I think everybody here knows everybody here except for Joseph is new. Joseph visited Sunday and was somewhat intrigued I guess by what he heard and saw. So here he is in our Basic Bible Truth training class. We're going to be, I've got a student coming, a real one. Won't be here tonight, but she's already been through lesson one so But she'll be actually going through her Bible classes in front of y'all Wow, so you'll need to be very nice to her No, no, no jeering John, that's what I get John bring some duct tape Well, I I do not have I do not have someone to Introduce me and to tell you all of my credentials, okay? Like you know kind of what happened in one of these type of events so I'm going to tell you what happened today. We were eating lunch at Kelly's. I met Lisa and Sarah for lunch today, and I looked across Kelly's, and there sat a rocket scientist named Gene Braun, B-R-O-W-N-D. Gene and Janine were there, and they were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. Now, they had just come back from Galveston and had just stopped at Kelly's for lunch. And you might ask, well, why am I telling you about that? I'm telling you about that because 30 years ago, I led Jane and Janine Braun to Christ through basic Bible criticism. 30 years ago. That's how long I've been doing this. Actually, it's somewhat longer than that. I've been doing it a lot. I've virtually never stopped. I slowed down for a few years, but the Lord wouldn't ever let me stop. What this is, you find almost any ministry across the country, you're going to find preachers, ministers of all varying types that are going to change and improve and move to different methods of outreach. They try something for a while and it works some, but not really well. And then they get another idea or hear of something new and try that and go on for that. Well, I've been teaching this for, I guess I need to stop and add it up. It's 30 some odd, 336, I can't remember exactly. The reason I've taught it so long and so consistently is because I've never seen anything that even comes close to comparing to it in its effectiveness. Virtually, almost, 96, 7, 8, 9, somewhere in there percent of everybody that goes through this class that is not already saved is going to trust Christ in these classes. It's not one of those things that you do whatever the program is and you win one once in a while. If you'll do this, the way I'm going to teach you to do this, and not try to just go reinvent everything, but just go do what I'm going to show you how to do, you're going to get to see people saved. You're going to do it consistently. You'll do it the rest of your life, unless you choose not to. There's a verse of scripture in Luke 12.48. And the last half of the verse, Jesus is teaching a parable and He's teaching, but the last half of the verse, He refers to a known principle and He says, for whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required. And to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. Luke 12.48. It's not part of the lessons. It's simply I brought it up simply to tell you that that what you're going to be given here in this class is going to be something that you're going to be responsible for. I do not I do not recommend that you learn how to do this. And then just file it away and go through the rest of your life knowing but not doing it. I lost my connection here. To know this, to understand these things, and to not do it is to, I think, put yourself in danger. Because to whom much is given, much is also required. Daniel. If you go to the book of Daniel, chapter 12, I'm not going to go read it. I'm just going to quote it for you. But it's there in Daniel chapter 12. You're going to find that the Bible says that they that turn many to righteousness are going to shine as the stars of the firmament forever. The rewards that God has in store for those that are involved in the business of reaching people for Jesus Christ are not to be compared with any other. I know there's a crown of glory for certain things. Pastors have a special crown provided they do their job well. People that turn many to righteousness, they're in the elite of heaven's society. And I used to say, well, I didn't know there was a lead in heaven. Well, there is. And it's a reward system, and it's phenomenal. And the Bible teaches us that we're not, as Christians, to be living for here and now. Our lives are to be lived for what's coming, not for what's going on at this present day. Does that resonate with everybody? Are we here because of the kingdom that's coming. I hope that's why you're here. So, as we get into these lessons, I'm going to take you through this book. This is a really small book, and it's small for a reason, because it needs to be easy and user-friendly. This book is designed in such a way that you can lay it on the table, put your finger down on it, and read through it, taking people through the scriptures, and stumble all over yourself, and still see people get saved. Because the power is not in the book. The power is not in you. The power is in the only place there is power, and that's Jesus Christ. The Lord will open their understanding. He will get this across. I'm going to I'm going to read to you. Nobody ever reads the off from the author in the foreword of any book. No, I mean, you're guilty of never reading that part. But we're going to read that part. I wrote this long time ago. And it's still as true as it ever was. What you hold in your hand is the evolution of more than 30 years of teaching basic Bible truth. This is the number one soul winning tool that we use here at Lighthouse Baptist Church in Dickinson, Texas. Now that's been true for a long time now. Much of the material and certainly the methodology contained herein is the work of my long time friend and mentor, Dr. Lester Hudson. I've enjoyed great personal success in reaching a loss through basic Bible truth from the beginning. Successes in teaching and motivating others to do so have been minimal until now. I have over the years taught numerous seminars in our church and others on what we call the harvest ministry, which is the heart of which is winning the loss through basic Bible truths. And we have seen only a fraction of those taught go on to become the consistent soul winners that they can be. I want this group to change that. Okay? We need to change that story. And it can change right here tonight. Now that we have this simplified teaching manual in print, and in the hands of our trained, front-line Bible teachers, we're seeking new souls saved and baptized, or seeing new souls saved and baptized nearly every week. Now that's not happening at the moment. It has been. We've got to get back to it. God's plan is that we reach the lost, baptize the saved, teach the baptized to reach the lost, and baptize the saved, and teach the baptized to reach the lost, and so on, and so on. It's a circle that never has an end. And our hope is that this tool is going to help bring the Lord glory that only He deserves. Ephesians 3.21, unto Him be glory in the church. I would like someone else to read out loud the foreword by Dr. Hudson. You're going to get to hear him every night coming up at youth camp. And we need the table now. Brother Keith, would you read out loud, read the foreword by Dr. Hudson? One hard worker could wash 40 dirty cars a day. How many dirty cars could 100 hard workers wash? It's wonderful to do a great job yourself and each of us to personally bring many souls to Christ. It's far better to recruit others to join you in the effort. No soul winner should be content to do it alone. I've used basic Bible truths to reach many souls. What a joy it has been. However, I've also experienced the exponential joy of seeing many others use this tool to bring hundreds to our blessed Savior. No one I have known has done so more effectively and consistently than Charles Dill. He has used the basic Bible truths to bring hundreds to Christ. Even better, he has taught many others to use this tool. When I first developed basic Bible truths after the big auto wreck in 1967, I saw the value of a logical, systematic, biblical approach. From the start, I realized that there is only one true gospel message, but there are many ways to present it. Like any great tool, it must be applied to the situation at hand, and situations vary. Once the fundamentals of the basic Bible truths methodology for presenting the gospel message are mastered, a teacher will find himself increasingly adept at applying it. Charles Dill has adapted and simplified basic Bible truths in a very effective way. He has made it an easier tool to use. I encourage you to make it yours. Stay flexible. You, too, will have to adapt. Situations vary. Your approach must remain rigid, only in content, not methodology. Get the Gospel message of Christ across, whatever it takes. Alright. So much for the credentializing. Okay? Alright. Let's see here. I'm loving the size of the class. One of the principles that you're going to need to understand on the outset... Hey guys. We've got chairs for everybody. We can do four at the big table, at least the end table. We can do one more on the end. We've got one more. We've got one more up here. Now that we've been through that process, I want to remind you what the Lord said when He said, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. and I'll give you rest. He said that his yoke was easy and the burden is light. I want you to understand that the pressure of dealing with somebody's eternal destiny is pressure that you're going to put there yourself, if it's there at all, because it's not for you to bear. That pressure is for the Lord to bear, not you. I want you to understand this. You're not responsible for whether somebody