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4-0-9 4-0-9 4-0-9 The fight is on The drum is down Bring it out The guide to the war The burden of war is near The glory of Moses Marching on to victory This fight of war The prize will come to near The fight is on A Christian soldier Who makes the cases turn away The heart is beating The bell is ringing The fight is on It came too late The fight is on The king of kings I'm here to lead The strong invasion is my old friend If God be for us The men are over us We'll sing the big curse song at last The fight is on The rowdy soul is brave And true to all the peace And victory will be sure The blood go on The uncle God has given He's renewed his strength Forever we'll adore The fight is on A Christian soldier Who makes the cases turn away The heart is beating The bell is ringing The light of dawn It came too late The fight is on The king of kings I'm here to lead The strong invasion is my old friend If God be for us The men are over us We'll sing the big curse song at last The fight is on The king of kings I'm here to lead The power of Christ His grace he's returned His glorious name The Lord in me the poor will bring The dawn of peace is nigh The fight is on A Christian soldier Who makes the cases turn away The heart is beating The bell is ringing The light of dawn It came too late The fight is on The king of kings I'm here to lead The strong invasion is my old friend If God be for us The men are over us We'll sing the big curse song at last Song 180 1-8-0 There'll never be a sweeter story Story of the Savior's lovely mind I'm left crowded from the realms of glory Just to save a sinful soul like mine It's the love of Jesus something wonderful Wonderful, wonderful It's the love of Jesus something wonderful Wonderful it is to me At last as the universe around me Reaching to the hardest soul away Singing in love your love surrounds me That is why my heart can truly sing It's the love of Jesus something wonderful Wonderful, wonderful It's the love of Jesus something wonderful Wonderful it is to me Love me honorably comprehending Love of God at last come getting me This will be my theme and never ending Great redeeming love of Calvary It's the love of Jesus something wonderful Wonderful, wonderful It's the love of Jesus something wonderful Wonderful it is to me Alright this time we'll go through our announcements together If you don't have a bulletin slip up your hand nice and high We'll get to you with one On the inside we have our service times Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service Sunday nights at 6 and Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study This week we're not going to be having our usual Bible study in Ezekiel But rather Pastor Bruce Mejia is going to be visiting from First Works Baptist Church in Los Angeles He's going to be preaching this Wednesday night So you're not going to want to miss that even if you don't show up normally on Wednesday nights Make a point to be here for Pastor Bruce Mejia as a guest preacher So that's going to be this Wednesday just a couple days from now And then below the service times we've got the soul winning times We've got salvation and baptisms The chili potluck that ship has already sailed And then below that the donuts are before the service next Sunday morning one week from today Church picnics coming up on the 20th so that's about three weeks away And then the portraits it's over That ship has sailed too Who got your picture taken? Put up your hand Alright very good Who didn't? No I'm not going to ask that I don't want to single anyone out or embarrass anyone just kidding Alright and then at the very bottom there's that note there's a little misleading There's a music emphasis night this Thursday night Okay and that is at what time? Seven Seven o'clock this Thursday night right here is the music night And then the normal five o'clock singing practice will start up again next Sunday On the back we've got the birth announcement for baby Silas Emery Born on October 29th and so be sure to congratulate the Kohlers The zip lining if you have any questions about that be sure to talk to my wife As it says in bold there you must sign up directly with her And then other upcoming events tomorrow is a Mexico Monday soul winning trip So if you're going on that be sure to get signed up And then we've got a small town soul winning coming up in Globe on this Saturday And other things that are listed there below so that's about it for announcements Let's go and count up the soul winning from the past few days So going back to Thursday anything from Thursday to report got it? Anything else from Thursday? What about Friday? Okay anything else from Friday? What about Saturday? Got it Anything else from Saturday? And then how about today? Brother Scott? Three with brother Scott We got one another three Two Okay is that a five? Alright any other teams? Yep there we go Alright anyone else? I see it Anyone else? Very good keep up the great work on soul winning with that let's sing our next song Is there a sign up sheet for the small town soul winning? Sign up sheet for the small town soul winning It doesn't look like it's up yet So shoot the church an email If you're going cause it doesn't look like a sign up sheet's up That's brother Raymond Cooper's department and he is I believe not feeling well So if you're planning on going just shoot the church an email We'll get a sign up sheet by Wednesday night In the meantime just shoot us an email Alright come lead us Alright we're going to do Psalm 96 should be inside your hymnal on the yellow sheet Please raise your hand if you don't have one Psalm 96 Sing unto the Lord a new song Sing unto the Lord all the earth Sing unto the Lord blessed day Show forth his salvation from day to day He declared his glory among the dead His one verse among the people For the Lord is great and great to be praised He is to be feared above all for God Give unto the Lord all ye kindreds of the people Give unto the Lord for glory and strength Sing unto the Lord a new song Sing unto the Lord all the earth Sing unto the Lord blessed day Show forth his salvation from day to day For all the ground of the nations are right The Lord made the heavens Honor and majesty are new for him Strength and fury are in his victory Give unto the Lord all ye kindreds of the people Give unto the Lord for glory and strength Give unto the Lord the glory he wants to take Great is our glory in the victory's course Oh worship the Lord with the beauty of oneness For he did it before him and all the earth Sing unto the Lord in the glory The world also shall be established And it shall not be proved He shall judge his people mightiously Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad Let them see more and the fullness thereof Let the field be joyful and all that's buried There shall on the streets of the world rejoice Before the Lord for he cometh Before he cometh to judge the earth He shall judge the world with righteousness And the equal win is true Oh sing unto the Lord a new song Sing unto the Lord all the earth Sing unto the Lord blessed day Shall forth his salvation from day to day Let's do one more song, song number 66, Matt Calgary Song 66 66 The years have been in vanity and pride Carrying up my Lord with truth and might Knowing that it was for he he carried on Calvary Mercy there was great and grace was free Hard and there was multiply to be There my burdens so found liberty at Calvary I got word of as my sin I learned Then I trembled at the law I spurred Till my guilty soul and glory turned to Calvary Mercy there was great and grace was free Hard and there was multiply to be There my burdens so found liberty at Calvary Oh the love that drew salvation's plan Oh the grace that brought it down to men Oh the mighty hope that God did spend at Calvary Mercy there was great and grace was free Hard and there was multiply to be There my burdens so found liberty at Calvary Now I gave my Jesus everything Now I gladly own him as my King Now my rapture soul can only sing of Calvary Mercy there was great and grace was free Hard and there was multiply to be There my burdens so found liberty at Calvary Alright this time we'll pass the offering plates around As the plates go around let's turn our Bibles tonight to 2 Timothy chapter 3 2 Timothy chapter number 3 as we always do We'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number 1 Follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads 2 Timothy chapter 3 Starting in verse number 1 In 2 Timothy chapter number 3 the Bible reads This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come For men shall be lovers of their own selves Covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents Unthankful, unholy, without natural affection Truth breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good Traders, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof From such turn away For of this sort are they which creep into houses And lead captive silly women laden with sins Led away with diverse lusts Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth Now as Janus and Jambres withstood Moses so do these also resist the truth Men of correct minds reprobate concerning the faith But they shall proceed no further For their folly shall be manifest unto all men as theirs also was But thou hast fully known my doctrine Manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, charity, patience Persecutions, afflictions Which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra What persecutions I endured But out of them all the Lord delivered me Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution But evil men and seduces shall wax worse and worse Deceiving and being deceived But continued thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of Knowing of whom thou hast learned them And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures Which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus All scripture is given by inspiration of God And is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works Father God, we want to thank you for the opportunity to fellowship today during the chili cook-off, Lord Thank you for the service, Lord, let it edify us, Lord We love you, we love you, Jesus It's in Jesus' name we pray, Amen Man, the title of my sermon tonight is Divine Inspiration Divine Inspiration The Bible says in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures Which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus All scripture is given by inspiration of God And is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works So the Bible says that all scripture is given by inspiration of God The holy scriptures which are able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus Where did they come from? How did the word of God come to us? Go if you would to 2 Peter chapter 1 2 Peter chapter 1, the Bible says it's given by inspiration of God What does that mean? It means that it is God-breathed It is inspired by God, right? This comes from the same root as our word for respiration, breathing, right? And so this has to do with God spoke these words The words that we have in the Bible, they're not just the product of human authors writing their opinions Or just kind of just doing their own thing Rather, the Bible is the work of God It's written by God God is the author of the Bible The Bible is given by inspiration of God Look at 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 20 The Bible says knowing this first that no prophecy of the scripture is 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 it's not man's will that shaped the Bible It's God's will that shaped the Bible That's the first thing that we need to understand tonight when we talk about divine inspiration Or how we actually got the Bible from the human authors who penned it down One of the first things we need to understand is that God's word is eternal And what I mean by that is that God's word has always existed You know the Bible says in Titus In hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before the world began So before the world began God promised eternal life Where did that promise take place? Before the world even began it's because God's word existed before the world began And in God's word it promises what? Eternal life to those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ That already existed before the world began God made that promise before the world began That's why the Bible says in the beginning was the word And the word was with God and the word was God Of course we know it's referring to Jesus Christ But it's also referring to God's word in general As we find it in the Bible God's word And so we know that forever Oh Lord thy word is settled in heaven You know God's word is settled in heaven It's not just a book on this earth It is something that exists in heaven Outside of time before the world began Eternally it always has been Always will be the same That's what it means to be settled right? Forever oh Lord thy word is settled in heaven Meaning that there's an unchanging eternal word of God in heaven It was there before the world began It will be there after the world is changed And it will always be there because it's God's eternal word So we don't understand that This isn't just the product of human beings Just by their own will Or using their own private interpretation of things Just kind of, well you know this is how I see things This is what my walk with God is like No no it's not of any private interpretation Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost Now the Bible even explicitly talks about the fact That God spoke through the prophets Okay so let me just read a bunch of these for you You don't have to turn there If you would just flip over to Hebrews chapter 1 But I'll read for you a few places Acts chapter 1 verse 16 Men and brethren this scripture must needs have been fulfilled Which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas So the Holy Ghost spake by the mouth of David the prophet So that shows that even though David is the one writing the Psalms Even though David is composing these things It's actually God speaking through him Because the Psalms were given by inspiration of God So they're the product of divine inspiration And David is writing what is actually the word of God Even though he's composing the Psalms And David even says something like that In Psalm 45 I believe it is When he says, my tongue is the pen of a ready writer What does that mean? God is the writer His tongue is the pen He speaks as he's moved by the Holy Ghost That's how God wrote the Bible Through holy men like David, etc. It says in Acts 28, 25 Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers So the Holy Ghost spoke by Isaiah the prophet Again same concept Luke chapter 1 verse 68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel For he hath visited and redeemed his people And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us In the house of his servant David As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets Which have been since the world began So it's not just David It's not just Isaiah God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets Since the world began I mean going back to the days of Abel Or the days of Seth These guys, many of them Prophesied in the name of the Lord Spoke God's word Enoch also the seventh from Adam The Bible tells us prophesied And preached God's word And we have some of his words recorded In the book of Jude So it's not just David, it's not just Isaiah God has delivered his word And it's written down in the history By the prophets Now it started out just being oral Just prophets of God speaking But eventually the word of God Began to actually be written down Starting at the time of Moses Those are the first books that began To be written down The law of God delivered at Mount Sinai And it began to be written down It was written down over the course of some 15, 1600 years from Mount Sinai All the way up to the first century With the New Testament Before that it was just preached orally By prophets of God just speaking God's word Look at Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1 The Bible says God Who at, and this is what I want to really focus on tonight Sundry times And in divers manners Spake and time passed Under the fathers by the prophets Had then these last days Spoken unto us by his son Whom he had appointed heir of all things By whom also he made the worlds Now I want to point out to you That God spoke in time passed By the prophets But he did it in divers manners He did it in different styles Or different methods It was not always the same way Go to Numbers chapter 12 For a good example of this Numbers 12 in the Old Testament Numbers chapter 12 God in the past he said Spoke by the prophets But now in the last days