(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, the title of this message this morning is we see by faith and not by sight. It's a very cliche statement and a very obvious statement that should be made of us as Christians. We see by faith, not by sight. What does that mean? We don't trust always necessarily what we see in front of us. What we see in front of us may not appear to be what it is. But not only that, we see something that is not seeable. For instance, heaven, right? We believe that when we put our faith on the Lord Jesus Christ, we are sealed under the day of redemption and we are on our way to heaven. So a stereotype or a stigma amongst legitimate Bible believing Christians is people who have blind faith. Well, you're just following someone blindly. You're just following the Bible blindly. You're just doing or following something that is improvable, not provable and you know what I say to that, Amen. There are things that we cannot prove in this world, in the observable universe around us. But nevertheless, we don't necessarily adhere to proof. We adhere to faith, to trust, to belief and there is an attack on the subject of belief and faith across, let alone the world, but even in Christian circles. There are people who lack faith. The Bible says in Romans chapter one, we live from faith to faith and as it is written, the just shall live by faith. We first believed on or had faith on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. So when it comes to everything else in our lives, we believe and trust and have faith on what the Bible tells us of the observable universe. So we need to practice what we preach and practice our faith by truly having a leap of faith in our life. Look, where I had you turn in Hebrews chapter 11 is what's known as the faith chapter. It's a chapter of individual characters that have shown lots of signs of great faith, trust in God with their life, with their family, with where they go and all these things and they didn't know the outcome of anything. They had no idea really what would happen, but they believed that what God said he would do, that he would do it and they believed that and they had faith in him. They didn't see by sight, they saw by faith. For instance, it talks about Abraham. God told Abraham to leave his family into the land of Canaan. He's going to have children of the sand of the sea and stars of the sky. Abraham at that time was an old guy and said, you know what? God said it. It will happen. Period. We don't understand that. We don't comprehend it. There are so many other examples as we look in this passage of Hebrews chapter 11 that explained to us things that we can't necessarily comprehend or understand, but we believe and trust through faith alone in these passages. Now the first verse I want you to take a look at is verse one and this is once again a very famous passage in the Bible. Resignate this in your hearts. Try to memorize this. This is a passage that is near and dear to us. This is a mantra to us as Christians. Use this as often as you humanly possibly can. It says in Hebrews chapter 11 verse one, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Let's break that down really quickly. Faith what does it mean to have faith, to believe something? In our modern vocabulary, we would use the word to trust something, right? For instance, you know, if I, you know, we use this analogy going out soul winning a lot and let's say there is a fighter fighter on the ground and the building is on fire, you're on a second story and there is no way down the building, but the fighter fighter looks up at you and says, jump, I will catch you, have faith in me. Trust him. If you try to get down any other way, you're not trusting the fighter fighter. You're trusting in your ability to save yourself. But in that analogy, we obviously use the fighter fighter to represent the Lord Jesus Christ and the person on the second story to represent the sinner. Jesus says, and as that saying goes, you need to have a leap of faith. If your faith was the size of a mustard seed, who knows the amazing things you could do for God. And if you would just have all of your faith, that little bit that you have alone on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved period. That's what the Bible promises us. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, hoped for, not guaranteed, not for sure, not, you know, it's provable. How do you prove life after death outside of Christianity? Take the Bible out of the equation, prove life after death, prove the soul, prove things that can't be seen. The Bible says faith is the substance, the thing you can grab, the substance of things hoped for. I can't grab heaven, but I believe it's there. I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to take me there. And when we believe that, the thing that's hoped for, the Bible makes very clearly. I know whom I have believed and am persuaded, kind of persuaded. I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. I've committed my faith unto him. He promises he will never leave me nor forsake me. He promises that he has mansions made for those who have done great things for him. He has promised a place in heaven for those who believe on him. But how do you know heaven's real? I hope for it. I believe that it's there, therefore we don't see by sight. I see a sky. And there are things in our observable universe that we can point to that represent things, that have symbolisms of things. But obviously, you and I today standing here can't grab heaven. We can't see it as in like it's in front of us. We see by faith, not by our sight. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. What is evidence? Evidence is something that gets used in a court of law. That language gets used a lot, right? Prove to me that this person committed murder. Prove to me X, Y, and Z. Here is my evidence. Here is my non-arguable second witness material, proof of fingerprints, or fill in the blank, a proof, a thing that you would look to to guarantee the decision that you make, the evidence of things not seen. How do we know that heaven is real? The Bible told us that heaven is real. The Bible tells us that there is a God, that the Lord Jesus Christ is real, that he died for our sins, was buried and rose again, and that when we die in our faith in him, he will take us to heaven when we die as Christians. You know, I believe, and I've taught this before and I explained this before, but just so you guys kind of get what I'm talking about. I believe and I teach that anything that is true, bonafide, certified, legitimately true has some level of faith built into it. And that seems kind of weird to say, right? Because if it's true, then you don't need to trust it. But once again, you really got to think critically. I mean, for instance, right? They teach in like philosophy classes that, you know, the very first thing you've got to establish is your senses, right? What you see, what you taste, what you hear, what you smell, what you feel, that it's actually in front of you. You need to start with a basis, a preconceived idea. And we use the Bible as our preconceived idea. We immediately look at it and it has claims. It said it's from God and we start there. So we have to make assumptions that that's real. And here's the thing, when it comes to proving the Bible, when it comes to proving the existence of, you know, you know, figures like Jeremiah and Elijah and these people, you're going to come to find out that it's actually hard to, in today's world, prove things outside of your faith. I mean, math is a little bit more dogmatic, right? Let's say you use math, you know, one plus one equals two. That's true, provable, demonstrable, observable. It could be tested time and time again, right? But let's take the field like science, right? And the Bible talks about beware of science falsely so called. There is a section of science that is outside of the scope of truth. And fact and reality and provable and falls into the spectrum of faith and trust and belief because of preconceived ideas. And, you know, I'm going to go into those subjects a little bit as we go. But I just wanted to start with this basis that anything that is true, anything that is real, anything that is provable, I believe has some level of faith behind it. And look, what it remember the passage that we had in our bulletin. Look at verse six. It says, But without faith. It is impossible to please God or to please him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and he is a rewarder than the diligently seek him. The Bible is clear outside of the words of God, the statements of God, the Bible itself, the foundation of our faith and practice. We truly are shooting from the hip as people in this world. And this is why the world is going crazy. You know, we have the word of God, which proves to us that this is from God. What's the proof of the Bible? The Bible is here. And I know that is considered a logical fallacy to some. But that's biblical Christianity. We believe the words of God because the words of God tell us to believe him. And some would look at that and be like, well, that's, you know, circular logic. Amen. That's true. I agree. I believe the words of God because the words of God are here. And they say to believe it. And once again, we don't see by sight, we see by our faith. He that cometh to God must believe that he is. So tell that to the atheists and tell that to the people who do not believe there is a God. If you don't believe there is a God, the Bible says, if you don't believe in God, you're a fool. So if you don't believe there is a God, you're out of luck. Period. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. He that cometh to God must believe that he is and he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Jesus Christ said very clearly, anyone who asks, it will be given unto him. Anyone who seeks, they will find. Anyone who knocks, it shall be open unto him. And it's funny because that's an acronym for the word ask, ask, ask, seek and knock. And it's it's it's mind blowing to me as a Bible believing Christian, as Christians here, we believe that nothing in the Bible is incidental, coincidental or accidental, and there are too many outside evidences of the Bible, but we don't point to those things to prove our faith as Christians. And I'm going to go into what I'm talking about here in just a moment. No matter what. Any scholar, any scientist, any historian, any, you know, paleographer tells you, we first believe the words of God. And this is what I want to get to in the first point. Number one. We believed in the preserved text of the King James version of the Bible, everything that I'm telling you guys from up here, everything that I'm preaching about is fairly irrelevant outside of the words of God. Because think about it, right? This Bible predates every single one of us. The Bible talks about interiorly that it's from eternity. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And in verse 14, it says, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glories of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. So, like I said, I'm only 31 years old. You know, I'm I'm new in light of history. People look at me, some grandparents and some elderly people, and they're like, man, you're just a pup. You're just a kid, you know? And that's true. I'm young. I like to sing the praises of my youth. I don't know. So some people my age are like, oh, I'm getting old. It's like, no, no. Speak for yourself. I'm still young. I'm in the prime of my life. And why do you guys listen to me? I'm a sinner. I could be mistaken. I could have a problem. But the words of God are from God. God breathes, God inspired. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The more of God's word you store in your head and heart, the more influential the word of God has power. The Bible says that it's quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even through the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of man. So basically, I, David, am not some great, knowledgeable, wise, sophisticated, smart person, so to say. As a matter of fact, a lot of times I feel like I'm an idiot a lot of times. But you know what the Bible says in First Corinthians one? God uses the foolish things in this world to confound the wise. God uses the weak things in this world to confound the mighty, because what glory would God get if he uses a savant, a smart guy, to show people proof of the Bible, show people proofs of things. When God's saying, he that cometh to me must believe that he is. And if we're going to use the logic of this world, understand this. We're going to fall short in our proofs of God. But nevertheless, we believe in the King James version of the Bible to be our foundation for our authority of what God has said in our English language, because it has stood the test of time, because it comes from the preserved Greek and Hebrew texts. And I'm going to talk about some people that profess to be Christian, that don't believe this. Look, there are lots of Christians who do not believe that God has preserved his word throughout all the test of time. Who do you think I'm going to mention? James White is that clear first example of someone who's taking it upon himself not only to not believe in this preserved text, right, but he makes it his life goal to challenge, debate and fight people who do believe in a preserved text. He makes it his life goal, his work to show other Christians that, yea, did God say this? Is this the word of God? Do you know that this is preserved? Is this accurate? And mark my words, make no bones about it. If you're going to challenge the word of God, the preserved text, you're not saved, period. Because if you think you're wise in your own sight, you're a fool. God did not use man's methods to preserve his text. God didn't use our ways of how we would do things. Well, I would preserve a text like this. And historians have said that other documents in the past have been stored like this. God is not subject to us. He created everything. We're subject to him. So for a scholar or a scribe or a smart and don't think James White is not a smart person, you'd be stupid to say he's not intelligent, to say he's not wise, to say he's not smart. It's just he's got the wisdom of this world and he does not see by faith. He sees by sight and understand this when it comes to the argument that we believe in the preserved text, there are legitimate issues that some would look at and say, oh, well, we found newer, older manuscripts. Well, there seems to be a discrepancy in some of the Byzantine texts. There seems to be some issues here and there and some Greek wording and whatnot. And you all heard the arguments and we've all heard the issues that people bring up when it comes to our position as King James only believers. But here's the problem with that. I don't look at the history to prove the word of God. I first believe the word of God and then I look into history with that lens. See, James White and other Christian scholars failed in that. They first were trying to look into history to prove the word of God before they first believed the word of God, because you've got to remember that this is not unique to James White. There are a lot of scholastic people out there challenging the the the the the preserved texts. They're challenging it because it is true. There are manuscripts popping up out of nowhere, out of the Dead Sea Scrolls, out of, you know, the papyrus in Alexandria, Egypt, in, you know, the Vatican Library, they're popping out of nowhere. But here's the question you got to ask yourself. Did they stand the test of time? And if they didn't stand the test of time, how can they be the words of God? You know, I'm going to quote to you a passage from the Bible that we all know, we've all heard and we all believe. But James White does not believe these words. What does it say? For instance, in Matthew 24 verse 35, heaven and earth shall pass away. Might pass away? Possible to pass away? Shall pass away. When you see that word shall there, you guys, it's guaranteed, especially when it's coming to the words of Jesus Christ, when he says this shall happen, you shall not perish. You shall see everlasting life. Take it to the bank. It's the word of God. Heaven and earth shall pass away, meaning that in the Great White Throne judgment, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. It is inevitable. It will happen because God has said it. But my words shall not pass away. So James White doesn't believe that. He believes that some words that sometimes in some places in history disappeared. Now, they reappeared in his perspective. But nevertheless, we don't believe that. We believe that we've always had the word of God throughout all history. Anyone who wanted, who asked, who sought, who not got the word of God, period. They're not just James White who looks into this. Raise your hand if you know. Michael Krueger. No, he is basically saying he's just like James White, but understand this. Raise