makes it to heaven or not. Jesus made a couple of statements that we need to remember. He said in John 6.44 that no man can come to me, He said, except the Father which has sent me draw him. You're not going to talk somebody in to take any classes. You're going to inform them about it. You're going to encourage them and love them But they're going to do this because they want to do it You many of you matter of fact most of you have been through the classes And when you took them nobody really had to talk to you into it You heard about it. You thought it sounded really Really a wonderful opportunity to learn a really learn about the Lord and And you kind of jumped at the chance to do it. I remember Dwayne and Jessica. They come up to me after the church, after they'd been attending what, six weeks, a month, something? And they said, you know, we want to take those classes. And I said, well, OK, I guess we should. Of course, I'm always excited when someone wants to take the classes. But the point is, you don't have to talk anybody into this. You don't have to force the issue. Jesus said, and by the way, before I read this, I want to qualify this, but we're not Calvinists. We believe that whosoever will may come. And the Lord knows who will and who won't. And I can't do anything about that. And he can't help being God, so just move on from that, all right? But he said in John 6, 37, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. So your job isn't to save people. Your job is to fulfill your part of the great commission as a part of this church. The commission is given to the church, not to individual Christians. And I'm not going to take the time to go through that, but that's easy to prove in the Bible. We are a team effort here. And every person that I went to Christ There's a whole support system behind me, enabling me to do that. And every member, and that includes all the members that aren't learning how to do this, are part of that support system. So everybody's got a piece of this action. But to be on the front line, to be one of the reapers who gets to see the fruit come into the basket, there's a reward there that is second to none. certainly in this world, and if I read my Bible right, in the one to come as well. So I hope you're excited about learning to be a soul winner. And I'm asking right now for your commitment to not only learn this, but to follow through and use it. You gonna use it? Okay, all right, because this is, This is not one of those things that you go to a little seminar and you hear about this new idea, and first of all, it's not a new idea. It's the age-old idea laid out in a systematic way. And it's not that kind of thing. This is going to get the job done like you've never dreamed it will. You know, preachers are pretty lazy, most of them, and we'd like to all just preach one sermon and just have hundreds saved and grounded you know, become members the next week and all be mature Christians the week after that. It doesn't work like that. Jesus saved people one at a time. And we've got to be willing to teach them one at a time. And so that's what this is. That's what this is all about. We have an overview here. And our job is to teach them. Well, you know, teach them what? Well, the first thing that you have to know to get anywhere to understand anything, you've got to start with this book. Now, back in Paul's day, they didn't have a Bible. They had pieces of Bible and the apostles. And the apostles were basically their Bible and God used miracles to prove that they were from God. Well, God's given us this book and He's given us evidence to prove that this is from God. We have evidence just like the apostles had miracles to get that job done. And frankly, it's easier to do the job with the tools we have than it was for them to do the job with the tools they had. Because this is amazing. This is complete. There's nothing in the history of the universe ever been like the Word of God. So we have to establish this as the inerrant, absolute Word of Almighty God. Because you cannot trust in what you don't understand to some degree, and certainly what you're not sure of. You've got to be sure of something in order to trust it, and trust in it. And that's the basis of salvation, of course. The second thing that we must teach them, we must teach them how to know and understand their own condition before God. If you go to the next page or two here, you're going to find Let me find it here. Let me back up. You've got a table of contents, lesson plans in here. The first one is the evidence. It's on page nothing. It doesn't have a page number. People have to know where they stand. Second thing. And that's simply the title of the second lesson, where we stand. This is not where we stand with our neighbors, where we stand In the church where we stand in society, this is where we stand before God. And people have to know that. And God is very liberal about telling us that in the Scriptures over and over and over again. And we're going to do a lot of that. The third lesson, a person must know what it takes to be saved. And we're going to learn how to lead them to trust Christ. We're going to learn about the pitfalls. We're going to spend a lot of time on that one. We're going to learn what to listen for, experience. After you've done this for five or six or ten years, you're going to get a lot better at it than you're going to be the first year. Because you're going to be able to, you will have heard enough stories and enough experiences to know immediately where they come from and what they are, and then be able to take them from where they are to a clear understanding And we're going to spend some time learning how to do that, but experience is going to really enhance that for you. After people are saved, we do not dare leave that new babe standing on the street, wish him good luck, and head on down the road. People need to know how to walk with God. When Christians don't know how to walk with God, their lives become even more disastrous than they were when they were lost. The only thing that's different is they're not going to hell. But everything else usually gets worse. And they must know God's plan for those who become believers. And that's the final lesson. God has a plan for you. And that plan is not this mystical, magical thing that you're going to go out in the world and just follow it all over creation. That plan is in church. That's what the church is for. It is God's plan for people who are believers. And we're going to see God explain that and hopefully we'll understand it even clearer ourselves. So, questions? I'll take a little five minute deal here to give you a chance to ask questions. Not everybody at once. Is the concept, well, first of all, how many of you have been through the classes? Let's see your hands. All right, we got two only that have not. Okay, all right, cool. Laramie, you have not been through the classes. about that. Would you like to be my student tonight? All right. I'm gonna let you come up here and sit up here across the table for me. No pressure. Joseph has been through it either but I'll go ahead and use this week to take Laramie through the classes as well. And tomorrow night, if possible, Kariana will be here, and she's going to be our other student. So we're probably going to take two of you together. You don't want to take more than what's in a family, two, three people. Is about it Say well, man, we can do this. Let's get a whole group together and do this Who can tell me why that's not a good idea? Well It's it's really not so much that they each have their own story because you can take the time to to do it and The problem is that to get through five classes in over five weeks and everybody to attend all of them faithfully is almost impossible. And every class is totally dependent upon the previous class. And so you can't you just can't do it. A family unit that's pretty much going to always be there together. Great. But other than that, it's just not effective. It's just too much. It is too much interruption, too much backtracking. You're going to see, and we're going to start here in a little bit, and we'll explain as we go. You're going to see illustration after illustration after illustration, coupled with Scripture. Illustrations are something that Jesus used constantly get the understanding of Scripture across. He said to Nicodemus, if I tell you earthly things and you're having trouble, what could you know if I told you heavenly things? You're not going to understand it. So you need something that you do understand to compare it to in order to get the principle across. And that's why all these illustrations. Every one of the illustrations in this book has been tried and proven for many, many years. There are some things in here that have been so totally effective, virtually 100% of the time, that to change it or move on to a different one would just be kind of, you know, shooting yourself in the foot. So we don't want to fix it when it's not broken. And so these, they're going to be very important. All right, any, no questions, huh? Well, I guess only two of you haven't been through the class that explains part of that. So let's go ahead and let's go ahead and get started. We've got We're gonna take we're gonna take exactly an hour for the class and I Know y'all been eyeballing the cake Probably it's probably better now not to interrupt the class. It's probably better now to go ahead and take about seven or eight minutes maximum And we're gonna start our class sharply at 20 till. So you can take a break and get your piece of cake and a brownie and do whatever it is you want to do. Try to take a restroom break if you can because we're going to stay at it for one solid hour