All right. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, guys, for our first installment of this foundation series. We're looking at the fundamentals of the faith, the Christian identity, and what we're going to do for the next two weeks is we're going to cover the foundation, really, of the foundation. Almost you could say it's the footers if you will, in the Christian identity. And the key to that point is going to be this, and that is the Bible. The Bible is going to be our foundation. We understand, first and foremost, as believers, the Bible must be our sole authority for faith and practice, not only practicing of our Christianity, but in our life, our livelihood, our actions. Remember, it was Antioch-Syria where the first disciples were called Christians. Why? Because of their lifestyle, how they lived. Paul and Barnabas were there for an entire year teaching and preaching the ways of Jesus Christ. They didn't have any of the New Testament when they were teaching that. They taught everything based on the life of Jesus Christ as well as the Old Testament and linking them together. And as a result of that, the world, those that are outside of the church, those who are not disciples, called them Christians. So it wasn't a committee meeting. It wasn't someone they sat back and said, well, let's come up with a snazzy little title that we can call ourselves. That wasn't it at all. What it was, it was the declaration by outsiders, if you will, that they were Christ-like. And so when we look at our life, when we look at where we're going to build our Christian identity as the fundamentals of the faith, the first thing we must look at is is going to be the Bible and our position on the Bible. Guys, if we believe that the Bible is just a mixture of stories and fairy tales written by men and their own ideas and concocting these thoughts and minds as a level of whatever reason, guys, it's not going to benefit us. It must be our sole authority in faith and practice. And the things that we do, guys, the way that we live our life and we establish our homes, our businesses, our families, especially, what we teach our children, what we exercise, what we practice must be based on biblical principles and doctrine. And so we're gonna look at that, guys. We're gonna look at this first subject here concerning the Bible. So the first week, this first week or this first installment is going to be fairly simple. It's gonna be an overview. almost a testimony of what the Bible is. And so, as you can tell, guys, I am recording this at our Cunningham Valley location. And so, this is for our Calvary Baptist Church of Cardiff Church. It is a foundations class for us down there, given our schedule of services, the way we are meeting. on top of the Friday morning Bible studies, which are Q&A based, and our Sunday evening services. We want to bring this foundational series in just to help us to build upon our biblical knowledge and how we can base our foundation of living in that Christian identity. So we're going to start in Luke chapter 4 here today, and we're going to read verses 1 through 4. The Bible says in Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost, Returned from Jordan and was led by the spirit into the wilderness being 40 days tempted of the devil and in those days He did eat nothing and when they were ended he afterward hungered The devil said unto him if thou be the Son of God command these stones had to be made bread And Jesus answered him saying it is written that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word of God Now, one of the key things that we need to understand here, Jesus did not say by every creed of religion. He did not say by every dictation or word that was established in a council meeting. He said by every word of God. So the Bible is made up of 66 books. It's written by more than 40 authors over thousands of years, okay? It's repeatedly, repeatedly, the Word of God itself repeatedly authenticates itself, it authenticates its uniqueness by describing history before it occurs. There are over 300 prophecies concerning the birth, ministry, and sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ that are detailed in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament. Guys, even so, there still remains over 1,000 prophecies today that are yet to be fulfilled, and yet they will be one day. The key to Christianity, the key of Christianity to our Christian identity is the culmination of the 66 books that we call the Bible. It is essential that you believe the Bible and place your faith in the Bible as a fact, not as fiction, not as an option, but as a legitimate foundational fact. The best carpenter in the country was asked one time, which is your best tool? And instead of pointing to a costly power saw or a drill, he picked up a simple square. And this is the best tool, he said. Why? Because a square makes all the other tools work. That's essentially what the Bible is. We have many avenues and facets of our life today to live by. We have different ideologies. We have different directions, if you will, but every single direction that we're going into, every different home, there's the uniqueness of every different family and all of this and that. But what makes them work properly, is that perfect tool, that best tool, which is the Bible. Our Bible is the best tool