I think they've caught just about everybody. Barb needs one in the back. Anybody else need one? Cecil, could we have an usher watch for latecomers? There usually are a few ones coming in late. You'll need the Scripture sheet tonight. We're in a series entitled Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible. Tonight we're going to look at five more. Ladies and gentlemen, most of us in this room, probably just about everybody in this room, would agree with the statement that the Bible is the inspired word of God. If you don't agree with it, I hope you will before we get done tonight. But most, I won't say most, I'd say I think all true, genuine believers accept that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Ultimately, What we believe about this book is that ultimately God is the author of this book. We believe that. We believe it came from God. The Bible, by the way, makes that claim for itself. If you don't believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, you need to understand that you're in disagreement with the Bible. For the Bible very clearly claims to be the inspired Word of God. Look at your sheet. 2 Timothy 3. All Scripture. is given by inspiration of God. Breathe out. Watch. As I speak, I'm breathing out words. The Bible says all Scripture was breathed out by God. The source was not man. The source was God. It's important that you understand that. Look at the next verse, 2 Peter 1. For the prophecy Came not in old time by the will of man. Man didn't sit down and write what he wanted to write. But holy men of God spake as they were moved, carried along by the Holy Ghost. You see, there's a divine human element to the Bible just as there is to Christ. Christ, the living Word, was God in man's body, God in the flesh, God in man. That's the living Word. The Bible is the written word, and it too has a divine and human side to it. The Bible was penned by men. Men picked up the pen and wrote, but they wrote as they were moved, carried along by the Holy Ghost. Man did the writing, but the origin, the source, was God, see? And so you need to understand that the Bible claims to be the inspired Word of God. Some 1,800 times in the Old Testament you'll read words like this, Thus saith the Lord, or, And God said, or, And the Word of the Lord came unto Isaiah, or Jeremiah. 1,800 times in just the Old Testament. Now, let's stop a second. Just because the Bible claims to be the Word of God doesn't mean that it is. I mean, there are a lot of people that claim the books they've written are from God. There are many books that make a similar claim. So just because, in other words, we can say, well, the Bible claims to be the Word of God, and it does, but that doesn't make it the Word of God. Do you follow me? I mean, some nut down the street. can write an article and say, this article is inspired by God. That doesn't make it inspired by God, does it? Not at all. You say, then how do you know the Bible is? The difference in the Bible and all other books, all other books that claim to be inspired of God, that is, is that the Bible contains indisputable and irrefutable evidence that it truly is God's Word. The evidence is there if someone will really take the time to check it out and to look it over very closely. For instance, consider the unity of the Bible. The unity of the thing. Josh McDowell gives an illustration of, suppose we were to take, even in our church here tonight, ten people. We all live in the same county. Ten people that have a similar educational background. We all speak the same language, all ten of us. We all live in the same culture. And suppose we were to ask these ten people at different times, over a period of maybe a year or two, to write their thoughts on just one controversial opinion. Just one. Not many, just one. Ten different people, same race, same culture, same background, same language, same basic area, basically the same time, two or three year period, opinion individually on one controversial opinion. And suppose a subject, suppose that subject was the meaning of life, for instance. That would be a good one. Bring in the ten opinions. Would they all ten agree exactly with absolutely no difference or no contradiction? Listen, not ten members of this church. I guarantee you. I mean, you can bank on that one. No way. You'd have so many contradictions. You'd have so many discrepancies. It'd be a joke. Let me tell you what happens with the Bible. You've got not ten authors, but forty authors, not living in the same area, but spread out over three continents with all types of different educational backgrounds. I mean from paupers to kings that spoke three different languages from vastly different cultures, that wrote not on one controversial subject, but on hundreds of controversial subjects, not a two- or three-year period, but over a 1,500-year span. And yet, ladies and gentlemen, there