without a break. Just a few, while you're smacking your last bites of the dessert, You know that scripture that tells you to come to church with your bodies washed with pure water? Over there in Hebrew. It's not about baptism, it's about taking a bath. It's actually the scripture where the original Saturday night bath rhythm is. Before you go teach a class, yeah, that's a good idea. Check your teeth. Make sure there's not a piece of lettuce from supper hanging in there that they're going to just try not to stare at during the whole class. Carrie, I'm going to be nice to Laramie because I have a dry mouth right now and so I'm going to use my little backup plan right here, my little So keep your little safeguard going. Keep the breath nice. Presentable. Amen? And the Bible, I don't want to get into any arguments about translation, but you're using the King James for this. Period. If nothing else will work. The scriptures we're going to go to and the illustrations we're going to use, the new translations just destroy the principles that are there. So just don't even try to adapt this to a new translation. You're going to just struggle and mess it all up and just use a keynote version. And if you have an issue with it, we'll get over it. OK? That's all I got to say. All right. I'm going to be writing notes. You put them anywhere on this paper you want to. I usually put them up here at the top and kind of work my way down the side. It really doesn't matter as long as they're on there because you're going to give this to your students at the end of every lesson. And next week they're going to get a new one and you're going to start over. And each week you'll have the previous week's list on it in print, so it's a pretty safe deal. All right, Laramie. You ready to start your Bible classes? Well, cool. Come sit up here with me. For the next five weeks, we're going to take an amazing and exciting journey through the scriptures. Now, no one could possibly teach the Bible in And I'm going to just do this, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, the way you're going to do it when you first start out. You're going to be looking over at the book and wondering if it's OK to do that. But you just watch. It works the same. Nobody can teach the Bible in five hours. even if they knew it, but have you ever gone through a subdivision and seen a slab ready to be built on and a big pile of lumber that just came off the truck? Well, there's a house in that big bundle, but it doesn't look like a house yet, does it? Well, when you go by in another week or two, you'll see it all framed up, and then you can see it's still not a house yet, but you can see where everything fits. Well, that's what we're going to do with these five lessons. We're going to look at the framework so you can see where all of these basic truths of the Bible fit and how it works. So, let's get started. We're going to address the first question of the day. Do you believe that the Bible really is God's Word? How do you know? Yeah, that's a pretty good question, isn't it? She's looking this way, but she's turning red and that's kind of See down here where it says wait for answer any answers a good one How can you stake your life on something that you're not sure about Yeah, that's what we're actually doing when we're depending on what the Bible says. We're speaking not just this life, but eternal life. I want to read to you from Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1. Over here in Hebrews 11, you know, the most common answer, Laramie, when I ask people that question is they say, well, I just have faith that it is. Hebrews 11.1 talks about faith. And by the way, I've got this big print Bible right here. And I'm going to give you all the notes as we go. So you don't really have to worry about looking it up as we go. I'm going to look it up for you and we'll share it right here. Okay? Makes it easy. And there's no homework, by the way. You'll like that. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Bible faith, real faith, is based on substance and it's based on evidence. It's not based on blindly accepting what someone, even someone that you may respect and love, told you. As we get started, I want to take you to one more scripture that's going to prepare you for what we're going to learn. And that scripture is over here in Isaiah. And it's in chapter 55 when we get to Isaiah. And you can, by the way, tab and mark your Bible for these. Isaiah 55, in verse 8 and 9, we find that God tells us how He thinks versus how we do. He says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. God does not think like we think. and He doesn't do things like we do things. So prepare to be surprised at what you see. You're going to see some things that you're going to go, wow, I didn't know that. And you'll see it for yourself right here in the Bible. Now, God has given us three separate means, Laramie, by which we can know for sure with evidence, like we just read about, that we can know for sure that the Bible is His Word and it really is truth. The first one of those, and I have it here on your note sheet. The first one of those is the construction of the Bible. I'm going to share with you several things that you may already know about the Bible or that you could easily check out, easily verify. First of all, we know that the Bible contains 66 books, right? There's 39 books in the Old Testament, and there's 27 books in the New Testament. The actual writing of these books took about Best that we can tell took about 1600 years There's a varying opinion a little bit on that, but it's a long time There were at least 40 men involved in the pinning of the scriptures, so you got 40 men We're going to write that down here now these men Were from a great variety of backgrounds For example, Peter was called an ignorant fisherman. He didn't have a formal education. Luke was a physician, like a doctor. He was a doctor. Matthew was a tax collector. Those guys were usually thought to be crooked and usually were. I'm sure Matthew probably had his issues too. Paul was a great scholar. David was a shepherd boy. You can see they're from a whole lot of different worlds. Now the Bible was written Let's see, various backgrounds. Now the Bible was written on three separate continents. And it would probably help you to know what those were, Europe, North Africa, and Asia. just in case somebody asks you. So it's nice to look smart. And it was North Africa and Asia. And every book that the books of the Bible written in three actual different languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. Yes. Does anybody ever told you no, when you ask them about the Bible? They believe it's true. Yeah. Any answer is the right answer. So where do you go from there? You just go. That's what we're doing. In most cases, the answer really is no, whether it's yes or not. When I asked Laramie how you know, she went, It really doesn't matter what the answer is. What we're going to do is give them an answer, a real one. So it was in three continents and three languages. Now, every book in the Bible has the same theme. That theme is what God has done for fallen men. You know, we've all sinned and God has loved us anyway, and He's done something about it. Every book in the Bible has the same central character. And that same central character is, guess who? Well, God, yes, but Jesus is the central character. Jesus, of course, is God, and we'll get to that. We'll learn more about that as we go. The Old Testament speaks constantly about His coming. There's one called Messiah. He's going to come. Someday He's coming, and when He does, He'll do this and this, and He'll do that. And the New Testament records the events surrounding His arrival. So that's your basic two divisions in the Bible. You've got the Old Testament, which tells about the Savior's going to come. and you got the New Testament, which tells us what happened when he did come. And of course, I guess there's gonna be a Third Testament Sunday, it's gonna tell us what happens when he comes again, but we'll be there to see that. So the writers obviously here did not live at the same time. If there's 40 of them, they lived over 1,600 years, they couldn't have lived at the same time, right? All but a few of the writers did not know each other. Some of the apostles, but not all of them knew each other. They did not have the work of the others to refer to when each one of them did his own particular thing. You've probably heard people say that there are contradictions and that there are errors in the Bible. You ever hear anybody say that? You ever hear anybody say that there are mistakes in the Bible? You know, contradictions and errors? Yeah? If you're going to go to school, somebody at school is going to be talking about there's mistakes in the Bible because they don't want to they don't want to have to be ruled by what it says. Have you ever seen one? I read the Bible pretty much every day. And I've never seen one either. Furthermore, in my case, I've been teaching these lessons for over 30 years. And I still get to meet my first person who's ever seen one in the Bible. As a matter of record, no one to this day has ever been able to prove either one contradiction or one error anywhere in the Bible. There are those who do not understand what they're reading and who think they've found contradictions in the Bible. Would you like to see an example? We call that a kind of a perceived contradiction. It's not really one, but the perception is of that being one. Let me give you an example of one of the things that people have called a contradiction at some time or another. In Matthew 22, verse 37, Jesus said, Thou shalt love the Lord with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. That's pretty basic, isn't it? The first and great commandment. Peter said in 1 Peter 4, 8, Above all things have fervent love among yourselves. Jesus says that we should love God above all, and Peter says that we should love each other above all. So which one is right? It appears contradictory on the surface, if you don't understand what it's talking about. But if you look deeper, you're going to find that it's not that way at all. As a matter of fact, in 1 John 4 and 20, we're taught that scripture over there, it says, How can you love God whom you do not see? if you do not love your brother whom you do see. Let me take that over here and show you that verse of Scripture. 