he spoke by his son Jesus Christ but throughout history He spoke through the prophets Now look what the Bible says In Numbers chapter 12 Verse number 6 And he said Hear now my words If there be a prophet among you I the Lord Will make myself known unto him in a vision And will speak unto him in a dream My servant Moses Is not so Who is faithful in all my house With him will I speak mouth to mouth Even apparently And not in dark speeches And the similitude of the Lord shall he behold Wherefore then Were you not afraid to speak against My servant Moses Now according to this scripture that we just read In Numbers chapter 12 God is not dealing with all prophets In the same way is he Because he says typically I'm going to speak to a prophet Through a dream Through a vision But he says not Moses Moses I will speak to As a man speaks to his friend In the Bible this is not the only scripture in Numbers 12 Other places the Bible talks about A special relationship that he has with Moses Where he verbally Talks to Moses as a man talks to his friend Moses goes up in Mount Sinai And God is talking to Moses But let me ask you something Is that how the entire Old Testament was delivered? Is that how God Always worked? No, in fact that was the exception Because typically God is revealing himself through dark Sayings, visions Dreams Remember what did it say in Hebrews chapter 1 He spoke by the prophets In divers manners In various manners in various ways Not always the same way And so the way that he spoke to Moses was unique We're studying Ezekiel on Wednesday nights right now But the way that God is communicating with Ezekiel is also unique Totally different than in Isaiah And Jeremiah I mean he is just Directly speaking to Ezekiel Similar to the way he spoke To Moses but it's not quite the same Because it involves visions and other Strange things And so the point that I'm trying to make is that We know that all Scriptures give my inspiration of God That's the common denominator Right? It doesn't matter whether we're reading Genesis, Exodus 1 and 2 Samuel Whether we're reading Isaiah, Ezekiel The common denominator that all Scripture has Is that it's all given by Inspiration of God It's all the word of God And it's all equally inspired by God It's all equally authoritative There's not one part of Scripture that's more Authoritative than another It's all God's word But it was not all given In the same way It could be given in diverse ways Through the prophets But somehow, someway Holy men of God Spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost And at the end of the day it's God's word The most important thing that we need to understand Is that the Bible that we have today Is the perfect Pure, preserved, inspired Word of God And the best way to approach This subject is to start Start from the present And work backwards You know why? Because here we are You know, this is reality We're here And what do we have in our hand? The word of God Now we have to accept the Bible By faith Without faith it's impossible to please him We've got to believe the word of God We've got to put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ As a result of what we see in this book Or what we hear from this book And it's best It's best to start With that and work backwards So let's start with that, okay How do we know that this is the word of God Like how do I know that this book that I hold in my hand Is the word of God And that something else is not the word of God Or how do I know that I have All of God's word in this book You know, that there's not some other Gospel of Thomas or something out there Beckoning to me Well let me give you a few reasons First of all, number one God's word Authenticates itself It's not authenticated by science History Or some council somewhere where someone makes that decision God's word Is the final authority therefore Nothing can Authenticate it Because without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better So The Bible doesn't get A stamp of approval From someone else The Bible authenticates itself Because the Bible is the final authority The Bible is the starting point Okay, so we want to make sure we understand that So how do we know That the Bible is God's word Well first of all Because of its unmatched quality Its power Its perfection is unrivaled In any other book How do I know the Bible is God's word Because there's no other book that has this power That has this quality That has this perfection Because only God could write the Bible And many have tried with their imitations And they've all failed Because the Bible is unique and stands alone Not only that But we as Christians We that are saved We can recognize the voice of the shepherd And so when we read the Bible We recognize the voice of the shepherd And the Holy Spirit Bears witness to the authenticity of the Bible As we read the Bible The Holy Spirit speaks to us And we know this is really the word of God This is absolute truth That's through the Holy Spirit Now when you give these kinds of arguments People are like, oh, Pastor Anderson It's so subjective But hold on a second This is often coming from people Who don't have the Holy Spirit living inside them So they don't understand what I mean by that They don't understand what it means To basically read the Bible You know in your heart that it's the truth Because God's Spirit is bearing witness with your spirit That you're the children of God And you're hearing the voice of the shepherd And you're recognizing it Yeah, you can't explain that to a scientist Or something who doesn't believe It's something that is accepted by faith And it's something that is only understood by those who have the Holy Spirit living inside of them So you can't explain it to someone who doesn't Okay So the quality, the power, the perfection It's the voice of the shepherd And then If we look throughout history This is the Bible that God has used throughout history The tree is known by his fruit So another way that we can look at the Bible and say, okay Look at the fruit that is born From this Bible Look at the preaching that has come from this Bible Look at the souls that have been saved The lives that have been changed The churches that have been established Throughout the history of Christianity What has God been using? Has he been using the book of Enoch? To spark great revivals And get people saved And the book of Thomas and all these other garbage books That, by the way, they already failed the first two tests They already fail on the quality, the power, the perfection They fail on not being the voice of the shepherd And they fail because they haven't been used by Christians throughout history Christians didn't use them They weren't preserved They weren't passed down They weren't used by Christians God's people have used this book And this is where the work of God has come from Throughout history This is what has borne fruit So a good starting point is to know Hey, this is the word of God right here And it authenticates itself You say, well that's circular You know, I'm okay with circular as long as it starts and ends with this book I like that circle Start here, end here Guilty as charged Circular argument right here God's word, my final authority, the Bible Genesis through Revelation, okay So I start with that You know, that God's word is perfect, it's pure, it's preserved We know that His word, the Bible tells us Is eternal It's forever settled in heaven God spoke by the prophets in different ways In the latter days he spoke unto us by Jesus Christ And it's all recorded in this book It's all perfect, it fits together It's complete, it's done, okay So How are some of the ways that God delivered us the Bible though, okay We talked about one way Which is the way Moses got the Bible Which is where Moses is on Mount Sinai And God's speaking to him verbally That's not how most of the Bible was given But that's how some of the Bible was given, right Moses went up into Mount Sinai And even some tablets Written by the finger of God were there Containing the Ten Commandments And then you also have just the rest of those laws that are given in For example, Exodus chapter number 21 and 22 And going through those laws The Bible tells that it was written in a book at the time So at Mount Sinai And in the wilderness Much of that was written down Those laws were written down And that's coming directly from the mouth of God But is that how all of the Scripture