because it makes everything else in our life work the way it should. It allows us and enables us to walk in the right way. Without it, our words, our walk, our wisdom, our ways would not operate in the proper manner. They would operate as a machine without power, as a car without fuel, and as a plane without propulsion, and we know that's tragic. So how do we know that the word of God is true? There's four areas of evidence that the Bible continues to, again, you know, authenticate itself. There's four areas that we're going to look at in this lesson concerning the foundation of the believer and that Christian identity in the fundamentals of the faith. And without a shadow of a doubt today, number one, we find that the Word of God, you know, it establishes past, okay? It's past. Number two, it establishes its proof. Number three, it establishes its purity and preservation. And then finally, it establishes it with prophecy. So the first thing we're going to look at here is we're going to look at the past. How does a past, how does history continuing to conclusively give evidence of the Bible. Well, again, back in Luke chapter 24, back in the book of Luke, the Bible says, So Jesus Christ used what was already written in the past to establish what was occurring in the present. As a matter of fact, John chapter 5 verse 39, Jesus says, So people have repeatedly attempted to refute The account of moses if you will because moses we know wrote the first five books of the bible And uh, and so but people critics if you will bible haters critics have tried to say well He did not the reason they refute this idea because they believe there was not a written language yet established when moses was alive Yet when the telemarti, uh tablet was discovered it was revealed that written business transactions dating all the way back before even the birth of moses And people for years disregarded the story of the handwriting on the wall found in the Book of Daniel. They always held the fact that Belshazzar was not king and that he did not exist. And they acclaimed that during the appointed time that King Nebuchadnezzar was reigning rather than Belshazzar. And then all of a sudden, archaeologists unearthed a plaque that listed Belshazzar or Belshazzar as co-regent with King Nibetanus. So we find that the past, guys, the past is a good, a positive precursor to establish the validity of the Bible. And it's funny, I think it's comical at times when archaeology in itself just little by little by little proves the validity of the Word of God. So it brings us to our point, our second point, guys, is the proof, the proof. What scientific proof is there that reveals conclusive evidence of the Bible? Now again, we're going back and looking at the critics, we're looking at those who criticize and disregard the Bible, and even those that are self-proclaimed. They proclaim that they are Christians, yet they disregard the validity of the Word of God. There's a problem there, guys, because you can't call yourself a Christian. Your lifestyle dictates that. You understand? And if you step outside of the realms, if your faith and practice is not established by the sole authority of the Bible, we very clearly that you can't have that title of Christian. But nonetheless, many today, they attempt to utilize what they call a scientific approach to life, thinking they will disprove the Bible. And what's funny, in reality, they end up proving it. 1861, guys, a French science academy printed a brochure with 51 incontrovertible facts of biblical era. Every one of them held to it. Not one reputable scientist today supports any of those so-called facts. In ancient times, men believed that the world was held up by Atlas or by pillars or even on the back of an elephant or a turtle. Today, the space program knows that the Earth is suspended on what? It's suspended in space. One can say that it's suspended in nothing. All they had to do is turn to the oldest book in the Bible, the oldest one written, which is Job. Job 26.7 says, he stretches out the north over the empty place and hangeth the earth upon nothing. How about that? Not too long ago, guys, in our history, the world was convinced that the earth was flat, dating back as recent as the 15th century. That's not that long ago. That's not that long ago. But 750 years before the birth of Jesus, Isaiah proved differently in Isaiah chapter 40 in verse 22. He says, it is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers, that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. I go back to that first part. He sitteth upon the circle of the earth. Ptolemy charted the heavens, or at least he thought he did. He counted 1,062 stars. But with the invention of the telescope and eventually the Hubble Space Telescope, mankind has discovered millions upon millions upon millions of stars, too many for the largest computer to count in a millennium, a thousand years. Now we look back and we say, man, Why didn't we know that before? Well, we do. 3,000 years ago, Jeremiah wrote in Jeremiah 33, 22, as the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand or the sea measured. So will I multiply the seed of David, my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me. God used the testimony that the stars, the host of heaven, cannot, it's impossible, to number them because of the vastness of outer space and the numerical value of those stars. It's impossible. Ptolemy thought he had them numbered. 