1 John 4 and verse number 20. Here's what it says. It says, If a man say, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he that loves not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? Have you ever seen God? Me neither. Now, Jesus taught us in Matthew 25 In verse 24-40, He's talking to the disciples. He was constantly teaching them lessons. I can just imagine them hanging on every word, just trying to catch the next phrase. And He says, I was hungry and you gave me food. And I was thirsty and you gave me drink. And I was a stranger and you took me in. And I was naked and you clothed me. And I was in prison and you visited me. Of course, I'm shorting that up a little bit. And they were looking at each other and they were saying, Lord, we didn't do that. I mean, you've not been sick. They're looking at each other wondering what is he talking about? And Jesus makes this statement at the end of that discourse. He says, inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, you've done it unto me. You see, what Jesus is telling us here is that the way we love God is to love each other. You can't help God when he can't pay his rent. You can't encourage God when he's gone through a tough time and he's hurting and sad. You can't hug him. I mean, you can't. Love is what we do. And the Bible tells us that the way we love God is to love each other. So not only is this not a contradiction, it's amazing harmony that frankly only God could have thought of, not us. Make sense? All right, we're going to go on an imaginary field trip. We're going to talk about something that you like to do for fun. So what do you like to do when you're not busy working down at the factory or? I'm kidding. sing and play guitar and stuff. That's pretty broad. We'll go with the singing. Okay, let's go with that one. We're going to find us, we're going to go on this imaginary field trip and we're going to find us two singing instructors. Not 40, like the writers of the Bible, just two, alright? We're going to find two that are not like greatly different. You know, the writers of the Bible were like big time difference. So we're gonna go find, we're not gonna find like a country singer and an opera singer's instructor, okay? We're gonna go find two of the same type of music, and I bet your music is Christian music. Yeah, I had a feeling it would be. So we're going to find these two as much alike as we can. We're going to get them from the same part of the country and from the same school and, you know, the whole deal. Get them as alike as we can get them. And we're going to give these two singing instructors a simple writing assignment. We're not going to ask them to write 66 books. We're not even going to ask them to write one book. We're going to ask them to write something on the level of a junior high essay. You were in junior high not very long ago, right? I'm still in junior high. You're still in junior high? Yeah, I'm still in high school. Sorry, Brian. How long is a junior high essay these days? How many pages? Depends. Well, sure, Mary. One page. One, maybe two? Yeah. OK. Let's tell them to give us one to two pages. small, this little, you know, single space, not double, not single. We don't care. Their, their papers aren't going to cover the greatest scope of material that's ever been addressed in the history of man that's in the Bible. The Bible tells us about the origin of man and nature of God. I'm gonna read this list here. History recorded from creation with dates and times and places recorded all in perfect agreement. I don't know if you realize it, but the all of the dates and times and places are listed in all these different books and they all match perfectly every single one. Accurate discussion of the sciences, metallurgy, agriculture, astronomy, horticulture, and more thousands of stated details all in perfect agreement. No one to this day has ever been able to prove a mistake in the Bible. And by the way, this is not in your book, but there is a modern day miracle, and you'll want to put this down for your notes. There is a modern day miracle that proves to us that there are no mistakes in the Bible. A modern day miracle. And that miracle is this. If anyone had ever proved a mistake in the Bible, if it had ever happened, that's all you'd hear on CNN. And the fact that you don't, is huge evidence that there are no mistakes in the Bible. That's all they talk about if they could ever prove even one. All right, so, we're gonna ask these two singing instructors to write one little bitty short paper on the most, on just one single principle that they would teach a beginning student. Now, have you ever taken a singing lesson? Not yet? I wonder what a singing instructor would teach. One of the basic things they would probably teach is how to do the scales. How to sing the scale, Do Re Mi, or maybe how to breathe, how to take, you know, to something of that nature. Let's just pick one of those things. Let's take how to breathe. as you begin to sing the scale, so learn the scale. Do you think that it would be possible for two singing instructors to write us a couple of pages on how to teach a new beginner that one thing, just how to breathe as they begin to sing the scale and agree perfectly in everything they say? Do you think that could happen? they would think they were all right. But would they agree perfectly in every detail? Or would they all have their both have their different opinions? You think it would be possible that they could both be perfectly in agreement? Never happened with. Well, how then can you explain 40 different writers not to writing 66 complete books all about the same person, all about the same thing with thousands And I mean thousands of details, dates and times and places that all have to match and all have to be perfectly in agreement and never have one mistake in it anywhere. Is that humanly possible for that to happen? Yes. Well, it actually isn't humanly possible at all. No. Good answer. You see, if two people couldn't write a single page or two and agree perfectly on just one subject. And you're right in that they couldn't. I mean, it's been tested and tried and can't be done. Have you ever played the party game where you whisper something and the person's here next to you and they whisper the same thing to the next one and it goes around the circle? What happens when you play that party game? Does it come back with the same thing? ever come back with the same thing? Never comes back with the same thing. But the Bible is perfect in agreement. See, the very construction of the Bible proves something amazing to us. Now, as amazing as that is, and it is amazing, it does not prove that God wrote the Bible. What it does There is no way possible by any stretch of the imagination that men could have produced this book. It's just not possible. And the evidence is pretty clear. Now, we have a second means of God showing us the evidence of the Bible. Do you have any questions about that first part? Okay, you sure? All right. The second means we have been given is the prophecies of the Bible. Now, do you understand what a Bible prophecy is? A Bible prophecy. Do you know what a Bible prophecy is? It's okay if you don't, but most people don't. That's the reason I'm asking. Okay. Well, a Bible prophecy is a, basically it's a prediction. It's an event or something specific that is foretold well in advance. that is certain to happen in the future. Now, do you know anybody that can predict the future? I don't either. Well, actually I do, but his name is Jesus. But that's what a Bible prophecy is. There are hundreds of prophecies in the Bible. I've never personally counted them. I've counted a lot of them up, I've never tried to get the exact number, but they're said to be well over 350, just about Jesus alone. Just the things about him, that he's going to be virgin born, and that he's going to be hanged on a tree, and that he's going to be pierced through his hands and his feet, and all these prophecies about him, just him before he was ever born. And so, the thing about the prophecies is that all of these predictions, except for just a tiny few, have already happened. They were predicted many, many, many years ago, and then exactly when God said in the Bible they would happen, they did. And exactly what God said happened, happened. Now, the world is kind of impressed with a guy named Nostradamus, and you've all heard about him, and that's going to come up in your lessons sometime or another when you talk about Bible prophecies or prophecies. Nostradamus was basically a lunatic and made no sense at all. And if you've ever read his so-called prophecies, they're nothing, they're not anything like a Bible prophecy at all. There's no detail. It could have been, it could be literally anything, anywhere, anytime, and you could just kind of, you know, just bend it around and hope to make it fit. That's the thing, the Cantos are rather nonspecific. They've been interpreted and reinterpreted at least. have this, first of all, they have this accuracy record. What would