the more peace we'll have in our hearts. Amen? Amen. All right, here are your Bibles. I know what this crowd does. Let's run over to our starting point. We'll be launching from, as we do from week to week in this study. Go to 1 Peter chapter 3 and go to verse number 15. Amen? That's 1 Peter chapter 3. Let me get verse number 15 and I want you to get there. Let's all stand, we'll read, we'll pray, and we'll ask God for his help tonight. Amen? That's 1 Peter chapter 3 and verse number 15. Now the Bible says this, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. And don't be ready. Oh, I'm sorry. And be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks it. You are a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Tonight we're going to talk about is it true or false? Is the Bible the word of God? Father, I pray today and tonight for your help. I pray God for your guidance, your direction. I pray God that you reveal to us the truth about the Bible, the truth about the word of God. Of course, tonight with primary look at the external evidence, So Father, I pray that you help us. I pray that you guide us and direct us. I pray God that you can fill the Holy Spirit. I pray God that your word come alive to us. I pray God that our faith will be increased. I pray God that our knowledge of the theme that you revealed to us tonight will be greatly multiplied and that we will share that with others that we talk to from day to day. And with that, God, we'll praise you. Help somebody tonight, for it's in your son's name we pray, Jesus, and fill with the Holy Spirit. I need your help. Was just something we have to wait Jesus. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. I think we need to turn down some of the mics up here I believe we get some feedback, but look what the Bible says in 1st Peter chapter 3 verse 15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready not sometimes But the Bible says be ready always To give an answer, a defense, remember that word also means apology. The word apology means a defense, an excuse, a justification, a speech or writing, as for a cause or doctrine. Remember that word apology, that's where we get the word apologetics. So therefore, a defense of what we believe. We need to be ready always, the Bible says, to be prepared, to give a reason for hope, the faith and confidence they send us, but it tells us the right type of spirit to have, with what the Bible says, with meekness and what? Fear, which is reverence, respect. So the Bible teaches us that when we have this, we are to share it with folks, but don't have this superior attitude. No. Let's not have a better than you type of mindset. But the Bible says with meekness, and that word meekness means humility. humbleness, amen, and then also with reverence and respect. Respect those that you are sharing the truth with, but also with a humble attitude and not with a proud spirit. Sometimes we'll meet believers, and we've all been gifted probably sometime or another, we've had a prideful attitude, and a prideful attitude is not going to win anyone. What it does a lot of times is repel people from what you have to say. So the Bible is very clear. This one little verse has such a great impact. Verse 16 says, having a good conscience that whereas they speak evil of you, they slander you as evildoers, they may be ashamed. Put to blush. That what? Falsely accuse you or accuse your good conversation or good behavior in Christ. So let's make sure that's a false accusation. and not a truthful accusation when someone tries to say that we've got the wrong attitude or the right or the wrong mindset. Amen? Let it not be the truth about us. We should have that humility but also that sense of reverence. So tonight the question is this. Someone's going to ask you how, how do you know that the Bible is the Word of God? So tonight We're going to look at just a few things tonight, then we'll pick up on the rest of it next Tuesday. But tonight, a few things about the external evidence that the Bible is the Word of God. The first thing I want us to look at is how the Bible is unique And it's continuity. It's togetherness, so to speak. But look at me, and of course I can't remember all this stuff, but my mind would be really great if it could. But nonetheless, the continuity of the Bible, first of all, it was written, with some of these things you've heard before, some of them might be new to you, but it was written over about a 1,500 year span. A 1,500 year span was written by more than 40 authors from every walk of life, including kings and military leaders, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, tax collectors, poets, musicians, statesmen, scholars, and shepherds. For example, Moses was a political leader and a judge trained in the University of Egypt. He was not somebody that had no education. But not only that, you have David, who was a king, a poet, a musician, a shepherd, and a warrior. You have Amos, who was a herdsman. You have Joshua, who was a military general. You have Nehemiah, who was a cupbearer to a pagan king. You have Daniel, who was basically a prime minister. You have Solomon, who was a king and a philosopher. You have Luke, who was a physician and a historian. You