is absolute, complete harmony from beginning to end and absolute unity. That is a strong argument. For our claim that the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God. Do you see it? If you see it, say Amen. That is a strong argument. I'm saying the Bible is unique. It's special. No other book like it anywhere. Victor Hugo said, and I quote, England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare, but the Bible made England. Isn't that good? And so we believe, the Bible claims, and we believe that the Bible is given by God to man in the original autographs was inerrant. We believe that. Every great confession of faith states the same thing, that the Word of God is given from God to man in the original autographs was given inerrantly. It was inspired of God and without error. But somebody would argue, yeah, that's great, but we don't have the original autographs. We don't have the originals today. That's true. We don't. Let me tell you what we do have. We have thousands, multiplied thousands of ancient manuscripts. For instance, we've got over 5,000 copies either all or part of the Greek New Testament. Ancient manuscripts, over 5,000 of them. The earliest of these fragments dating all the way back to 120 A.D. Keep in mind the Bible wasn't completed until somewhere around 90 A.D. I mean, we've got fragments that go all the way back to within twenty five or thirty years of the of the of the end of the New Testament canon. Not only that, but we have there are two major, two major manuscripts that date back to within 250 years of the time of the apostles. Now, somebody right now sitting there thinking, 250 years, man, that's a long time. Not for writings of antiquity, it's not. It's an unbelievably brief time. For instance, Homer's Odyssey. The most recent copy we have of Homer's Odyssey was written 2,200 years after Homer wrote the thing. That's typical. 1,000 to 1,500 years. We've got an entire copy of the New Testament in the Greek that dates back within a couple of hundred years from the apostles. But that's not all. In addition to these thousands of manuscripts, keep in mind the early Christians translated the Bible from Greek into various languages. Today, there's a mentality, it seems, in many circles that translations are bad. Translations can be bad if they're not done, if they're not scholarly translations. But there's nothing wrong with translating the Bible into the language of common man so he can understand the Bible. I mean, if all we had was a Greek or Hebrew, we'd be in trouble, wouldn't we? There's nothing wrong with translating the Bible into the common language of the common man. And the early Christians did that. They were very zealous in their missionary zeal. And they would take the Scriptures and they would translate them. in the various languages. We have some 18,000 ancient translations that have been found, maybe into the Latin, maybe into the various Egyptian, the Coptic language or the Syriac or whatever. And then on top of that, we have writings from the early church fathers. They wrote either commentaries or letters that they wrote where they quoted Scriptures. 86,000 citations. have been found by archaeologists of writings of church fathers that contain the Word of God. In fact, I was reading the other day where just from the writings of the church fathers, the entire New Testament is reproduced in letters except for eleven verses. Can you believe that? From Matthew? If there was not one manuscript, If there was not one ancient Greek text, just in letters written by Origen and Ignatius and Polycarp and all those guys, the entire minus 11 verses, New Testament. So, what am I saying? I'm saying that if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, nobody would doubt they were authentic. Nobody. I mean, if it was some play by Shakespeare or some, with the manuscript evidence that's there, nobody would cast doubt on the authenticity of the Bible. And yet today, the Bible is under attack as never before. People you work with doubt it's the Word of God. Some of you have family members that laugh at you behind your back because you go to church on a Wednesday night when it rains, when you could be sitting home doing whatever you do when you sit home on Wednesday night. They think you're crazy, that they ridicule you because you believe the Bible is the Word of God. A few months ago, our vice president was asked on national TV by Barbara Walters if it was true that he held to a belief in a literal Bible, an inerrant Bible. I saw it with my own eyes. Many of you saw it. She looked at him with a smirk on her face. And I could comment on that, but I won't. With a smirk on her face, she asked, you mean you really believe that the animals two by two went into an ark and a flood destroyed? You really believe that? And then she looked stunned when he answered without hesitation, absolutely, yes, I