came into existence? Well, let's stop for a minute And think about some of the books of the Bible, right We've got the first five books And, you know, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy We've got Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel And then we've got John, 1 and 2 Samuel Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel Let me ask you something, who wrote Joshua? Who wrote Judges? Who wrote Ruth? Who wrote 1 and 2 Samuel? We don't know We have no idea who wrote these books Who wrote 1 and 2 Kings? Who wrote 1 and 2 Chronicles? We have no idea Now, what that tells me Is that who the author was Must not really be that important We just need to believe by faith That holy men of God speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost We don't necessarily need to know Exactly who they were Or what their names were Because like I just demonstrated to you A huge chunk of the Old Testament is all anonymous And we have no idea who wrote it But not only that If we specifically home in for a second On the books of the Kings and the books of the Chronicles 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles How were these books composed? Where did they come from? Who wrote them? Have you ever noticed That when you're reading in the books of the Kings It keeps telling you That if you want to learn more you've got to go to the book of Chronicles to get more Okay, go if you would to 2 Kings chapter 15 2 Kings chapter 15 Now I remember reading the Bible as a kid And reading all these verses that talk about how If I go over to the book of Chronicles Then I'm going to find out all this other information And more details and all this stuff And you know what? When I was a kid I started to realize Is that I went over to the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles and none of it was there What I thought was going to be there Based on the Kings and then you get in Chronicles And you know what it says over in Chronicles? Oh man, you want to read more? I mean all of his acts, first and last Go to the book of Kings and you go there and you're like Umm It's the same stuff or less What's going on? Has anybody ever wondered about that or thought about that? Okay, yeah You should have because it's mentioned over 30 times in 1 and 2 Kings It's like 33 times in 1 and 2 Kings It says go to Chronicles to learn more And after you've read this a few times You start realizing it isn't there Okay Let me show you some examples Look at 2 Kings 15, 6 It says And the rest of the acts of Azariah and all that he did Are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? Look at verse 11 And the rest of the acts of Zechariah Behold they're written in the books of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel Now those aren't even really sounding like for sure the same books Because in chapter 6 we got The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah Or excuse me, verse 6 And in verse 11 we've got the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel That's probably two different sets of Chronicles, am I right? Look at verse 15 And the rest of the acts of Shalom and his conspiracy which he made Behold they're written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel Verse 21 And the rest of the acts of Menahem And all that he did Are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? Let me tell you something If you go over to 1 and 2 Chronicles You're not going to find what Menahem did You're certainly not going to find all that Menahem did You're not going to find anything that Menahem did In 1 and 2 Chronicles Does everybody understand what I'm saying? Verse 26 The rest of the acts of Pekahiah And all that he did They're written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel You go to Chronicles, you look for Pekahiah Good luck finding Pekahiah And all that he did Same thing verse 31 The rest of the acts of Pekah And all that he did Behold they're written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel Verse 36 Now the rest of the acts of Jotham and all that he did Are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? I mean you tell me because I can't find them Okay so what is going on here? Why is this statement coming up 33 some odd times In 1 and 2 Kings Telling us Oh this stuff, more detail There's more information in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel Or the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah Well as you've probably already guessed We're not talking about the biblical books called 1 and 2 Chronicles First of all The books of 1 and 2 Chronicles are written way later Hundreds of years later How do we know that? Because in 1 Chronicles It gives us many generations after Ezra It goes after they get back from Babylon It's like this guy had this son And this guy had this son And you go many generations So you probably go a few hundred years after getting back from Babylon So in order to put that in Chronicles That means Chronicles had to be written at that late date Does everybody understand that? It wasn't like foretelling the future about people's kids It's just preserving genealogical records of people that had already lived Okay So why do we have a book in our Bible called 1 and 2 Kings And another book called 1 and 2 Chronicles And then Kings is telling us to go to Chronicles And then we can do the same thing with Chronicles You don't have to turn there But it says in 2 Chronicles 1611 Behold the act of Asa first and last Lo they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel And again we can go through about 10 examples in Chronicles Pointing us to the books of the kings Now what does this mean? What are we talking about here? Well obviously this is what happened Obviously when he talks about the Chronicles of the kings of Israel Or the Chronicles of the kings of Judah He's talking about the fact that they're basically keeping a log book And writing down like everything that happened That's why it says all of this guy's acts first and last All that he did And it talks about just this huge amount of information Being in the book of the Chronicles Because obviously the book of Chronicles that it's referring to Is something that would probably feel like an encyclopedia or something It'd be like a huge stack of documents Because they're just writing down like everything that they did Like day to day, blow by blow Some guy rains for years and it's like every week It's writing down what he did or every month Now we have an example of this in the Bible When we read the book of Esther Remember how King Ahasuerus can't sleep in the book of Esther And so he wants them to read him from the book of the Chronicles Of the Medes and Persians And so he's in the middle of the night Having this read to him And they read him the story about how Mordecai Had turned in the conspirators that tried to kill him And then the king says wow that was cool that Mordecai saved my life Have we done anything for this guy? And they said well actually we didn't do anything for him And then he ends up rewarding Mordecai You know the story from Esther hopefully Otherwise go home and read the book of Esther But then at the very end of Esther In chapter 10 it says you know All the acts of Ahasuerus They're written in the book of the Chronicles Of the Kings of Media and Persia Why? Because all of these kingdoms Whether Israel or Judah Or Persia or whatever They keep records They keep chronicles And they're writing down like way too much information For what we need as Christians In the Bible I mean you know we don't want to have a Bible That's like the size of an encyclopedia We don't want it to be like okay Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth 1st, 2nd, 1st or 2nd Kings Is the next like 7,000 chapters I mean can you imagine It's like you'd be bogged down in that Oh it's 11,000 chapters of kings And then 13,000 chapters You know it just goes on and on and on Just every detail of every king Can you see why God didn't think that we needed that In our Bible? It's too much Okay So obviously what the author Of 1st and 2nd Chronicles did Is he took these giant chronicles He took stacks and stacks of material Right? So he's got all this material In front of him Of just all the acts He's got all the acts of Asa He's got all the acts of Menahem He's got all the acts of Pekah And Pekahiah I mean he's got all these guys' acts And what is he doing? He went