My Words Will Never Pass Away - Jesus' Most Outrageous Sayings Part 2

Thank you.

Today I want to start off with a little riddle. Okay, I'm going to give you a list and I want you to see if you can figure out what every single thing on this list has in common with everything else on the list so you ready okay here we go here's the list ready Oldsmobile Fleetwood Mac Seinfeld friends Pan Am Airways Lou Gehrig's consecutive game record. The Berlin wall one word and Lothrop.

Jordache jeans and Tom Daschle, now what what all these things happen, well, what they all have in common is there was a point in time where everything the Dodge's name seem like it was going to last forever. And then in a moment of time. They were all gone. Now we live in a world like that, don't we were things just don't laugh them in computers crash printers fatal cars conk out shoes where out appliances break friendships does all and this fact is what makes the statement of Jesus that were to look at today so radical and so outrageous. Remember in a new series entitled Jesus is most outrageous, saying were taking 12 of the most radical things that Jesus never said and were spending a week on each of them answering the question will so what what difference is this make to me last week we did before Abraham was, I am if you miss that. I encourage you to get the tape with the CD from our bookstore today were going to move on to outrageous saying number two which is found in Matthew chapter 24 and working to begin writing verse one. So here we go. Matthew 24 verse one as Jesus was walking out of the temple, his disciples began to call his attention to the temple buildings. Now of course this is the temple in Jerusalem and the temple that existed there in Jesus's day was actually the second Jewish Temple in 586 BC, the first Jewish temple built by King Solomon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon in 536 BC, Cyrus the great, the king of Persia allowed the Jews under Zerubbabel to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple. But this rebuild second Temple was paltry by comparison to the majesty and the grandeur that had been in Solomon's first Temple as a matter of fact Ezra chapter 3 verse 12 says that many of the older priests and Levites and family heads who had seen the glory of the first Temple, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this second Temple being laid because it was so much smaller and so much less glorious than the one that they remembered that used to be there. Well things remained this way with this paltry temple, being turned Jerusalem for the next 500 years until 37 BC when Augustus Caesar, the ruler of the Roman Empire appointed Herod the great, as King of Judea. This is the same Herod that appears in the Christmas story and Herod, you need to know was not a Jew. He was an even line from down around the area in capture of modern-day Petra, in Jordan and so to win the favor of the Jews as their king Herod launched a massive rebuilding program, a massive beautification program on the Jerusalem Temple which at the time of Jesus had been going on for 46 years we find out from the Bible, Herod use only the most enduring building material.

All white marble and white stone and gold which made the temple in Jerusalem not only one of the most impressive structures in the world. It also made it one of the sturdiest structures in the world and this is what the disciples of Jesus were referring to when they pointed out all these buildings.

There inherited, built over the last 46 years first two and Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left upon another.

Every one of them will be torn down Jesus and hey fellas as enduring and as permanent as all of this looks on here to tell you it's all coming down. It's not going to last. And indeed, 40 years later in 70 A.D. Gen. Titus in the 10th Roman Legion fulfilled the words of Jesus by ripping down the second Jewish Temple and leaving it in ruins, which is exactly where it's been for the last 2000 years.

But Jesus's comments about the temple being torn down led to a long discourse here in Matthew 24 about the future and is part of this discourse, Jesus told his disciples that not only wasn't the temple going to last.

But he even told him that this planet itself wasn't even going to last. And all of that since Jesus taught from one of the most outrageous things he ever said verse 35 of this chapter. Jesus said the heavens and the earth will pass away, but my words written down in the beady-eyed BLE my words will never pass away. They are the only thing on this earth.

Jesus said this, last forever and friends with these words. Jesus takes that book that many of you have open in your lap right now. The Bible and he exalts that book to a position of authority to a position of significance to a position of permanence that surpasses everything else in this world. Now that's what we want to talk about today we want to talk about this book that is going to outlast the world, the nature and the character of this book.