believe in an inspired, inherent Word of God. She was stunned, and I suppose that millions across the nation were likewise stunned. I'm saying people will try to convince you that the Bible is not a book you can trust. I want to say it again, that the Bible is not a book you can trust, that it's full of contradictions. They'll try to convince you of that. Don't you believe it for a minute. Don't believe it for a minute. But neither should you be afraid to look at their accusations. When they say, how can you believe that book? It's full of contradictions. Say, wait a minute. Go to the next room, get them a piece of paper and a pen. Come back. Say, all right, you just told me it's full of contradictions. That means dozens. Don't give me dozens. Give me five. Write down five of these contradictions that the Bible's full of, and I'll get back with you to explain them. Now, I doubt if anybody is going to be able to give you more than one. And that's going to be where Cain get his wife. OK? That's what they're going to say. But if they do, don't get scared and don't jump off the roof and commit suicide. OK? Don't get scared. These so-called contradictions are not contradictions. There are no discrepancies in the Word of God. For hundreds of years, I want to tell you something, for hundreds of years skeptics have been attacking this book. Every conceivable argument has been made. Every conceivable accusation has been made. The book still stands. Amen? It still stands. It's solid. It's solid, folks. There's nothing new under the sun. It's been brought up to somebody else, and it's been checked out, and it's been researched, it's been studied. There is an answer. And what we're trying to do in this series is just every week, Bring up three or four or five of these so-called contradictions and let's look at the answers. That's what we're going to do tonight. So-called contradiction number one. You may want to use the back of your page to jot down some thoughts. Here's the question. The Bible says Jesus would be in the grave for three days and three nights. But the Bible also seems to teach that he was crucified on Friday and rose again on Sunday. How do you figure it? Has that ever occurred to anybody here? Let me see. Have you ever wondered about it? Now think about it. Well, look at Matthew 12, 40 there. You have the verse. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Yeah, we celebrate Good Friday. And two days later, we celebrate Easter Sunday morning with an Easter sunrise service. I mean, he got in the grave late Friday and got out early Sunday. How do you get three days and three nights out of that? Well, there's two possible answers. First of all, some people believe there's no such thing as Good Friday. It's Good Wednesday. OK, and all kind of arguments have been made because of a That was a particular year where there was more than one Sabbath and it was very before the Sabbath. But that particular year, there was a holy day, which was called it's a long. It take me forever to explain it, in fact, I don't know that I could explain it to you, but that's one possibility. OK, but let me tell you what I think is the answer. The best we can tell is Jesus was crucified on Friday. as traditionally it's believed he was, and buried just before sundown on Friday. Now keep in mind, to the Jews in that day, the next day did not begin at midnight like it does for us. It began at 6 p.m. Okay? What happens when the clock strikes midnight? You've got tomorrow, the next day. Their tomorrow started six hours earlier. They went from 6 p.m. to 6 p.m. We go 12 midnight to 12 midnight. OK, he was crucified on Friday. Remember about what was it, nine o'clock in the morning to about noon, right in there, taken off the cross, buried sometime Friday afternoon before dusk, before sundown. He was in the grave Saturday and the Bible teaches he resurrected from the grave sometime early Sunday morning around the dawn around the rising of the sun, which would be the first day of the week, Sunday, the first day of the week before dawn. So that puts Jesus in the great part of Friday, all of Saturday and part of Sunday. How do you get three days and three nights out of that? I don't answer. Jot your answer down. I just want you to write it down. What's your what's your solution? Somebody walks up to you this year on Good Friday. You walk into church. We're going to have a Good Friday service, by the way, out at our new property. OK, a Good Friday prayer meeting out there in the mud. All right. And so you get a church with mud all over your shoes. Somebody said, where have you been? And you say, well, I was at a prayer meeting, Good Friday prayer meeting. And they say, well, how can Jesus be crucified on Friday, resurrect on Sunday and be in the grave three days and three nights? What's your answer? Jot it down. Or at least move your hand like