have Peter, who was just a fisherman. You have Matthew, who, of course, was a tax collector. But you have Paul, who was basically a rabbi. And you have Mark, who was basically Peter's secretary. You have a lot of folks, my friends, from all kinds of backgrounds who contributed to the Bible being the Word of God. But yet, none of them contradict each other. That is amazing. If you and I, my dear friends, just the ones that are here, but write something about today's activities, more than likely we have some contradictories there somewhere. But he had all this time. But none of them have contradicted the other person. That's awesome. You begin to think about that. But also, you begin to look at that they were written. The Bible was written in different places by Moses in the wilderness. You have Jeremiah who was in a dungeon. You have Daniel on a hillside and in a palace. Paul, inside prison walls. Luke, while traveling. John, while in exile on the Isle of Patmos. But then we look also at how it was written during different moods. And this to me is good. Different moods. You have some are writing from the heights of joy. Some are written from the depths of sorrow and despair. Some are doing times of certainty and conviction. But then others doing days of confusion and doubt. You find all that in the Bible. When Job, we look at Job, we see Job in the beginning and the end, but nobody reads the middle. Job said, I wish I wasn't even born. I wish my day was blotted out. There were times when he was just simply confused. But then another time, he was going, hey! You know, he said, my Redeemer living. Don't that sound familiar? Sometimes, my dear friends, in one, matter of fact, in a five-minute span, you could be going, whoo! Praise God! The next moment, yeah! And the next moment, you'd be going, whoa! Oh, but he's good! It's like, Lord, I don't know how we gonna make it. We ain't gonna make it. I mean, but that's what Job was going through, my dear friends. And it seemed like he was bipolar in a sense. But nonetheless, it's what you and I face so often. But guess what? The Bible records the good, the bad, and the ugly. It talks about David as he's slew by Goliath. But it also talks about David when he saw Bathsheba. on the rooftop and committed adultery with Bathsheba. And then he had her husband to come and to drink to get drunk to try to cover up his sin. And then he, because he wouldn't go, then he gave him a letter that was basically his death warrant. He had him murdered. Now I don't know about you, but if I was to be writing my biography, I'd say I did some bad stuff. I'm not going to say what I did. I mean, like, well, we had some ups and some downs. But yet the Bible records it, man. It talks about Abraham and how Abraham, he was afraid that they were going to kill him. He tells his wife, you tell him you're my sister. You know, I mean, I said, what? Sarah must have been smoking. Because here she is, upper day, I mean, and folks still like, no, Sarah, 82 years old, Sarah. But nonetheless, though, the Bible records all these things, amen? It was written on three continents, Asia, Africa, and Europe. It was written in three languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. All these things. The Bible is unique. But see, my point I'm trying to make here is this. In spite of all this, The Bible is still together. It does not contradict itself. Now, I know what you're going to hear from some of your friends. Some of your friends say, the Bible is full of contradictions. It is? Yeah! So what do you do, Brother Keith? You don't just say, what? I didn't know that. Man, show me where they are, because I want to see this. And you're just going to say, most of the time, oh, they're just full of them. Well, just show me one. Yeah, but I mean, there's just tons of them. OK, I said, just show me uno. More than likely, they can't do it, because they're going by what they heard. Then for the few who would say that there is a contradiction in the Bible, as they begin to show you those scriptures after careful study, and not really a long time either, you'll find it's not contradictory at all. For example, if you would say, if somebody would say, you know what, the Holy Spirit could be taken from you. Because the Bible says that David said, no, withdraw not thy spirit from me. When I was sure during David's time, my dear friends, the Spirit would come upon a person and the Spirit would leave a person. But then the Bible says over in John, my dear friends, that when he would come, he would come on a permanent basis, he would fill us forever. So it's not contradicting itself at all. At this time period, it will only come upon a person at a certain length of time. But now, my dear friends, the Holy Spirit of God, it fills us and He's there forever. So there is no contradiction. And oftentimes, if somebody was to show you and challenge the person, challenge the person, just show me, just show me. And by the way, when a person says they don't believe the Bible is the Word of God, encourage them to do a truthful, Study to find out is the Bible the Word of God and what I mean by that don't just read those who are atheists Don't just read those who are agnostics But read those who actually