1062. Boy, was he wrong. What people do not understand, guys, the Bible is a book of science. Its author is the creator of science. 1 Timothy 6 and verse 20 says, O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings and oppositions of science falsely so called. which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen. So think about it. Even Paul, Paul's writing in one of the last books, last letters that he writes. He proclaims and gives us positive evidence that the book, the Bible is a book of science. It's written by the creator of science. And yet there are those, he even said, there are those that are gonna use science, falsely so-called, to try to disprove the word of God. The Black Plague, how about that? Killed one-fourth of Europe. But it was the leaders of the church who helped to stop the deaths and the continual spread of the plague itself. Not by a medical board, not by a council meeting, but by the Bible. They took Leviticus chapter 13, verse 46. It says, all the days wherein the plague shall be in him, he shall be defiled. He is unclean, he shall dwell alone. We know that as what? Quarantine. I think we're on the backside of COVID, on the backside of the lockdowns. We understand what that means even clearer now. It says, without the camp shall his habitation be. Without the camp shall his habitation be. So it's going to be quarantine. They took the teachings of quarantine during a disease or sickness or a plague. And what did it do? It stopped the plague and maybe even the eventual deaths of all of Europe. Leviticus 15 verse 13 says, Think about this for a second. For years upon years upon years, People would bathe their hands in a basin of water, and then go to the next patient, and to the next patient, to the next patient, and all they were doing was cross-contaminating themselves, and patients were dying left and right, until someone said, hey, you know what? The Bible tells us to use running water to cleanse ourselves, and guess what? Running water was utilized, and the deaths began to drop dramatically, especially among birthing mothers. So we see that the Bible has proof, scientific proof, of its validity. Very simple, very easy. What about point number three? It's purity and preservation. Probably one of the greatest argued points concerning the Word of God, concerning the Bible, to be your sole authority for faith and practice, is found right here. Because many people question, well, how do we know we have the real Word of God? They'll say, but what about, quote unquote, the original? When you hear people say the original, they're incredibly mistaken, they're misled, they're deceived. Where's the original matter of fact the original Ten Commandments that Moses came down from Mount Sinai? He destroyed God gave him a copy if you will of the original we find the same thing in the book of Jeremiah When when Baruch penned the words that Jeremiah had received of God what happened? Well, you know Jehoiakim the king took a penknife threw him away put him in the fireplace well God gave him another copy here just just a little bit after that and then added words unto it and So people question the purity and preservation of the Word of God. Let me go ahead and tell you this. You cannot have purity without preservation and you can't have preservation without purity. We have a promise from God. Psalm 12, 6 and 7 says, The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. Psalm 119 verse 89 says, forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. So all of the so-called scholars and Bible critics can get together and nitpick this and try to say, well, a better translation would be this, or a better word would be that. Guys, walk away from that type of teaching, okay? Because they have become elitist, if you will. They have become a damaging source unto themselves, and they're trying to refute something that is irrefutable, something that is settled, not even here on earth, but in heaven. Okay, the purity and preservation is a process. We'll get into that a little stronger later on in our lessons, the purity and preservation process of the Word of God and how we have the Word of God that we need today. But just for introductory purposes today, that is our third application, how we apply the Word of God for faith and practice in our life as our sole authority. So lastly, we can find conclusive evidence of the Bible's truth in prophecy. Now, without going into it today, because this is our introduction to this Bible lesson, when we look at, say, Luke 24 and the depiction of what happened of Jesus Christ on the cross, Matthew 27, we can link those together with Isaiah 53, that we find that by whose stripes we are healed, that he was despised and rejected. We find that Isaiah tells us that his visage was marred so that, you know, More than more than any other man that Jesus Christ was not even recognizable on the cross and all of that that happens on that crucifixion day We see also prophesied in Psalm 22, which is a Messianic psalm and we're not going to go over those today just by way of introduction and But I want to kind of back up just a little bit and understand that we find that the biblical truth are established quite simply through prophecy. And we'll look deeper