What is the Bible really claim for itself what in second Timothy chapter 3 verse 16. The Bible says that all Scripture is inspired by God. What is it mean to be inspired while the Greek word literally means to be God breathed in other words the exact words that God wanted written down in the Bible. He read those words through the writers of the Bible and then down on the paper. That is what the Bible is claiming for itself, friends, inspiration means that if God himself and written the complete Bible and handed it to Moses on the top of Mount Sinai to bring down the people.

The Bible that Moses would've brought down is the exact same Bible that you and I have the day inspiration means that if Jesus himself and sat down at a desk in Nazareth and written out the entire Bible. Just the way he wants it. What he would've handed Peter, Paul, James, and John is the exact same Bible that you and I have in our hands today is a lot exactly how this process works you know this prospects of God breathing his words to these people.

Well I don't know the closest thing we've got a second Peter chapter 1 verse 20 where Peter writes no part of Scripture ever came about by the writer's own imagination.

Other words Peter one day just didn't sit out exactly like the Bible know the Bible goes on to say, Peter does that these men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, all the Bible tells us is that the men who wrote the Bible were in some kind of a supernatural condition when they wrote it, that is described by the Bible is being carried along by the Holy Spirit. We don't know exactly how this process works, but we do know what the result of this process looks like. It looks like a collection of 66 books which contain God's direct communication to the human race now. Not only does the Bible claim to be inspired, but it also claims to be in Aaron's think about it now.

If Almighty God personally. Dreams of something out. Benefit comes from God, by its very nature it has to be perfect. It has to be impeccable. It has to be flawless. This is why Psalm 19 says verse seven, the law of the Lord is perfect. Inerrancy means that the Bible is without error.

Inerrancy means that the Bible is just as correct when it speaks to areas of science, geology, geography, astronomy, cosmology, and history as it is when it speaks to areas about religion per se inerrancy friends is the linchpin of biblical Christianity robbed the Bible of inerrancy and all of biblical Christianity crumbles with this is why John Wesley, the founder of Methodism said and he rolled over in his grave. The baby could see what's going on.

Most Methodist churches when it comes to the Bible, but he wrote and said and I quote, if there be any mistakes in the Bible there may as well be a thousand if there be one falsehood in that book. It did not come from the God of truth" in other words, if Jonah and the fish is untrue, then how can we be sure that the resurrection of Jesus is an untrue, if what the Bible says about Adam and Eve is wrong, then how do we know that what Jesus said about heaven and hell is it wrong friends. This is a package deal was out in the lobby last week, chatting with people and I have this young lady come up to me and she said you know a lot I'm trying my friend to a decision for Christ in her life and so I told her she needed to start reading the Bible and she came to me a few weeks ago and said I've been reading the Bible like you told me she said but how do we know that the Bible is really reliable. I mean how do we know for sure that the Bible really comes from God.

How do we know for sure that the Bible is really trustworthy in this young lady said to me so long. What what what to look. So I want this lady in the bookstore and I got a cup to resources for and then I said you know what young lady. You need to be here next week.

Today, that's exactly what I want to talk about if you come next week. Hopefully the next time after being here next week. You'll know what to say to your friend when they say stuff like that to you and so that's what I want talk to you about today how we can answer the question that that young ladies friend had, how do we really know the Bible is reliable. How do we know it's really from God will to answer that question.