believe in the Bible is the Word of God So therefore my if I was going to court and they were trying to prove that I was guilty of something I mean give I want I want you to give all the evidence not just that which leans toward my guilt But sometimes, even in our system today, when you got somebody that's prostituting someone else, if they have some information that might give some doubt about this person's guilt, if they can leave it out, they gonna leave it out. But see, to me, if you want truth, lay it all out there. The same thing with the Bible. Let's search it. Let's read the different things from the different ones. Let's do a sincere, truthful study to find out, is it the Word of God? And there's so many books out there that's written, my dear friends. You can read from Atheist to their points of view. As a matter of fact, all you do is go over YouTube and put on there, is the Bible the Word of God? And as they come up there and hear what they're saying, not just because they're trying to make you seem stupid, But let them back it up with clear evidence. Clear evidence. So we see the continuity of the Bible, but also the uniqueness in the Bible's survival. The Bible has survived a lot of stuff. The Bible has survived time. Time itself. There's no other book on the face of this earth that survived the time like the Bible has. Name one. There's not one. And we'll get to this next week about the different manuscripts that are actually here today that we can read from. Over 5,000 manuscripts that are available today that proves that the Bible is accurate in its translations. We'll get to that next week. But we see that it survived time. It survived persecution. There's no other book, name it, that has been bated, that has been burned, that has been outlawed except the Bible. And I'm going to pause it for a second. Last week, we talked about whether or not there was a God. And if our conclusion that there is a God, that if there is a God that created this whole universe, is this God able to preserve his word? If he can simply speak, speak into existence, my goodness, can he not preserve his word? We're going to talk a little bit about that next week, about how the Bible says it is here for every jot, every tittle, every, and we're going to talk a little bit later. But my point is this, my dear friends, if God is real, God can preserve his word, God can give his word to mankind, so that mankind can read his precious word. Not only that, my dear friends, not only that, it's unique in survival of time, persecution, as well as criticism, but also, I want you to hear what the early non-Christians said about the Bible, their confirmation in the Bible. First, we have a man, I gotta leave like this, most of this stuff is gonna be outside sources. I want you to see what they had to say. We have a Tactus who was, let me read you this. This is Tactus, and this is what he had to say about the Bible. Now, Tactus was a first century Roman. Tactus is considered one of the more accurate historians of the ancient world. He's not a Christian. This is what I'm trying to get you to see. He's not a Christian. Okay? He gave the account of the great fire of Rome for which some blamed the Emperor Nero. This is what he's saying. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate. Now I'm going to pause it for a second. There was a time when folks believed that Pontius Pilate or Pilate did not even exist. Of course, we're going to see in a few moments, well probably next week too, but archaeological evidence proves that the Bible is the Word of God. But let me go on and say, here's Pontius Pilate, and a most machinist superstition thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. The mischievous superstition to which Tacitus refers is most likely the resurrection of Jesus. The same is true of one of the references of one of the other writers. But let me show you what Josephus said. Josephus lived from 37 AD to 100 AD. He was a Pharisee of the priestly line and a Jewish historian. Though working under Roman authority and with some care as to not offend the Romans, in addition to his autobiography, he wrote two major works, Jewish Wars, AD 77 to 78, and the antiquities of the Jews, A.D. 94. He also wrote a minor work against Apion. He makes many statements that verify, either generally or in specific, detail the historical nature of both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Look what he says about James, the brother of Jesus, from the New Testament. This is what Josephus said. He was not a believer. Josephus says this, Josephus refers to Jesus as the brother of James, who was martyred, referring to the high priest, Emmaus. This is what he writes. He assembled the Sanhedrin of the judges and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, or some of his companions. And when he had formed an accusation against them as breaking the law, he delivered them to be stoned. And it gives you the actual page you can read from Josephus' writing. This passage written in AD 93 confirms the New Testament reports that Jesus was a real person in the first century and that he was identified by others as the Christ and that he had a brother named James who died as a martyr's death at