1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,080 In our first lesson, we've been assigned the topic by the elders, the inspiration of the scriptures. 2 00:00:05,280 --> 00:00:14,160 It's certainly fitting in regard to our theme on what does the Bible say to begin by talking about the fact that the Bible is not only a unique book. 3 00:00:14,316 --> 00:00:16,338 But it comes to us from God. 4 00:00:16,338 --> 00:00:19,540 It is literally inspired by God. 5 00:00:19,680 --> 00:00:30,228 And the position that we hold, just so that you'll know, and I'm sure we all in agreement on this, is that the Bible is fully verbally inspired of God. 6 00:00:31,410 --> 00:00:38,886 There are various views of scripture concerning inspiration, but we believe that it is word for word inspiration from God. 7 00:00:38,886 --> 00:00:43,960 It's put in a beautiful way and a picturesque way so we can all understand in second. 8 00:00:43,960 --> 00:00:46,780 2 Samuel chapter 23. 9 00:00:47,503 --> 00:01:00,534 Down in verse 2, David, who wrote much of the Bible as you know, because he's the great psalmist, the sweet psalmist of Israel, he said, Lord spake by me, and his word was in my 10 00:01:00,534 --> 00:01:01,044 tongue. 11 00:01:01,044 --> 00:01:07,440 Well, that's letting you know that David didn't formulate his own words, but the words he received were from God. 12 00:01:07,440 --> 00:01:12,536 His word was in my tongue, not just a thought or a sentiment. 13 00:01:12,536 --> 00:01:14,956 but his word was in my tongue. 14 00:01:15,136 --> 00:01:21,656 Even our Lord Jesus Christ states in John 12 verse 49 and 50 that his doctrine is not his. 15 00:01:21,656 --> 00:01:26,676 My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. 16 00:01:26,696 --> 00:01:32,716 Jesus was speaking what God wanted him to say when he was preaching and teaching here on earth. 17 00:01:32,756 --> 00:01:34,276 It's important for us to see this. 18 00:01:34,276 --> 00:01:40,962 Now, if we're gonna talk about the inspiration of the scriptures that the Bible has inspired, the Bible needs to say that. 19 00:01:40,962 --> 00:01:43,954 We can't say that for the Bible to make it say something it doesn't say. 20 00:01:43,954 --> 00:01:45,875 That wouldn't be fair and honest. 21 00:01:45,896 --> 00:01:50,378 We have to see if in the Bible it makes the claim to be God's word. 22 00:01:50,399 --> 00:01:52,440 Now you're ahead of me on this already. 23 00:01:52,440 --> 00:02:00,446 You know that the classic text for it is 2 Timothy chapter 2, chapter 3 rather, in verse 16 and 17. 24 00:02:00,446 --> 00:02:08,712 This passage of scripture just reminds us says all scripture is given by inspiration of God. 25 00:02:08,792 --> 00:02:20,632 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 26 00:02:20,632 --> 00:02:24,092 works." Look at the claims made in this passage of Scripture. 27 00:02:24,132 --> 00:02:27,212 All Scripture, that's Old and New Testament. 28 00:02:27,232 --> 00:02:30,112 In 2 Peter chapter 3 and verse 15, 29 00:02:30,488 --> 00:02:40,648 says, the Apostle Peter says, that there are some things that are difficult to be understood, in which some twist the scriptures, some of the writings of Paul. 30 00:02:40,648 --> 00:02:48,908 Paul's writings are classified by Peter as scripture, in case you're wondering about that, that's 2 Peter chapter 3 and verse 15. 31 00:02:48,908 --> 00:02:52,788 So all scripture is given by inspiration of God. 32 00:02:52,972 --> 00:02:58,035 They break this down so many times in the discussion to talk about what is speech and what are words. 33 00:02:58,035 --> 00:03:01,337 And they talk about how words are formulated in the human body. 34 00:03:01,337 --> 00:03:09,583 It requires the ingesting of air and the expelling of air across the vocal cords and utilizing the tongue and the lips to formulate the words. 35 00:03:09,583 --> 00:03:14,106 You ever know anybody has a lisp and lisp's asses on everything? 36 00:03:14,106 --> 00:03:16,529 Well, they've got something going on with his teeth. 37 00:03:16,529 --> 00:03:18,208 He's making that sound. 38 00:03:18,302 --> 00:03:23,794 All of us use our tongue, our throats, our lips to formulate words. 39 00:03:23,794 --> 00:03:31,456 And so when the passage says, scripture is given by inspiration, it means literally, breathed. 40 00:03:31,516 --> 00:03:35,717 God breathed words coming to God, man. 41 00:03:35,898 --> 00:03:37,798 You notice that it's profitable. 42 00:03:37,918 --> 00:03:40,719 The scriptures are profitable. 43 00:03:40,839 --> 00:03:43,640 We're talking about eternal words here. 44 00:03:43,990 --> 00:03:55,760 When Jesus turns to his disciples after he had begun to teach some strong doctrine in John 6, and the multitudes begin to walk away, well, Jesus turns to the 12 and says, will you 45 00:03:55,760 --> 00:03:57,331 go away also? 46 00:03:58,113 --> 00:04:03,897 Not only does that show no compromise, Jesus is not going to compromise just because he's not popular. 47 00:04:04,058 --> 00:04:05,539 Will you go away also? 48 00:04:05,539 --> 00:04:11,244 And the disciples realizing the weight of his ministry, the value of his words, 49 00:04:11,274 --> 00:04:17,786 Peter, speaking for them, says in verse 69 of John 6, Lord, to whom shall we go? 50 00:04:18,066 --> 00:04:21,267 Thou hast the words of eternal life. 51 00:04:21,827 --> 00:04:25,068 So these words are words of eternal life. 52 00:04:25,068 --> 00:04:36,712 You know, we can read a magazine article or a newspaper article, and we can read a post on some Facebook or YouTube, but these words are eternal words. 