through all that And basically boiled it down To that which is important Or that which is What he wanted to preserve Basically in one volume So that you could get the basic history Of the nation of Israel Or the basic history of the nation of Judah Does everybody understand what I'm saying? He's taking like these giant volumes of source material That contains everything that these people did And boiling it down To what we have The condensed version 1st and 2nd Chronicles Does everybody get that? Same thing with kings 1st and 2nd Kings is taking all this Other source material Of just everything that this king did Every battle Every building project Every expenditure All the records, way too much information And he's going through And he's using that as source material And then basically Boiling it down To the books of 1st and 2nd Kings That we have today Now, what do we make of this From a perspective of divine inspiration Or understanding that 1st and 2nd Kings is God's word 1st and 2nd Chronicles is God's word Okay These are not just history books They're not just like an appendix To tell us what happened They are spiritual books of the Bible That are profitable for doctrine And there's a lot of great preaching That comes out of 1st and 2nd Kings and 1st and 2nd Chronicles I mean, these books are filled with spiritual content They're not just some kind of a history Of kings and queens and princes No, they're actually Filled with important Biblical doctrine and teaching And preaching and everything That's why we have them And let me tell you how this works, my friend God Already knew the shape Of what he wanted Or what he had designed Or what always existed in the books Of 1st Kings and 1st and 2nd 1st and 2nd Kings and 1st and 2nd Chronicles Like, God's word's already settled in heaven You know, it's Supposed to be a certain way The divinely inspired author Of 1st and 2nd Kings You know, he's compiling stuff He's looking at all these sources And he's talking about where he got Stuff and saying, like, okay Here are the basics, here's what happened And, you know, the rest of the story is written in these books He's basically telling us where he got The information He's basically explaining that that's where he got The information, you know The rest of it's found over here So that's a little bit different, isn't it Than Moses speaking to God Face to face on Mount Sinai Is that a little different? It's a little different when a guy sits down With stacks and stacks of Chronicles And basically puts together A short version Chronicles, you know He's writing down Just basically The need to know stuff But here's the thing Was he just up to his opinion when he did that? Or was God Divinely directing that? And he's basically As he writes, God is guiding That process and he's writing the book That God wants him to write Now, who is that guy? Was it one guy? Was it multiple guys? We have no idea And God Apparently doesn't see fit to tell us So apparently it doesn't matter So what am I trying to drive In with this when I explain this? Because I mean I just proved to you beyond a shadow of a doubt That 1st and 2nd Kings and 1st and 2nd Chronicles are from Longer source material That's being boiled down And if you don't believe me then go home and read these books And you're going to see it like literally 50 times You know, and eventually It'll click with you This is coming from bigger volumes And bigger works The idea that I'm trying to drive In with this, what I want to get across to you Is that only the finished product Matters Only the finished product matters Okay, what matters Is that what was the finished Product is God's word So I'm not going to sit here and Worry about, oh man, I wish I had That long version You know, I wish I had the extended Chronicles, extended Kings The whole set I'll tell you why, because the whole set Was never God's word Because here's the thing about God's word God preserves his word If it didn't get preserved It's because it's not God's word There were not Books in the past That were God's word that are lost unto us That is wrong Because I just preached about it, what, a week and a half ago The preservation of scripture Is a biblical doctrine God's word is preserved And if, if some book Disappeared, it's because it wasn't God's Word, so when the Bible Talks about these other books It's just telling us source material That went into the composition of the Inspired biblical book, but those other books Are not God's word and they never were It's what was Written here that's God's word But does the fact That it was based on source material Make it any less divinely inspired? No, because The biblical authors are often drawing On their own experiences Things that they witnessed themselves Or they're drawing On written records that they're Using, like, you know, books of chronicles and kings And so forth. Let me read you a couple more of these Just to drive this in, okay Because not only does The book of chronicles point to the book of kings But, for example, 2 Chronicles 32, 32, it says For the rest of the acts of Hezekiah And his goodness, behold they are written in the vision Of Isaiah the prophet. Now we have That book, don't we? We have the book of Isaiah. But it says, and in the book of the kings Of Judah and Israel. And then elsewhere It says that things are written In the book of I gotta find this other part because it talked About other prophets, like, oh The book of You know, I don't think I Pasted it in here because I had so many I was running out of room with all these Like, are they not found in the chronicles? But, anyway, you know There are other examples, like, for example In Joshua, the Bible will Refer to, oh, is it not written in the book of Jasher This story is written in the book of Jasher What's the book of Jasher? And then people are like We gotta find the book of Jasher But just because something's Written in a history book because it actually happened Doesn't make that book divinely inspired The only books that are Divinely inspired are the ones that are right here Within the pages of God's word Now, I hope we understand That about the Old Testament, right? What have we learned? We learned that A lot of the authors in the Old Testament Are totally anonymous They're not all being divinely inspired In the same way Some of them, God's speaking directly to them Others are having visions Others are having dreams Others have written source material Where they're looking at Chronicles They're looking at Kings They're looking at books of the prophets And they're compiling it and just putting it together And editing And compiling and consolidating And they may or may not realize it But guess what? God is working And they are writing a divinely inspired text Even though they have source material In front of them They're divinely inspired to write Samuel and Kings and Chronicles as is Does everybody understand that? Okay, so now Let's think about the New Testament, okay? Uh, but before we do Before we get into the New Testament And if you would flip over to Luke Chapter number 1, Luke chapter 1 in the New Testament Before we get to the New Testament Let's talk about one more thing in the Old Testament Are the biblical authors in the Old Testament Are they always Always talking about things that they have First hand knowledge of Or that they witnessed Cause I mean think about Think about how many things in the Bible Are being written way after the fact Okay? Obviously 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles The stuff at the end Probably just happened recently But the stuff that they're talking about at the beginning Happened centuries earlier Yet they're writing about it with authority Okay? Not only that, but think about Genesis chapter 1 And Genesis chapter 2 Where the world's being created You know, who wrote that? Was somebody there watching Creation take place? Because humans Didn't even exist until the 6th day And yet the 2nd day is being written about The 3rd day, the 4th day, etc. Um, now Here's the thing Let's say that Moses wrote the book of Genesis, right? Let's say for a minute that Moses Wrote the book of Genesis Was Moses there for Noah's ark? Was he there for Abraham? Was he there for Isaac? Was he there for Jacob? Was he there for Joseph? He was there for literally nothing In the book of Genesis Does everybody understand that? So getting hung up on this idea That everything has to be written By an