you say the accuracy record would be? It'd be 100%. I heard a voice. Wow. It is 100%. Would you like to see a Bible prophecy? Say yes. I've never had anybody say no, by the way. All right, now, since I'm the teacher, I get to pick my favorite Bible prophecy, don't I? Okay, is that cool? Well, I have a favorite Bible prophecy. And my favorite Bible prophecy is in the book of Micah, which was one of the last of the Old Testament prophets. It was getting down fairly close to when Jesus came, about 700 years before Jesus came, actually. And Micah the prophet, tells us where Jesus is going to come from. Now, the reason I like this prophecy so much is that everybody I have ever met knows about it. I promise you, you know about this prophecy. I guarantee you do. This prophecy tells us where Jesus is going to come from. Let's read it. It's Micah chapter 5, and it's easy to understand. You don't have to be a theologian to understand it. He says, But thou, Bethlehem, aphrodite. There were two Bethlehems and this tells us which one was though thou be little among the thousands of Judah Yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel Whose goings forth have been from old from everlasting? now this person they're talking about we know that this is the Messiah and Reason we know that he's the final. This is the final King and is that this king has always existed. His goings forth, in other words, his life has been from everlasting. So this is not King David, and it's not King Solomon, and it's not Uzziah or Hezekiah or any of those other kings. This is the king of kings, the main king known as the Messiah, and it tells us exactly where he's going to come from. Where does it say he's going to come from? Bethlehem. Where was Jesus born? Old Little Town of? You're a singer? That's a song, Old Little Town of Bethlehem. Okay, so everybody pretty much knows that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. And they say, well, okay, so what? Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Well, the so what is that Joseph and Mary did not live in Bethlehem. She's a very young girl. I don't want to make this connection to your age, but she's probably about your age. And she is chosen of the Lord, and she is pregnant. And she's going to have a baby. And she's nine months right down to the time of giving birth. Laramie, have you ever been around a pregnant woman? Are they a little bit grumpy sometimes? Do they just go out and run races and run up hills and down valleys? pine trees. They sleep a lot. Yeah, okay. Mary's nine months pregnant. And they didn't live in Bethlehem. And I bet you almost bet you since the preachers aren't supposed to bet. That's probably not a good idea for me to do that. But you probably know where they Well, it's in Israel, yeah, that's the country. But if I said Jesus of, what would you say? Nazareth, Nazareth. Hey, you didn't know. Everybody knows it, that's what I love about this prophecy. Everybody knows it. Now, this is my handy dandy Bible map of Palestine and Christ's time. And right there, not very far from the Sea of Galilee, otherwise known as the Sea of Chinnereth, is the town of Nazareth, where Joseph and Mary lived, and where she's nine months along, almost getting ready to have a baby. And there is a Roman Caesar who passed a law, a decree, that everybody in his kingdom has to go back to the city of their ancestry and register for this new tax that he's going to do. And I don't know if it was for aqueducts or whatever it was for, He's taxing the whole empire. And he appointed this guy named Cyrenius. And it's all this is all in secular history, not just in the Bible, but we'll read it in the Bible here in a minute. They appointed him over that whole region over Syria. And also, if you read the history books, you find that he gave him Judah because he didn't like him and wanted to, you know, be a thorn in his side. There was a lot of politics involved. But but everybody had to go back to the city of their ancestry to register for this tax. Now Joseph and Mary were both from the ancestry of King David. There's another prophecy that says the Messiah, the Savior, is going to come through the family lineage of guess who? King David. Yes, that's him. Okay, so they had to go back to the city of David. Guess what the city of David is? Bethlehem. Bethlehem is the city of David. You read 1 Samuel 17, the prophet goes to choose David and it says he's going to the house of Jesse the Bethlehemite. Bethlehem is Jesse, David's dad's hometown and Bethlehem is the city of David. It's still known as that today. So they had to go back to the city of Bethlehem Didn't matter if she's pregnant, didn't matter if they didn't want to, they had to go to be there for the taxation. Now, do you see Bethlehem on my map anywhere? It's there. Keep looking. There it is. Now look at there. It's not exactly in the neighborhood, is it? What's all that shade and stuff that's on the map there? That's mountains. What's the last thing a nine months pregnant girl that's about to have a baby would do? Maybe walk up and down mountains for three or four weeks? But she had to. They had to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem. No choice. Now there's a couple of ways to go. You can go down the Jezreel River Valley to the Jordan River Valley and follow that down to the Dead Sea and up 4,000 feet over the mountains and back down into Bethlehem. And if you've got good animals and strong men, that's about three weeks. Or you could go through Samaria, which would take longer with all the mountains up and down. And plus the outlaws would probably kill you before you got there. And that you didn't want to think about that. But whichever way they went, they did not get there ahead of everyone else. They kind of moving slow. And so we find over here in Luke chapter two, it's about 120 miles if it's a straight shot, which is not a lot more than that. But if you get over here to Luke chapter two, verses one through seven, It tells us about their journey. Let me see here. Here we go. All right. And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea under the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David. To be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger. because there was no room for them in the inn. And it tells us about the shepherds and all that other cool stuff. So the prophecy says that Jesus is going to come from Bethlehem. So Joseph and Mary have to travel to Bethlehem. They didn't go so that the prophecy would be fulfilled. They went because they had to go. And Jesus is born exactly where the prophet 700 years before said he's gonna come from. Does that sound a little bit amazing to you? Would you think that a coincidence like that or something that could actually happen by accident maybe once in all the history of the world? Maybe, maybe. What about twice? Eh, three or four times? Starting to get iffy now. How about 350, just about Jesus alone? Just like that. Every one of them perfectly accurate, 100%. No. No stretch of the imagination could call that a coincidence. See, this is the beautiful thing about the prophecies of the Bible. See, the construction shows us that man could not have written it. But the prophecies show us that only God could have written it. Nobody but God could have put this together. So that's just a pretty amazing thing. Now, I'm going to take a little break here and give our class a couple of notes. In your book, there are, on page number nine, some more prophecy illustrations that you might want to use. And of course, you've got hundreds of them to use if you want to pick them out, but some of them are a little bit detailed and technical, and others are very simple. The second one that I very often will use is Mark 15, 15-34, when Jesus, from the cross, cries out, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me? Now, most people, you've probably heard it preached that God turned His back on His Son because of our sin and all those things. That sounds pretty good, except that's not why He said it. Jesus said it because He's quoting verse 1 of Psalm 22, which tells us exactly what's happening at that particular point and those scribes that are standing there that copy it for a living were saying the very words of Psalm 22 and he's quoting it back to them and letting them see the prophecy being fulfilled right before their very eyes. And so if you go to Psalm 22, you'll get to read the details, all the details of the crucifixion right down to the piercing of the hands and the feet and the gambling for the the robe of Jesus there at the foot of the cross. So that's a good one. It's very impressive when people see that because most people, again, know about those verses and have heard that at some point in time. Another illustration that I like to use is a modern day, compared to the other one, is somewhat modern day illustration. And that is in Mark 13, 1 and 2, Jesus and the disciples are at the temple. And the disciples are remarking on what great stones are these. They're like 60 cubic tons per stone. If I remember my math right when we visited Israel. They're monsters. Some of them are like the size of this room. And the disciples are saying, wow, Lord, look at the size of these stones. And Jesus says, right there in that verse, He says, there shall not be one stone left on another that shall not be thrown down. That's just kind of a strange thing to say. You know, I would have said, even if I knew, I would have said, this is all going to be destroyed. But Jesus said, there won't be a single one left on another. Well, the first time I heard about this was watching the History Channel probably 20 years ago. And history tells us that when the Roman commander Titus came through to teach the