53 00:04:37,138 --> 00:04:48,395 Any moment that we spend reading and studying them, any hour we spend trying to commit them to memory, any time we share these teachings with others, we're talking about eternal 54 00:04:48,395 --> 00:04:49,515 words. 55 00:04:49,716 --> 00:04:50,936 So it's profitable. 56 00:04:50,936 --> 00:04:58,020 It's always going to be profitable for us to turn to the Bible, the inspired Word of God. 57 00:04:58,021 --> 00:05:01,883 And then notice just quickly the categories in which it is profitable. 58 00:05:01,883 --> 00:05:03,964 It's profitable for doctrine. 59 00:05:04,118 --> 00:05:05,929 Doctrine is simply teaching. 60 00:05:05,929 --> 00:05:12,073 It's not just that there are some key doctrines, cardinal doctrines, but everything in the Bible is teaching. 61 00:05:12,234 --> 00:05:15,496 And Christianity is a taught religion. 62 00:05:15,496 --> 00:05:18,478 Jesus said, into all the world and teach. 63 00:05:18,838 --> 00:05:20,519 Teach all nations. 64 00:05:20,519 --> 00:05:21,780 So it's teaching. 65 00:05:21,780 --> 00:05:25,082 The Bible is profitable for doctrine or teaching. 66 00:05:25,163 --> 00:05:29,466 Also, the Bible is profitable, he says, for doctrine, for reproof. 67 00:05:29,466 --> 00:05:30,887 You know what reproof is? 68 00:05:30,887 --> 00:05:32,988 To show you when you're wrong. 69 00:05:33,398 --> 00:05:40,270 The Bible is sometimes called the mirror of the soul because when we hold it up and read it, we can see the flaws in ourselves by looking at the Bible. 70 00:05:40,390 --> 00:05:43,071 It's going to direct our words and our thoughts. 71 00:05:43,071 --> 00:05:48,092 For example, Matthew chapter 12 verse 36, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaking. 72 00:05:48,092 --> 00:05:52,183 So we can see what kind of heart we have by evaluating the words that we speak. 73 00:05:52,183 --> 00:05:57,355 And we want our words always to be seasoned with grace that you may know how you ought to answer every man. 74 00:05:57,355 --> 00:05:59,975 Colossians chapter four verse two. 75 00:06:00,215 --> 00:06:02,856 So it is profitable for reproof. 76 00:06:03,010 --> 00:06:04,400 We may need to be reproved. 77 00:06:04,400 --> 00:06:07,181 We may need to take this word and reprove others. 78 00:06:07,181 --> 00:06:14,663 We do a good deal of that in a public format when we're reproving people for teaching error because it's going to cost men and women their souls. 79 00:06:14,663 --> 00:06:16,204 And so, reproof. 80 00:06:16,204 --> 00:06:17,572 That's why the Bible is given. 81 00:06:17,572 --> 00:06:22,625 It's not our opinion about something or how we feel about it, but it's what the Bible says. 82 00:06:23,206 --> 00:06:25,326 Also then, for correction. 83 00:06:25,380 --> 00:06:27,347 You know, it's one thing to show somebody they're wrong. 84 00:06:27,347 --> 00:06:28,647 That's needful. 85 00:06:28,647 --> 00:06:31,568 But you also need to show them how to correct that. 86 00:06:31,928 --> 00:06:33,648 I don't know if you ever try to play golf or not. 87 00:06:33,648 --> 00:06:34,929 I like to try to play golf. 88 00:06:34,929 --> 00:06:37,530 I'm not any good, but I like being out there on a beautiful day like this. 89 00:06:37,530 --> 00:06:39,030 They groom that place so nicely. 90 00:06:39,030 --> 00:06:39,660 You're with friends. 91 00:06:39,660 --> 00:06:41,231 You have good conversations. 92 00:06:41,231 --> 00:06:44,571 There's a good cold Coca-Cola at the end of the round. 93 00:06:44,812 --> 00:06:46,272 But you can always improve. 94 00:06:46,272 --> 00:06:47,852 You have to be corrected. 95 00:06:48,073 --> 00:06:51,273 I played a round of golf one time with a fellow that was a pro. 96 00:06:51,393 --> 00:06:53,254 He actually knew what he was doing. 97 00:06:53,354 --> 00:06:57,855 And he would watch me in my awkward swing, for example, at the tee box. 98 00:06:57,855 --> 00:07:00,536 And he would say, here's what you need to do. 99 00:07:00,824 --> 00:07:05,544 And he would, I thought, boy, if he's gonna start telling me what I need to do, this will be a long conversation. 100 00:07:05,724 --> 00:07:08,863 He would just correct me in one crucial area. 101 00:07:08,863 --> 00:07:17,304 You need to stand a little bit, your stance a little bit wider, place the ball parallel with your right heel, and I could hit the ball better. 102 00:07:17,304 --> 00:07:18,184 Correction. 103 00:07:18,304 --> 00:07:20,044 He didn't just say you're doing it wrong. 104 00:07:20,044 --> 00:07:22,024 He showed me how to get it right. 105 00:07:22,144 --> 00:07:26,944 And oh, I think it knocked like a half a stroke off of my game, and I scored under 150 that day. 106 00:07:26,944 --> 00:07:28,224 I was really proud. 107 00:07:29,816 --> 00:07:36,952 Corrections showing somebody here's the right way to go You know, it's the right way and then instruction in righteousness. 108 00:07:36,952 --> 00:07:47,310 That's how to stay right You know some people don't understand why should we return Sunday evening or Sunday night Wednesday night so we can stay right instruction in righteousness 109 00:07:47,310 --> 00:07:54,876 is needed the Bible commends the Bereans for being more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they receive the word with all readiness of mind 110 00:07:54,912 --> 00:07:55,673 You know they did? 111 00:07:55,673 --> 00:07:59,338 Search the scriptures daily whether those things were so. 112 00:07:59,338 --> 00:08:01,501 That's instruction in righteousness. 113 00:08:01,501 --> 00:08:04,104 Sometimes people think, well, I've got everything I need. 114 00:08:04,104 --> 00:08:05,856 I'm no longer smoking and drinking. 115 00:08:05,856 --> 00:08:07,869 I'm not out here running around my wife. 116 00:08:07,869 --> 00:08:08,931 I'm not even cursing. 117 00:08:08,931 --> 00:08:09,571 So I'm good. 118 00:08:09,571 --> 00:08:10,812 I'm good to go. 119 00:08:11,093 --> 00:08:13,876 No, need instruction in righteousness now. 120 00:08:14,006 --> 00:08:18,739 You need to be grounded in the faith, firm and steadfast. 121 00:08:18,739 --> 00:08:22,481 For the seal of the Lord is this, the Lord knows those that are his. 122 00:08:22,481 --> 00:08:26,873 And let everyone that names the name of righteousness depart from iniquity. 123 00:08:26,873 --> 00:08:28,480 Second Timothy two in verse 15. 124 00:08:28,480 --> 00:08:30,665 We need the way of righteousness. 125 00:08:30,665 --> 00:08:32,786 And that's why the scriptures are given. 126 00:08:33,287 --> 00:08:38,589 So we've established from this classic text that the Bible is inspired of God. 127 00:08:38,950 --> 00:08:40,501 And it's important for us to see that. 128 00:08:40,501 --> 00:08:43,452 It's able to save our souls, James one. 129 00:08:43,488 --> 00:08:44,749 in verse 21. 130 00:08:44,749 --> 00:08:49,833 If the Bible didn't make that claim, I'd be up here talking without any basis, in fact, of what I'm saying. 131 00:08:50,073 --> 00:08:57,139 But sharing with you that the Bible makes that claim, it causes us to appreciate these words of the Bible that we have before us. 132 00:08:57,620 --> 00:09:05,536 Now what I'd like to do in the second place, I was preaching at the middle school of preaching one time and the young preacher students came up to me and they said, brother 133 00:09:05,536 --> 00:09:06,587 McDave, we want to know something. 134 00:09:06,587 --> 00:09:07,907 I said, what's that? 135 00:09:07,908 --> 00:09:10,209 They said, how do you preach without notes? 136 00:09:10,710 --> 00:09:12,912 I said, well, let me ask you something. 137 00:09:13,122 --> 00:09:16,954 They said, I said, how many points do you usually have in your lesson? 138 00:09:17,154 --> 00:09:19,372 And they said, I don't know, five or six. 139 00:09:19,372 --> 00:09:20,686 I said, well, see, that's your problem. 140 00:09:20,686 --> 00:09:22,147 You can't remember five or six points. 141 00:09:22,147 --> 00:09:23,647 My lessons, I usually have two points. 142 00:09:23,647 --> 00:09:24,918 I can remember both of them. 143 00:09:24,918 --> 00:09:26,679 That's how you can preach without notes. 144 00:09:26,679 --> 00:09:28,560 Oh, we're starting to get it now. 145 00:09:28,780 --> 00:09:30,781 So this lesson this morning really has two points. 146 00:09:30,781 --> 00:09:38,589 Number one, to establish that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, the inspiration of the Scriptures from the Scriptures. 147 00:09:38,589 --> 00:09:43,553 And then second, to prove the inspiration of the Scriptures from the Scriptures. 148 00:09:43,653 --> 00:09:44,833 Let me tell you what I'd like to do. 149 00:09:44,833 --> 00:09:46,776 I'd to give you three examples. 150 00:09:46,776 --> 00:09:51,279 There are many, but I will limit it to three in the interest of time. 151 00:09:51,350 --> 00:10:02,407 The first of these examples will come to us in a very familiar passage of Scripture in Genesis 12, verses 1 through 3. 152 00:10:02,407 --> 00:10:11,412 We are all familiar with these passages of You will see that this is God calling Abraham. 153 00:10:12,313 --> 00:10:17,716 He is promising Abraham to make of him a great nation. 154 00:10:18,264 --> 00:10:26,704 And in speaking of making him a great nation, he will say to him, I will make thy name great, thou shalt be a blessing. 155 00:10:26,704 --> 00:10:29,244 And I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse at thee. 156 00:10:29,244 --> 00:10:33,264 And indeed, shall all families of the earth be blessed. 157 00:10:33,964 --> 00:10:47,084 In this reading, and we can see later in Genesis 17 and 18, God making a statement to Abraham, I will bless your descendants like the stars of the sky and like the sand on the 158 00:10:47,084 --> 00:10:47,944 seashore. 159 00:10:48,984 --> 00:10:54,544 He's indicating to him that those who are his spiritual descendants would be innumerable in number. 160 00:10:55,584 --> 00:11:04,424 And even today, when we read over in Galatians chapter 3, we are all children of Abraham by faith in Christ Jesus. 161 00:11:04,424 --> 00:11:06,944 That is of in Galatians 3 and verse 26. 162 00:11:07,574 --> 00:11:19,374 Now at the time when Moses is writing, and we know Moses lived about 1500 BC, 14, 1500 BC, when we start discussing the Exodus, we'll get down to 1425 is the Exodus, and we'll look 163 00:11:19,374 --> 00:11:24,758 at Ramesses II and things to try to get a date, but we're way back in the dawn of time. 164 00:11:25,119 --> 00:11:29,602 And Moses is going to write Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. 