you've got an answer. Make me think that you know. How many of you think you've got an answer? Let me see your hands. Put them up good and high. Let me see. How many of you really? You're just not sure. Be honest. OK, let me tell you what I think. The phrase. A day and a night, whether it's one day and one night, or two days and two nights, or three days and three nights, or a hundred days and a hundred nights was a Jewish idiom. It was a phrase, an expression, a common expression in that day. You'll find it, by the way, all through, not only the Bible, but other writings of the day. The day and the night was an expression used to refer to any part of that day or night. In other words, the part was equated to the whole. Now, we have the exact same thing in our English language. Watch. How many of you come to church on Sunday morning? How many of you come to Sunday school? How many of you try to come back on Sunday night? OK, when you finally get home on Sunday night, the phone rings and it's your mother-in-law. And she says, I've been trying to get you all day, where have you been? And you say, I've been at church all day. Now, is that, you know, as a figure of speech or as an expression? You've not lied. I mean, I say the same thing. I go home Sunday night and I say, whoosh, and they're all day. Now watch, you weren't here all day. You didn't get here at midnight and stayed till the following midnight, did you? You were here, some of you, maybe, maybe, you know, maybe, very few of you, You know, four or five hours at best. See? And yet, it's not inaccurate to say, and I was at church all day. Or you go to the mall. I mean, you're there from nine o'clock in the morning to nine o'clock at night. You're beat. You go home. You say, man, I've been at that mall all day. See, you weren't there all 24 hours. You were there maybe eight hours, nine hours. But it's an idiom. It's an expression. You're not inaccurate to say that. A day and night, or three days and three nights, could refer to any part of those three days and three nights and be accurate. So what have you got? You've got part of Friday, all of Saturday, part of Sunday. The part is equal to the whole, and I believe, But that's the answer. I believe that's the answer to this so-called contradiction. It was simply an expression of Jewish expression, just like many we use today. The only other explanation is. that he was not crucified on Friday. He was crucified sometime late Wednesday or early Thursday. So-called contradiction number two. Let's move on. We're going to get bogged down here. How do you explain the contradictions in the resurrection story? So-called contradictions. For example, Mark has the women coming to the tomb at the rising of the sun while John states that it was still dark. All right, let's look at that. Look at Mark 16 on your sheet. Very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun." Now look at John 20. It says, "...the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre." Mark says they came at the rising of the sun. John says they came while it was still dark. Jot down your answer for me. How do you reconcile it? Jot your answer down for me. How many of you think you've got an answer? Let me see your hands. Good. A lot more of you on this one. Here's the answer. Mary and the ladies didn't spend the night in the garden where the tomb was. Maybe they spent the night in Jerusalem. Maybe Bethany. Bethany was a couple of miles down the road. It's very possible they were at Bethany. Even if they were at Jerusalem, they would be at least, at least, it could have very easily been a 15, 20, 30 minute walk. Very easily. In other words, they were obviously some distance from the tomb. It was dark when they left. And John, they came while it was dark. By the time they got there, the sun had arisen. You know, some of us get up so late, we don't realize it, but the sun does rise gradually. How many of you have learned that tonight? You never knew that before. See? You ever go out to take a walk early in the morning, it's dark, and thirty minutes later you get home, the sun's up? Happens every day. OK, that's the answer. When they left, as they headed out, it was dark. By the time they got there, they walked some distance and it was light. Look back at your verse. Mark is talking about their arrival. By the time they got there, the sun had arisen. Whereas John talks about their departure. They came or they left. They began the journey while it was still dark. So I believe that would be the answer. They simply left home before dawn, got there shortly after sunrise. Alright, another so-called discrepancy. People say that the Bible is not the Word of God, there's discrepancies, we don't believe it. They'll say, what about the angels during the resurrection story? Matthew and Mark speak of one angel addressing the women, while Luke and John say there were two