your hand if you've heard of Bart Ehrman. Bart Ehrman is a secular scholar, a non-believing Christian scholar, which is kind of a contradiction in terms. He used to be a Christian in his mind. But then after looking into the evidence of manuscript history, he lost his faith. He walked away from God. He realized that there is no truth in the Bible, so to say. So once again, he didn't first trust the words of God. He trusted history to tell him about the words of God. But Michael Krueger has written many books on this subject. For instance, one book he wrote is The Question of the Canon, The Early Text of the New Testament, Canon Revisited Gospel Fragments. Every title is a challenge of the original preserved text. The Question of the Canon. The word canon is this is a compilation of the 66 books of the Bible. So he's like the question of this, what is the canon? How do we know this is the canon? The Early Text of the New Testament. He's just contemplating on what's legitimate, what's not legitimate. Canon revisited, meaning he's like, once again, double doubling down and questioning whether this is legitimate. But not only that, gospel fragments, because there has been fragments found in recent history, recent history, mind you, last 200 years that have popped up out of nowhere. But they're not preserved. Therefore, they cannot be God's word. Bart Ehrman, Bart Ehrman wrote a book called Forge written in the name of God. Listen to that blasphemous title, Forged written in the name of God. Why the Bible's authors are not who we think they are. And this is a synopsis on his book, is a book by the biblical scholar Bart Ehrman, although it has long been recognized that numerous books of the New Testament bear the names of the authors who are unlikely to have written them. So he's saying that John, you know, the gospel, according to John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, he says we don't even know that they really wrote those books. And understand this, if you look into history, understand the original Greek Texas Receptus and other Greek manuscripts that were from the original didn't say or, you know, they just came with the title of the author. And there is some argument to be made that like, you know, obviously in the ending of the gospel of Mark, it says Mark, or I'm sorry, the Gospel of John, that John wrote these things. But there are some level of truth behind anything that is faith driven. Look, and I'm not going to go deep into the subject of, you know, manuscript history and all these things, but understand that you and I as Bible believing Christians, if we looked into history, there will be some discrepancies to not be provable, that we can't necessarily, it's not like we have the original document from John himself and handed it down the line. But we believe that the document that we see in front of us is from God himself. And that's one subject in and of itself. The foundation of our faith is the word of God. He that cometh to God must believe that he is. Is he a rewarder of them that diligently seek him? That's number one. Number two, the origin of the universe. The origin of time, space and matter, the origin of life, the, you know, everything. We believe what the Bible tells us about the origin of things. Right. But understand this, especially when it comes to the field of science. I'm telling you right now, there is no way to prove the origin of the earth. Period. We believe the Bible because the Bible said it's the word of God. Check. We believe the Bible when it said how the universe and the world started. Because it says in the beginning, God said, let there be light. It says in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. So we believe that. And of course, if we look into math and we reverse engineer the math from the time of Adam to the time of Christ with some 4300 years and from the time of Christ to today, we're in 2021. So if you just use basic logic, according to the Bible, the universe, the earth, everything is some 6000 to 6500. I'm not dogmatic on any one number. Some try to get very specific. Anywhere from 6000 to 6500 years old is the age of our universe. But get this. There is science that disproves that. There is science that is number one, falsely so called. It's not demonstrable. It's not provable. It's not evidence. It's belief based. It's faith based. They believe that us, according to their preconceived idea and their numbers are right, that the universe is millions and billions of years old and that the earth is millions and so many years old. And this sermon is not going to be on the subject of young earth creation versus evolution, though I am going to touch on that. I just want you guys to know, look, the world out there is telling you that the word of God is a lie when it tells you that the universe is 6500 years, 6000 years. It's not true because we know this rock. We've carbon dated it to 13 million years ago. Therefore, the Bible can't be true. So once again, they used history to try to prove or to make sense of this. So understand this on this subject, right? There have been Christians. And I do use parentheses to say Christians because some of which are debatable, who in the past, when the evolutionary theory came out into its popularity, because evolutionary theory is not new to, you know, 18th, 17th century. There's always been an evolutionary mindset, you know, like the Bible says, if someone says there's no God, they're a fool. Right. So there was a time when people in the Bible did not believe there to be a God. But that accidentally, spontaneously, the universe created itself accidentally. And we're all cosmic accidents, you know. But there are some Christians