There are really three issues we gotta deal with today. Issue number one is the historical accuracy of the Bible is that a lot of that even matter will friends because critics of the Bible attacked it at this very point. They say hey the Bible is historically inaccurate. That's their claim and if that's true, they say, then ipso facto, it must also be spiritually inaccurate. Well I like to turn that around and say yeah well okay but if we can show that the Bible is historically accurate to a fault, then isn't it reasonable to postulate that the Bible must be spiritually accurate to so let's find out what about this. What about the Bible's historical accuracy well over the last 100 years archaeology has given us an unbroken string of discoveries that confirm the historical reliability in the historical trustworthiness of the Bible in an amazing way I could fill the rest of today and going to tomorrow talking to you about this but just to give you a few examples. Critics of the Bible used to say, you know, the Hittites that are mentioned in the Bible has having a huge empire. Well, the Bible is wrong. We went with everything, everything existed. We have no record of these people in history will that was until 1906 when Hugh Winkler excavated the gospel way a city in central Turkey, the capital city of the Hittite Empire and found that the Hittite Empire was a massive empire that Turkey and Syria and much of the Middle East in exactly the time when the Bible said is existed. So for all of these centuries, historians have been wrong in the Bible is been right all the time take critics of the Bible used to say you know all that goal that the Israelites supposedly in silver that they brought out of Egypt at the Exodus and they built the ark of the covenant out of it in the tabernacle it all at stuff you know that's preposterous. That was never that much gold in Egypt will people said October 1922 when Howard Carter uncovered the tomb of King Tutankhamen wound you knowing today is King taught and found so much gold and silver in that tomb that according to his own records. Howard Carter couldn't even go when he had to sit down and catch his breath before he could even walk in.

Do you know the coffin in which the mommy of King talk was found was 243 pounds of solid gold.

The coffin and that was it. Again, one little thing in this whole do you should know King taught was a small potatoes Pharaoh.

The only rule for nine years. About 90 years after Moses was around. He was a sea was a shrimp he was. He was a pipsqueak Pharaoh understand what I'm saying and if there was this much gold in his tomb is a pipsqueak. You can only imagine how much gold there must've really been around 90 years earlier and Moses as they we had a big potatoes Pharaoh on the road like you will Brenner. Of course, the Bible was accurate on that point take critics of the Bible used to say why you know what we don't even know that I got David even existed.

The only reference to David we never found is in the Bible we never found his name anywhere outside of the Bible in any inscription well until 1993 wood archaeologists digging up in the north of Israel near the Lebanese border around. Tell Dan found the slab that had an inscription on it. King Haas IL of Damascus, and on this inscription written on my dad not by a Jew, but bias. In King is the name of David just as big as you please take to critics of the Bible used to say you know Pontius Pilate ever even existed at all what we never found his name in us. Single inscription outside of the Bible and Caiaphas the high priest and sentenced Jesus to die. We've never found record of him anywhere other than in the Bible.

The Bible is making up people. Well, that was until 1961 when archaeologist in Caesarea on the Mediterranean Sea and Israel found his big old slab of stone and big in life on here is the name Pontius Pilate to Pontius Pilate's name because life on the stone admitted in 1990. There was a construction crew using a backhoe in Jerusalem and accidentally broke into a tomb. They didn't know was there and inside this tomb was an ossuary of bone box full of a person's bones and written on the side of the ossuary is just whose name Caiaphas the high priest. I mean how cool is this the God who condemned Jesus to death.

Jesus rose from the dead and we got the bones of the guy was sending to the cross, God got a sense of humor. That's all I gotta say, and you know marketing going like the Energizer Bunny thing and do this all day long but just let me give you one more example this is an example of how the historical accuracy of the Bible actually let a got a Christ. His name was for William Ramsey. He was a professor in the late 1800s and at Oxford University in England. He was a professor of classical Greek and classical Greek archaeology and he was an atheist, had no interest in God made that perfectly clear, but he had a bunch of students in his class is the witnessing to them and try to share Christ with these students actually come to Christ.

As a result of Dwight L. Moody's evangelistic crusades in England 10 or 12 years before and they were trying to get the professor to consider the claims of Christ and ask for William Ramsey became so angry at these students that he said I dart I is, to fix their wagon once and for all. So we took a one-year sabbatical took the Bible, the book of acts and went to Turkey and Greece and decided he was going to follow the book of acts. Paul's journeys using the book of acts is his roadmap and being a classical archaeologist and being an expert in classical Greek.