at the tomb. Alright, let's look at that. Look at Matthew 28 and verse 5 on your sheet. The angel answered and said unto the women, Look at John 20. Mary stood without the sepulcher, weeping, and she wept. She stooped down, looked at the sepulcher, and she saw two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, the other at the feet, with the body of Jesus head laying. Luke and John mention two angels. Write it down. What's the solution? How do you reconcile this? Who thinks you know the answer? Raise your hand. Not too many on this one. Is that it? Come on. Come on. You're afraid I'm going to ask you what the answer is. I won't do that to you. There are several reasons. One, this is on tape and it wouldn't show up or pick up, but here's the answer. Look at the Matthew verse very closely. Matthew does not say there's only one angel. He says only one angel spoke. How many of you saw that? Isn't that so simple? I mean, we ought to be able to get that. Luke and John mention two angels, but they only have one speaking. Matthew and Mark only mention one speaking, but Matthew doesn't say there weren't two, just says one of them spoke. Do you see that? Obviously, there were two angels, but one of them was the spokesman. Remember we said in our first week, you can have differences in the accounts without there being a contradiction. This is a classic example. You've got a different rendering, but the difference in this case is not contradictory. The Gospels are all different, see, and yet they're harmonious. All four Gospel accounts of the resurrection of Christ have differences, but they all agree, or rather none of them contradict, and they're all totally in agreement on the death, the burial, and the fact that the tomb was empty. on Easter Sunday morning. And so it's true there are many variations in the four Gospels dealing with the resurrection, but never are these variations contradictory. Never. See, the authors differ in the details that they recorded. See, and you know, why shouldn't they? Think about it. If all four Gospels told the exact same story in the exact same order with the exact same details, then why would we need four? Let all four say the exact same thing. There'd be no need for four. There's a principle in the Bible, though, that for something to be considered truth, there had to be more than one witness. Do you get it? Matthew says he arose. Mark says he arose. Luke says he arose. John said he arose. You've got four credible witnesses right there. And see, four authors are not going to all say the same thing, tell the same story with the exact same words. They're not going to do it. They're going to emphasize different points. Some are going to add some details that the others don't add. But these differences, in no case are they contradictory. None. For instance, Matthew is the only gospel that tells how Jesus appeared to the women. Luke is the only gospel that tells how Jesus appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. John is the only gospel that tells how Jesus appeared to the disciples and later Thomas in the upper room and then later on the Sea of Galilee when Peter was naked and jumped in and all of that. So they tell different accounts. They're different, but they are not contradictory. Alleged discrepancy number three. This is a tough one. This is the one I have a hard time with. Aren't the genealogies of Jesus given in Matthew and Luke contradictory? Look at your verses. Matthew 1, 16. Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who was called Christ. Now look at Luke 3. And Jesus himself began to be about 30 years of age, being as was supposed the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli. Now watch. In Matthew 1, we've got Jacob begat Joseph. In Luke 3, we've got Heli begatting or being the father of Joseph. That's a little bit harder one. How can Joseph be the son of both Jacob and Heli? Your answer. Jot it down. Look at it. I don't think you'd get this one unless you've researched it, studied it some. Who thinks you know the answer? Five or six? Again, this one is a little more difficult, I think, than the others, but let me tell you what I think. By the way, there's several possibilities. Again, all these arguments. Listen, they've debated these things for centuries. Some of the old church fathers have written volumes on these things. There's all kind of possible answers, but I'm going to give you two. The most common answer is this, that Luke is tracing the Lord's genealogy through Mary and not through Joseph, even though Joseph is mentioned and Mary isn't. OK? You say, well, why? If you were here Sunday morning, you know why. And that day you had cats, dogs, women, and men. Remember? Women didn't count for much. Remember? That day? Women, it was rare for a woman's name to be listed. in a genealogy to be mentioned. Instead, they would mention her husband's