throughout history who've taken upon themselves to look at modern science at that time and modern evolutionary theory and tried to make the Bible fit it once again, just like James White, just like Michael Krueger, they did the exact same thing. Rather than first trusting the Bible, they looked at history. They looked at the science and tried to have it prove the Bible. And then there's what is known as the gap theory. Raise your hand if you heard of the gap theory. Gap theory is a teaching that says that in Genesis one, when God was creating the universe and everything in six literal days, that that's not talking about literal days. That's actually talking about time periods, because Genesis is written in a poetic nature. So, you know, remember elsewhere, it talks about in the Bible that with God a day as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day into God, therefore, in the perspective of God, when it says he created the universe in six days, then that means thousands of years. Now, understand this. Number one, that's not billions of years to start off with. Number two, turn, if you would, to Exodus. Exodus, chapter 20. This is a clear teaching outside of Genesis that says that the universe, that the six days of creation wasn't long time periods, but rather they were literal 24 hour days. Notice what it says in Exodus, chapter 20. This is the Ten Commandments, the one of the most famous passages in the whole Bible, it says in Exodus 20, verse 8. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. And notice the semicolon there, I mean, the colon there, right? Meaning that what's coming next is not the ending of this thought. He's going to continue the reasoning because of this, right? Because we see the word for there. And that word for means because for in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. So Moses is telling us right here, very clearly, the word of God, mind you, that he used Moses to pen down or to write down the Ten Commandments said you are to work six literal days because God worked six literal days and rested on the seventh. So honor the Sabbath. Now, we don't observe the Sabbath as New Testament Christians. That's another sermon and another message for another time. We believe that Jesus Christ has fulfilled the Sabbath because elsewhere talks about in the book of Hebrews that we have entered into his rest through faith in him, just as God rested from his work. We rest from our work. We can't work our way to heaven. Jesus Christ paid it all. He worked for salvation for us. So we enter into that rest. Now, there are the atheistic evangelists out there that would debate this and challenge this. And I'm telling you, Christian believers in the Bible try to make sense of this. It must well, we know that that rock is millions. We know that. I don't believe that. I don't think that we know that that rock is millions of years old. Therefore, Genesis cannot be talking about six literal days. Now, the Bible says that no scripture is of any private interpretation, meaning that if I took a child, someone who knows little to nothing about the Bible and I had and as a believer and I handed them the word of God and said, what did this mean? How many people do you believe would come out and say in Genesis, when it's talking about creation, that this is long periods of times and not literal days, you would never draw that conclusion because it reiterates it in Exodus and time and time again. I'm not saying that there is not science that seems to disprove this. You'd be foolish to say that there is not a science out there, a science, not legitimate science, a science out there that proves that the universe is so long or so old. See, once again, there's a difference between the proof and the faith. And anything that is considered historical science, turn back, if you went to Hebrews Chapter 11, there is a difference. If it cannot be demonstrated and proven, it is not considered science. It is considered faith based. Hebrews Chapter 11. Look down at verse three, what does it say? Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. It appears that the universe is millions of years old. It appears that that rock is millions of years old. But we believe, as Bible-believing Christians, what is known as a parent age theory, that when God created heaven and earth and Adam and Eve and all these animals, the whole chicken and egg problem, for crying out loud, what came first, the chicken or the egg? The Bible makes clear the chicken. You couldn't drop a seedling of gardens for plants and think they would grow on their own. You couldn't have eggs and babies everywhere on day one of creation and then fend for themselves. He put a full grown man, Adam, in the garden. He put full grown trees. It says he transplanted trees in the garden. If you were around at that time, if you were there on week one of creation, right after creation's done and on the first week and you were a modern day secular scientist and you looked around, you'd probably guess that the universe was millions of years old. But guess what? It's only a week old. It appears this way. As it says, through faith, we understand that the world were framed by the word of God. God said he created the heaven and the earth. So first the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. This is important to our faith because for those Christians to go around and try to explain modern science to validate their belief in the Bible is bad teaching. I'm not saying that someone does not believe in young creation or the 65 day, sixty five hundred year model of the what the Bible clearly teaches, that they are unsaved. I wouldn't say that unless they're dogmatic about