Participants: Bill Santos
Series Code: IIWC
Program Code: IIWC201207
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00:03 >>Bill: North Americans love their Bibles. So much so that they keep them in
00:05 pristine, unopened condition. Or, as George Gallup Jr. and Jim 00:11 Castelli said in a widely quoted survey finding, "Americans revere the 00:16 Bible but, by and large, they don't read it." 00:35 >>Announcer: It has stood the test of time. 00:38 God's book, The Bible 00:42 Still relevant in today's complex world. 00:46 It Is Written. 00:49 Sharing messages of hope around the world. 01:04 Time magazine observed in a 2007 cover story that only half of U.S. adults 01:05 could name one of the four Gospels. Fewer than half could identify Genesis as 01:15 the Bible's first book. Jay Leno and Stephen Colbert have made sport of 01:23 Americans' inability to name the Ten Commandments. Christianity Today says . 01:59 According to the website Christianity.com in an article entitled: The 02:03 Scandal of Bible Illiteracy: It's Our Problem 02:49 The article goes on to say that secularized individuals should not be 02:53 expected to be knowledgeable about the Bible. Confusion and 02:58 ignorance of the Bible's content should be assumed in a post-Christian 03:04 society, but that the larger scandal is biblical ignorance among 03:10 Christians. Choose whichever statistic or survey you like, the 03:16 general pattern is the same. Christians know less and less about the Bible. 03:23 The article then goes on to make this very sobering point . 03:59 Youth ministries are asked to fix problems, provide entertainment, and keep 04:02 kids busy. How many local-church youth programs actually produce 04:07 substantial Bible knowledge in young people? Even the pulpit has been 04:15 sidelined in many congregations. Preaching has taken a back seat to 04:19 other concerns in corporate worship. The centrality of biblical 04:24 preaching to the formation of disciples is lost, and Christian ignorance leads 04:29 to Christian lethargy and worse. This really is our problem, and it is up to 04:42 this generation of Christians to reverse course. Recovery starts at 04:47 home. Parents are to be the first and most important educators of 04:52 their own children, diligently teaching them the Word of God. Look at 04:59 Deuteronomy 6: 4 -9 Parents, we cannot franchise our 05:49 Parents, we cannot franchise our 05:52 responsibility to the congregation, no matter how faithful and biblical 05:54 it may be. God assigned parents this non-negotiable 05:59 responsibility, and children must see their Christian parents as 06:04 teachers and fellow students of God's Word. Churches must recover the 06:11 centrality and urgency of biblical teaching and preaching. The article 06:15 then concludes with this . 06:35 Wow! That is quite an indictment. Our viewers tell us that one of the 06:41 things you most appreciate about our program is our focus on the Bible. Well, 06:47 we are launching this week a new series entitled: Let's Ask the Bible! In 06:52 this series we will look at some of the most challenging questions you 06:57 and I face on a daily basis, things like what happens to us when we die? 07:03 When will the world really end? How will Jesus return? And if the Bible 07:09 is only one, why are there so many denominations? In this series our textbook 07:14 will be the Bible - the rule of faith for the Christian. 07:23 Now this typically raises "the" big question - Why believe the Bible? It is 07:29 one thing to say the Bible is true, but how do you know it is true? We must 07:34 answer that question, before we go any further in this series, because 07:39 everything I am going is based on the Bible, so we must answer the question - 07:47 "Why believe the Bible?" To many non-Christians the Bible is no more than an 07:54 antiquated collection of myths and fables. To others it is a good book, 07:59 but it is not God's book. Probably the biggest single fact that people 08:06 have to deal with concerning the Bible is this - it claims to be not 08:11 the words of men, but the Word of God. In the Old Testament alone, phrases 08:16 like, "God said" or "God spoke" or "The Word of the Lord came" occur nearly 08:22 four thousand times, the Apostle Paul said this about the Bible . 08:39 Here is what Jesus said about the Bible . 09:00 Jesus believed the Bible was totally, completely, absolutely true and was 09:09 indeed the Word of God. If that is true, then there should be compelling 09:15 reasons why we ought to believe the Bible and indeed I believe there 09:20 are. The unity and consistency of the Bible message is a proof of 09:26 authenticity to me. Here is a book that is actually 66 books in one, written 09:35 over a period of 1500 years, by 40 different authors, living in 3 09:41 different continents , writing in 3 different languages , writing on 09:47 many controversial topics and yet they all wrote on one theme and they all 09:55 said exactly the same thing. 10:03 The first book of the Bible begins in a garden in paradise. In that 10:07 garden is a tree called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When you 10:12 go to the last book of the Bible, Revelation written 1500 years later, you end 10:17 up again in the paradise of God where there is also another tree - the tree of 10:22 healing for the nations. In Genesis, man is driven out of the garden, because 10:26 of his sin and forbidden to eat of the tree. In Revelation, he is invited 10:31 to come in and partake of the tree that he might live forever. In Genesis, 10:37 there is a river which flows from the garden. In Revelation, there is a 10:42 river that flows from the throne of God. The golden thread that runs from 10:46 Genesis to Revelation is the redemption of sinful man, by the grace of God 10:53 through faith in a Redeemer, named Jesus Christ. The Bible is not 11:01 a science book, but if it is true and if it is God's Word you would expect it 11:08 to be scientifically realistic. A striking evidence that this book is 11:14 truth and it is God's Word is found in the fact that many of the principles of 11:23 modern science were recorded as facts of nature in the Bible long 11:29 before any scientist every confirmed them experimentally. Thousands 11:36 of years ago scientists thought that winds blew always in a straight 11:43 direction. Of course, meteorologists now know that wind travels within 11:48 circuits. They are called "jet streams". That is exactly what the Word of 11:54 God says. Ecclesiastes 1: 6 12:14 In ancient times, doctors saw no need for washing their hands and many 12:19 people died from the hands of doctors because they carried on those hands the 12:25 germs that killed. Later on, doctors began to wash their hands in still 12:31 water, but people were still dying. Today, any doctor will tell you, you 12:37 always wash hands in running water to make sure that every germ is totally 12:42 washed away. Look at what it says in Leviticus 15:13 13:10 Herbert Spencer a famous scientist, one of the most famous of all scientists. 13:16 He was the one who discovered really and identified classifications 13:23 for all knowable matter. All that is knowable can be classified, he said. 13:30 And he was hailed as a genius for this development. He found that 13:36 all knowable things, or whatever, could be put into five classifications 13:41 and he listed them for the scientific world. They are these: time, force, 13:48 action, space and matter, and he put them in that order... time, force, 13:55 action, space and matter, the scientific world hailed that as a great 14:03 discovery. What he didn't know what that that's exactly how the Bible 14:10 begins. IN THE BEGINNING--that's time--GOD--that's force-- 14:25 CREATED--that's action--THE HEAVENS--that's space--AND 14:32 THE EARTH--that's matter." Right at the very beginning of the Bible. 14:40 Let me give you another one. There is in science what is called the second 14:44 law of thermodynamics - it is the law that says all matter is breaking down. 14:52 And it's interesting that that's exactly what the Bible says. Prior to the 14:59 Fall that wasn't true, but as soon as the Fall came, death entered the scene 15:07 and everything began to follow the law of thermodynamics, it's 15:11 breaking down. In Romans 8 it says the whole creation groans verse 22 . 15:25 The study of hydrology which is the process of the cycle of water. In 15:33 Isaiah 55 : 10 It says this, 15:54 Now what does that say? Isaiah is saying the rain comes down and then goes 16:00 back up again. What is that? That's evaporation, isn't it? That's part of 16:05 the process of hydrology. How did Isaiah know that? How did he know that? You 16:14 go to Psalm 135: 7 16:25 You've got it coming down, ascending in the vapor, held in the clouds again. 16:30 You've got it coming down, ascending in the vapor, held in the clouds again. 16:35 You've got it coming down, ascending in the vapor, held in the clouds again. 16:38 That is exactly the way it works. 16:47 I want you to understand exactly what I mean when I tell you why I believe the 16:50 Bible is true. When I say the Bible is true, obviously I mean the Bible 16:55 is factual, that is, it accurately records historical events. It is 17:01 scientifically true. It is prophetically true, but truth goes beyond 17:07 accuracy. Something can be true and factual, but have no significance. I can 17:15 tell you the truth about how many buttons I have on this shirt that I am 17:20 wearing right now, but who cares? When I talk about the Bible being true, I 17:25 mean it is significantly true, because it answers the three key questions of 17:32 life itself. 17:40 The first two chapters of the Bible begin by answering the first key 17:43 question - Who am I and how did I get here? The third chapter of the Bible 17:48 answers the second key question - What is wrong with this world and why is 17:54 there evil and suffering? The rest of the Bible answers the third question 18:00 - What is the solution? How can this world be made right again and how can I 18:06 be right with God? If you doubt that this book has that kind of power, listen 18:13 to what John Adams, the second President of the United States wrote in his 18:18 diary. 18:40 Who can deny that if every country in the world did what John Adams said this 18:46 world would not be a radically different and far better place? Anatoli 18:54 Shcharansky, a dissident Soviet Jew, kissed his wife goodbye as she left 19:01 Russia for freedom in Israel. His parting words to her were, "I'll see you 19:05 soon in Jerusalem." But Anatoli was detained and finally imprisoned. Their 19:12 reunion in Jerusalem would not only be postponed, it might never occur. During 19:18 long years in Russian prisons and work camps Anatoli was stripped of 19:25 his personal belongings. His only possession was a miniature copy of the 19:31 Psalms. Once during his imprisonment, his refusal to release the book to the 19:38 authorities cost him 130 days in solitary confinement. Finally, 19:45 twelve years after parting with his wife, he was offered freedom. In 19:52 February 1986, as the world watched, Shcharansky was allowed to walk away 19:59 from Russian guards toward those who would take him to Jerusalem. But in the 20:04 final moments of captivity, the guards tried again to confiscate 20:10 the Psalms book. Anatoli threw himself face down in the snow and refused to 20:16 walk on to freedom without it. Those words had kept him alive during 20:22 imprisonment. He would not go on to freedom without them. Everybody on this 20:32 planet, including you, has to make a decision. Since you have all these 20:38 religious books out there and they all say different things about God, heaven, 20:43 hell, creation, and Jesus Christ, there are only two options. Option 1 is - 20:48 they are all wrong. Option 2 is - one is right. The Bible could be just a 20:54 bunch of myths and fairytales, but based on the evidence, I don't know 21:00 how you can believe that. Some other religious book may be the real truth and 21:06 not the Bible. Based on the evidence, I just don't believe that. All of these 21:11 books may be wrong, but they cannot all be right. As for me, I am going to 21:16 go with the man that came back from the dead, who said, "Your word is 21:22 truth". I am going with the Bible. 21:35 I try to reach out for you but I fall 21:42 Sometimes you seem so close and yet so far 21:47 Lord I need another chance 21:52 I need to know your mercy 21:56 Just give me the strength to change within 22:03 I know that I am not all that I can be 22:09 My weakness seems to get the best of me 22:16 But as long as you are here 22:20 I know that I can make it 22:23 Every step along the way 22:26 Please hear my prayer 22:30 A heart like yours, is my desire 22:36 A heart like yours, is what I am searching for 22:43 Full of compassion, nothing wrong within 22:50 Please help me Lord, give me a heart like yours 22:57 So much grace, so much kindness 23:04 So much faith, forever true 23:10 Strong as the wind, soft as the shadows 23:18 If only one day, I could be like you 23:24 A heart like yours, is my desire 23:31 A heart like yours, is my desire 23:38 A heart like yours, is what I am searching for 23:45 Full of compassion, nothing wrong within 23:52 Please help me Lord, give me a heart like yours 23:59 Please help me Lord, give me a heart like yours 24:06 A heart like yours, is my desire 24:12 A heart like yours, is what I am searching for 24:19 Full of compassion, nothing wrong within 24:26 Please help me Lord, give me a heart like yours 24:33 Please help me Lord, give me a heart like yours 24:53 >>Bill: Let us pray. Father in heaven we want to thank you for you love 25:00 and your mercy. Thank you for your word contained in the Holy Scriptures. I 25:05 pray Father that you may reveal truth to all that are seeking it right now, 25:11 in Jesus name, Amen. 25:34 We want to offer you a couple of resources to help you deepen you 25:37 knowledge of Bible truth. One of them is available on our Web-site for 25:40 download, it is the lesson study of today's message at 25:44 www.itiswrittencanada.ca The other, is this booklet "Certainty in an uncertain 25:51 world" - it has some interesting articles, it is our gift to you. Here 25:54 is the information you need in order to get your copy. 26:58 >>Bill: We've come to the end of another program - I want to thank you for 27:00 taking the time to be with us here. I want to remind you of our web-site 27:05 www.itiswrittencanada.ca On the web-site you can see all of the programs, 27:11 they are all archived, you can send a prayer request, you can make a donation 27:16 online if you feel so impressed to do that - knowing that every dollar 27:20 you send helps us keep this ministry on the air You can also find out 27:26 where the It Is Written team may be appearing. And you can participate in our 27:31 new feature which is our live chat with any of the It Is Written staff may be 27:35 available at any given moment of the day. Don't forget to visit our 27:39 Youtube channel youtube.com/iiwcanada you can refer a friend so that 27:45 they can see all of our programs. Well our prayer is that we will have the 27:50 priviledge of being back together with you next week. Until then remember, 27:54 it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that 27:59 proceeds from the mouth of God. 28:05 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ |
Revised 2015-02-06