He said I'm going to prove that there are so many mistakes so many historical inaccuracies in the account of the Bible that I'm gonna come back so a lot of my students and tell them to shut out the never bothered me again about this Jesus thing you know what happened. He found out that the book of acts was so historically accurate that while he was on the trip. He gave his life to Christ and came back to Oxford to become one of the greatest offenders intellectually of the Christian faith in the late 1800s and the early 1900s and would leading the Christ was simply to his Oracle accuracy of a fault of the book of acts.

You know what I love, say, the more we dig out of the ground the more the Bible proves to be right and do you know time magazine actually agrees with me. I'm flattered.

What time magazine said and I quote over the past 200 years. The Bible has been subjected to the most rigorous examination of any book in history is been looked at archaeologically, historically, and text critically. Not only has the Bible withstood the test but it has actually emerge better for all the fracas" historically accurate, you bet. Now the second issue that we have to deal with the answer. This young lady's friends question is the issue of the transmission of the Bible, we have to admit we do not have a single original copy of any book of the Bible and that left us open to the criticism of critics who say you know the Bible been copied so many times over so many centuries, why you don't even know if the Bible you have today is anything close to what the original was all that changed (in 1947 with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Suddenly we had manuscripts of the Bible of many of the Bible books going as far back as 250 BC. Let me show you a picture of the great Isaiah scroll found in the Dead Sea caves this scroll is dated by liberal scholars to between 100 and 150 BC. Here's the Psalm scroll from table 11 dated 250 BC.

Here's the Jeremiah scroll one of several dated to 250 BC and when we look at these manuscripts. What we find is that they are practically letter for letter of the same as the Bible that you have sitting in your lap. Open right this minute and what this tells us is that the transmission of the Bible from ancient times to today has not been some kind of haphazard willy-nilly process it tells us that in every age. The people who were entrusted with the transmission of the Bible. Consider that a secret trust and they carried out that sacred trust with a level of integrity and with a level of precision that is mind-boggling.

So friends of the Bible you have today corrupted.

Is it distorted after centuries of transmission, absolutely not.

No way, José is their will on okay okay but you know how do you view maybe the Bible is historically accurate and I'll even give you that.

Maybe it hasn't been corrupted in transmission, but neither one of those points proves that the Bible is a supernatural book directly from the living God of the universe. You're right that brings us to our third issue which is is the Bible really is supernatural book, the greatest objective proof that I can bring to the table on this is the issue of fulfilled prophecy, Isaiah chapter 46 verse nine God says I am God and there is none other.

And I declare from ancient times, things that haven't happened yet. Got so I wrote down in the Bible. Things that haven't happened in time and space and I wrote them there centuries before they were going to happen so that when they did happen exactly the way I told you they were going to happen, you would know this is not a natural book because nobody could naturally predict that you would know that I wrote this book. Isaiah chapter 13. The Bible predicts the fall of the city of Babylon 200 years before it happened in a way that is so precise to the way the events occurred. It is phenomenal in that Daniel chapter 2 in Daniel chapter 11/500 years of the political fortunes of the ancient near East are predicted in the Bible, the rise of Persia.

The conquest of Alexander the great, the death of Alexander suddenly, the splitting of his empire in the four kingdoms. The rise of the Roman Empire. In fact, it is no precise is that in its predictions of what were going to happen politically across the Middle East that the only way the critics can deal with Daniels chapters 2 and 11. The only way they can answer this is to accuse it of being a hoax, written 400 years later and being attributed to Daniel as a fraudulent book because this all the way to explain the unbelievable precision of these prophecies finally we got all the prophecies related to the Lord Jesus in the Old Testament, all of which were written at least 500 years before Jesus ever lived on this earth.

The prophecies of his virgin birth being a descendent from David being born in Bethlehem.

John the Baptist preceding him is using Galilee as his headquarters. Judas betraying him 30 pieces of silver. The Potter spiel.