at the crucifixion in Isaiah 53, as well as Psalm 22 at a later date. But we also see other things in the Old Testament, such as Cyrus, King Cyrus. All right, Cyrus inherited the throne. So we go back to the Old Testament and we look. Cyrus inherited the throne upon the death of his father Cambius I in 559 B.C. He reigned until 530 B.C. and was the founder of the Persian Empire that continued for two centuries until Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. conquered the Medes and the Persians. So why is this important? Why is it important to see that Cyrus took the throne, that Cyrus inherited the throne, that he became this leader of this Achaemenid Persian Empire? Why is that important? It's important, guys, because of what we read in Isaiah 44. Isaiah 44 says in verse 24 through 28, and then into verse 1 of chapter 45, says, Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer, He that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself, that frustrateth the tokens of liars, and maketh diviners mad, that turneth the wise men backwards, and maketh their knowledge foolish, that confirmeth the word of his servants, and performeth the counsel of his messengers. that saith to Jerusalem thou shalt be inhabited and to the cities of Judah ye shall be built I will and I will raise up the decayed places thereof that saith to the deep be dry and I will dry up thy rivers that saith to Cyrus he is my shepherd and shall perform all my pleasure even saying to Jerusalem thou shalt be built up and to the temple thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the Lord, this is chapter 45 verse 1, thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before him, I will loose the loins of kings to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not be shut. Guys, the prophet Daniel lived until the third year of Cyrus's reign. He delivered a letter written by God, recorded by Isaiah, addressed unto himself to Cyrus the king. Now here's the caveat of that. Isaiah lived and wrote his prophecy 150 years before Cyrus was ever born. He was prophesying about Jerusalem being rebuilt, if you will, built back up, the temple built back up, when Jerusalem was inexistent and living and reigning. He was prophesying again about the coming Messiah, 750 years prior to his birth, and whose stripes we shall be healed. You see guys, even in the events of Cyrus coming into Babylon, we find that this was prophesied. Even Cyrus coming into Babylon and taking control and conquering, It was prophesied in the letter of Isaiah. Isaiah says in chapter 45, verses two through six, I will go before thee, speaking of Cyrus, and to make the crooked places straight, and I will break in pieces the gates of brass and cut asunder the bars of iron, and I will give thee the treasures of darkness and the hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob, my servant's sake, and Israel, mine elect, I have called thee by thy name. I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am the Lord, and there is none else. There is no God beside me. I girded thee, though thou hast not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west. and there is none beside me, I am the Lord, and there is none else. This is just a small portion of scripture that dictates, guys, the validity and the purity, the preservation, back to that again, in prophecy of what the Word of God is and how we today can take it as our sole authority for faith and practice because it's been proven, guys. Small portion, four conclusive evidence to believe the Bible today by way of introduction. The past, the prophecy we've seen just now, the proof that we saw secondly, and then the purity and the preservation. So guys, when we stop and we want to think, do we believe the Bible? Take a scientific approach. Go ahead and study the Word of God. Before listening to the critics or reading the commentary on the Word of God, Get into the Word of God yourself. Get into the Bible and trust it for faith and practice in your own life as it will become your sole authority. If you can have something that was written 750 years prior to someone's existence, and that comes true and that's being proved, if you can have something that's written 150 years prior to someone's existence, we have to ask ourselves, who has that knowledge? Well, the very author of the perfect, pure, inspired Word of God, which is God himself. So guys, I hope this was a blessing to you. I hope it helps. I'm trying to keep each one of these lessons fairly short, and I'm trying to keep them, you know, fairly pointed to what title that we're on. Today, again, was the introduction to the Bible as sole authority for faith and practice in our life. Next week, we're gonna look at the second installment of that same topic. After that, we're gonna get into the autonomy of the churches. We'll eventually get into, you know, the two offices, pastor and deacon. We'll get into the two ordinances, that of baptism and the Lord's table, saved church membership, priesthood of the believers, you know, eternal security, things along that line, soul liberty. We're going to get into all of those particular topics, which are the fundamentals of the faith and establish the Christian identity. Guys, have yourself a wonderful and blessed day, and we'll see you at church on Sunday or Bible study on Friday. God bless.