name instead of hers. OK, because she didn't count. It was just common. You just you just you just didn't include them. See, in that day. And so some some would say that Luke is tracing the Lord's genealogy back through Mary and not Joseph. And therefore, Heli was Mary's father and not Joseph's father. Now, that may seem like it's stretching it some, okay? But that explanation is consistent with the culture of that day, the way they wrote in that day, the way they did things in that day. We wouldn't consider that today. But that is consistent with the accepted standards of that day. You've got to keep that in mind. You've got to interpret the Bible in light of the culture of that day. Along with that possibility, an exact literal rendering of Luke 3 would read as this. Look at your Luke 3 verse. Let me read it for you. A literal translation would go like this. Jesus, when He began, that is, began His ministry, was about 30 years old, being the son of Joseph as it was thought, of Heli. He does not say literally that Joseph was the son of Heli. Being as it was opposed, the son of Joseph, comma, of Heli. And then it continues from there. Simply, the possible explanation is that Jesus was a descendant of Heli on his mother's side, on Mary's side. Joseph was mentioned. because that was the common practice of the day to mention the husband and not the wife. There's another possible explanation that I could give you. Look at the Matthew 1 verse. It's possible that Heli was Joseph's father in Luke 3 and that Jacob there in Matthew 1 was Joseph's uncle who died childless, leaving Joseph to be the closest heir And thus, Joseph and Jesus would be brought into the royal line. Again, that's the way they operated back then. If you had an uncle, and the uncle had no kids, you lost your father, the uncle was considered as your father. It's just another cultural difference. You see, we're in a 20th century Western culture, and we look at the Bible in light of our culture. These words were written 2000 years ago in an Eastern culture. Well, you're talking about a whole different ballgame city. And that's why we have a lot of the problems we have with the Bible. A lot of things just don't make a lick of sense to us. You've got to keep in mind the day and the culture. in which the Bible was written, or else you're going to get confused on some of these things. So that's a possibility. I struggle with that one a little bit, but they are both legitimate possibilities. So-called contradiction number four. Let me hurry on, or I'm going to be out of time here. How do you reconcile Matthew 26, there on your sheet, with Mark 14? Did the rooster crow once before Peter denied Christ? Or twice? Which was it? Look at Matthew 26. Jesus said, this night before the cock crow, you'll deny me thrice. But look at Mark 4. Verily I say unto you, that this day, even in this night before the cock crow, twice you'll deny me thrice. Well, which is it? Is Peter going to deny Christ before the cock crows once or before the cock crows twice? Your solution. Jot it down. How would you reconcile it? Who thinks you know the answer? Put up good and high. Let me tell you what I think. I think it's quite reasonable that Jesus made both these statements. And again, they're different, but they're not necessarily contradictory. Absolutely different. But depending upon how you reconstruct it, it's not necessarily contradictory. Let me give you a possible reconstruction. First of all, Many believe that though God inspired Mark to write the Gospel of Mark, Mark was not one of the apostles. Mark was not there. Keep that in mind. He was a young man. Mark was written a couple of decades after the death of Christ. And it's doubtful that Mark was anywhere near an adult when this happened. And he wasn't an apostle. Now, it's true that every word of Mark was inspired by God, the Holy Spirit told Mark what to write. But it's also true that God uses human instruments to accomplish his work. And it's believed, from various indications of Scripture, that Mark was a disciple of Peter, and that the Apostle Peter, as an eyewitness, told Mark what happened. And that doesn't mean Mark was writing Peter's words. God still inspired Mark to choose the words that he chose. Do you understand that? God's the one that moved Mark along. But it's very possible that Mark got the account of what happened from the guy that was listening to the rooster himself, Peter. And if that were the case, it makes sense that Peter, as the main character in the story, would go into more detail than Matthew would go into. Okay? Let me give you a possible reconstruction. Maybe Jesus said, Before, look at Matthew 26, before the rooster crows, Peter, you're going to deny me three times. Peter's mouth drops open. And you know how Peter was. He always objected loudly. I can see Peter throwing a fit. I can see him saying, what in the... I