it. And they're going to preach it crazy because. Let me let me ask of a raise of hand, who thought that the universe was million of millions of billions of years old ever in their life? I guess I'm the only one. I went to public school and I was taught that the universe and everything was millions and billions of years old. How was I supposed to know that? I don't know these things. I believed what was taught me. Now, my wife was raised in a good, godly Christian home and she was always taught young earth creation and praise God for that. You know, and, you know, like I mentioned, even us as Bible believing Christians, we can point to some scientific anomalies and some, you know, provable scientific evidences and proves to disprove evolutionary theory. But it's not a proof. It validates the word of God. You see what I'm saying? For instance, the receding moon theory. And obviously, a lot of what I'm going to mention to you has come from all the Ken Hovind videos, and I agree with it. Not all of it, but most of it. I believe it. The receding moon theory. We know that the moon pulls away from the earth so many days so far every day. Reverse engineer the math. That means that the moon would be scraping the edge of our planet in less than a million years or a million and two years. So it can't be billions of years old because we'd have a straight up moon crashing into our planet. What about the oceans getting saltier? We should understand this as Hawaiian Christians, because the oceans are literally measurably getting saltier every year. We can take the water from the ocean anywhere on the planet. And they're about there. Guaranteely see that it is getting saltier, measurable, demonstrable, provable. Reverse engineer the math. After so many thousands of years, it would be fresh water in the ocean. So obviously that these are, quote unquote, scientific proofs to disprove evolutionary theory. But I don't use that to prove the Bible. I don't need that to believe the Bible. What if it wasn't true that the oceans were getting saltier? What if it wasn't true? The receding moon theory. Do I then kick out the Bible and say, well, science must be telling me? No, we first believe the word of God. And look, I'm not going to go into like Richard Dawkins in his book, The God Delusion, who, mind you, is a staunch atheistic evangelist trying to make it his life goal to destroy people's faith in the Bible and things like that. He's a he's a straight up. He talks about how my minor pedophilia is acceptable and is OK. The guy's a sick, twisted monkey. And honestly, a lot of people look to him nowadays as a clown. Nevertheless, on top of him, there are others. OK, we get it, David. We don't need to believe in the scholars of our day, even professed Christian scholars, because even professed Christian scholars do not believe in a preserved text or a verifiable Bible that has stood the test of time. They're all over the place in their theology and philosophy. They let history tell them things rather than the word of God tell them about history. There are scientists, even professed Christian scientists, that look at the observable universe and don't believe in the claims of the Bible. But the next group of proofs that I'm going to go into is even challenging the existence of biblical characters. What do I mean by that? Well, mind you, in the historian world, in the history, in the in the world of paleo, paleography and historians, there are people that are even debating and challenging the very existence of people that are written in the Bible. And mind you, this one is a big one because I've looked into it in recent weeks and months because before I got here so many months ago, right, when I was told that I was going to take over this church, I wanted to sharpen my tool and and really be on my game when it comes to, you know, times and dates and places and peoples in the Bible. For instance, I mean, when the second year anniversary was here, we had a game, a trivia game about aiming the kings of Judah, naming the kings of Israel. I once preached a sermon on the subject on Bible Knowledge 101 because, you know, the Bible is big. There's 1189 chapters, 66 books, a lot of content in this Bible that could be soaked in and memorized over time. But there are one on ones that I think any good preacher, evangelist, missionary, pastor should have. And that's a grasp of things like how many judges were there? What's the name of the judges? How many kings of Israel? What's the names of the kings of Israel? Who is a good king? Who is a bad king? Measurements in the Bible. What's the difference between a Homer and an Omer, a furlong, a cubit? And all these things, they're good tools for us as preachers to have stored in our head and mind and heart. So I took it upon myself to look into, you know, not just genealogies as well, but just any type of sources of places. You know, there are place names in the Bible that are here today. The island of Crete, for instance, Athens and all these other places. So it's good to have a good grasp of these these places and peoples and things. And I found myself online going to a place called Useful Charts. Raise your hand if you ever seen on YouTube a YouTube channel called Useful Charts. You know, I was at first was very stoked to see this YouTube page because as the title is Useful Charts, there are lots of charts that are very useful. And they go through times of certain kings, of certain days, of genealogies, of places and all these different biblical things. And they're there. I would say I would say 90 percent accurate. But then I find out that the guy involved in doing it is a Jew. And mind you, he's not an Orthodox Jew. I forget what