Jesus’ balance mirrored the balance of Scripture: He could simultaneously denounce the cities that did not repent and praise the God who does not reveal; for God’s sovereignty in election is not mitigated by man’s stubbornness and sin, while man’s responsibility is in no way diminished by God’s “good pleasure” that sovereignty reveals and conceals (Mt. 11:25-26).
D.A. Carson

The Bible Is It True

The Bible Is It True

THE BIBLE-IS IT TRUE?

*Reference I Cor 2:16 (Mind of Christ) and I Thess 5:21

Christianity is the ONLY faith in existance that COMMANDS each of us to TEST ALL THINGS. The term used in this phrase means, literally, ALL THINGS IN CREATION! We are not to test only matters of spiritual but all matters. TEST AGAINST WHAT? – The Bible!

The purpose of this teaching is provide each of you with substantive historical and factual reasons for the “Hope that lies within you” in a manner to allow you to “intelligently” present the True Message of the True Christ

  • or the Gospel – to all unbelievers. It is my personal hope that you will present the Gospel in a manner that will strip away the real purpose most people, today, do not believe – because they have adopted a religion that places mankind in the center of authority in the center of authority and attempts to deny the very evidence of God’s presence in their daily lives.

APOLOGIA – The Greek term for defense is used EIGHT times in the New Testament and is best illustrated when Paul is before the several tribunals (King Agrippa, etc) and is asked to present his “apologia” or defense to them. Paul then does not “defend” himself as much as he presents the Gospel and WHY he believes it to be true and WHY they should accept the FACT of the RESURRECTION. Apologia is NOT the body of Christians going around saying that they are “sorry” as in the word “apologize”. The word “apologize” has changed in meaning from “offering a defense” to “accepting guilt responsibility and expressing regret for same.” There is NOTHING in Christianity which should be apologized for, rather Peter makes a direct command to all believers to:
“Be prepared always to give an answer to EVERYONE asking you, a reason for the hope that lies within you.” Paul is making an assumption here that is very important. He is assuming that you are living a life that will make people want to know why you are different! He is commanding each of us to present to ANYONE ( and everyone) that asks, whether they be intellectual, athiest, agnostic, Doctor, Lawyer, Child or communist – EVERYONE – a presentation of the REASONS or FACTS concerning the Gospel of Jesus Christ and WHY you believe in it!

Turn to Ezekiel 33:6. Here is God relating a situation of a “watchman” who sees a clear and present danger about to claim the life of another. The watchman represents the children of God, the believers of Christ – You and I! The Lord tells the watchman that if he (or we) sees a danger that may take the life of another (or the soul) and FAILS TO SOUND A WARNING (we could say FAILS TO MAKE THE ATTEMPT TO CORRECT THE WRONG PATH THAT ANOTHER IS TAKING OR IS ABOUT TO TAKE) – Then the loss of that life will be held accountable to US!

We MUST KNOW WHY we believe if we are to:

  1. Issue a proper warning to those who do not believe in Christ and are walking in the ways of the world – to the loss of their souls.
  2. To answer the questions of young people – our own and others who have deep feelings and needs and want to have valid answers.
  3. To give intelligent answers to the questions that all non-believers may ask at any time.
  4. To have a “ROCK SOLID” foundation to our own faith and to stand ready during the “evil days” that we are living in.

We must avoid the two extremes that seem to creep into the attitudes of Christians concerning the RATIONALITY of the Christian Faith. These two extremes are:

  1. To take an anti-intellectual attitude which spurns the “reasons why” and bases all faith on “feelings” or “experience.”
  2. To think that we can ARGUE anyone into the Kingdom by logic or facts. We are not able to bring ANYONE into the Kingdom – that is an exclusive assignment to the Holy Spirit. We can only present our defense and rebuttal to their arguments to allow a “clear shot” at them by the Holy Spirit!

WHY WE BELIEVE

Christianity is FIRST and FOREMOST the PERSON OF THE SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST. The Jesus of the Bible is the EXCLUSIVE source of salvation. I asked a child what he thought the word “faith” meant. His answer surely reflected the attitudes of his parents and he replied that faith was “believeing in something that you know isn’t true!” The unfortunate fact is that this definition is what a large number of Christians believe. Many Christians say that they “believe” but when pressed, they cannot explain WHY they believe and the fall victim to the many cults that exist in our present day world. Many Christians are even “afraid” to investigate and some theologians insist that we must have “faith in faith!” Many times after a class or lecture I am approached by Christians who express “relief” that they have found out that Christianity ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE! In this day and age of changing philosophies and increasingly sophisticated and educated populace, it is no longer sufficient to know what we believe. WE MUST KNOW WHY WE BELIEVE!

One of the most literate agnostics of the modern age, Robert Ingersoll, once conducted a lecture where he stated (in my opinion) the very best definition of what the NATURE of Christianity SHOULD be. He stated: “Christianity cannot live in peace with any other form of faith. If that religion be true, there is but ONE savior, ONE inspired book and but ONE little narrow … path that leads to Heaven. Such a religion is NECESSARILY uncompromising.”

It’s odd that an agnostic was able to identify what the nature of a Christian SHOULD be; unfortunately the modern times have greatly reduced the attitude of Christians on the basis of the “live and let live” and “freedom of religion” theologies. The TOLERATION of a religion should never be confused with the rightness or correctness of the other theologies.

