All right, well we're there in 2 Peter chapter number 1, and we've been going through a series
on Sunday nights entitled Declaring Doctrine, and we've been going through this comprehensive
and systematic series where we're just going to be taking the major doctrines of the Bible
and just breaking them down on Sunday nights, and this is going to be a longer series than
what we normally do, but I think it's important that we not be carried about with every wind
of doctrine, and we're taking the time to go through it.
If you remember, we started in week 1 with the importance of doctrine, and then in week
2, we learned about the doctrine of revelation, how God reveals himself to mankind, then we
talked about specific revelation, and we talked about the doctrine of the word of God, and
we've been kind of dealing with the word of God, because look, when it comes to Christianity,
the word of God is a big deal, and there's a lot to be said about it and things I want
us to know about it, I want you to know about it, so we talked about the doctrine of the
word of God, went through the doctrinal teachings on that, inspiration, preservation, illumination,
and then last week, if you remember, I preached a sermon entitled, what is the Bible, and
we just kind of broke down the Bible, we talked about how it's organized and its origins,
the organization of the Bible and the origins of the Bible.
Tonight, we're going to continue with this idea of the word of God, and tonight we're
answering this question, is the Bible reliable?
Is the Bible reliable?
And you're there in 2 Peter chapter number 1, and I'd like you to look down at verse
number 16.
From verses 16 through 21, we have Peter basically writing about the Bible, and he's telling
us about the reliability of the Bible.
Notice there in verse 16, he says, for we not have followed cunningly devised fables
when we made note 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.
This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, and this voice which came from heaven
we heard when we were with him in the holy mount.
Notice, I want you to notice that in verse 16, he talks about the fact that we have not
followed cunningly devised fables, and then in verse 19, he says, we have also a more
sure word of prophecy, where unto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth
in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your heart.
So in verse 16, he says, look, we're not following cunningly devised fables.
In verse 19, he tells us, we have a more sure word of prophecy, and then in verse 20, he
tells us that the Bible is not given for any one person's, from any one person's perspective
or for their own use.
It's for everyone knowing, notice verse 20, knowing this verse, that no prophecy of the
scriptures of any private interpretation, why is it not of any private 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.
So you notice that this passage, verses 16 to 21 here, all have to do with the word of
God.
And what I'm going to do tonight, we're actually just going to walk through this passage, I'm
going to break it down for you, and we're going to study it together, and we're going
to learn about the reliability of the scriptures.
Is the Bible reliable?
And again, I've been telling you this since we started this series, these sermons on Sunday
nights on doctrine, they're going to feel a little different than a normal sermon that
you might be used to on a Sunday morning or on a Sunday night or on a Wednesday night.
And you know, in the old IFB, they had the Sunday school hour where they would take the
time to kind of teach through some things.
We obviously don't believe in separating families and we're family integrated and all that,
but we're kind of taking this evening slot as kind of a Sunday school type hour where
we're teaching and just kind of breaking down some of these things and helping you
understand these things.
And I think it's important for you, look, you believe the word of God by faith, and
you should believe the word of God by faith, but it's important for us to also know that
logically speaking, we have a reliable Bible.
So we're going to answer this question, is the Bible reliable?
And I'm going to give you a statement that I'm going to give it to you broken down and
then at the end of the sermon, we'll put it all together and it'll kind of be a statement
that explains to us why the Bible is reliable.
So I'd like you to write this down.
If you don't have a baby sitting on your lap or something like that, you've got a place
to write down notes on the course of your week on the back, and I'd like you to write
down this statement.
Here's the first statement.
It's going to be a series of statements that we'll put together.
How do we know that the Bible is reliable?
Number one, the Bible is a collection of reliable ancient and historic documents.
You need to understand that the Bible is a collection of reliable ancient and historic
documents.
Now, if you look down at verse 16 again, notice what Peter says.
He says, for we have not followed cunningly devised fables.
What does that mean?
The word cunningly means to be subtle, means to be sly, means to be able to kind of deceive
somebody or trick someone or kind of throw something in there without somebody noticing.
And Peter says, look, when it comes to Christianity, when it comes to the Word of God, when it
comes to what we believe, he says we've not followed cunningly devised.
What's the word devised mean?
It means contrived or invented, something that's made up.
He says we have not followed cunningly devised fables.
What's a fable?
It's a story.
It's something that's not true.
It's just kind of a story you tell.
He says, look, what we are following, Peter would say, what we believe is not just some
story that was invented and it's kind of subtle and it's kind of sly and it's kind
of tricked us into believing.
He says we have not followed cunningly devised fables.
And I would say to you tonight and I would submit to you tonight, for those of you that
believe the Bible and believe the Word of God, you are not putting your faith in a cunningly
devised fable.
In fact, the Bible, not only by spiritual standards, now look, by spiritual standards,
we believe the Bible is the Word of God, period.
It is inspired by God, it is preserved by God, it was spoken by God.
Spiritually speaking, our spirit testifies when we read the Bible that these are indeed
the words of God.
We understand that.
But I want you to understand even further that even aside from the spiritual aspect,
just for a minute, think in a secular sense, even if you were to remove the spiritual aspect,
the God aspect of the Bible, the Bible just as a book.