the hands of a high priest in the Sanhedrin. Exactly what the Bible says. Here's a person that's authenticated what the Bible has to say about a man named James. Remember James, you know, the Bible, this historian actually says this. Somebody who's an unbeliever. Back during that time period. I'm trying to get you to see it. These are folks who were actually living during this time. Their lives were crossing the lives of others who actually had walked with the Lord Jesus Christ. So in other words, if Jesus was not real, he would be saying, there's not a real person there. What do you mean Jesus? He's actually verifying that this James guy was Jesus' brother, which of course was his half-brother, and how he was going to be martyred. But now let me back, let me back, because I got a lot of this stuff here. Okay, John the Baptist, look what Josephus says about John the Baptist. Josephus also confirmed the existence and martyrdom of John the Baptist, the herald of Jesus. Because of the manner in which his passage is written, this is what he says. Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, who was called the Baptist. For Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, but as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism. He writes in his writings about John the Baptist being a real person, just like the Bible has to say. And he talks about Jesus. And this one here is a little bit disputed, but this is what he says here, his brief description. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him. For he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these, and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. I don't like that. And the tribe of the Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day. He is talking about Jesus. And how there are folks that are alive right now today, as he's writing this, that are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because remember, in the Bible, where Paul says that there were 500 people, at least, that were still alive, that saw Christ after his resurrection. I don't know about you, but that just caused me to go, pew! Because my dear friends, who in the world is going to die for a lie? I'm going, I'm not. And when he and his body, I said, listen, hold on, hold on, hold on. No need to be hanging me here. Let me, I'm going to show you where his body's in. Let me show you his body. I'm not going to die for a lie. Amen. But they gave their lives because their belief that Jesus Christ was a Messiah. Because they had seen in the Bible for over 40 days, he was on the face of this earth after. his resurrection. To me, that's awesome. But that's another, that's another series too. Because we were talking about is Christ really the Messiah and all that kind of stuff. But there's all kinds of other writers. I can't read all this stuff. There's a lot of other stuff too here. But also, we see the early writers had these things to say. But also the influence of the Bible. Let me show you about the influence of the Bible. No other book has influenced men like the Bible, like the Word of God. Listen to what it says here about the influence and the publication of the Bible. No other book has ever been published in as many languages and for as many different peoples and cultures as the Bible itself. Its pages were among the first to be printed That's what I like about that movie. Haven't y'all seen, what's that movie, y'all? We watched the other day, about the Ice Age and all that. They had the Gutenberg Bible. We just watched it. The Day After Tomorrow. I like that little part. Yeah, yeah, I like that part. Because they're in New York City, and that Gutenberg Bible, the guy says, you know, if the world that we know is going to not exist, I'm going to keep this, because this is the first book that was ever printed. Because y'all do know that's the printing press, the first book ever printed. The first book ever printed was the Bible. Ain't that awesome? I mean, and you would think, what about this? What about the Bible? Matter of fact, my dear friends, the reason why they got that whole thing together in the first place was so that they could make more Bibles so people would be able to read the Bible in our language today. God is awesome in history itself, but not only that, not only that, but also, It's page one among the first to be printed as printed presses were invented. Millions of copies of the script have been published in all the principal languages of the world and every written language has at least some portion of the Bible in print. All those skeptics, I like this, all those skeptics like the French infidel Voltaire, y'all remember him from school? Voltaire have often predicted that the Bible will be obsolete within a generation. And even 20th century authors have predicted the Bible will soon be a forgotten book. It continues to be published in increasing numbers in more languages than ever before. That's the Bible. Listen, a book that did not have some type of supernatural guidance, that was attacked like the Bible, harmed the world. We're still in existence today. Think about that. There's more evidence that proves the Bible is true and the Word of God and its existence than there is about