type of Jew he professes as, but he's like a skeptic Jew. And he would fall into the liberal branch of Judaism. But basically, the way he interprets the Bible falls under one of three camps. And a lot of, quote, end quote, Christian scholars follow this line of philosophy. And it has to do with historical narrative, legendary and myth, because there's a difference between a legend and a myth, right? History, historicity, legitimate, provable, demonstrable, you know, artifacts that proves this person at this time and so on and so forth. Then there's legend. So legend has bases of truth mixed in with fabricated story. And myths are myths, they're fabricated stories. So he looks at the Bible as obviously one of these threes, and he looks at characters like Solomon, David, and he says there is no there is no archaeological or historical evidence to prove that these guys even really existed. And guess what? That's true. Did you know that there is no? Archaeological. Historical, outside of the Bible, proofs of Solomon or King David, that they even existed. Now, there's lots of documents in history that speak of David, that speak of Solomon, that speak of the line of the tribe of the Lion of Judah. There's a lot that speaks of it, but there is no verifiable, factual, provable evidence of these people ever even existing. You know who else? Moses, I mean, for crying out loud, think about 4500 years of history, right? And there is a lot of things have been lost to the sands of time. But here's the problem. We have the Bible. The Bible said that these people were real. So what do we go off of? Modern archaeology or the word of God? We stand with the word of God. And like I mentioned, anything that is true has to have a level of faith based in with it. Why? Because he that cometh to God must believe that he is and he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. These guys are going to split hell wide open. Richard Dawkins, James White, Michael Krueger, the guy with this useful charge things, Matt Baker. There's this other guy. His name is Thomas Westbrook. He's similar to that useful charts guy. And he has a YouTube channel called Holy Kool-Aid making fun of Christians because they're too they're not skeptical enough in their perspective of the Bible. What happened to Bart Ehrman? The same thing. All these guys, they're too stupid to realize that everything that they're saying, arguably is true. Take it to the outside of that there is no God, that Jesus Christ isn't there and all these things. There is no historical evidence of these guys. There is no paleological evidence of these things. There is no way to prove these things. But we believe it. There are so many problems in their in their logic. And this isn't a logic debate. The Bible says that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, stupid, idiotic, retarded, problematic in issue. God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the mighty. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. People look at us as Bible believing Christians as idiots. Amen. I don't have beef with that. I'll agree with you. I'm an idiot. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. I'm not the most sophisticated guy out there. I wouldn't even doubt that both James White, Matthew Krueger or Michael Krueger, Bart Ehrman, all these guys in ways are a lot smarter than me. I'd be stupid to say that they weren't. They know more Greek than me. They know more Hebrew than me. They know more history than me. They know so much about so much. Yet they don't know the simple truth of God truly is there in the throne, in heaven. Jesus Christ truly is the savior of man. And faith alone in him is how anyone can be saved. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. These guys do not fear God. Therefore, God is going to come down on them like a ton of bricks. Kind of got a little bit ahead of myself there, but let me explain to you one type of issue that these guys have, one of which is Thomas Westbrook. And I'll leave you on this note because they challenge Moses's existence. They challenge David and Solomon and other historical figures existence, but they even challenge Jesus Christ's existence. Now, some of them will arguably say, though there is no documentable, provable, proves of Jesus Christ's existence outside of the Bible, it's very likely he still existed, meaning that they know that they know and be stupid to make that absolute claim to say that Jesus of Nazareth was never a real person that they know. It's not about it's not about social correctness or political correctness. It's not about, you know, proving their point. It's about it be stupid to sit there and say that he was not ever real. But there's a faction of scholars out there that question his existence. There's a group of people that question Shakespeare's existence. There's a group of people that question lots of historical people's existence. But nevertheless, Jesus Christ himself, they debate whether or not he was even real. Here's some of their lines of logic that they go into. Number one, and they go through their own analysis of what can be proven and one of which is, is there a body? So they're like, well, let's give the benefit of the doubt if he truly was the son of God and rose from the dead that we can't ever have a body. Moses didn't have a body. We don't, you know, all these these places are like, you know, it says in the Book of Jude, you know, Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said the Lord rebuke thee. The debate of where Moses's body is has been around for a long time. Some people look at that and they're like, well, is he real? Stupid logic. But with Jesus Christ, they don't