Now please don't misunderstand what I'm telling you.
The Bible is the Word of God.
We ought to treat it as the Word of God, we ought to respect it as the Word of God.
But please understand this argument.
Even if we were to just set aside God and just play the devil's advocate and say, oh,
the Bible's not a spiritual book, it wasn't written by God, we're atheists, we don't believe
that.
The Bible as a book is a collection of reliable ancient and historic documents.
Now let me explain that to you and go to the book of Psalms if you would.
Keep your place there in 2 Peter.
That's our text for tonight.
We're going to leave it and we're going to come back to it.
So put a ribbon or a bookmark or something there so you can get back to it, 2 Peter chapter
1.
And go to the book of Psalms.
If you open up your Bible just right in the center, you'll more than likely fall in the
book of Psalms, Psalm 68.
The Bible is a collection of reliable ancient and historic documents.
Let's talk about the reliability of the Bible as an ancient document.
Because look, here's the thing.
This Bible you hold in your hands, I don't know if you've realized this or you've thought
about this, it's an ancient document.
The New Testament was written over 2,000 years ago.
The Old Testament goes back way further than that.
This is an ancient document.
And the Bible as an ancient document is a reliable ancient document.
In fact, it doesn't get any more reliable than the Bible.
And right now I'm just talking about just from a secular, even just from a logical worldly
point of view.
Let me give you some examples.
The New Testament.
And the New Testament is really the battleground when it comes to reliability because the Old
Testament, it's kind of the children of Israel, they did a good job with scribes and things
like that.
There's not a lot of debate.
There's a lot of things that are debated there, but when it comes to the reliability
of scripture, it's really the New Testament that the focus is on because of the writers
and the manuscripts and all those things.
And here's what I want you to understand.
Your New Testament, the New Testament that you and I hold in our hands, that New Testament
was translated and right now, right now on earth, there exists about 6,000 manuscripts
or portions of manuscripts.
So the Bible that you hold in your hand, it was translated by this accumulation of
manuscripts and portions of manuscripts.
And right now we own, we have in this world about 6,000 manuscripts or portions of manuscripts.
Now you need to understand this.
We do not have the originals.
Nobody has the originals.
When people talk to you about going back to the originals, they're either lying to you
or they're just ignorant.
The originals do not exist.
Nobody owns the original document that the book of Romans was written on.
Nobody owns the original documents at the Gospel according to John.
They don't exist.
We have copies from those documents and we have about 6,000 manuscripts or portions of
manuscripts.
Now here's what I want you to understand and I want you to think about this and put your
thinking cap on for a minute.
We have 6,000 manuscripts or portions of manuscripts.
Nobody has the originals.
The originals don't exist.
But here's what we do have.
We have documents that date back as far as 180 to 120 AD.
Now here's why that's important.
Most people agree that the New Testament was completed somewhere between 70 and 100 AD.
I tend to believe 70 AD was the number.
Some people will take it as far as 100 AD.
But most people agree that the New Testament, all right, remember the calendar begins with
the birth of Christ and that's where you start counting 180, 280, 380.
Most people believe that the New Testament was completed between 70 and 100 AD.
We have manuscripts that go back to 100 and 120 AD.
Here's what that means.
That means that we have manuscripts that exist right now that date back anywhere from
30 to 50 years after the originals, meaning that we have manuscripts right now that you
can look at that were copied 30 to 50 years after Paul penned down and Peter penned down
and John penned down and Luke penned down the originals of the New Testament.
You might think, well, that's all well and good, but what does that prove?
When you compare it to other ancient documents and when you talk about ancient documents
in this world and the world has a lot of studies that they've done on this and they're big
into this.
There's all universities that have departments with this.
There are other ancient documents aside from the Bible that by the world standards and
by secular standards are considered reliable documents.
Let me give you three examples of very well-known ancient documents.
One is Aristotle's Poetics.
Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest surviving work of dramatic theory.
It was written by Aristotle around 330 BC, so about 330 years before the birth of Christ.
That would make it an ancient document that's about 2,350 years old or it was written 2,350
years ago.
So please understand this.
Aristotle's Poetics written about 2,350 years ago.
Today there are five manuscripts in existence.
There are five manuscripts in existence of Aristotle's Poetics written 2,350 years ago.
Please understand this.
The earliest manuscript of those five manuscripts was copied over 1,400 years after the original.
By the world standards, Aristotle's Poetics is a reliable ancient document.
If you were to ask them, why are you so confident in the reliability of that document, they
would tell you, well, we've got five manuscripts and the earliest was copied 1,400 years after
the original and they would tell you, for a document that's 2,000 plus years old, that's
pretty good.
Let me give you another example.
Julius Caesar's Gaelic Wars.
Gaelic Wars is a book written by Julius Caesar and it was his first hand commentary and account
of the Gaelic Wars.
Caesar describes the battles that took place in the nine years that he spent fighting the
Germanic peoples and the Celtic people and it's a book written by Julius Caesar which
makes it an ancient document.
It was written 58 to 52 BC.
That would be around 2,070 years ago.
It's an ancient document.
Today there are ten manuscripts in existence.
Ten manuscripts in existence of the Gaelic Wars by Julius Caesar, the earliest manuscript
was copied over 1,000 years after the original.