rebellious Jews a lesson and was crucified by the hundreds, that he burned the temple in Jerusalem and moved on and left it in ruins. And he got word from someone about all the gold vessels that were in the temple. And of course, that huge hot fire, that temple, as cedar beams and burning very, very hot. And so he took his army back, and he took the temple apart stone by stone to get the gold that had melted and run down between the stones. And just like Jesus said, 70 years later, there was not one stone left upon another that was not thrown down. And it's just a pretty impressive prophecy, and you can read that one right out of the history books. Now, okay, here we are. back to our lesson. Now they're gone now. And it's just you and me. Okay. The third means that we have of knowing that this book is from God, let me is the fact that the Bible claims to be from God. Now, anyone could write a book, and in that book, say that it's the Word of God. And people have, by the way, but it wouldn't make a tree with no, But now that you've seen some real evidence, you've seen that the construction of the Bible show us that men could not have written this, you've seen that the prophecies of the Bible are so amazing that no one but God, who is timeless, could possibly know these things and know it all in every detail. Then now you're ready to see what the Bible says of how it really got here. And, you know, after you see the evidence, and then you read what the Bible says about how it got here, it kind of takes on a whole new authority for it. Now, I'm going to go over here to the book of 2 Peter, chapter 1. Have you ever wished that you could just ask God a question, maybe just go outside when you really needed to know something bad, and you just ask Him, Lord, what do I do now? And He'd just tell you? Yeah. Everybody I've ever met wishes that, by the way. Me too. I'm going to read these verses to you from 2 Peter chapter 1. I'm going to begin in verse number 16. Peter actually got to experience what we're talking about. You'll see that right here. It says, Here's Peter writing, for we have not followed cunningly devised fables. Now that means they're real smart to think up something that wasn't true. He said, now, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory. And here's what the voice said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And it must have been a very basic voice because in another passage, when people heard God's voice, they thought it thundered. They thought it sounded like thunder. And it says, this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy mount, up on the mountain. Well, Peter got to hear God's voice speak from heaven. Pretty impressive. If I could give you something better than that, you'd probably be interested in that, wouldn't you? Do you think it's possible that you can have something better than God just telling you? Well, let's find out. Peter said, look what he says next. We have also a more sure word of prophecy. Peter just got through saying, I heard God's voice from heaven, but we have something more sure than that. What? Yeah, look, yeah, it is a big what? Knowing this first. that no prophecy of the Scripture, verse 20, is of any private or any one person's interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. It says no prophecy of the Scripture. Laramie, what is Scripture? What's that word mean? What's script? I know what it is. Scripture is writing. Scripture doesn't just mean the Word of God. Scripture is the written Word of God. What Peter is telling us is that he heard God's voice from heaven, but because of the written Word of God, we have a more sure word of prophecy than God's voice from heaven. So there is something better, isn't there? I know this guy that's I know this guy that's a contractor. And when he was young and dumb in business, he would do verbal contracts sometimes. And it didn't work out real well for him because people would forget what they said. Put the bathroom on the back of the house and they came back from the vacation and it's in the living room on the front, not that type of thing. He got that problem fixed. You know how He fixed it? He got everything put in writing. And no more misunderstandings. Because being in writing is more sure than being verbal. Does that make sense? Well, that's what Peter is telling us. With the Word of God, we have something that's better than if God spoke to us from heaven. It's got everything in it that we need to know. and we can go back and re-read it and check it and double check it and know exactly what it was. So it's not like that party game we talked about earlier, where when it gets halfway around the room, you forget. I wouldn't get all the way home and I'd sit there, what was it he said again? That's that sure voice from God. Now, according to verse number 21, It's not really 40 authors, is it? Prophecy came in not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. It's more like one author and something like 40 secretaries, isn't it? Now, we're going to go next. We've got two more passages of Scripture, and then we're going to be pretty much finished for tonight. We're going to go next to 2 Timothy chapter 3. Verse 16. People have said and wondered, and you've probably wondered this yourself, how can something that was written all these hundreds and hundreds of years ago, even thousands of years ago and more, how can that apply to us in our technical modern age and all of our new everything today? It's a pretty good question, isn't it? Yeah. Well, the Bible is a book of principles. In 2 Timothy chapter 3, Verse 16. It tells us how profitable that it really is. And here's what it says. It says, All Scripture, that's that written Word of God, is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. At our church, When you come to our church, you get to hear a lot of Scripture. Sometimes preachers are preaching one or two verses and then telling you their ideas and all that stuff. You've probably heard that before, too. But at our church, we believe in lots and lots and lots of Scripture. I mean, whole big passages. What matters is what God has to say in the Word, not just what we have to say. You see, it's the Scripture that teaches us about all these areas of life that we need help in. And the Scripture always gets it right. Every time. So, one last verse as we see this wrapped up. And this verse, we're going to go over here to the book of 1 Thessalonians. Now these books have all these wonderful names about cities and things like that. The Thessalonians were people that lived in a place called Thessalonica. Thessalonica is a place where the Apostle Paul went as he was journeying. It's up in the area of Galatia, which is like modern day Turkey now. And he went through there and he preached the gospel and all these Gentile people up there got saved. They all put their trust in Jesus and became Christians. And later he sent Timothy and a couple other guys through there to organize them into a church and they became a mission church out of that church at Antioch and became the church of Thessalonica. So this is a very young, new church. And one thing about young churches, sometimes they are very, zealous and this church was and in fact I hope our church is like this church because this church was so on fire for God it tells us some remarkable things that they did here in the very first part of this book. He says in verse 8, from you sounded out the Word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, which is about the size of East Texas, but also in every place you're paid to God were to spread abroad so that we need not to speak anything. When Paul went back through there, they had already spread the Word so much that he didn't even need to talk. They already knew all about Jesus when they went back. And they did this without Bibles, they did it without cell phones, they did it without cars, They were basically a couple of letters from the apostles and Jesus in their heart and a donkey and they spread the word. They got it done. And in chapter 2, it tells us what made them this amazing kind of Christian. I want to be an amazing kind of Christian. Here's what happened. Verse 13, For this cause thank we God without ceasing. Because when you received the word of God which you heard of us, you received it Now look at what it says, not as the word of men. But as it is in truth, what is it? The Word of God, which effectually works also in you that believe. You see, you could say, as we go through the rest of our Bible lessons, and we're going to start looking at a lot of Scripture here. You can say, well, that's your opinion. I, you know, I got my own opinion. Or you could say, well, that's Peter's opinion, or that's Luke's opinion. Or if you accept it as it really is in truth, you could say, yep, that's God's opinion. Because this is the Word of God. So my question to you, Laramie, and class, do not ever teach this lesson without asking this question. It seems confrontational, but it is not. And it won't ever be a problem. So Laramie, are you ready to accept whatever you can see for yourself that the Bible really does say? Are you ready to accept that as coming from God and not from men? Okay. And we are ready for lesson number two next week. About one in 500. Maybe. There's been one or two in 30 years. How did you take that? I went back and addressed wherever he went wrong. The only time that that's ever happened is basically when I talked somebody into taking the classes that I shouldn't have in the first place. It's just not something, if you set them up right, you're not going to have to deal with anything that's difficult at all. Now, that's lesson one. You got it under your belt. You're ready for number two next week. Questions? What did you hear? One of the time guides. One of the time guides. And we are, by the way, we are seven minutes early. And we could have taken a couple more illustrations, a couple more examples. But you can do this and keep your word about the hour. And you need to do that, by the way. You do not let these drag on and on and on. You need to keep your word that it's going to be a one-hour class. And stay to what you said it would be. So basically, you only gave one example of, but there are two or three in there. I gave one, and then I showed you some of the others that are here. And you're welcome to come up with your own. as long as it's good and accurate and you understand what you're doing. Big. Quick question. For example, my grandmother, who is a bailer, she considers herself, she's very smart. She's the smartest woman I know. She said, for instance, that like with the King James Bible, when it was translated, that they didn't correspond with each other when they translated it, that it was that they weren't getting together, and that it was translated by different people, different books, and all put together. She said, what do we say about how the King James Version is translated? Well, the King James Version, first of all, you're dealing with two different issues. You're apples and oranges. Translation is not inspired. The King James Version is the best one still today that ever was. 141. How many scholars were there? 