Shakespeare. We don't doubt Shakespeare. We don't doubt that writing whatsoever. OK? But other than that, OK. OK. But not only that, not only that. All right. So we have the influence of the Bible, but also the Bible is unprejudiced. I like that. It's unprejudiced. Look what it says here. It's unprejudiced. It says this about the Bible itself. The unprejudiced authority of the Bible. The human authorship, mentioned earlier, of the Bible has not resulted in prejudice in favor of man. The Bible unhesitantly records the sin and weakness of the best of men and graphically warns those who rely on their own virtues of their ultimate doom. All the recorded by human pens is a message from God to man rather than a message from man to man. That's what I meant by it gives the sin, the good, the bad, and the ugly about the different writers of the Bible. But most people wouldn't do that you want to conceal some I want to hide some of that stuff You know, but not but not the Bible it gives you it gives you the truth, but not only that times Okay, uh, but the archaeological supports of the Bible, uh teaches us that too. For example. Oh, this is good stuff here For example, y'all remember some of the more Have you ever heard of that? Raise your hand? Well at first they thought that something more did not even exist but then The destruction of Saba Gamor was thought to be spurious until evidence revealed that all five of the cities mentioned in the Bible were in fact centers of commerce in the area and were geographically situated as the scriptures described. The biblical description of their demise seems to be no less accurate. Evidence points to earthquake activity And the various layers of the earth were disrupted and hurled high into the air. Bitumen is pitiful there. And an accurate description would be that brimstone was hurled down on those cities that had rejected God. There is evidence that the layers of the sedimentary rock has been molded together by intense heat. Evidence of such burning has been found on the top of Jebel Yusudim or Mount Sodom. They've actually found it. archaeological evidence. I've got a Bible in my office that gives you all the different places, like Jericho, for example. Jericho. During the excavation of Jericho, this one archaeologist found something so stalling that he and two other members of a team prepared and signed a statement describing what was found. In reference to these findings, this is what they said. As for the main fact, then there remains no doubt the walls fell outwards so completely that the attackers would be able to clamber up and over their ruins into the city. Why so unusual? Because the walls of the cities do not fall outwards, they fall inwards. And yet in Josiah 6 verse 20 we read, the wall fell down flat. Then the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city, the walls were made to fall outward. That's awesome! Maybe I ain't grabbing hold of that. But think about it, Because of where they fell, it allowed them to be able to go inside the building without problems. And they found this. It's actually there. It exists today. At the service, I'll show you in my Bible an actual picture of what it looks like. It's awesome. And by the way, my dear friends, the house that Rahab was in, nothing happened to it. That place is there. It exists. But this is something that happened, my dear friends, several thousand years ago. But yet, my dear friends, archaeologists have found these places. And the list goes on. At one time, it's, oh, this is going to happen. And then as archaeologists, you know what I'm talking about, as they are digging and finding, not to support the Bible, they just like to find stuff like that. But then the things that they're finding are proving that what the Bible said was true. And of course, we talk about the internal evidence later, but how the Bible teaches. Now, I read some guy, I'm like, what are you? I'm like, man, did you read the Bible? He was talking about how the Bible talks about how the Earth was flat. The Bible says that the earth was secular and the houses they have a Bible I'm gonna have an earth Nothing, it's in the Bible before man discovered that the world was flat The Bible said it already Now that's supernatural because you know what when people was reading at the time they probably they crazy They find out it actually exists We gotta stop here I'm not gonna have time to get through all the stuff I want to get to but I do want to show you this Oh, man, King Saul. Okay. All right. I'm gonna show you this look at 2nd Timothy 3 verse 16 I'm gonna come this little bit scattered cuz I'm too excited. But look at 2nd Timothy 3 verse 16 2nd Timothy 3 look at verse 16 The Bible says this it the Bible says this all Scripture is given by inspiration of God And it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That word inspiration means it was God breathed. It was God breathed. And there's so much. And we're going to talk about it. This is like, for lack of a better, this is more like an introductory to what I want to get into. I want to get into some more specifics. But things outside the Bible prove that the Bible is supernatural. There's supernatural and you've got a book the lives that are