Let me give you another example.
Homer's Iliad.
The Iliad is an ancient Greek epic poem attributed to Homer set during the Trojan War and the
ten year siege of the city of Troy written in 762 BC, 762 years before Christ.
That would make it about 2,782 years old or 2,700 years ago.
Today there are 643 manuscripts in existence.
That's a pretty good amount.
643 manuscripts in existence.
The earliest manuscript was copied over 1,800 years after the original.
Here's what I want you to understand.
By secular, worldly standards, when you're looking at a document that is 2,000, 2,500,
2,700 years ago, they would tell you these are reliable documents.
They would point to Homer's Iliad.
They would tell you 643 manuscripts, the earliest copied 1,800 years after the original.
They would point to Julius Caesar's Gaelic Wars.
They would tell you we have ten manuscripts, the earliest copied over 1,000 years after
the original.
They would point to Aristotle's Poetics.
They would tell you we have five manuscripts, the earliest copied over 1,400 years after
the original.
Your New Testament has 600,000 manuscripts.
The earliest copied 30 to 50 years after the original.
I'm telling you, your New Testament by any standard is a reliable ancient document.
In fact, if the Bible is not a reliable ancient document, then there is no such thing as
a reliable ancient document because the Bible blows every other ancient document out of
the water.
Somebody put it this way.
If it was a fight, they'd stop it.
They would not allow it to go forward because the Bible is such a heavy weight.
When it comes to the reliability, look, you've got 643 of the manuscripts of Homer's Iliad,
6,000 of the New Testament.
Five and ten of the other ones copied 1,000, 1,400, 1,800 years after the original.
Your Bible, 6,000 manuscripts.
We don't have the originals.
We'll give you that.
The earliest copy, 30 to 50 years after the original.
When you take God out of the picture and you just look at the Bible as an ancient document,
it is a collection of reliable ancient documents.
It is a collection of reliable ancient documents.
Forget the God factor, and we believe in God and we understand that, but just the Bible
as a book, it is not only reliable, it is the most reliable.
It blows every other ancient document out of the water.
It's a reliable ancient document.
But I want you to notice, not only is it a reliable ancient document, but it is a reliable
historic document.
Now you're there in Psalms.
I'd like you to go to the book of Daniel if you would.
Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations of Ezekiel,
Daniel.
All right?
So make your way to Daniel.
And while you go there, I want to read to you from a couple of articles.
The first article is entitled The Fabled Hittites, and I'll go ahead and just read you a little
bit of this while you turn to Daniel.
Bible critics had long sneered at references in the Bible to a people called the Hittites.
Their opinion was that the Hittites were simply one of many mythical people made up by Bible
writers.
Other critics said that they may have been a small and unimportant tribe, but the critics
were off.
Toward the end of the 19th century, Hittite monuments were uncovered at Carchemish on
the Euphrates River in Syria, proving the Bible right.
Later in 1906, excavations of Bogazkoy, which is ancient Hattusas, the capital of the Hittite
Empire in Turkey, uncovered thousands of Hittite documents revealing a wealth of information
about Hittite history and culture.
The centuries-old Hittite rubbish showed they were a real and formidable power.
They were once one of the dominant peoples of Asia Minor and the Near East.
They exercised considerable control south into Syria and Palestine.
The Bible was right all along.
Today, no one questions the existence of the Hittites.
Volumes of books exist on the history, art, culture, and society of the Hittites.
We could spend all day going through example after example of things that the Bible talked
about that historians said that was a myth, that never actually happened, and later it
became apparent that the Bible was true.
I just want to give you a couple, but that's an example where for a long time people said,
oh, the Hittites never existed.
They're just a mythical people.
Moses made them up in his writings, and then all of a sudden they found just thousands
of artifacts and documents that prove that these people were exactly when and where the
Bible said they were, because I want you to know, the Bible is not only a reliable ancient
document, the Bible is a reliable historic document.
Let me give you another example.
This is from an article entitled Nebonitis versus Belshazzar.
The Bible presents the famous writing on the wall story as occurring on the same day the
city of Babylon, capital of Babylonia, fell to the Medo-Persian Empire under King Cyrus
the Great.
Indeed, Daniel gave King Belteshazzar this interpretation of writing, God hath numbered
thy kingdom and finished it, in Daniel 5.26, and thy kingdom is divided and given to the
Medes and the Persians in verse 28.
The Bible claims that Belteshazzar was killed in that night, in verse 30, and with his death
the Babylonian kingdom was now controlled by Medo-Persia.
However, all other known historical records once disagreed.
Ancient historians like Herodotus, Meg, Asthenes, Berausus, and Alexander Polyhistor, not to
mention a vast number of cuneiform documents, were united in claiming that the last king
of the Neo-Babylonian Empire was Nebonitis.
Belteshazzar was not even mentioned anywhere except in the book of Daniel and literature
derived from it.
But just when it looked like all the evidence was stacked against the scriptures, a series
of archaeological discoveries showed that Belteshazzar did exist after all and the details
given about him in the Bible are profoundly correct.
First, in 1854, four clay cylinders with identical inscriptions were excavated from the Ur.