146. 146. They were together. The apostles and the prophets, it was the original writers that were not together. So there were 146 scholars that translated the King James Version. He had brought in from all over the country. And they were they were the top scholars And that was a government operation. It's interesting, just a little background on that. God's the originator of just a few things in this world. One of them is family, marriage. God originated that. The other one is human government. And God is the originator of human government. And it is human government that he used to give us an English-speaking translation of the Bible. And of course, the other one was the church. And the but it was it was not the Episcopal Church that God used to give us this translation. I may have been something she may have misunderstood that she said that she had heard that the scholars split up the books amongst each other. They did. They did. They were they all had different committees and worked on different sections. But they also were together in the whole process. And then they came together in a council and reviewed the whole thing. There's all kinds of historical documentation on that. And it's really quite astonishing how they put all that together. There's probably not another time period in history that something like that could have even happened, except right then in that particular situation where it was. How long does it really take in doing it? And when is the last time a government's been interested in what God has to say anyway? So it's a pretty interesting thing. But you want to stay away from translation questions. These principles that we're going to be looking at here, the reason I tell you to use the King James is because it will mess up some of the doctrines. It will throw shadows on them, and you'll have to spend time going over here to straighten it out. But all of these principles that we're studying, that we're teaching, they can be taught out of virtually any translation. Because they're just simply true principles. What we're looking at here, you've heard of perceived contradictions. I mean, I've been listening to those for 37 years. And every one I've ever heard about, I've checked out. and they're all just empty. There's nothing, you know, there's a few things about the resurrection and how many women there were and this sort of thing, but it's all questions of which disciple wrote what and which one he talked to about, there's not a discrepancy, but it appears it's different because it's different perspectives. And like, for example, the robe that they put on Christ. One says purple, one says scarlet. Well, look at John's shirt over there. Is that red, purple, or scarlet, or what is that? If you didn't know that it said Aggies, you're going to get about three different colors all talking about the exact same color. It's the perspective of the writer. And that's preserved in the Scriptures as well, as well it should be. It does not mean there's some kind of mistake in the Bible. It's just the way that it is. I'm sorry, if they asked why the original was translated from Latin. I mean, that's because it was hundreds of years before it was actually written down right after. Well, the originals, the originals, first of all, were not translated. There are no reasons. But there are hundreds of copies. And the fact that the very numbers of the copies themselves prove the authenticity. If you've got if you've got 635 copies of a song. And 587 of them are exactly the same, letter for letter, and there's a few that have a word or two off. Well, which one are you going to go with? It's the obvious 587 that are exactly the same. So the very numbers of the copies themselves show us the authenticity of the original. in great evidence. And then, of course, the Dead Sea Scrolls came along and verified everything. And the King James Version, by the way, is the right one, not the others. Now, Aristotle put it this way. Now, Aristotle wasn't, he was a philosopher. He wasn't a godly man. But he said something that makes sense. He said that two statements of the same fact you know, that obviously contradicts itself is a contradiction. So you can have two similar statements that basically mean the same thing, regardless if there are two people there or one person. You just say, a person came to Jesus and asked him this. If it doesn't obviously contradict itself, it's not a contradiction. Yeah, and that's where the Bible stands. I mean, there's just no No one's ever been able to show one single place that it doesn't. Because there aren't any. It's just real simple. How many women came to the burial site? Does it make a difference? The Bible says that several women followed Mary and another one said that Mary Magdalene It's not. When we get into lesson 3 on Friday, we're going to look at some contradictions that men have come up with by what they're preaching. There's none in the Word. And we'll get that laid out there with great clarity. I believe that. I just wanted to have some clarification because that's one of the first things I could ask. Well, if it was in Latin, and then it went to English, how do you know it's not getting lost in translation, and things haven't been skewed, and then the church picked the Gospels that they wanted to pick? Well, here's the thing. Just go back to the first principle. If that had happened, could 66 books with 40 men over 1600 years be in perfect agreement? Right. I mean, I mean, we've already proved the answer to that. I mean, in indisputable terms, you can't argue with these with these truths that are here. And so the very fact that the agreement is there, in perfect agreement, proves that God has preserved his word. And it just makes sense. I mean, God's going to give us his word and not preserve it and protect it? It seemed like to me that this seemed to be a basic New Members orientation class and not necessarily an evangelistic course, a note that I wrote to myself. must first be one to Christ and be set on hunger or set on fire for this next stage, which is being able to set them down and show them in the Scripture. Most people that are on the street today, they're vehemently against Christ and they feel like they're righteous before God and they're not going to sit down. Well, that's just it. We're not teaching any of those people. And we don't intend to teach any of those people. We're not interested in those people. That sounds real callous, but it's a total waste of time. I mean, it will keep you so busy fighting for nothing that you'll good to accomplish at all. You're going to teach people that the Lord has already prepared exclusively. Do not waste your time on somebody you have to look into. But you're looking at a small percentage of people that are walking the face of the earth that have a somewhat of a hunger or a looking for the Lord. You're only probably dealing with less than 10% of the population out there. Oh, it's less than that. But the beautiful thing about it is, is that it's not a problem for us. There's thousands of people, but there's hundreds out there within those that are ready. And it's easy to find them. I'll tell you how to do that here in just a minute. Marcy. I have an example. I've been going to the hospital all week long. So while I was there, I was talking to a couple about God. And I mentioned this. And I already got a class to teach. I mean, we're ready for it, but I've already got a class that's each God sends to them. You must be ready. If you're ready to teach lesson one, that's all you need to know. We can get started. Now, let me give you something else that you need to do. You need to have read your Bible, all of it. Somebody's going to say, well, have you read it all? Most of it. And you need to be able to tell them, yes, I have. And there's no reason not to. I mean, we've got basic, we've got through the Bible readers, bookers of them around here because we we've committed and we've done it and I do it every year just to be a good example to you. But Brother Cecil, how many times has Brother Cecil read his Bible through? He told us last year, what was it? Well, since we came in 1999. Since we started challenging, he's never missed a year. But you can do this. And you're not going to understand it all. But it's data input. You're