have a body. So they question if it's real. Number two, do we know where his tomb is or crucifixion site was? Now, there are people who will look you in the face and say, I know where the crucifixion took place. I know where the tomb is. But to this very moment, we don't know that these are where these places are. We speculate. We theorize it's possible. It's likely. But to know this is outside of the scope of reality. It's it could be. And brother Isaac, you've been to the promised land. You've seen the sites. There have been people who've gone to these places and went through the the sites and like there's where Jesus was crucified. There's where the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea is. They don't know that. They think that it's possible. So he goes into number one, there is no body. Number two, we don't know these historical places or the crucifixion or site where site was. Do we have anything he built, wrote or created? Well, Jesus was a carpenter, right? The Bible doesn't say he was a carpenter. This is his stepdad. Joseph was a carpenter. So then they look into people of history and say, did they write anything? Did they make anything? Do they have anything that's attributed to them? Well, Jesus Christ is the word of God manifested in the flesh. We have the Bible right in front of us. That's the claim. Believe it or don't believe it at the end of the day. But you want to know what his writings are? Right there, turn, if you would, to John, as a matter of fact. Turn to John, the very last chapter. Twenty one, John, twenty one. I'll let you get there. Remember, they're debating on whether or not John wrote this book, right? Look at verse twenty four. This is the disciple which testified of these things. And wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written, every one, I suppose, that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written, amen. The last thought of the Gospel of John says that if we were to have everything that Jesus said, every book in the world could contain it. Do we have a body? No, we don't have a body. Do we know where he was buried and where he was crucified? No, we don't know. Do we have anything we wrote? We have the Bible. That's not good enough for them. Do we have any depicting artifacts of him? A coin, a statue, a painting? Do we have anything of Jesus? No, we don't have anything that has the image of Jesus. Catholic 17th, 14th century art of a white Jesus is not proof of Jesus, you guys. Catholics who look at this white hair, white, blonde hair, blue eyed Jesus is ridiculous. Those are painted by sick, twisted pedophiles, basically. What about? Oh, and by the way, the Shroud of Turin is a fake. You remember, you ever heard of the Shroud of Turin? This shroud of that light was on Jesus's face when he was in the tomb and someone kept it and we found it in the 14th century or whatever. It's a fake. It's a sham. It's a scam. I mean, for crying out loud. Anyone to make a buck, I guess nowadays, what a sick, twisted thing. Some people would point to that as evidence of Jesus Christ's death. What a ridiculous thing. That's a that's a joke. Do we have any contemporary firsthand written documents during his lifetime by eyewitnesses? The gospels written by the apostles, but like I said earlier, there are Christian scholars, not secular scholars, Christian scholars who debate and even wonder if the apostles themselves wrote these documents. What a joke. What a stupid thought. Can I prove that they did not know? Can I prove that they did know? I believe that those who were there at the time of Jesus Christ's life, who were the apostles, who wrote down what they saw and heard. I believe that the earliest document we have in the TR is some way later in history. It's not a firsthand account. It's not even a secondhand account. It's probably like a fifth hand account. Does that mean it's not legitimate? And then the whole argument of telephone comes into play. How do you know they didn't add? How do you know they didn't subtract? Once again, we believe we believe that God said he would preserve his word, shall not pass away. And that's that's that's the end of this sermon. This is what I wanted you to understand. He that cometh to God must believe that he is and he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. We need to be ready always to give an answer to any man that asketh us of the hope of the reason that is in us with meekness and fear. But understand this when it comes to our faith, when it comes to our belief, when it comes to Jesus says, blessed are they which have not seen but believe. We don't see by sight, you guys, we see by faith. So let us remember in our lives as we walk around explaining the gospel of Jesus Christ, explaining the death, burial and resurrection, that the only way to prove this is with the word of God itself. And the title of this message this morning is we see by faith, not by sight. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this day. Thank you so much for allowing us to be here. Thank you so much for giving us ability to have faith. Some people believe in a Calvinistic doctrine that says we never got the choice to believe in you, but rather you gave us free will to believe in you, to trust in you. And thank you so much for guiding us into your grace and helping us to see the glorious gospel through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to share that faith with others. Help us to share the saving message of salvation through believing alone in you. Help us to remember as we walk through this dark world that we don't see by sight, but rather we see by our faith and in Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen.