The Book We Trust Part 2

Rain forests looking to Jesus, founder and preventer when it comes to the Bible. At some point have to give way to get is what it says it is word of God and only take you across the gorge and into eternity today.

Find out how you can trust the Bible, the Moody Church in Chicago. This is going to win with Dr. Erwin Sir teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Some say there are too many Bible versions to know which one is what's your take on this date before I comment on the different translations. Let me say that I very much appreciate the way in which you have introduced this topic. Yes the Bible is the only book here on earth that tells us what eternity is like and how to prepare for eternity. The Bible is very unique and compared to other books deserves our loyalty and our trust as far as the different translations are concerned. Yes, there are English translations.

There also of course paraphrases.

I would suggest that you get a translation of the Bible. I personally use the ESB that's the English standard version, but there are other translations out there that are also trustworthy, that reflect the original languages. If you have a question about it. I suggest that you also talk to your pastor, he may have some suggestions as to what translation is best for you at the end of the day. I'm so glad that when we pick up our Bibles. We know that we are holding in our hands. The word of God and now let's go to the pulpit of Moody church where we continue our reasons why the Bible is the book we can trust what I'm saying to you today is this, if the Bible is mistaken regarding its origin.

It is nothing else to say to us that is worthwhile all yeah there's some wonderful things that Jesus gave on the sermon on the mount.

A lot of those can be found in other religions. How do you respect a book that's wrong so many times you simply can't either. The Bible is a good book or it is a bad book either.

It is a book that tells us the truth or it tells us a pack of lies. Either it was written by honest men who heard from God or it was written by deluded prophets and men whose meanderings are not worth reading. It is one or the other and so I say to you today make up your mind as to what you believe about the origin of the Bible that claims to be God's word God's book.

So one reason why we believe that the Bible is the word of God is a logical reason, even skeptics admit that the Bible is had a good influence on people and are you to say that this book written under such fraudulent circumstances is good. I don't like so I think what we need to do is to bow humbly and accept the fact that God spoke through holy men of God, and they recorded his will and holy Scripture is a second reason and that is the authority of Jesus. Once you've established that the New Testament documents are reliable on their own grounds on independent investigation that is not connected with faith, just as matters of history, you discover this Jesus who really believed he believed in the Old Testament. In fact, this is critical. Jesus accepted the history of the Old Testament.

He believed in Adam and Eve now and some of our seminaries that are of the liberal tilt they say well you know we accept a lot of the Bible that we don't like the first 11 chapters of Genesis, believe that there was a flood. We don't believe in creation and we don't believe in Adam and Eve. They had a you know humanity about what we believe in God were theists all my so you're telling me that you claim to be a Christian and you don't believe what Jesus believed very strange to me. Jesus believed in Adam and Eve and Jonah in the flood and Moses. He quoted the Bible over and over again and when he encountered Satan. He says it is written, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God, it is written, man shall live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God that he's quoting the Old Testament. That's the way Jesus handled it one day when I was in Bible College.

I remember a student saying something that I have thought of myself. He said you know I find it easy to accept the New Testament as the word of God, but I find it so hard to accept the Old Testament. I mean there are passages in the Old Testament. I confess to you, I read and I say I don't understand this.

I don't know why God did it this way there's some very difficult difficult parts of the Old Testament, so I understand where he was coming from and I remember a skeptic saying well. He said the only way we could know that the Old Testament is true is if there was an omniscient being who knew all the detail you're sitting here today is a skeptic you have your wish you had your wish in Jesus. Oh yes, he was a man but he was also an omniscient being who knew all the details and he looked at the Old Testament and said the Scripture cannot be broken. Jesus believed it and I believe it's important for you and me to believe it to.

Just like he did know he can't get out of it. Jesus believed in the authority of the Old Testament. He believed in the teaching of the Old Testament. He believed in the prophecies of the Old Testament, and even regarding the law. He says heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one crossed T I'm paraphrasing here, or one daughter, and I shall pass until it's all fulfilled you believe less than Jesus. If you're his follower.

I hope not. Now you know that the Bible has been vilified and criticized and cut up and spoken against.

I can do no better than to read the words of Bernard Ramm a thousand times over the death knell of the Bible has been sounded the funeral procession form the inscription cut on the tombstone and the committal read, but somehow the corpse never stays put. No other book has been so chopped sliced sifted scrutinized and vilified what book on philosophy or religion or psychology or letters of classical or modern times has been subject to such a mass attack is the Bible with such venom and skepticism with such thoroughness and erudition upon every chapter every line and every tenant. Yet the Bible is loved by millions and studied by millions and the corpse never stays put, will remember that it's always there realize what people have had to endure because they believed in the Bible. Years ago when persecution broke out against the church in France, you had the Huguenots who work believers influenced by the great John Calvin in Geneva. They came to faith in Christ and that they were banished from France under Louis XIV who thought that he was God doing God a favor and actually said that he thought he should enter heaven because he had done God such a favor to get rid of these people, but at a monument in France to them, there are these words.

I hope that I remember them hammer away. He can regenerate hands, your hammer breaks God's and will stand's you skeptic out there take your hammer pounded on God and see which breaks your hammer regards and God's and will take a lot probably taken a lot more heat than you're able to get we hold in our hands. Today the living true word of God the Word of God right here.

We take it for granted that don't way.

We really do when I let a tour to the sites of the Reformation in England last year.

Actually, I took the tour group right outside of St. Paul's Cathedral and showed them the place where all the Bibles were burned and when Wycliffe trained his young men to share the Bible and had scribes transcribing it prior to Gutenberg. The first thing that he taught them was how to die for the faith hundreds. Hundreds were put to death and I asked the bus driver to go to the place where it happened. Now you can't even see it because it's full of traffic lights in streets hundreds have died because of this book that we take for granted and leave on our shelves with her so much else that I could say I could talk about history I could speak about archaeology in science, but we have time for only one more reason first reason is logical. The Bible claims to be the word of God, what are we going to do about it. The second reason is Christological.

Jesus believed in the Old Testament so pastor was or how do I know that the Old Testament of Jesus is the same as our own. That's a good question and that's one of the questions I'm going to answer tonight as I speak about canonicity. I can't imagine that there is anyone here this morning that won't be possible that it would happen, you explain to God why you aren't coming that will be fine with me working. Have a great time tonight as we discuss these kinds of issues. The third reason is so personal. The power of the word, but suppose you were driving through Los Angeles and this is right after the riots occurred, that took place there many years ago when you are in the riot district because you were lost and suddenly your car drives over a piece of metal and you realize you got two flat tires and you have no cell phone and you're sitting there wondering what in the world to do because people are roaming the streets and suddenly Ed door from the building flings open and about 15 young men comes running out and they surround your car. First of all, what emotions would you have at that moment number one. Number two would it help your emotions if you knew that they were on their way home from a Bible study. I think even atheists would feel better if they knew that amazing what the word of God does amazing its power young man in anger took the Bible that his mother gave him and took it in slung it out of the train as far as he could throw the thing he hated her and he hated her God. That's what happens to young people. Years later, he repented of his sins and thought he'd go back to where he had so desecrated God's holy word and that he did some investigation and discovered that the Bible that he had flung out of the train had been found by family that read it and believed on Jesus and now they were changed and he was changed.

What what book is it that can take the heart of an angry young man in the heart of the family and transform them and make them differently except God's holy. There is no other book out there that can do that. That's why if you're a skeptic. The first thing you should always do with skeptics is to get them into the word of God. Don't argue about Aristotle's laws of motion, which were used by Thomas Aquinas to prove the existence of God there too complicated and there are answers to all of these things you can't convince people that way. What you do is you get them into the book because the Bible says that the word of God not only heals us and helps us the word of God actually converts us.

You have been born again. The Scripture says not of corruptible seed or perishable seed, but by imperishable by the word of God that lives and up. I support ever. The word that explodes in the human heart and we have to trust the word two weeks ago my wife and I were in a in restaurant with some friends and as we came in.

They introduced me to the waitress is a pastor so I asked her where she was on her spiritual journey and she said well she said I'm investigating all the faith she told me about a book that she was reading that introduces all the different faiths and I said to her how much adult consideration. Have you ever given to the Bible and she said, none have you ever read the New Testament now. I made her promise and this is the best you can do in a passing connection.

Please look into my eyes and make this promise that you will read the New Testament. That's the best thing that I could doing the few seconds that we had together. Why because it's the word of God.

See which will germinate in the heart people read the New Testament.

They read the Gospel of John.

And they say to themselves there's no way somebody could have made up the story and they become captivated by him and before you know what they're believing in him. Why do you think that the Bible is banned in so many countries today in Islam. For example, why is it that a young soldier told my daughter if I'm found with the Bible. When I returned to my homeland. I could be put to death because people feared the word of God, they know it has power is the living word of God that lives and abides forever. It is the two-edged sword that pierces asunder soul and spirit, the joints and marrow of the heart. If I were the devil said JI Packer, one of my first names would be to stop folks from digging into the Bible I should do. All I could to surround it with the spiritual equivalents of pets and thorns and hedges and man-made traps to frighten people off.