165 00:11:29,642 --> 00:11:36,628 Those books attributed to Moses are without question from the pen of the leader Moses. 166 00:11:37,088 --> 00:11:41,950 And Moses is writing this promise that God made to Abraham long before Moses' birth. 167 00:11:42,431 --> 00:11:52,176 And he is stating the fact that God is going to bless the descendants of Abraham so that they will be numberless like the stars of heaven and like the sand on the seashore. 168 00:11:52,817 --> 00:11:57,899 I want you to bear in mind this because we're going to be trying to emphasize the inspiration of the Bible. 169 00:11:57,980 --> 00:12:02,542 And I might do this by asking a question, how did he know that? 170 00:12:03,243 --> 00:12:05,844 How did he know the stars were innumerable? 171 00:12:06,300 --> 00:12:07,401 know that? 172 00:12:08,242 --> 00:12:10,324 Take notice of this with me if you will. 173 00:12:10,324 --> 00:12:12,586 We're at 1500 BC. 174 00:12:12,686 --> 00:12:17,670 We move forward in time, those 1500 years to get us to the time of Christ. 175 00:12:17,811 --> 00:12:24,720 We move out beyond that, approaching nearer to our time over here in 2026, to the year 1600. 176 00:12:25,479 --> 00:12:31,774 And in the year 1600 we encounter a man, an astronomer, by the name of Galileo. 177 00:12:32,364 --> 00:12:34,004 And you know what Galileo did? 178 00:12:34,004 --> 00:12:36,865 He came up with a telescope. 179 00:12:37,285 --> 00:12:41,246 They didn't have a telescope of any merit before Galileo. 180 00:12:41,407 --> 00:12:42,357 He's known in history. 181 00:12:42,357 --> 00:12:45,308 You can look him up in any history book, in any astronomy book. 182 00:12:45,308 --> 00:13:01,832 You can Google his name and you'll find that prior to Galileo, it was universal that everyone believed there could be as many as one to three thousand stars in the sky. 183 00:13:03,082 --> 00:13:06,640 And if you were the one who said they had 3,000 stars, then you were... 184 00:13:09,216 --> 00:13:12,617 start out counting them, but I ain't never seen that many stars. 185 00:13:13,377 --> 00:13:19,999 I don't know if you know what you're talking about, but we'll go with one to three thousand stars in the sky. 186 00:13:21,140 --> 00:13:32,403 And he developed a telescope where he could peer into the heavens, and he came to see that in the Milky Way galaxy, the stars are a hundred times that. 187 00:13:32,644 --> 00:13:34,204 Many stars. 188 00:13:34,368 --> 00:13:43,232 And he would see those we call nebula and so forth where you see clouds of stars today we know so well from the Hubble telescope and other means. 189 00:13:43,433 --> 00:13:47,855 He could see their groupings of these stars. 190 00:13:47,855 --> 00:14:00,222 And whereas he might have considered one of these galaxies to be one star, he expanded the number from one to three thousand to a hundred times that by looking at his telescope. 191 00:14:00,782 --> 00:14:04,368 That was in the year 1610. 192 00:14:04,536 --> 00:14:07,837 1600 years after the birth of Christ. 193 00:14:08,217 --> 00:14:18,980 So now my question, how did Moses know and how was Abraham told that your descendants will be like the stars of the heavens? 194 00:14:19,461 --> 00:14:22,062 He wasn't talking about one to three thousand people. 195 00:14:22,062 --> 00:14:28,103 He was talking about innumerable and compared it for sake of reference to the sand that's on the seashore. 196 00:14:28,103 --> 00:14:29,964 Each grain of sand. 197 00:14:30,188 --> 00:14:34,510 While you step your foot in one place, you'll step on 3,000 grains of sand. 198 00:14:34,551 --> 00:14:39,013 Walk down the beach and you'll walk through hundreds of thousands of grains of sand. 199 00:14:39,334 --> 00:14:40,934 How did he know that? 200 00:14:41,035 --> 00:14:51,231 I'm suggesting for your consideration this morning that the only way he could have known with any determination, with any accuracy at all, is if the God who made those stars knew 201 00:14:51,231 --> 00:14:52,501 they were innumerable. 202 00:14:53,802 --> 00:14:57,004 And as Moses is writing with the pen of inspiration, 203 00:14:57,612 --> 00:15:02,494 He's telling the people that your descendants will be innumerable like the stars in the heavens. 204 00:15:03,234 --> 00:15:10,377 So that's just one piece of evidence I wanted to put on our plate today to look at when we consider the inspiration of the scriptures. 205 00:15:10,718 --> 00:15:19,441 A second that's similar in regard to science is the observation made by Matthew Fontaine Murray. 206 00:15:19,681 --> 00:15:23,373 Now Matthew Fontaine Murray is an obscure person to most of us. 207 00:15:23,373 --> 00:15:26,232 He's not particularly known in matter. 208 00:15:26,232 --> 00:15:28,072 religion except for this. 209 00:15:28,712 --> 00:15:33,572 And he was known, came to be known as the father of modern oceanography. 210 00:15:34,152 --> 00:15:37,452 And he was the head of the U.S. 211 00:15:37,452 --> 00:15:44,252 Naval Oceanography Association from 1844 to 1861. 212 00:15:45,892 --> 00:15:47,652 Get the date now. 213 00:15:47,972 --> 00:15:51,652 1844 to 1861. 214 00:15:52,472 --> 00:16:00,072 And as the story goes with Murray, he was sick one time, and he's laying up in his bed and he's reading his Bible, and he's reading through the book of Psalms. 215 00:16:00,072 --> 00:16:09,632 And when he casually reads across Psalm the eighth chapter, he reads about this statement of paths in the sea. 216 00:16:10,232 --> 00:16:12,972 Well, now, we're familiar with paths in the woods. 217 00:16:12,972 --> 00:16:15,252 You don't want to get lost, on a path. 218 00:16:15,352 --> 00:16:16,652 We're familiar with paths. 219 00:16:16,652 --> 00:16:19,432 They give us a sense of direction to the destination. 220 00:16:19,916 --> 00:16:23,179 But the Bible said paths in the sea. 221 00:16:23,740 --> 00:16:27,553 How could there possibly be paths in the sea? 222 00:16:27,553 --> 00:16:30,286 You run your hand through water, just closes right back up. 223 00:16:30,286 --> 00:16:33,929 You don't see any determination that your hand had made a path. 224 00:16:34,170 --> 00:16:36,131 What is the Bible talking about? 225 00:16:36,131 --> 00:16:38,473 Paths in the sea. 226 00:16:39,115 --> 00:16:42,878 Before him, no one had considered that, that we have any record of. 227 00:16:43,158 --> 00:16:44,779 Paths in the sea. 228 00:16:45,208 --> 00:16:50,248 David wrote about that a thousand BC, paths in the sea. 229 00:16:50,508 --> 00:16:54,908 And Murray said, if the Bible says there are paths in the sea, I'm going to set out to find them. 230 00:16:54,908 --> 00:16:56,148 And he did. 231 00:16:56,428 --> 00:17:07,628 And he found the very familiar wind currents and ocean currents and became the father of modern oceanography in discovering what's known very commonly today as the Gulf Stream. 232 00:17:07,888 --> 00:17:12,408 If you look at a map and you look at the continents and you see North and South America, 233 00:17:12,482 --> 00:17:18,735 There is actually a stream, just as if it was a stream along a pasture somewhere. 234 00:17:18,835 --> 00:17:22,757 This stream in that water moves from south to north. 235 00:17:23,237 --> 00:17:29,796 And once it goes across the Arctic, it moves from north down through the UK, down through Africa to the south. 236 00:17:29,796 --> 00:17:31,821 It makes a huge circle. 237 00:17:32,042 --> 00:17:34,142 And it's constantly flowing. 238 00:17:34,903 --> 00:17:36,804 You ever heard of the doldrums? 239 00:17:37,688 --> 00:17:46,708 Back during the days of sailing ships when they'd start out from England to America or America to England, they would set out to sail and if the winds were not blowing, when 240 00:17:46,708 --> 00:17:57,548 they got in the middle of the Atlantic, 5,000 miles, you get out there 2,500 miles from shore, if the winds died down, you didn't have a motor you could crank up, it'd be useless 241 00:17:57,548 --> 00:18:01,648 to try to paddle, and it was called the doldrums. 242 00:18:01,648 --> 00:18:06,688 And a lot of the sailors and ships perished in the doldrums because they couldn't move. 243 00:18:07,128 --> 00:18:16,725 But after Murray, when they found out about these currents, they started, if you want to go from America and you want to travel over to England, you would take the Gulf Stream and 244 00:18:16,725 --> 00:18:19,558 you would go in a northerly direction. 245 00:18:19,558 --> 00:18:25,281 It'd speed up your trip, it would ensure your passage so that you could wind up at your destination in England. 246 00:18:25,442 --> 00:18:33,868 Do you know that even today, our airline pilots will use those currents to save fuel traveling from one continent to another? 247 00:18:35,138 --> 00:18:36,569 question, how did he know? 248 00:18:36,569 --> 00:18:38,070 How did he know about it? 249 00:18:38,070 --> 00:18:40,912 How did David know about that? 250 00:18:41,653 --> 00:18:48,678 All those years, what did I say, 2,800 years before they were actually discovered by man, how did he know it? 251 00:18:48,678 --> 00:18:50,940 Nobody could tell him, nobody knew it. 252 00:18:51,721 --> 00:18:56,384 God knew it because he created the worlds and he speaks of the paths. 253 00:18:56,628 --> 00:18:57,488 in the sea. 254 00:18:57,488 --> 00:19:02,113 So there's your second point of evidence I'd like to give you today about the inspiration of the Bible. 255 00:19:02,113 --> 00:19:06,116 And I to submit for your consideration these things I'm talking about are unassailable. 256 00:19:06,116 --> 00:19:10,699 They're unanswerable by the critics of the Bible who want to say, the Bible is just the word of man. 257 00:19:10,968 --> 00:19:15,514 I had a conversation with a fellow that I've been trying to talk to, trying to teach. 258 00:19:15,514 --> 00:19:19,447 He's difficult to reach because of his profanity and his bad attitude. 259 00:19:20,028 --> 00:19:22,189 But I do see him from time to time. 260 00:19:22,570 --> 00:19:25,412 And trying to talk to him, I told him one day, 261 00:19:25,688 --> 00:19:31,630 would like to have a study of the Bible with you." He's getting in his truck and I said, he said, why? 262 00:19:31,648 --> 00:19:33,961 I said, because I want us to go to heaven. 263 00:19:33,961 --> 00:19:39,413 You all know what I want us to go to heaven and I want to study the Bible with you, my friend. 264 00:19:40,353 --> 00:19:46,895 And he said, my view of the Bible that it was put together by a bunch of kings who were trying to just hold the people together. 265 00:19:46,895 --> 00:19:49,036 I said, see, you need to study the Bible. 266 00:19:49,366 --> 00:19:52,237 because I can show you where the Bible comes from. 267 00:19:52,237 --> 00:19:53,979 It's called the transmission of the text. 268 00:19:53,979 --> 00:20:00,862 I can show you how we got the manuscripts of the Bible in the form we have today in, for example, the King James Bible. 269 00:20:00,862 --> 00:20:01,713 You need to study. 270 00:20:01,713 --> 00:20:03,323 I want you to study that. 271 00:20:03,784 --> 00:20:06,486 Well, he told me, look, you're just from the Bible Belt. 272 00:20:06,486 --> 00:20:07,826 I'm from Boston. 273 00:20:07,826 --> 00:20:10,148 We don't pay any attention to that in Boston. 274 00:20:10,148 --> 00:20:12,308 I said, look, we want to get to heaven. 275 00:20:12,369 --> 00:20:15,310 And if you do, you're going to have to study the Bible. 276 00:20:15,691 --> 00:20:18,112 Well, I understand what you're saying, but no. 277 00:20:19,948 --> 00:20:21,288 He just didn't want it. 278 00:20:21,929 --> 00:20:23,869 Now there is a prejudice mind. 279 00:20:23,869 --> 00:20:25,990 He won't open his mind to hear anything. 280 00:20:25,990 --> 00:20:30,451 The discussion that you just heard, far more than he's ever going to hear if I can tell anything. 281 00:20:30,551 --> 00:20:32,151 Because his mind is made up. 282 00:20:32,151 --> 00:20:33,132 like concrete. 283 00:20:33,132 --> 00:20:36,692 Permanent, thoroughly mixed up, permanently set. 284 00:20:36,713 --> 00:20:38,313 I'm not going to give up on it. 285 00:20:38,433 --> 00:20:42,474 But in order for us to appreciate the Bible, we have to hear it. 286 00:20:42,914 --> 00:20:46,635 And those people who want to be critics of it, they need to be willing to defend their position. 287 00:20:46,635 --> 00:20:50,046 If they're not, their position means zero, nothing. 288 00:20:50,936 --> 00:20:55,581 The things that I'm talking to you about just now are unassailable proofs of the inspiration of the Bible. 289 00:20:55,581 --> 00:20:58,182 And like I'm telling you, there's many of them. 290 00:20:58,363 --> 00:21:01,166 I'm just giving you three, so let's go to the third one. 291 00:21:01,166 --> 00:21:03,889 The third one will come to us from the book of Daniel. 292 00:21:03,889 --> 00:21:06,050 The book of Daniel is remarkable. 293 00:21:06,051 --> 00:21:07,782 It's remarkable in a number of ways. 294 00:21:07,782 --> 00:21:11,615 Of course, it is a book that details the Babylonian captivity. 295 00:21:11,826 --> 00:21:19,262 And the key characters of the book are the three Hebrew or four Hebrew youths, including Daniel. 296 00:21:19,262 --> 00:21:27,168 They'd be Daniel, Ananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, better known as Belteshahzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. 297 00:21:27,429 --> 00:21:34,915 Now these men, young men, were made eunuchs and taken captive into Babylon. 298 00:21:42,968 --> 00:21:45,129 I start drinking water, we'd be here all day. 299 00:21:46,890 --> 00:21:48,390 Thank you, Brother Chris. 300 00:21:50,631 --> 00:21:52,602 Observe in the book of Daniel with me, if you will. 301 00:21:52,602 --> 00:22:05,297 Daniel's one of the minor prophets, or one of the major prophets, rather, and in regard to Daniel as a major prophet, the time that he is writing, that he depicts, is equivalent 302 00:22:05,297 --> 00:22:07,958 with the time of the Babylonian captivity. 303 00:22:08,159 --> 00:22:11,690 So now we can get into a little bit of the dating of this book. 304 00:22:12,544 --> 00:22:15,796 He's mentioning certain kings like Darius the Mede. 305 00:22:15,796 --> 00:22:19,689 He's mentioning Nebuchadnezzar, people that are historical figures. 306 00:22:19,989 --> 00:22:24,392 So we can see when they lived and we understand something about when Daniel wrote. 307 00:22:24,432 --> 00:22:33,128 Now you and I know it's not critical to our understanding of the Bible to know these dates, but it is helpful for us to place them in their time to understand what they were 308 00:22:33,128 --> 00:22:35,280 going through and why Daniel was there. 309 00:22:35,896 --> 00:22:45,836 The children of Israel were taken captive into Babylon for 70 years, according to Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 25, 11, and 29, 10, because primarily of their idolatrous practices. 310 00:22:46,016 --> 00:22:49,056 And they were taken there to be punished. 311 00:22:49,576 --> 00:22:56,956 And thus, I reflect on the statement I just made about Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were made eunuchs and placed in the king's palace. 312 00:22:56,956 --> 00:22:58,396 That's punishment. 313 00:22:59,356 --> 00:23:04,916 Now, in the book of Daniel, it is remarkable that Daniel will unfold 314 00:23:05,014 --> 00:23:08,686 the history of the four world empires. 315 00:23:08,926 --> 00:23:10,347 Imagine that. 316 00:23:10,347 --> 00:23:14,867 Here's a man who's going to write about the four world empires that we know from history. 317 00:23:14,867 --> 00:23:16,710 You read this in a history book. 318 00:23:17,031 --> 00:23:19,652 And he's going to foretell this. 319 00:23:19,832 --> 00:23:29,288 It will be important for me to establish that Daniel does write in the sixth century BC and not in the second century BC as the critics say. 320 00:23:29,288 --> 00:23:30,979 And I'll be glad to do that. 321 00:23:30,979 --> 00:23:33,660 And I can prove that, prove positive. 322 00:23:34,104 --> 00:23:35,724 But let's notice what we got. 323 00:23:36,065 --> 00:23:39,766 Remember in Daniel chapter 2, where Daniel saw this vision? 324 00:23:39,766 --> 00:23:45,688 A vision, or he didn't see the vision, King Nebuchadnezzar saw the vision and he forgot the vision. 325 00:23:46,088 --> 00:23:47,949 It was a troubling vision. 326 00:23:48,309 --> 00:23:57,012 And he had brought the Hebrew youth in, the brightest and best from Judah, just as he had done from other nations that he had conquered. 327 00:23:57,292 --> 00:24:02,773 And he brought them together in what might be classified as an ancient think tank. 328 00:24:02,874 --> 00:24:06,795 If he wanted to know something, these were the smartest men to do it. 329 00:24:06,795 --> 00:24:09,736 Today you want to know something, you go to Google. 330 00:24:10,276 --> 00:24:15,357 I told a friend of mine who's a mechanic, I said, I'm having trouble with my car, and I Googled it, and it said it was this. 331 00:24:15,357 --> 00:24:16,858 He said, what's Google? 332 00:24:17,098 --> 00:24:18,438 I said, Google, you know Google. 333 00:24:18,438 --> 00:24:20,652 You just put it on your computer, Google, and it'll tell you. 334 00:24:20,652 --> 00:24:22,572 I don't know nothing about no Google. 335 00:24:22,572 --> 00:24:24,740 And he said, Google can be wrong. 336 00:24:24,886 --> 00:24:26,887 and mechanical problem I was having, guess what? 337 00:24:26,887 --> 00:24:28,458 Google had it wrong. 338 00:24:28,538 --> 00:24:29,796 So you can Google. 339 00:24:29,796 --> 00:24:31,730 Doesn't mean you'll get the right answer, but you can Google. 340 00:24:31,730 --> 00:24:33,761 It'll tell you something whether it's right or wrong. 341 00:24:34,441 --> 00:24:36,432 Nebuchadnezzar was going to hear something. 342 00:24:36,432 --> 00:24:41,205 He needed some basis of information for making decisions that impacted his nation. 343 00:24:41,205 --> 00:24:43,706 And he was trying to be conscientious in that. 344 00:24:43,806 --> 00:24:45,587 And he would appeal to the wise men. 345 00:24:45,587 --> 00:24:49,469 And so he brings them together on this occasion when he's troubled about his dream. 346 00:24:49,469 --> 00:24:54,512 As you remember, he said, I want you to tell me my dream and the interpretation thereof. 347 00:24:54,808 --> 00:24:56,299 Well, those fellows couldn't do that. 348 00:24:56,299 --> 00:24:58,310 They couldn't read somebody's mind. 349 00:24:58,911 --> 00:25:01,793 And remember that Daniel steps forward. 350 00:25:02,114 --> 00:25:04,956 And Daniel says, King, live forever. 351 00:25:05,137 --> 00:25:08,379 I will give you the interpretation of this dream. 352 00:25:08,540 --> 00:25:09,710 But I want you to know something. 353 00:25:09,710 --> 00:25:11,528 This is Daniel 2.28. 354 00:25:11,562 --> 00:25:13,883 The interpretation's not in me. 355 00:25:14,892 --> 00:25:16,953 The interpretation will come from God. 356 00:25:16,953 --> 00:25:19,855 There's a God in heaven that reveals secrets. 357 00:25:19,856 --> 00:25:23,268 He will tell you the dream and the interpretation thereof. 358 00:25:23,268 --> 00:25:26,276 Now, I've already answered the question, you know, I was going to put it to end right here. 359 00:25:26,276 --> 00:25:27,481 How did he know? 360 00:25:27,481 --> 00:25:28,682 How did Daniel know? 361 00:25:28,682 --> 00:25:30,603 Well, we already found out right here. 362 00:25:30,763 --> 00:25:32,864 God was going to tell him. 363 00:25:33,625 --> 00:25:36,077 Now, in this dream, you remember the terrible image? 364 00:25:36,077 --> 00:25:37,808 The head was of gold. 365 00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:47,402 And Daniel said, head of this terrible image, like that of a man, I picture a giant, imposing, fearsome man-type figure. 366 00:25:47,903 --> 00:25:49,623 The head was the head of gold. 367 00:25:49,623 --> 00:25:53,744 And Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar, thou, O king, art this head of gold. 368 00:25:54,444 --> 00:25:58,285 And he says, after thee shall other kingdoms come. 369 00:25:58,466 --> 00:26:05,847 And he has a chest of silver, a torso of brass, feet and legs of brass, mixed with clay. 370 00:26:06,268 --> 00:26:07,908 Four-part image. 371 00:26:08,216 --> 00:26:12,136 and he commences to tell him about the Babylonian Empire. 372 00:26:12,136 --> 00:26:13,676 We can put the dates on it. 373 00:26:13,676 --> 00:26:16,496 606 to 536 BC. 374 00:26:16,796 --> 00:26:22,456 He tells him after that another kingdom would arise and he describes the Medo-Persian Empire. 375 00:26:22,736 --> 00:26:26,916 You know he's right about that because in chapter 5 Darius the Mede takes over. 376 00:26:27,456 --> 00:26:32,436 After that there would be a one who would rise swiftly to power and conquer the world. 377 00:26:32,908 --> 00:26:36,160 And that's going to be Alexander the Great with the Greek Empire. 378 00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:40,332 The year is 331 BC, all the way down to 63 BC. 379 00:26:40,332 --> 00:26:41,733 Look how precise we're being. 380 00:26:41,733 --> 00:26:45,515 That's because Daniel was precise in this prophecy. 381 00:26:45,836 --> 00:26:57,793 Not only do you have it outlined here in chapter two, but also in chapter seven, and many details in chapter 10, where the swift rise of Alexander the Great is mentioned in 382 00:26:57,793 --> 00:26:59,224 prophetic language. 383 00:26:59,606 --> 00:27:04,043 And then after that there would be a fourth kingdom, Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar. 384 00:27:04,185 --> 00:27:08,311 And significant to you and me, and I'm sure this is where we've all heard about this, 385 00:27:08,532 --> 00:27:21,499 is Daniel says in Daniel 2.44, in the days of these kings, the kings of that fourth empire, that would be the Roman Empire, 63 BC to 138 AD and their power into 476 and their 386 00:27:21,499 --> 00:27:22,599 existence. 387 00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:31,945 In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the remnant shall not be left to other people but it shall break in pieces 388 00:27:31,945 --> 00:27:35,506 and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever. 389 00:27:36,727 --> 00:27:38,088 Daniel saw 390 00:27:38,104 --> 00:27:38,844 four-world empire. 391 00:27:38,844 --> 00:27:40,044 How do see it? 392 00:27:40,044 --> 00:27:41,284 How do know? 393 00:27:41,724 --> 00:27:42,984 God knew it. 394 00:27:42,984 --> 00:27:45,784 God gave him the interpretation of that dream. 395 00:27:46,384 --> 00:27:51,464 So if you'll notice this passage of scripture now, we see Daniel knew something way in advance of it's happening. 396 00:27:51,904 --> 00:27:54,683 And that proves the Bible's inspiration. 397 00:27:54,684 --> 00:28:01,904 But as I told you a minute ago, and I'll close with this, we're going to have to show that Daniel did write in the sixth century BC. 398 00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:10,260 Because there have been people, even members of the Church of Christ, a book called God's Holy Fire, published by the Abilene Christian University, with various authors, to say 399 00:28:10,260 --> 00:28:13,180 Daniel wrote in the second century BC. 400 00:28:13,180 --> 00:28:15,360 Not the sixth, but the second. 401 00:28:15,360 --> 00:28:17,960 Well, that's no prophecy right after the fact. 402 00:28:18,060 --> 00:28:20,040 And they don't believe in prophecy. 403 00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:23,640 But yet they write about that and say, no, he wrote in the second century. 404 00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:25,900 That would be in the 200s. 405 00:28:26,140 --> 00:28:27,520 Let me tell you something. 406 00:28:27,992 --> 00:28:36,712 We have scripture on this from Ezekiel 14 and 4 and 20, where Daniel is mentioned by the exilic prophet Ezekiel. 407 00:28:36,712 --> 00:28:37,412 What does that mean? 408 00:28:37,412 --> 00:28:39,752 Daniel wrote during the period of the exile. 409 00:28:39,752 --> 00:28:40,552 That's unquestioned. 410 00:28:40,552 --> 00:28:42,492 Even the critics don't question that. 411 00:28:42,512 --> 00:28:44,392 But who does Ezekiel mention? 412 00:28:44,392 --> 00:28:45,712 He mentions Daniel. 413 00:28:45,712 --> 00:28:49,712 If Daniel wasn't coming along for another 400 years, he'd be unable to mention Daniel. 414 00:28:49,712 --> 00:28:51,392 He hadn't even born yet. 415 00:28:51,532 --> 00:28:55,752 But he mentioned Daniel because he was there with him in that exile. 416 00:28:56,254 --> 00:29:03,009 Also, outside the Bible, there is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures known as the Septuagint. 417 00:29:03,210 --> 00:29:05,492 It's a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. 418 00:29:05,492 --> 00:29:06,953 Guess when it was done? 419 00:29:08,284 --> 00:29:09,836 258 BC. 420 00:29:09,836 --> 00:29:12,858 That's third century. 421 00:29:12,858 --> 00:29:14,259 258 BC. 422 00:29:14,700 --> 00:29:18,883 Seventy scholars translated in the Library of Alexandria, Egypt. 423 00:29:18,883 --> 00:29:21,386 The Hebrew text brought it into Greek. 424 00:29:21,386 --> 00:29:24,708 Septuagint, I got a copy of it on my shelf at home. 425 00:29:24,824 --> 00:29:27,264 Guess what book is in there? 426 00:29:27,264 --> 00:29:30,584 We're being told Daniel wrote in the second century, so it can't be in the Septuagint. 427 00:29:30,584 --> 00:29:33,964 It was translated from Hebrew in the third century. 428 00:29:34,444 --> 00:29:35,264 But guess what? 429 00:29:35,264 --> 00:29:38,604 Daniel stands right there where he does, like in your King James Bible. 430 00:29:39,744 --> 00:29:43,264 How could Daniel write in the second century in his book be in the Septuagint? 431 00:29:43,264 --> 00:29:46,764 It's being translated in 358 BC. 432 00:29:47,264 --> 00:29:50,224 Proof that Daniel was an inspired prophet. 433 00:29:50,224 --> 00:29:51,444 That's how you know. 434 00:29:51,756 --> 00:29:59,944 So today we've seen that the Bible claims inspiration and we've given three proofs of it so that we can have confidence that the Bible is the inspired word of God. 435 00:29:59,944 --> 00:30:04,087 With that we begin our gospel meeting to talk about what does the Bible say. 436 00:30:04,408 --> 00:30:12,315 In our next session we'll talk about what does the Bible say and we're going to talk about what does the Bible say about the salvation which is in Christ. 437 00:30:12,439 --> 00:30:13,891 Thank you for your attention. 438 00:30:13,891 --> 00:30:21,540 I'll let Carl turn it back over to Carl and I'm gonna sit down and drink some of this nice water brother Chris gave me and look forward to our next hour. 439 00:30:21,540 --> 00:30:22,261 Brother Carl.