These Nebonitis cylinders contained Nebonitis' prayer to the moon god for Belteshazzar, the
eldest son, my offspring.
Thus, Belteshazzar's existence was confirmed as Nebonitis' first son and heir to his throne.
Then, in 1882, a translation of another ancient cuneiform text, the Nebonitis Chronicle, was
published.
According to this document, Nebonitis was a mostly absentee king, spending ten years
of his 17-year reign living in Timah, Arabia, 450 miles away from Babylon.
The king left Belteshazzar, whom the text calls the crown prince, to take care of the
affairs in Babylon during that time.
Also, the chronicle explains that Nebonitis was away from Babylon when it fell.
Two days earlier, he had fled from the Persians when they defeated him in Sippar, so Belteshazzar
was the highest authority in Babylon at the time of its capture.
So for years and years and years, people would scoff at the book of Daniel and say, there's
a major historical problem here, Belteshazzar was not the last king of Babylon, Nebonitis
was.
Every other historical document agrees with that and agrees against the Bible.
Then an archaeological find finds that Nebonitis had left, had basically been an absentee king,
and had left Belteshazzar in charge, his son.
Here's what's interesting, when you look at the story of Daniel, with that in mind, there
are things in the story that make a lot more sense.
Are you there in Daniel chapter 5?
Look at verse 7.
Remember you've got the story of the handwriting on the wall, where the hand of God appears
on the wall and he's giving that warning and that last judgment to Belteshazzar.
In Daniel 5 and verse 7, the Bible says this, the king cried aloud to bring in astrologers,
the Chaldeans, the soothsayers, this is Belteshazzar.
And the king spake and said to the wise men of Babylon, whosoever shall read this writing
and show me the interpretation thereof shall be clothed with scarlet and have a chain of
gold about his neck.
Now notice, here you have Belteshazzar who just saw the handwriting on the wall, he sees
this message but he doesn't know what it means.
He calls in all the wise men of Babylon and he's telling them, whoever can read this writing
and show me the interpretation thereof, he said, I'm going to give them, they shall be
clothed with scarlet and have a chain of gold about his neck.
Notice the last part of verse 7, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.
And you might wonder, well that's kind of an odd thing, why don't you make him the second
ruler in the kingdom?
Well when you realize that Belteshazzar was already the second ruler in the kingdom, it
makes sense that he would offer the third position of king.
In fact, notice verse number 16.
When they bring in Daniel to give him the interpretation, notice what Belteshazzar says.
He says, and I have heard of thee, that thou canst make interpretations and dissolve doubts.
Now thou canst read the writing and make known to me the interpretation thereof, thou shalt
be clothed with scarlet and have a chain of gold about thy neck, notice what he says,
and shalt be the third ruler in the kingdom.
Notice verse 29, same chapter, after Daniel gives him the interpretation.
Then commanded Belteshazzar and they clothed Daniel with scarlet and put a chain of gold
about his neck and made a proclamation concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the
kingdom.
Notice what the interesting thing is, that people would scoff at the book of Daniel and
make fun of Daniel until history caught up with the book of Daniel and proved the book
of Daniel to be right.
And now that we know that amount of history, it actually makes the book of Daniel make
even more sense.
Because in the story he keeps offering, I'll make you the third ruler in the kingdom, I'll
make you the third ruler, Daniel you're not going to be the third ruler.
And you're kind of like, well why not the second?
Well, Belteshazzar was the second.
And here's all I'm trying to tell you, and here's the point that I'm trying to make.
Your Bible is a collection of reliable ancient and historic documents.
Your Bible, all on its own, forget the spirituality aspect of it, and when I say forget that,
I hope you understand what I mean, I'm not being disrespectful, of course it is the word
of God.
But even aside, even aside from its claim as the word of God, just as a document, it
is a collection of reliable ancient and historic documents.
Here's the next part of the statement I'd like you to write down, number two, the Bible
is a collection of reliable ancient and historic documents, here's point number two, that were
documented by eyewitnesses.
The Bible is a collection of reliable and ancient, reliable ancient historic documents
that were documented by eyewitnesses.
Go back to 2 Peter chapter 1, if you would.
Look at verse number 16.
Notice what Peter says to us.
2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 16.
For we have not followed cunningly devised fables.
Notice what he says.
And look, isn't that true?
I mean, you can call the Bible a lot of things,
but you can't call it a cunningly devised fable.
It is a reliable, ancient document by any standard.
It is a reliable, historic document by any standard.
But not only is the Bible a collection
of reliable, ancient, and historic documents,
they were documented, and it was documented by eyewitnesses.
Notice what Peter says.
For we have not followed cunningly devised fables.
Notice, when we made known unto you
the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
notice, by eyewitnesses of His majesty.
Peter says, look, we were eyewitnesses.
We were witnesses of what happened
with the Lord Jesus Christ.
And this idea of the Resurrection
being attested by eyewitnesses is a theme
through the entire New Testament.
Let me give you a couple of examples.
Go to Luke chapter number 1.
Luke 1, towards the beginning of the New Testament,
you have Matthew, Mark, Luke.
Luke chapter number 1.
Do me a favor.
When you get to Luke, put a ribbon or a bookmark
or something there, because we're going to leave it,
and we're going to come back to it.