eyewitness Is bogus Because that doesn't work Not at all Because the Old Testament is often being written centuries later So at the end of the day You have to believe that God's Word is God's word because the authors Are divinely inspired Not necessarily because they have first-hand knowledge Of the things that they're writing about It's divinely inspired It's God giving them revelations Of what to write And God guiding and directing them God speaking through them even The Holy Ghost speaking through them Not necessarily because they were there And it's so funny when people Try to make this case That Moses wrote the book of Genesis And that he had all these written records Where Adam wrote it down And Enoch wrote it down And Noah wrote it down Folks, that's nonsense There's no evidence of that at all Okay And not only that I hope that this doesn't freak anybody out But the bottom line is there's no place in the Bible That says that Moses wrote the book of Genesis Okay, now obviously Moses received the laws from God He wrote the book of the law And he wrote down a lot of laws But do we really know For sure that he wrote the book of Genesis? And here's the bigger question Does it really matter? Because did he have any more first-hand knowledge Of Genesis than whoever wrote it? At the end of the day If Genesis is God's word Written by divine inspiration A holy man of God wrote that book That's all that matters Now another thing is People will try to claim that Deuteronomy is written by Moses Even though Moses dies in Deuteronomy Okay And the thing about that Is that in Deuteronomy I kid you not I've literally heard preachers Get up and say Moses wrote about his death And then went and died Like he's writing like Moses died in the mount And he's just like oh man Is it gonna hurt? Well I gotta keep writing to see I mean just look Why? Why though? Why would we Bend ourselves in circles And jump through all these Mental hoops and all these acrobatics And try to prove something that the Bible never even says Okay And look you can go on Answers in Genesis website And they have some Super duper long article Proving that Moses wrote the book of Genesis Moses wrote the book of Genesis Super long And you know what they never do in that article They never show any real proof That Moses wrote the book of Genesis They pretty much tell you if you don't believe that Then you must worship Satan or something You know And then they show They show some of the reasons why It's kind of obvious in certain places That Moses probably didn't write the book of Genesis It's probably written later And then they're like Well that just means this part was written later It's like well okay But why does it matter? At the end of the day I don't really care Who wrote the book of Genesis? Because I have zero doubt That Genesis is God's word Genesis is the most powerful Amazing book That we all love And it's the word of God And the Holy Spirit will tell you that as soon as you read it So I don't really need to know Well and they keep talking about it in this article Well Moses you know he's the one who's qualified to write it You know because you know He knew stuff But you know what Anyone who God anointed with the Holy Ghost And in some cases Anyone who God anointed with the Holy Ghost And inspired could have written that book Any holy man of God could have written it And who wrote Deuteronomy? And here's the thing about Deuteronomy Most of it's a direct quote from Moses Because Moses said And that's pretty much the whole book of Deuteronomy But obviously somebody's putting together the book of Deuteronomy After the fact Because it's talking about him dying And people are like well Just that part about him dying was written by someone else But then just chapter 34 And then you go back up to chapter 33 And it's like well this is the blessing Where with Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death Dang it I knew I was about to die You know It's just like I mean yeah okay Maybe he wrote chapter 33 But I really doubt it I don't believe it for one second And I don't think it matters I think people are getting hung up on the wrong thing Because it seems like maybe their faith and divine inspiration Is a little weak It had to be Moses that wrote this Or it had to be this guy that wrote this Because if they understood divine inspiration They would understand that most of the books are anonymous anyway So it really doesn't matter who wrote them As long as they're God's word Because they're divinely inspired That's what matters I don't want to go off on a big tangent with that But I'm just pointing out the fact That the Bible In the Old Testament Is often writing about things that were centuries earlier And the only way That the author could know those things Or write about those things Is through divine inspiration He could not do it from his own knowledge Because of the fact that he wasn't there Okay And so at the end of the day You have to accept the Bible by faith Now look at Luke chapter 1 verse 1 For as much as many have taken in hand To set forth an order A declaration of those things Which are most surely believed among us Even as they delivered them unto us Which from the beginning were eye witnesses And ministers of the word It seemed good to me also Having had perfect understanding of all things From the very beginning Or from the very first I should say To write unto thee an order most excellent Theophilus That thou mightest know the certainty Of those things wherein thou hast been instructed Now notice here that Luke Here is right from the get-go Stating That he got these things from eye witnesses And you know what that means That you're reading something that's second hand Is he claiming eye witness these things? No He's saying that we Received these things As they were delivered to us Which from the beginning were eye witnesses The witnesses delivered this stuff to Luke Because I don't remember Luke being one of the 12 disciples do you? Okay Now who wrote the gospel of Matthew Well that's one of the 12 disciples Right? Matthew is a disciple He was a tax collector guy Sometimes called Levi And he's collecting the taxes And Jesus calls him and he stops being a publican Okay that's Matthew Who's Mark? Mark? Now obviously it's pretty clear That it's probably John Mark But you can't really say that for sure You can't really prove that 100% But it's like okay, John Mark Right? Who's John Mark? You know, John Mark is a relative Of the apostle Peter A younger relative He went on some missionary journeys with Paul And with Barnabas But I mean was this guy One of the 12 disciples Was this guy there for a lot of the action That he's writing about in the gospel of Mark Was Matthew there On the Mount of Transfiguration? Because stop and think about it When Jesus goes up on the Mount of Transfiguration He only takes with him Three people, Peter, James, and John Okay? But we read about that incident In Matthew, Mark, and Luke Guess who weren't there? Matthew, Mark, and Luke weren't there Peter, James, and John are there Matthew, Mark, and Luke were not there Does everybody understand? Okay? And then of course we have the gospel of John Obviously that's the apostle John So the point that I'm making is That the apostles Who wrote In the New Testament Are also not always writing From their own first-hand knowledge They're getting it second-hand from people They're getting the reports Luke is collecting the reports from the eyewitnesses Mark is getting reports from eyewitnesses Matthew has some of his own experiences But he's also getting reports from other people And he's putting this stuff down And folks, it could only be Accurate if it's through divine Inspiration Because think about this What happened? It's not like Jesus rose again from the dead And they're like, alright guys, sit down Let's write some gospels Because when we read the book of Acts What are they using to preach God's word in the book of Acts? They're using the Old Testament They're not, nowhere will you find Someone in the book of Acts Opening up the book of Matthew And preaching the gospel Opening up John, opening up Mark and Luke Do we? No They're using the Old Testament scriptures Because these books hadn't been written yet Now imagine writing about something Even if you were there Writing about something 20 years later You think you're going to remember everything that was said Oh man, remember that Sermon on the Mount 20 years