can see him getting all excited and just really objecting to it. And I can see Jesus turning back around and saying to Peter, repeating the earlier prediction, but just further elaborating. Peter, not only are you going to deny me before the rooster crows three times, you're going to deny me. You're going to deny me. How does it say it there in Mark 4? You're going to, before the rooster crows twice, you'll deny me three times. Not only are you going to deny me, you're going to do it three times. See? And so He simply adds the further a prediction to what's going to happen. They're not contradictory. They're just different. I got six minutes very quickly, so-called contradiction number five. This is the one I think you can get real easy. How do you explain the inaccuracy between Judas hanging himself in Matthew 27? In his body bursting open in Acts one, let's read the passages. Judas cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, departed, and went out and hanged himself. Judas died by hanging himself. But look at Acts 1. It says, Judas bought a field. There he fell headlong, his body burst open, and all his intestines spilled out. How did Judas die? By the way, this passage right here has often been held up by skeptics as proof that the Bible is not inerrant. They'll say, the Bible is full of contradictions. Look, Matthew says Jesus hung Himself. Peter says He tripped and fell and His body burst open, His intestines. Totally contradiction. The Bible is not inerrant. Don't you believe it? Don't you believe it for a minute? Your answer, jot it down. How would you reconcile it? How many of you think you know the answer? A little bit more of you on this one. Let me show you. Look at Matthew. Matthew says Judas hung himself, but it doesn't say he didn't also fall down. Peter says in Acts 1 that Judas' body was torn open, but he doesn't say that he wasn't hung. Do you see it? Again, the accounts are different. But they're not necessarily contradictory, they're both different, but they're also both true. Let me reconstruct it. Judas goes out and hangs himself on a tree limb. He dies. He's there for some time, maybe days. His body begins to bloat. Decomposition sets in. Somebody comes along and they cut them down. Or maybe there's a storm. Maybe the branch breaks. Whatever. I would imagine somebody cuts them down. That bloated body hits the ground, strikes a jagged rock, just rips. It rips his gut. I can just put it that way. It just opens up the intestines fall out, his body is torn, the intestines, the bloated body, the intestines pour out. It is a very possible, and by the way, the terrain there where the Bible says he hung himself, the terrain there is extremely rocky, just full of, it's a mountainous like, not so much mountainous, but just very rocky, jagged type terrain. Why couldn't it be both? He hung himself, he hung, cut down, bloated body, hit the boulder, ripped him open, the intestines gushed out. What you've got is Matthew and Peter both speaking of his death, but they just speak of it from a different perspective. Matthew tells us how he went out and hung himself. Peter tells us, how his body was broken open. So, ladies and gentlemen, again, we've looked at five more. To my satisfaction, they're answered. I hope they are. I hope they are to yours. Again, why are we doing all of this? I want you to know more than John 3,16. I want you to know what you believe and why you believe it. I don't want you to be afraid of some guy with a Ph.D. by his name that laughs at you because you carry a Bible. I don't want that to scare you. I don't want you intimidated. I don't want you afraid. And I want you to have even more than all of that. I want you to have absolute trust in this book. I want to tell you something. This is God's Word. I want you to believe it and trust it. And I want you to watch. so convinced it's true that when you see it in this book, you'll accept it. You'll do it. I mean, I want you to get your mind so securely that this is God's Word. And when you see in this book that the Bible says a man and a woman ought not to live together in adultery. You're not going to say, well, that's just some guy's opinion. You're going to say, that's God's Word. It's over. Amen? I want you to be so convinced this book is God's Word that when you see that the Bible forbids lying and dishonesty, that it's done. From this point on, you're going to be truthful and honest with everybody, with customers. with your wife, with everybody, because God said it. Do you get my point? I want you to be convinced to the depths of your being that this is not a compilation of some group of men's opinions. These are the very words of Almighty God. You're going to learn it. You're going to believe it. You're going to trust it. You're going to obey it. Amen? That's what we're after. Next week, we'll look at some more. Let's stand together.