Luke chapter number 1.
Look at verse number 1.
For as much, this is Luke writing the book of Luke,
and this is kind of his introduction to the book.
Here's what he says.
For as much as many have taken in hand
to set forth in order a declaration of those things,
which are most assuredly believed among us,
even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning
were, notice what he says, eyewitnesses.
Do you understand what he said?
He said, look.
For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order,
he says, look, there's lots of people
that have taken it upon themselves to put in order
a declaration of those things.
What things, Luke?
Luke, the things which we surely believe among us.
He says, even as they were delivered,
even as they delivered them unto us.
He says, look, they were delivered unto us,
which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers
of the word.
Here's what Luke is saying.
The document that I'm about to write,
that will later be known as the gospel according to Luke,
he said, I want you to know that this document came,
this is a witness.
I've got the testimony from eyewitnesses
who saw these things, verse 3.
He says, it seemed good to me, having
made a perfect understanding of all things from the very first,
to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus.
The book of Luke and Acts was written to this man Theophilus
by Luke.
And here's what he's telling you.
He's saying, I got the story from the eyewitnesses.
I documented it, put it in order,
and I'm giving it to you.
Why?
Look at verse 4, that thou mightest
know the certainty of those things
wherein thou has been instructed.
Peter said, we were eyewitnesses.
Luke said, I got this from the eyewitnesses.
He said, this has been documented by the eyewitnesses.
Keep your place there in Luke.
We're going to come right back to it.
Go to 1 Corinthians 15.
1 Corinthians 15.
You're there in Luke.
You've got John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians.
Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians.
And please understand this, and I
hope people understand this when I say this, and I think
it's important for us to get this.
The Bible says that faith is a substance of things hoped for
and the evidence of things not seen.
We must come to God by faith, but without faith,
it is impossible to please him.
For he that cometh to God must believe that he is,
and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
We understand that faith is we walk by faith and not by sight.
We understand all that.
The Bible teaches all that.
We're clear on all that.
But please understand, though we walk by faith and not by sight,
though faith is the evidence of things hoped for
and the evidence of things not seen, excuse me,
though all of that is true, God never expected you and I
to have blind faith.
In fact, he gave us eyewitness faith.
We could put faith in the reliability of the document
known as the gospel according to Luke,
in the reliability of the document known
as the gospel according to John, the reliability
of the documents of the New Testament,
because we got the message from eyewitnesses.
And this is a theme in your New Testament.
1 Corinthians 15, notice what Paul says.
Look at verse 1.
He says, moreover, brethren.
Now 1 Corinthians 15 is known as the resurrection chapter.
It's all about the resurrection of Christ
and the resurrection of believers.
And notice how he begins this chapter.
Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you
the gospel which I preached unto you,
which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand,
by which ye are saved.
So he says, look, I'm going to declare to you the gospel.
He says, this is the gospel that I preached to you.
This is the gospel that you've received.
This is the gospel wherein you stand.
This is the gospel that got you saved.
If you keep in memory what I preached unto you,
unless ye have believed in vain.
So what is the gospel?
Verse 3, for I delivered unto you, first of all,
that which I also received.
Here he goes.
He says, how that Christ, number 1,
died for our sins according to the scriptures.
And he, number 2, was buried.
And he, number 3, rose again the third day
according to the scriptures.
He says, this is the gospel.
This is what we believe, that Jesus died, was buried,
and rose again on the third day.
But then notice what Paul says about the resurrection
of Christ.
He doesn't say, so just take it as my word
that this actually happened.
No, he gives them eyewitness testimony.
Notice verse 5.
And that he was seen of Cephas, talking
about the resurrected Christ, was seen of Cephas.
That's Simon Peter.
Then of the 12.
After that, he was seen of above 500 brethren
at once, of whom the greater part remained
unto this present.
And I want you to know that's important.
He's saying, 500 people saw Jesus all at the same time.
After they watched him die and be buried,
then they all saw him.
500 of them saw him alive.
And then Paul writes, and most of them
are still alive today.
At the time of this writing, Paul
would say, while I'm writing this letter to the Corinthian
church, most of those people, he says,
of whom the greater part remain unto this present,
but some are falling asleep.
He says, that group of 500 people
that saw Jesus, some of them have fallen asleep.
Some of them have died.
But most of them are alive, Paul would say, right now,
as he's writing to the church at Corinth.
Notice verse 7.
After that, he was seen of James.
That's the half brother of Christ.
Then of all the apostles, that's more than the 12.
It's the 70.
Notice verse 8.
And last of all, he was seen of me.
Also, as one born out of due time,
because we know that Jesus appeared,
the resurrected Christ appeared to Paul on the road
to Damascus.
Here's what I'm telling you.
The Bible is a collection of reliable ancient historic
documents that was documented by eyewitnesses.
Luke said, I got this from the eyewitnesses.
He said, I got it from the horse's mouth.
Peter said, I was an eyewitness.
Paul here gives us a whole list of all of the eyewitnesses.
He said, there are 500 eyewitnesses
whom the greater part remain unto this present.
He said, but some are falling asleep.
This Bible was given to us, and specifically
the New Testament, the Gospels.
They were documented by eyewitnesses.
Now, here's what's interesting about that.