changed What other book do you know of tell me that has the same impact and changes lives like the Bible does? There's no other book. There's no other book that does that I mean the things that it contains and how it affects your life how it does for you, but no other when all the book is able to do I You can read your novel, and see people try to make this, they want to make it as simple as they can, but listen, it takes the Holy Spirit of God to help you understand what's contained in the Word of God. Why? Because it's supernatural. It's supernatural. By the way, if God does exist, and He created everything like He has created everything, the complexity of our bodies, and those who may have been here last week, go back and look at what we talked about last week, how I gave you about the body and all that kind of stuff, about the brain and the eye and all that kind of stuff. If God can do that, why would it be so hard for Him to give His Word to us? Why would it be so hard for Him to preserve His Word? Why would it be so difficult? What happens is that man doesn't want to believe that God will be able to give us His Word. Because you know why? They don't want to go by His Word. It's the same thing I said last week. If they can say that God doesn't exist, that means there's no one to be accountable to. I can do whatever I want to do. But see, when you just begin to go that route, then yeah, what is right for you is right for you. What's wrong for you is wrong for you. When we start crossing the areas of going against God's Word, but all of a sudden everything, for example, When people say that homosexuality is a simple, it's a lifestyle or it's a sexual preference, think about what you're saying. But if you're saying it's okay for a man to be with a man or a woman to be with a woman, what about the man, and I'm not trying to, you know, this is truth, what about the man that wants to be with a little baby? That's his sexual preference. So that's okay? If you're gonna go along the lines, there's a sexual preference. Is that alright? Now the average person says, no, no, no, that's not okay. But that's his preference. What about bestiality? The Bible talks about that. How man's not supposed to lie down with animals. The Bible talks about all that kind of stuff. But someone says, well, that's their preference. That's alright. The Bible says it's not natural. It's not okay. But if there is no God, then I can do whatever I want to do. Matter of fact, what makes Dylan wrong? If there's no God. But if I feel like Dylan's okay, then it should be okay. But when you put God into the equation and God says there's a right and there's a wrong, but even inside of each of us, there's something that tells us that there's a right and there's a wrong. I don't care where you go across the world. there are going to be people that are going to feel like there's something that is right and there's something that's wrong, even though they're trying to twist words to make it seem otherwise. And then folks say that there's no absolutes. That's a lie. Do you know why? Because that's the absolute. If you say there's no absolutes, that's an absolute. If you say absolutely, there's no absolutes. That's an absolute. But they say, oh, you're talking crazy. No, I'm talking truth. But see, they try to make us seem like we're the ones who are crazy. It takes more faith to believe that there is no God than it does to believe that there is a God. It takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe that God created all things. Just do the research. And this is just a little scratch of service here for the night, for the Bible. But I just want to whet your appetite a little bit, a little bit scattered. But I want you to see that there's so much evidence that proves that the Bible is the Word of God. And the Bible does not teach us to be ignorant. The Bible teaches us to give an answer of the hope that's in us. Father, thank you for your precious word. And I didn't do it justice tonight, but I do pray God that at least perked our curiosity. And Father, as we go into next week, I do pray God that it'll be more clear, more understandable. But nonetheless, I do pray God it'll help each of us to realize that we're not just believing some pie in the sky or something just wacky. We're believing some truth. The Bible doesn't just believe anything. The Bible says to believe the truth. And Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He said, I am the truth. Father, I pray that you help each of us as we continue to go forward in this, that our faith will be that much more solidified, but also we'll be able to answer a person that asks of us the hope that we have. God, help us, I pray. And God, perhaps there's a person we'll come talk to tonight, and we're going to ask you to help them to be able to share with their friends or their family, their loved ones. More about the truth of God's word and father I pray they come and talk to you for a few moments or perhaps we'll talk about some other things That we're not even mentioned tonight. These won't come to talk to you or just say what's that? I just want to say thank you lord, wherever the need might be help us respond for your son's name. We pray jesus. Amen. Amen