going to see that there's no blatant contradictions in this Bible. And the more you use it, the more you understand what you've just learned. Now again, do not. Let me just give you one little thing. Do not shortcut anything in lesson one. Only experience is going to teach you how important that is. They are all taught. Everybody in here that's younger than me and John and Joseph and Glenda and maybe Lisa, but have all been taught somewhere along the line that this is a bunch of myths and fairy tales. You got to be pretty old not to have been taught the Bible is a bunch of myths and fairytales out there in school somewhere or by somebody. And there is no way that you're going to win them to Christ until they know that this book can be dependent on. You've got to do this job. Well, do it thoroughly. Do not shortcut. And that commitment at the end I taught for years without that being a part of the lessons. It wasn't a part of Brother Hudson's lessons. It wasn't a part of mine. And I would get all the way into lesson three. And right down to facing the reality of where you're going to spend eternity. And they'd say, well, I'm not sure about, I'm not sure if I believe that this is all from God. And then you wasted three weeks. And you're nowhere, it's just totally a disaster. But I will promise you, since, and this is 20 some odd years ago, that I was reading my Bible through in a year like I do, and I read that first 13 about that, and I thought, man, that's, I gotta start using that. And when I did, and by the way, Brother Hudson incorporated it into his after that, When I did, I never had that happen again. Never again to this day. Has it ever come back up? Well, I'm not sure if it's really God's Word. You get that commitment? There's something unique about your spirit hearing you say something. When your spirit hears you say, yes, I'm accepting this as the Word of God. It's like what's inside of you says, And that's it, that's the end of it. Never goes back to it again. It's almost spooky. It's so amazing. But when you get that commitment, and it wasn't hard to get, I mean, I just, I said, you know, you could accept this as funny things or what I think, or you could receive it like it says right here, as it is in truth, the word of God. Are you ready to accept what you see for yourself, it really does say, as coming from God and not from me? And she said, yes. And he'll never go back on it. He'll never go back on it once you do that. Essential. Just a side question. I wanted to ask you a question. When you're coming into this stuff about the Bible making its own claim, I'm often wondering why you never reference Hebrews 4, where it mentions that the Bible is quick and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword, and all of its descriptors about how important that is. Because I only have an hour. There's dozens and dozens of other scriptures that we could put in here and it would be equally good or maybe even better. And you're welcome to use them. But this is proven works every time. Never, you know, it's just There's lots of other scriptures for everything we're talking about here. I would recommend after you have taught your first 40-50 students using it just like it is, then venture out a little bit. reinvent the wheel. Listen, you should see what this game is efficient. You don't need to overkill a situation by coming up with even 412 and you know, and you guys, you guys are used to talking to somebody that doesn't want to believe it. You're used to convincing trying to convince a family member and button your head against a brick wall. You don't do that in basic Bible teaching. You teach people who are hungry, who want to know, who are ready, and they're not going to argue with you about what can easily be seen. It's the sweetest, most wonderful experience in the world to sit across the table, You just got to see it. I mean, it's just like this. They're all like this. Most of the people that go through basic Bible truths, there's probably somebody in this room that's not saved. I won't be shocked at all to see somebody get saved before we finish up here. It happens all the time. You see, the reason that happens is because the Lord takes every single person that He saves through numerous spiritual experiences. All kinds of them. You have all these awakenings and these awareness moments. I can remember as a kid first realizing that God was there. I remember the night that I just had this amazing awareness of God. I never lost it. It's stuck with me. And you have all these experiences. And matter of fact, that night, I told my mom the next morning, because I heard about people say they got saved. I said, Mom, I think I just got saved. Because, you know, I told her, I didn't know what save was. Of course, I didn't get saved. But people have experiences. And they think that's when they got saved, but they're not saved. And but when we get to lesson three, They're going to see it and they're going to see it clearly and they're going to fix it. And it's not going to be a confrontation. It's not going to be difficult. It's sweet and it's easy. And praise the Lord. It's always been like that. We've been just been messing it up. Witnessing is easy. We got six or seven minutes left, but the witnessing is is praise the Lord Jesus all the time, and then answer the questions when they ask them. That's all you gotta do. My daughter got saved in basic Bible truths. Her father's a pastor, and she grew up in church her entire life, but she said she thought she was saved because she went through the, you know, mentally conceived thing. It was what we wanted her to do. How old is she? She's 16. She was 15 when she got saved. But she just thought she was because she went to church every Sunday. Even in our classes, I took with my brother and he had started coming to church with me and assumed he was saved. I mean, he was shocked to find out that he really hadn't gone the full... And trusted the Lord. He hadn't gone... I mean, he had had the experience, he had had the feelings, he had seen the power, he knew it was there, he just didn't take that final step through the door yet. And it was scary because I thought in my mind he was saved, which goes to show that God says, only I know the heart. You can't judge the heart. I know the heart. makes that clear. You do your job well, and it will not be a problem. I mean, they'll get it. And all you did, amen? You all did. So, I mean, this is, you're going to, what you're going to learn in these next two lessons, it's like I tell the people at the end of class, did you enjoy class tonight? You're really going to like next week. There's the notes I put on there. And I didn't write down some of them. Sometimes I'll go back and I'll write down Luke 2, 1 through 7 and Micah. New King James is not a king James It's not translated from the Texas receptus. I gave away hundreds of them before I learned that and then kicked myself afterwards. But New King James is not a kingdom. It's just us. Let me let me point something out to you. Every new every new translation has been done for one primary reason. Sales. That ought to tell you enough, right? Just five seconds right there. So it's not just this one was not done for sales. Well, I understand that. I'm just asking because I've been told well, New King James is a lot easier for me to read and it's not in that old English. No, no. It's kind of hard to look somebody in the eye and say, well, buy a dictionary. So I was just wondering, I know it's a translation of a translation, but doesn't it still basically go along with King James? No. No, it doesn't. I know some translations need verses out. It's got a bunch of hiccups in it. Now, just don't bring the issue up. Just stay with the word and teach the people. And when they get saved, They won't have any problem wanting to read the King James just like you do. Just let them get saved first. It was just a comment. I find it so ridiculous that people say it's too hard to read the King James version, but they're playing Game of Thrones and they're going to Ren Faire and they're using the same language while they're doing their fantasy game thing, but then they think it's hard to read in the Bible. Yeah, it's not hard to read. It's funny when you said about sales, I saw a picture today, and it was a new translation being sold. I don't know what translation it was, but it was in Barnes and Nobles, and it said, signed copy. I was like, what kind of scumbag is that? Signed copy? That's pretty good, right? How'd you get that? Listen, you have less than one under your belt, even if it's your first time through. Do what Marcy did, go set up a class. Part of your assignment is to teach this class. And just go find somebody, ask them, just tell them, say, look, I'm going through this training seminar and I've got to teach this to somebody. Will you let me teach this to you? Teach what? Well, it's about how do I know that the Bible's really true. Oh, well, OK, yeah, I'd like to know that. Just tell them about it. They'll go for it. You just think, just think for a minute. How many were saved as adults? Okay. As an adult, if someone could have shown you where they really understood that it was true, that you could take a little five-hour private course just with one other person where you didn't have to talk in front of a bunch of people, that would really show you everything you need to know you. Well, there's hundreds of them out there waiting for you. I can't you know, I can just do a few. But you know, everybody in this room does what you're going to be equipped to do. We're gonna we're gonna shake this town up. People say I hear you right now. Well, Answer. Pick up your trash, dump it on the way out. We do not have a cleaning ferry.