Because a lot of people want to attack the eyewitness account.
And look, eyewitness account can be very unreliable
when we're talking about people being sentenced and things
like that.
What's interesting is that there's
been a lot of research done on eyewitness account.
In fact, there's an article.
And I'm not going to read the article to you.
But there's an article entitled, Eyewitness Testimonies
May Only Be Credible Under These Circumstances.
This was an article written by UC Davis.
And it was a study done by UC Davis in collaboration
with the Houston Police Department back in 2013,
where they did a study regarding 348 robberies.
And here's what they found.
They found that sometimes eyewitness testimony
is very unreliable.
But it can be extremely reliable under certain circumstances.
And this is what they found.
Go back to Luke chapter 1, if you would.
They found that there are three things that
make eyewitness testimony completely reliable
or extremely reliable.
The first thing they found was this,
that eyewitness testimony is reliable
when it is in corroboration with other eyewitness accounts
or evidence.
So if you've got one person saying, I saw him do it,
that may be unreliable.
But when you've got multiple eyewitnesses that are all
saying, no, yeah, we saw him do it,
when you corroborate an eyewitness testimony
with other eyewitnesses, that testimony
becomes more reliable.
Here's what's interesting about Jesus Christ.
Are you there back in Luke 1.1?
Notice what Luke said in verse 1.
He says, for as much as many have taken in hand
to set forth in order a declaration of these things
which are most surely believed among us.
Luke said, there are many people that
have taken it amongst themselves
to write down this story.
They thought it was important enough to write down
this story.
Luke says there are many.
And here's the thing.
We know for sure there's at least four.
We've got the gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John,
all documenting the story of Christ.
And those were inspired by the word of God.
But you know that there's other people, even
during the time of Christ, that documented his existence,
his death, and all those things?
And Luke says this.
He says there are many that have taken in hand
to set forth in order a declaration of these things.
And you've got to ask yourself this question.
What would you have to do in your life
to get somebody to write down your life story?
I mean, I'm not talking about you writing down your life
story.
I'm talking about what would you have to accomplish in life?
What would I have to accomplish in life
to make such an impact where somebody else would say,
I've got to write this down.
Somebody needs to know about this.
OK, here's what's interesting.
For the life of Christ, not just one person, many, many people
decided that this is such an incredible story.
This is such an incredible event.
This is such an important event that we've
got to document the fact that we were eyewitnesses of what
happened.
According to UC Davis, what makes eyewitness accounts
reliable?
Well, number one, the corroboration of evidence
or other eyewitnesses.
Do you have that with the resurrection of Christ?
Yes, you do.
Multiple eyewitnesses telling you.
500 at one time, Paul would tell you,
who all would stand up and say, I saw the living Messiah.
I saw the resurrected Christ.
Here's the second thing that makes eyewitness testimony
credible.
Not only the fact that it is corroborated by other
eyewitnesses or evidence, but the second thing
is this, the confidence level of the eyewitness of the person
that is the witness.
When they were doing the study, they
began to not only have eyewitnesses who
identify suspects and things, but they would ask them,
what's your confidence level?
High, medium, or low?
And they found that people who had a low confidence
would oftentimes end up pointing out the wrong guy in the lineup
or accusing a wrong person.
In fact, in the article, it tells the story of a lady
who a guy had broken into her apartment
and assaulted her and done things.
And when the police showed up, and when they gave her such,
she described the individual, and they
brought her pictures of people they thought it might be,
she had a very low confidence level.
She thinks, I think it was this guy.
I'm pretty sure it was this guy who was real low.
By the time she went to court and was a witness in court,
her mind and her memory had kind of crystallized.
And by the time she was in court, she was like, yes,
that's him.
10 years later, DNA proved that wasn't him.
They found the real guy.
But here's what they've learned.
When someone initially has a low confidence
level of what they saw, their eyewitness account
is not reliable.
But when someone initially has a high confidence
level of what they saw, you have a more reliable eyewitness
account.
And when you can corroborate it with other eyewitnesses,
then you have an even stronger reliability to that account.
So here's a question I have for you.
Is the eyewitness account of the Resurrection of Christ
corroborated with other eyewitnesses?
The answer is yes.
How about the confidence level of those
who witnessed the Resurrection of Christ?
Go to Acts chapter number 4.
Acts chapter number 4.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts.
Acts chapter 4.
Remember the disciples?
What were they acting like when Jesus was being crucified?
They were acting like a bunch of scared individuals.
And look, and I'm not blaming them,
they could have been next.
Remember Peter?
A little maid was punking him.
A little maid was like, I saw you.
And he's like, I know not the man.
They were scared.
They were in hiding.
They quit.
They said, I go fishing.
But after they saw the Resurrection of Christ,
their confidence level went up.
In fact, in Acts chapter 4, and we
can look at a lot of passages, but I'll just point to one.
Acts chapter number 4 and verse number 4, the Bible says this.
Acts chapter, excuse me, Acts 4.
I must have wrote down the wrong, the wrong,
that's the one I want, but that's a different one.
Good night.
Let me just read it for you.
I have it here in my notes.
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John
and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men,
they marveled and they took knowledge of them
that they had been with Jesus.