All the events of across the resurrection being buried in Joseph's tomb, Richard Parker, a member of our staff wrote me a letter about this and said quote lawn during the past week I was talking with a research scientist and mathematician formerly employed at the Pentagon who researched 30 of the clearest Old Testament prophecies referring to Jesus, and she calculated that the probability of one and the same person fulfilling all 30 prophecies is one chance in 10 with 100 zeros after it. Now friends you can't be wrong with 10 to the 100 power, you can't be wrong. And so what that means is that the Bible is exactly what it claims to be. The Bible is exactly what it says about itself is not only a trustworthy document but it is a spiritual document directly from the hands of the amount of Almighty God, because God can predict the future as easily as you would like to look back and predict the past and he did it in this book to show us that the real author of this book is not Isaiah or Moses or Matthew or Mark is, may I say that if you're here today and you never trusted Jesus Christ in a real and personal way. One of the reasons people hesitate is because of this very issue.

10. The Bible really be relied upon to tell me the truth, and we have people all over world that are waiting for somebody to prove to them that the Bible is the word of God beyond any shadow of a doubt friends I can do that for you but I have given you here today compelling evidence to support the fact that the Bible is what it claims to be.

And if that's true then what Jesus said is true.

I am the way the truth and the life.

Nobody gets into heaven unless they come by way of me if that's true, it means you're not getting into heaven with your good works are not getting into heaven with the religious activity you're not getting into heaven by trying to keep the 10 Commandments, you can only get in by trusting what Jesus did on the cross and if the Bible is what it says friends and that's true and I would urge you, I would think you to give your life to Jesus Christ and take advantage of God's offer to give you eternal life. The Bible is telling you the truth, and hope you'll take it to heart. Well, that's as far as we want to go today because we got a really important question to answer, and you know what I most important question is no job. Yeah yeah alright so here we go one to write is Alonso say okay okay okay the Bible is all that stuff that you sent. What difference does that make for my everyday life well and see if I can answer that question for you. Your first week of February I took my wife away for a week for her birthday and we went. We went south to some PT area you were going to go. I'm always always say that you don't ever get any time alone with you and so I said okay I'm take you way will have a week alone after you have one week along with me. You may find you like it better.

The way it is in Washington but one single goal he will do this so we went away for the week and we had the same routine every morning we get up early in the morning we go watch the sunrise and come up we have our devotions on the beach and then when the sun got up really high in the sky would go get breakfast and so I would always get the local paper because I like reading it over coffee one morning we were sitting there and I started reading this article in the paper entitled, should the Bible be taken literally. And the more I read it the matter I got and I started huffing and puffing and slamming my head and going and Brenda's like, what is wrong with you and I'm like you should read this article and the matter I got. Finally she said to me will look if you so upset about it.

Want to write a letter to the editor so I didn't and they published it so every part of it to you today. Here's my letter to the editor total on the bereavement. Dear Sir, I was quite interested to see the article in your theological commentary section on February 4, 2005, entitled showing the Bible be taken literally by father Sean Maj. Campbell that he was all he was a bishop of several denominations in this area is a church leader okay. I was hopeful that father Maj. Campbell would strongly advocate the position of biblical inerrancy and divine inspiration, but in reading the article I was sadly disappointed in his article, father, Maj. Campbell stuck together a rambling litany of liberal thinking regarding the integrity and veracity of the Bible. In the end, however, his rambling points was simply that we should not take the Bible literally. To hear this coming from a clergyman doesn't shock me anymore. It simply saddens me.

I came to faith in Jesus Christ as a senior in college at the University North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1971 I was a drug addict and alcoholic and a profane womanizer. I was led to Christ and 71 by a street preacher who had the courage to present the claims of Christ to me in the context of the Bible being God's true and accurate revelation to all mankind. When I believed in Jesus in the straightforward way that the Bible describe my entire life was transformed. I became a completely new person in Christ. I would like to remind the readers of the claims of the Bible for itself that it is the inspired literally in Greek, the God breathed revelation of the living God to mankind. Numerous archaeological studies over the past hundred years have confirmed the historical reliability of the Bible. In contrast to Martin father Maj. Campbell's insinuations to the contrary.