ago? Yep, I remember Every word of it. Let me write it down Think about it, my friend If you don't believe in divine inspiration Then how can you believe anything that the Bible says? Okay? The Bible has to be approached by faith And the reason I'm preaching this Is because you've got so many people out there That try to use all these arguments From history and science Well, you know, the Bible is so reliable Because, you know, I mean, these people They were eyewitnesses, and you know I mean, Moses, he was so qualified to write Genesis Because, you know, he was just there When it was created It's like, what? He wasn't there for anything in Genesis But my faith is not based on Moses' memory Or Moses is witnessing something My faith is based on The divine inspiration of Scripture The Bible authenticating itself Do you see the difference there? Between trusting the word of God By faith It's a spiritual book It came down from heaven It's forever settled in heaven It came from God And the human authorship Really doesn't matter At the end of the day What really matters is the fact That it's God's word And we have to just trust it by faith And if you're looking for archaeology to validate it Or science to validate it Or history to validate it You're barking up the wrong tree Let it validate itself People that are weak in faith They're just on some eternal quest To prove the Bible's true By digging up some artifact I believe the Bible's true I'm already done I already believe the book of Genesis is true I don't care who wrote it I don't care what year it was written in I don't care who wrote it I believe every word of it Every word of the Old Testament From Genesis to Malachi I believe all of it I believe it's all perfect It's all exactly as it should be It's all according to God's plan God's will And we need to prove that Because of who wrote it at what time And what was going on in the archaeological dig Or whatever But you know it's funny how people Approach the New Testament differently You know, you have to approach the Old Testament by faith Because of the fact that it's so far removed It's so old And the manuscript evidence for it Is so many years later You know, I mean, until the Dead Sea Scrolls Were discovered, the oldest manuscripts Of the Hebrew Old Testament Were from a thousand years after Christ But then, when they discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls Now all of a sudden it's like Wow, here's the book of Isaiah From around the time of Christ So now we found it a thousand years earlier And it says the same thing But can I explain something to you? My faith in the book of Isaiah Before and after the Dead Sea Scrolls Would have been the same See, I'm not going to go all excited like The book of Isaiah really is God's word I already believed it was God's word I didn't need the Dead Sea Scrolls to tell me that You understand what I'm saying? And there's a problem In Christianity today When we're going to base our faith On what's being dug up in the Middle East right now Because then they could dig up something else And then our Bible could change Or our faith could change Whereas if we go with The traditional text Because it's divinely inspired Preserved, passed down to us Self-authenticating The Holy Spirit bears witness to this book This book has borne the fruit And Christianity has been preserved By God's people It doesn't change And it doesn't matter what archaeological discovery Pulls out You know, the Gospel according to Bartholomew Or whatever Because of the fact that we, you know, it's not Look, there is nothing that they could dig up over there That will change what I believe about the Bible I don't care if they dig up Some document and they say This is from the first century This is the original copy of Matthew Here, look, Matthew signed it at the end Like a John Hancock at the end Matthew If it said something different Than the traditional Greek Matthew that's been passed down I would say it's fraud Not interested I'll go with the one God has used The one that God has preserved The one that God has passed down We need to make sure that our faith is in God's word And that that's the starting point And the ending point And that we're not putting our faith in man Okay And look, when I say don't put faith in man I'm not even going to put my faith in Matthew Or Mark or Luke or John I'm going to put my faith in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John That I have here Not because of Matthew Well, I trust Mark I trust Mark Who is he? Who is Mark? You mean the guy who bailed out early On a mission trip? Because he couldn't take the heat? Look, folks Don't get too hung up on the human authorship It doesn't really matter Okay, now look at John chapter 21 Go to John chapter 21 Let me give you another example John chapter number 21 Because the people who doubt God's word Or cast doubt on God's word People like James White Let me give you a little quote From James White that I've heard If I had a nickel for every time I heard him say this I'd be a wealthy man, he says this a lot This is what James White always says About these giant chunks That are missing in the modern versions Or they're bracketed and they say Oh, these are not original or whatever But they're in the King James Okay Here's what James White will often say Well, I want to know what Mark wrote I want to know what John wrote I don't want something that was added by someone else I want what Mark wrote I want what John wrote Okay And so, you know, he claims that The ending of Mark Mark 16, 9 through 20 That's not original Mark didn't write that You know, I don't want it And he rejects that giant Chunk of Mark there Okay, verses 9 through 20 of chapter 16 Very important scripture I don't have time to get into that Also, the story of the woman taking an adultery Remember the woman that's caught in the act And Jesus is riding on the ground And he makes the famous statement He that is without sin among you let him first cast a soneter James White and all these modern Bible people They reject that entire story And say that it's not real And that it shouldn't be in the Bible So they not only reject the ending of Mark But they reject John chapter 7 verse 53 All the way through John chapter 8 verse 11 So those 12 verses They want gone And that's why the modern Bibles Have these notes that say Oh, this isn't original This isn't part of it And whenever James White talks about this Well, I want to know what Mark wrote I want to know what John wrote But you know what, a better way of saying that would be You know, I want to know what's Divinely inspired and I don't really care Who the author is How about that? Now, let me be clear I do believe that the ending of Mark Is written by Mark Because there's no way that book ever ended in verse 8 Because verse 8 is an absurd Ending And it creates an untruth And I already preached about that multiple times I'm not going to revisit that But I will say this If we look at John chapter 21 I think it's clear looking at John chapter 21 That this is not This particular part at the very end of John Is not written by John And I'm going to prove that to you Look if you would, keep your finger in John 21 Look at John chapter 19 Look at John chapter 19 And look at verse 35 This is the Apostle John At the cross Looking at Jesus on the cross And blood and water comes out of the side of Jesus Right? So the blood and water issues forth Which is obviously incredible That's not normal It's a miracle Because typically a dead body If you stab it with a spear Water is not going to come out Fluids will come out But this is like blood and water Coming out of Christ's side And so John emphasizes The fact that he personally Witnessed this And so he says in verse 35 And he that saw it bear record And his record is true And he knoweth that he sayeth true That he might believe Does everybody get that? He saw it He knows it's true He knows what he saw And he's bearing record to you What he's saying is the truth Now look at John chapter 21 And look at verse number 24 of John 21 John 21, 24 And notice the difference This is the disciple which testifieth Of these things And wrote these things And we know That his testimony Is true Now are we and he the same person? Now over in John 19 It was all he, he, he That's all one person He saw it He's testifying of it He knows it's true Whereas when we get to chapter 21 What is it? It's, well, we know That his testimony