And I want you to notice that in that passage,
they tell us that they saw these men who were once scared.
Now they had boldness and confidence.
Why?
Because they had been with Jesus.
Now we like to spiritualize that,
and I don't think there's anything wrong with this,
where we'll say, hey, you spend time with Jesus,
you'll be bold too.
But here, it's not a spiritual thing
like they were reading their Bible.
They'd literally been with Jesus.
They'd literally had breakfast with the resurrected Christ.
And because of that, they had boldness.
And the apostles, who were scared and who were running
and who were hiding after the Resurrection,
came out with boldness onto the streets of Jerusalem
and said, we have seen the resurrected Christ.
And even though they were threatened,
they were imprisoned, they were beaten, and all of them
died for that testimony, their confidence level was high.
UC Davis tells us that the reliability of eyewitness
account goes up with the corroboration of evidence
and other eyewitnesses.
UC Davis tells us that the confidence
level of the eyewitness account needs
to go into account for the reliability,
and their boldness was high.
Here's the third thing.
The amount of time is a factor.
The amount of time.
The initial identification is more important
in how confident they were than if it happens later.
Because your mind can crystallize,
and you can make up memories and stories
in your mind of things that happened years later.
But at that time, in that moment,
the closer you are to the event, the more reliable it is.
Here's what's interesting about your New Testament
and my New Testament.
You're there in Acts.
Go to Acts chapter 2 and look at verse number 31.
In Acts chapter 2 and verse 31, the Bible
says this, Acts 2, 31.
I want you to notice that when Peter stood up
in that day of Pentecost sermon, it
was a big witness and testimony of what he had seen.
Notice Acts 2, 31.
He's seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ,
that his soul is not left in hell,
neither is blessed of the corruption.
Verse 32, this Jesus hath God raised up,
whereof we all are witnesses.
Notice he's saying, look, we saw the resurrected Christ.
And what happened at the end of the day of Pentecost?
Notice verse 41.
Then they that gladly received his word were baptized,
and the same day there were added unto them
about 3,000 souls.
I want you to understand this and get this.
The Bible tells us that after the day of Pentecost,
there was 3,000 followers of Christ, 3,000 followers
of Christ, not 500 years after the death, burial,
and resurrection of Christ, not 50 years
after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
Because stories can be taken and can
be changed over years and decades and centuries.
They can be turned into myths and legends.
And if there were 3,000 followers and believers
of Christ 500 years after the event,
then that might fall under the category of every other
religion in this world.
But please understand this.
There were 3,000 believers of Jesus Christ,
not 500 years after the event, not 50 years after the event,
50 days after the event.
The day of Pentecost, 50 days after Easter,
50 days after the resurrection of Christ,
3,000 people believed on him.
And this is the story of the book of Acts.
Notice verse 47, praising God and having favor
with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily
such as should be saved.
Look at Acts 4 and 4.
That's what I had you look at earlier.
Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed,
and the number of the man was about 5,000.
In Acts 2, we have 3,000.
In Acts 4, we've got 5,000.
Look at Acts chapter 6 and verse number 1.
Acts chapter 6 and verse 1, the Bible
says that in those days when the number of disciples
was multiplied, look at verse 7, same chapter,
the word of God increased, and the number of disciples
multiplied.
See, the eyewitnesses, it's not like these stories
were written out and they came out 500 years later.
No, they came out at the time the eyewitnesses documented
this at the time of their lives while there
were other eyewitnesses still alive,
while there were contemporaries and peers living among them.
This is important, and it is important
because of this reason.
Because the Bible is a document, and we're
talking specifically about the New Testament,
that was written by eyewitnesses,
documented by eyewitnesses during the lifetime
of other eyewitnesses, during the time
of their contemporaries.
And they had thousands of followers in that lifespan,
70 years, 90 years, 100 years after the event.
That means that the Bible would have
been a falsifiable document.
What does that mean?
The word falsifiable means the capacity
for some proposition, statement, theory, or hypothesis
to be proven wrong.
See, the problem with much of religion
is that it's not falsifiable.
The Bible being written by eyewitnesses
during the lifespan of contemporary eyewitnesses
would mean that the Bible is falsifiable.
When a claim is made that cannot be tested,
that is not a strong claim.
When a claim is made that cannot be tested,
that is not a strong claim.
The claim of the disciples, they weren't
like the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Jesus came back to us, oh, can we see him?
Well, he only appeared to us, like nobody else.
Look, they said it was just us four in this tower
and nobody else saw him.
No, Paul says, hey, 500 people saw him.
All 12 apostles saw him.
Now look, the Bible is clear that only saved people
saw the resurrected Christ.
But there was many of them who saw it,
and it was falsifiable.
Here's what I mean by religions that are not falsifiable.
The Quran.
The Quran has a story in it about Muhammad performing
a miracle where he went up to the moon and split the moon
and did this miracle up in the moon.
Well, here's the thing, that's not falsifiable.
Can I go prove that?
Can anybody go up to the moon and attest to the fact
that Muhammad actually did what he said he did on the moon?
That is a cunning, not even cunningly,
that's just a foolishly devised fable.
You understand that?
The Bible that you and I believe in is not that.
It's eyewitness accounts.
