beauty about Christ, and all the truth about Christ, but you never embrace any of it, you're lost. And you have a rude awakening coming. I wish so badly that we could just get this in people's heads. Hell is real. It is real. And that's why the writers of Scripture would say, Flee the wrath to come. Run from that wrath. But listen, here's how you run from the wrath. You run to the judge, not from him. You come to him. Just as I said, acknowledging all these things, falling down before him, crying out for his mercy, crying out for his grace, for him to save you. Like the publican and the tax collector. You remember there, two men went into the temple to pray. One a publican, one a tax collector. Or the Pharisee, rather, and the tax collector. And the Pharisee, he's comparing himself to the tax collector, and the tax collector's not even looking up, and he beats his chest, and he says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And Jesus said, that man went to his house justified. That's what you want right there. And beloved, once that happens, that's forever. That is forever and look for changes because he is in the changing business and he changes your life every day. Every day. Let's pray and as we pray you respond how the Holy Spirit is. moving in your heart. We thank you Lord Jesus for this time we've had in your word and I pray for every one of us in here today as we have heard the truth that Lord God that you would move in all of our hearts and most importantly Lord God you would save those who were lost. We thank you that we have a reliable book that we can trust, that we can bank our life on it, it's going to happen just the way you said it. Thank you, Lord God. And may you be glorified in every person's heart in here today. We pray all this in Jesus name.