Believing in something does not make it true! Anything is “true” regardless of the belief of anyone. Anything is “true” because the “facts” show that it is “true” and not because someone “believes” that it is true. This is more true about Christianity that any other religion and is the basis of “truth” for everything else in the world, today. Many Christians claim to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and fail to SHOW Jesus in their life. Many Christians simply shrug their shoulders when they are unable to provide acceptable basis for the faith that they have and the unbeliever continues on his path to the Lake of Fire!

I Kings 18:25 is an example of how sincere people can be and yet be wrong! In this account, Elijah issues a challenge to the priest of the false god, Baal. The challenge is issued in bright daylight and in front of the people. Notice that Elijah mocks the god of the priest, while the priest, who devoutly believe their god is the right god even slash their bodies in an earnest desire to bring the blessings of their god upon them. IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW SINCERE YOU ARE OR HOW MUCH YOU BELIEVE IN SOMETHING OR SOMEONE IF THE OBJECT OF YOUR BELIEF IS UNABLE TO RESPOND TO YOUR BELIEF. The priest of Baal were sincere and had a great faith but the god Baal was unable to produce proof of his existance – because he did not and does not exist! Elijah, after crushing the actual life out of the false religion then proceeds to set up a test that will prove “his” God. The “test” is passed by God and Elijah then has the PRIEST executed! Not the people – the priest (leaders). God loves the people but hates the false religion and its teachers!

God’s Word tells us that a prophet of God is 100% accurate! This requirement of 100% is so rigid that even .0001% of an error was to result in the death of the false prophet.

We then get to the other Christians that are “armed to the teeth” to prove that the belief of others are false and that they are headed to the Lake of Fire and eternal damnation for their belief in the false gods of this world. They ATTACK Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims, Humanist and all others and “beat them over the head” with the “proofs” of Christianity. They arrogantly ARGUE their “case” and destroy the beliefs of the person. They destroy and FAIL to replace. If someone believes in a false god and you can prove it, then it is your responsibility to lead that person to the Lord Jesus Christ. You don’t save someone because you showed that their “religion” was false, they are saved ONLY when the Holy Spirit is able to bring them the saving knowledge of the Atonement of Jesus Christ for their sins. It matters not what you take away from someone if you don’t offer the CROSS of CALVARY to replace it!

Now turn to Matthew 24:3,4 where the disciples are excited about the return of our Lord and asks the point-blank question, “What signs can we look forward to as THE signs of your return?” Now, very carefully take note of what the reply of the Lord is: “Beware that no man deceive you!” Jesus is telling us that THE sign of his return will be deception and of the ELECT! Look at the verses of Daniel 12:4; Luke 21:24,25; II Timothy 3:1-8. Take a special look at II Timothy 4:3,4 and see that an additional sign will be the LUKEWARM WITNESS of CHRISTIANS. II Timothy 3:5 identifies professing Christians as denying the Faith!

Today, we have “Christian” theologians claiming meanings that are not in context with the teaching of our Lord. They make claims that God is impersonal (or even dead) and that it doesn’t matter if the resurrection actually occured or not – only that we believe that it occured. We have the “Battle of the Bible” as to the issue of whether there are errors in the Bible or not. The LUKEWARM WITNESS is pervading all of Christianity and today we have 60 million Americans who practice some kind of occult practices! Deception is rampant in numbers NEVER before conceived of in other times! Christ is coming back and SOON!

I want to concentrate the remainder of our time on the “reasons” for the hope that lies within me. As I have stated I am engaged in a ministry to those lost in a “cult” and devote a large portion of my effort to those lost in the “Cult of Intellectualism.” In the process of “finding” the Lord Jesus I came to the need to be able to respond to the challenge of Peter and Paul. The claims that the Bible was not “scientific” and or was a conspiracy (Passion Plot, Gnostic Gospels, etc) needed to be answered in a manner that would be (1) Clear and (2) irrefutable. I “fumbled” for a long time trying to find a “key” and spent a great deal of time on the many translations that are available to us, but to no avail. Then I began to research the “original” text. We do not, actually, have any of the original writing of the Apostles, most likely due to the fact that man ALWAYS deifies such objects (Shroud of Turin, “pieces of the cross, etc) and this would detract from the Glory of God. We have so many text to choose from, how do we know what is true? Well, the very fact that there are so many copies available to us makes the process of selection easy – the number of copies that are in complete agreement give us proof of the actual content of the text; HOWEVER, not one DOCTRINE is affected by any of the many thousands of text! Conclusion: Agreement is a basis for belief in “original” copy correctness. READ THE COMPUTER ANALYSIS OF THE BIBLE SELECTION IN THE DOWN LOAD SECTOR

Now, even though the information and proofs that I have just given you is difficult to fully understand, it is conclusive that the Bible, AS WE KNOW IT (66 Books) was not only “verbally” inspired but was actually “dictated” to each writer by an intelligence that was in complete control of the narration over a period of 1500 years that used over 40 scribes. The “intelligence” identifies Himself within these writings time and time again as the Creator, God Jehovah!

If God is immutable and is the same “yesterday, today and tommorrow” and if God is “Truth” and the Bible clearly shows that Jesus is “The Way the Truth and the Life” and that “No one comes to the Father” except through Jesus, then I find, BY REASON and BY FAITH, that (1) the Invisible God is Christ Jesus and that (2) Jesus Christ is God Visible. All other religions tell of man’s attempt to reach up to God, while Christianity tells of how God INJECTED Himself into the history of man. Injected Himself in such a manner as to be validated by historical fact and information. The request and Commandments of Christ are many and the requirement that we allow Christ to live through us is evident throughout the Bible. It makes good sense to have a faith in a God that leaves proof for us to find and a Bible to test all things against!

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