is true So who's the we? We is first person He is third person These are not the same person Notice this, look at the last verse of John chapter 20 Actually look at the last two verses of John 20 And many other signs truly did Jesus In the presence of his disciples Which are not written in this book But these are written that you might believe That Jesus is the Christ, the son of God And that believing you might have life through his name You know what it sounds like right there? You know what that sounds like? The end Sounds like an ending And isn't it interesting It's almost the exact same ending At the end of chapter 21 Look at 21, 25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did To which if they should be written every one We're in chapter 21 verse 25 I suppose that even the world itself Could not contain the books that should be written Amen Now go back to chapter 20 verse 30 And many other signs truly did Jesus In the presence of his disciples Which are not written in this book But these are written that you might believe That Jesus is the Christ, the son of God And that believing you might have life through his name Sounds like an ending A viable ending For the book here A viable ending But it's not the end is it? Because chapter 21 Is an extra additional story That's added on At the end It's really not Something that we find in the other gospels Because in Matthew, Mark, and Luke We've got the death, burial, resurrection, resurrection Witnesses, guess what, we have all that in chapter 20 It's all there It's all wrapped up, put a bow on it At the end of chapter 20 But we have this extra chapter At the end Chapter 21 telling us another story About Jesus appearing to his disciples Another time By the sea of Tiberius And Peter gets restored And look, let me say this, I love chapter 21 I absolutely love it In fact I like chapter, I mean obviously All of God's word is perfect and it's equally Authoritative and inspired But personally, I love chapter 21 More than I love chapter 20 I mean, chapter 21 is a Powerful chapter, it's one of my favorite chapters In the whole book of John I absolutely love it, and let me tell you something I do not for one second Doubt that John 21 Is God's word John chapter 21 Is God's word In fact How do I know that? Because it's God's word, because it's powerful The Holy Spirit tells me that It's clearly the word of God And it's been accepted by all Christians everywhere It's borne fruit It's always been in the Bible Every Bible on this planet Contains chapter 21 You cannot find a Bible on this planet That stops at the end of chapter 20 It doesn't exist Does everybody understand what I'm saying? Nobody of John on the planet Contains chapter 21 Is there any doubt that chapter 21 is God's word? No There's absolutely no doubt Yet I think it's pretty clear That it's added on afterward By someone else, and in fact I'll take it a step further It's probably added on after John is dead Because it explains The fact that, well, Jesus didn't really say He wasn't gonna die It just said, if I will Jesus said If I will that he tarry till I come What is that to thee? Which makes it seem like, probably John has died And this is being tagged on And it's being put out Now obviously The Bible is saying Look what it says in chapter 21 verse 24 This is the disciple which testifieth Of these things And wrote these things So look John wrote these things And testified of these things So I believe that he wrote Chapters 1 through 20 And he testified of chapter 21 Obviously this is based on John's testimony But we know We, the people who are writing this down Know that his testimony is true That can't be the same person We know that his testimony Is true Now some people would probably, you know, say I think John wrote chapter 21 Hey, I'm not gonna argue with you There's no issue there But I think that The plain understanding of the text Is that we know that his testimony is true There's two different parties there That's what I would say Especially when you compare it to chapter 19 Where one party's involved Cause that's what John actually wrote But I wanna know what John wrote I wanna know what John wrote Okay, well then James White, should we get rid of John chapter 21 Which every bible on the planet has Which is such an awesome chapter But you see where the stupidity of his logic leads But I'll tell you this right now That whether or not John or some other holy man of God Who was moved by the Holy Ghost Wrote chapter 21 Amounts to nothing Because all that matters Is that it's divinely inspired Scripture Okay, I don't care who wrote Chapter 21 of John Any more than I care who wrote 2 Chronicles And at the end of the day they're both God's word I'm gonna get on my knees and read them every single day And thank God for his power and his word And so You know Maybe some of these things that I say might be like Whoa, what are you talking about? But maybe you should evaluate Where is your faith placed? Is it in men? Is it just because you think It's all scientifically backed or something Or that, or you think that you know It's all written by these eyewitnesses And I trust Luke To have been there and wrote what he saw You know, I trust God To have divinely inspired his word And that men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost And at the end of the day You know, if something was added If something was added To the book of John Tagged on the end At the end of the day As long as it was God that added it As long as it was divinely inspired As long as it was part of the plan for the book As long as it's supposed to be there, it's fine And you say, well how do you know it's supposed to be there Because it's there Because it's there Because I'm pretty sure that God is able to give us the Bible That he wants us to have And that if in 2021, this is what we have This is what we're supposed to have This is what he preserved This is what he used This is what's been preached This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have This is what we're supposed to have So basically, is it possible that they looked at the book of Mark, and then just wrote their book and as God inspired them, as God led them, wrote the Gospel of Luke, incorporating stuff from Mark. Who cares? At the end of the day, it doesn't change anything Okay And so you know, you may not necessarily agree with everything that I said tonight Maybe you think, you know, no, I just think Moses wrote Deuteronomy and I think and I'm not even making fun of you because that's a valid viewpoint If you think that Moses wrote every word of the first five books and John wrote chapter 21, like that's a valid viewpoint. I'm not mocking that or anything I guess I am kind of mocking the part about him writing that he died and stuff That's a little weird for me But my point is whether you agree with me or not doesn't really matter What really matters at the end of the day is that we all agree that the finished product is the inspired, perfect Word of God The reason that I'm challenging some of these things is because I want to make sure that we have our faith in the right place Okay, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer Father, thank you so much for your word, Lord and thank you that it's all inspired and that it all is your word and not just the words of men, Lord and please help our faith to be in the right place so that it will be founded on a rock so that it can be something that never changes and Lord God, I pray that every single person in this room would spend time this week reading your word and that all of us, every single day would open the Bible and read it every single morning before we do anything else, Lord, that we would read your word because it is where the power is and Lord, help us to be less hung up on what the archaeologist says and focus more on what the Bible says and in Jesus' name we pray, Amen Song books to song 316 I have decided to follow Jesus Song 316 316 I have decided to follow Jesus I have decided to follow Jesus I have decided to follow Jesus No turning back No turning back No none will with me still I will follow No none will with me still I will follow No none will go with me still I will follow No turning back No turning back The world behind me The cross before me The world behind me The cross before me The world behind me The cross before No turning back, no turning back No turning back, no turning back No turning back, no turning back