Furthermore, the Dead Sea Scrolls, which I've had the privilege to actually see and study personally clearly prove that the transmission of the Bible was not a haphazard and copy process as father, Maj. Campbell implies rather we now know that it was a precise and scientific art that resulted in the accurate and dependable transmission of the biblical manuscripts from their originals all skip to the end.

So let father Maj. Campbell keep his cut and paste Bible if he wants. Jesus told us in Matthew seven, at the end of the sermon on the mall that people will build their lives on the Bible like people who build their house on a rock.

Therefore, I urge the readers to rely on the more Jesus's view of the Bible instead of father Maj. Campbell's and when all the smoke clears and eternity will all be very glad that we did. They published articles that will friends you never take a vacation from representing Jesus Christ. That's how I see now let me tell you the whole issue here is the Bible.

The Bible claims to be a supernatural book from a supernatural God giving a supernatural truth about a supernatural Messiah, who died on the cross to give a face for natural relationship with God that we can live a supernatural life that has a supernatural destination in heaven, and there are people all over the world were going to do everything in their power to shake your confidence in the word of God. If you're in school, elementary school, high school, college, graduate school, there are professors there who in order to justify their own godliness and profane lifestyle are going to try to undermine your confidence in the Bible and and even if you're in the workaday world. There are people out there who in order to justify their ungodly behavior to do everything they can to shake your confidence in the word of God and I'm here to tell you.

Don't you let them do it friends until they can find a way to unconfirmed world history until they can find a way to discover everything that archaeology has discovered until they can find a way to undo 1×10 with 100 zeros after it. You stick with the Bible as the inspired word of God you plan to get to heaven. The way it tells you to. You live your life, your everyday life the way it instructs you to and you learn to see the world with the worldview that it presents to you and I promise you when the smoke clears and eternity you going to be glad you did wise man built his house upon the rock wise man built his house upon the walk.

The rains came down and the floods came off, but the house on the rocks draftee firm got me on Keith firm and you know what years ago I got the little motto God said it, I believe it, that settles it. I did make that up. But I heard it and said that's a good way to live life and I tried to live that way for the last 35 years I've learned that this is not simplistic. This is why God said it, I believe it, that settles it. And people who depart from this just gets stupider and stupider the fatherly move away from.

Don't be stupid. We want you to be wise, we want to build your life build your eternal destiny Bilger families eternal destiny Bilger everyday lifestyle around the truth of the word of God and I'm telling you that heaven and earth may pass away, but you if you build your life on the word of God. What did Jesus say the house on the rock stands for your house will stand firm and one day in heaven you'll turn around and say thank you Lord that I had enough sense to follow that simple. Okay, I don't mind being called simple. As long as I'm right is on right home. Anything you want right.

That's where I want to be in. This is right spring heavenly father. Thanks for reminding us today that heaven and earth may pass away, which are words never will. Thank you for providing us a solid foundation on which to build our lives, our worldview and our eternal destiny. Lord I pray that you would make us wise enough to adopt as our motto.

God said it, I believe it and that settles more people get stupider. From that point on. Hope was not to be. Such people, but to be wise people who take our stand on the word of God and build our lives on the word of God and his Jesus said when all is said and done. Our house will stand or thanks for talking to us today about real life. May the Bible be our guide and may it be the book that provides our sense of reality may be our gyroscope as we go through life and thank you for giving us the Bible because you loved her so much that you wanted us to have a lamp to our feet and a light to our Lord, we give you much thanks for that.

Pray that you would give the us the wisdom to use the Bible the way you created and gave it to, and we pray these things in Jesus name God's people said Amen