If you are the devil, that's what you do.

Those of you have no scriptural reading program those of you who begin and you read a few verses and you put the Bible away, you're falling into the trap of the devil, that's his strategy because this book can bless you. Could I read what Spurgeon said about a piece of this book is wrestled with me. This book is smitten me.

This book is comforted me. This book is smiled on me. This book is frowned on me. The book is clasped my hand. The book is where my heart the book with me sings with me whispers to me preaches to me maps my way holds my goings. It is the young man's best companion and is still my morning and evening chaplain. That's what the word of God. No wonder we find it hard so hard to study I'm going to conclude with the words of Robert Chapman to impress upon you the need for you to love the Bible.

If God were to do something mighty among us here at the Moody church.

One of the things that we notice his people would be reading their Bibles and reading their newspapers less because God generates within us a love of his holy word Robert Chapman writes this book contains the mind of God, the state of man the way of salvation, the doom of sinners and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts binding, its histories are true and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you food to support you and comfort to cheer you. It is the travelers map, the pilgrim staff the pilots compass the soldiers sword the Christians character. Here Paradise is restored. Heaven opened the gates of hell disclosed Jesus Christ as its grand subject are good it's design the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory test the heart and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, prayerfully.

It is a mine of wealth, the paradise of glory, a river of pleasure it gives you life and it will be opened at the day of judgment and remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility rewards the greatest labor and condemns all who will trifled with safe contents my friend today.

This is the word of God, let us pray father forgive us for the times that we have neglected your book, forgive his father that we have not loved and delighted in it like your word says we should delight in the law of God, you'll be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, we have too many other delights, may we repent those today we pray and I pray that this may be a congregation in love with the word and may skeptics who are present open their new Testaments and begin to read your word. We pray that it may be in our minds and our hearts. We pray that as we meet other people. It may always be our guide and when it comes time to die. May we cleave to its promises that will take us all the way to eternity pray in Jesus name what my friend, this is Pastor Luther. Isn't it wonderful to know that God has given us his book. His revealed will, and it is upon that book that we can build our lives recently. Rebecca and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary and we give praise to God for his faithfulness throughout these many many years as a matter fact we were interviewed about our life together. It's titled the story of our marriage. 50 years of God's faithfulness and for a gift of any amount. It can be yours. I believe that it will be an encouragement to you because we share our ups and downs are challenges our disappointments, but at the end of the day how God has led us and directed us through these 50 years. Here's what you do go to RTW offer.com that's RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 that's 1-888-218-9337 ask for the story of our marriage.

50 years of God's faithfulness and let me thank you in advance for your generosity because running to win is dependent upon people like you who help us share the gospel of Jesus Christ in many different countries of the world.

Contact us RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 and ask for the story of our marriage. It's time once again for another opportunity for you to ask Pastor Luther a question you may have about the Bible or the Christian life documents are today's question comes from Devon who lives in Michigan. He writes in your book 10 lies about God, you state. Let's honestly admit that a growing number of Americans think the church is irrelevant. My question then is how exactly do we, as born-again Christian people engage those unsaved to find the church to be irrelevant. Must we wait for a deathbed opportunity were perhaps then such a person is more receptive, Devon.

I'm so glad that you asked the question, yes, I think that there are many people in America who believe that the church is irrelevant. How do we win them. I think that we win them individually by our authenticity by our integrity and our love. I think that Americans today desire to see Christians who really live out their faith. Christians were not only against certain things better for other things and are willing to make some sacrifices on behalf of their principles and on behalf of other people, you know, I believe that mass evangelism as we once knew.

It is probably not the way to go today Billy Graham of course was able to draw large crowds because of his fame. But today is very difficult for us to invite someone to church and say you come to church with me because we have a special speaker. People simply do not care and there are too many competing voices, television, the Internet, and all kinds of other things.

So I think that the only way we can do it is by individuals impacting the culture wherever God has planted them and I certainly hope and pray that you, Devon will do that in your sphere of influence and you pray for me that I might be able to do it in mine. Thank you Dr. Luther if you'd like to hear your question answered. Go to our website@rtwoffer.com and click on ask Pastor Luther or call us at 1-888-218-9337 that's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at running to win 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard Chicago, IL 60614.

Some religions have millions of the Christian faith is based on the self revelation of a single omnipotent God. Jesus taught us to call him our father in the Bible, God has many names but only one character absolute holiness combined with infinite power, love and justice. Next time I'm going to win will come to grips with the father we worship. Lesson number two in what we believe running to win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race. Running to win is sponsored by the movie church