Eyewitnesses who documented these things
and wrote them down for us.
And look, by eyewitness standards,
it's reliable eyewitness, corroborated
by other eyewitnesses.
It is reliable because of the confidence level.
It is reliable because of the amount of time in which they
came out with their story.
They didn't come out with their story.
Once everybody was dead, once nobody that could prove it
wrong was gone, they didn't know.
They came out with their story within days, weeks
of when it happened.
And they said, we've seen the resurrected Christ.
So the Bible is a collection of reliable, ancient,
and historic documents that were documented by eyewitnesses.
And here's the next statement, the last part of the statement.
Which testify of the work of God in this world.
Go back to 2 Peter chapter number 1.
2 Peter chapter number 1, look at verse 7.
For he received from God the Father honor and glory.
When there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory.
And this is, of course, talking about the mount of transfiguration.
This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.
Peter's testifying the fact, he's like,
let me give you an example of a miracle that I heard.
I was on the mount with him, and I audibly
heard the voice of God saying about Jesus,
this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.
And this voice which came from heaven,
we heard when we were with him in the holy mount.
The Bible is a collection of reliable ancient historic
documents that were documented by eyewitnesses
which testify to the work of God in this world.
And I don't have time, I'm out of time.
But the way that we know that is through a couple of things.
First of all, through the fulfillment of specific
prophecies and through the witness
of supernatural miracles.
And I'm not going to take the time to develop that.
I don't have time to develop that.
I've preached entire sermons on that in the past
when we talk about the reliability of scripture.
But the reason that we know that the Bible
was not written by man is because 700 and 1,000 years
before the events happened, people prophesied
very specifically what would happen.
That could not have been orchestrated
by anyone other than God.
And look, and people sometimes they say,
oh, well, okay, well, you're talking about
the New Testament, you're talking about Jesus,
but what about the Noahic flood?
Can you prove that?
What about Jonah and the whale?
Can you prove that?
What about Adam and Eve?
Isn't that mystical?
What about the writings of Moses?
Well, here's what you need to understand.
The foundation of our belief is the Lord Jesus Christ.
The only reason we're gathered here tonight,
the only reason we're gathered as a church
is because of the Lord Jesus Christ and his resurrection.
God never expected us to blindly believe
in the resurrection.
He gave us a New Testament which documents
from eyewitnesses corroborated by other eyewitnesses
the fact that this event actually happened.
And here's what you need to know.
If the resurrection happened, which it did,
and look, logically speaking,
if you say, well, I don't believe in the resurrection,
then you can't believe in the Civil War,
then you can't believe in anything
that's ever happened in history
because the only reason we know anything
that's happened in history is because
eyewitnesses wrote it down for us.
And here's the thing, you say,
okay, well, you proved the resurrection.
Well, that's all we need to prove
because if the resurrection happened,
then Jesus was who he said he was.
He was the Son of God, he was the Christ,
he was the Messiah, he was God in the flesh.
Say, well, what does that do for all those stories
in the Old Testament?
Well, here's the thing.
Jesus affirmed and confirmed the story of Jonah.
Jesus affirmed and confirmed
the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah.
He affirmed and confirmed the Noahic flood.
He affirmed and confirmed the writings of Moses.
He talked about the law and the prophets.
He, look, Jesus believed in the,
he affirmed and confirmed Adam and Eve.
He mentioned and talked about Adam and Eve.
Jesus believed in Adam and Eve and the Noahic flood
and Jonah and the whale.
He believed all that, and if the resurrection is true
and he is who he said he is, then all of it's good.
Then all of it's believable, all of it's reliable.
The Bible is a reliable document by any way
and any standard that you look at it.
The Bible is a collection
of reliable ancient historic documents
that were documented by eyewitnesses
which testify of the work of God in this world
through the fulfillment of specific prophecies
and through the witness of supernatural miracles.
That's what you and I hold in our hands.
It's not a cunningly devised fable.
It is the word of God.
Let's finish our passage, 2 Peter 1, look at verse 19.
So Paul, Peter, with that in mind pens these words.
We have also a more sure word of prophecy.
Isn't that true?
Where unto ye do well that ye take heed
as unto a light that shineth in a dark place
until the day dawn and the day star arise in your heart
knowing this first that no prophecy of the scriptures
of any private interpretation.
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of men,
but holy men of God spake as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost.
Here's all Peter's telling us
and here's all I'm trying to tell you.
The Bible's not given by man, it was given by God.
The Bible is a reliable book
because it was well given by God.
But if you want a more sophisticated way of saying it,
you can say it this way.
The Bible is a collection of reliable ancient
and historic documents that were documented by eyewitnesses
which testify of the work of God in this world
through the fulfillment of specific prophecies
and through the witness of supernatural miracles.
It's a more sure word of prophecy.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, thank you, Lord, for your word.
Thank you for the fact that your word can be tested.
Thank you for the fact that there have been hundreds
and thousands of archeological excavations
and none of them have ever or will ever disprove the Bible.
And Lord, we love you for giving us your word,
for sending your son to die on the cross for our sins.
And Lord, I pray that you would help all of us
to walk out of here tonight just confident
in the reliability of this book.
In the matchless name of Christ, we pray, amen.
We're now Brother Mac.