Why Do You Choose to Believe the Bible?

Oh, praise the Lord, everybody. The Lord is good. The Hebrew is strong: His hesed — His mercy, His covenantal faithfulness — is "to the age"; it will literally get you from here to there. Turn to your neighbor and say, "He's a good God." Thank you, Brother Fuentes. There is a prophetic limitation, sovereign stoppage — a King's command — that limits everything that can come against the church. Turn to your neighbor and say, "Aren't you glad you're part of the body?" Amen. Amen.

I am going to teach today. I have an odd job, but that's okay; I'm an odd tool. I want to go to one passage of Scripture; I'll let you be seated: 2 Peter chapter 1. While you're turning there — this is my last opportunity to express it — you all have been so kind to my wife and I, and my family even, and we appreciate you very much. I have so many dear friends in this room. And Brother Cantrell, thank you so much for your hospitality, your kindness. You guys have been very gracious. We love the Western District. Amen. And that great team that you have put together in this district, by voting them in to serve, are serving you well, and we appreciate all their hard work. Would you give them a hand? A lot goes into this. Unity is fought for and won as you unite in a vision — a godly vision — that takes the supernatural work of the Lord to unite all of us factious people and get us together so that we can remember, Brother Fuentes, that we are the body of Christ. Turn to your neighbor and say, "We are." You don't always get to pick your family. Some of y'all enjoyed that a little too much.

2 Peter chapter 1, verse 16. The apostle Peter is writing by the Spirit of God, and he says: "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory" — now, if you don't know that: God doesn't need to receive anything; we give Him our praise. But this is about the humanity, the man that God became. He received from God the Father honour and glory, "when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation" — turn to your neighbor and say, "Guard your hermeneutics." That means guard your interpretation. Why? Because it's important to get it right. "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

I'm going to try to take off and land fast today. I have the permission of the bishop to go as long as I feel, but I do want to do only what the Lord wants me to do. I want to ask you a question today — if they'll help me with that slide. I'm going to ask you a question: Why do you choose to believe the Bible? Amen. Turn to your neighbor and say, "Do you believe the Bible?" Amen. Amen. I'm in good company. God bless you. You can be seated today.

I was praying about direction for this meeting, and I felt impressed by the Lord, even again this morning, to create — if the Lord will help me — discernment. You are in a culture that is — if you'll forgive me for my candor; it's not like you don't know it — in many ways, in America, the culture that the Lord has called you to reach the world in and to be the church in is the tip of the spear of liberalism in America. California sets the trend for the rest of the nation. But it doesn't only have to be for the devil. And I feel called today to deal with something. I want to create some discernment.

I know that there are lies in the culture. And when you go into college, and you're dealing with the culture and social media, there are lies that professors will say, and they will claim things about this book that we call the Bible. Now, I'm going to try to build — this is going to be a little weird, but I want to help you understand that the lies are not even clever. Now, Pastor, I'm going to try to keep Bad Bobby in check; I have the permission of my pastor. What that means is, the lies are not even clever. The problem is, they appeal to the flesh. Because if you can do away with the Bible, you can do away with the law; and if you can do away with the law, you can do away with the Lawgiver; and you can live any way that you want to live. So you have to remember, the things that you're facing are based in the heart of men that don't want to obey the Lord.

Now, I'm going to tell you, it's one of the most important questions in our culture today. That's why the apostle Peter wrote, by the Spirit of God, again in 1 Peter chapter 3:15, to be ready to give an answer. That word "answer" is apologia in the Greek, and it's not apologizing; it's offering a reasoned response for your faith.

Now, they're going to help me in the back — give me that next slide. I'm going to give you what I'm going to call inadequate answers to the hope that lies within you. Here's a couple of inadequate answers. First of all, saying, "I was raised like that." Now, what's the problem with that, Brother Killmon? On college campuses today — we're living in complex times — they're having what they call debaptism ceremonies. It's where somebody that was raised in the Christian faith will go to college, and they have atheistic evangelism, and they are bent on conversion, and they set up little booths in the quad, and when some student comes and says, "I want to now deny my faith and become an atheist," what they do is, they take out a hair dryer; they put them in what looks like a shower circle, and they will blow the waters of their baptism off with the air of reason.

You know, we're living in complex times. But I want to tell you, when they get on a campus, you have to do more than say, "I was raised this way." What if you were raised in Turkey? If you were raised in Salt Lake City, you might be Mormon. And what the atheists will try to claim, and try to give as an excuse to young people — and what they will say in the culture — is, "Your faith is an accident of your birth." Good question would be: what did your parents believe? Oh, they were atheists. But I'm going to tell you, when you walk on a campus, you can't [stop there]. We've got to arm our students with understanding. We've got to arm our children with understanding. We've got to arm our people with understanding, to resist the lie of the culture. Brother Lawyer, it's not that clever; it's just an excuse for you to do in your flesh what you want to do. And you've got to stare down the lie and say, "Let me take this great sword of the Spirit and do some heart surgery, and expose what's really at stake." So saying "I was raised that way" does not work.

I'll give you another one. I know — I know it sounds good — "But I tried it, and it worked for me." Now, I want to try to be as careful as I can be today. I reflect on this often, because there are students that walk into Indiana Bible College — there was one young lady; she's very kind and generous; she's doing really well; married a great young man. Indiana Bible College worked for her. She came from a background of being raised in church, and when things began to be foisted on her from the culture, she had to make some decisions, and she went to her leadership. Now, I want to help you today: her leadership was not equipped to answer the questions she was asking. I want to caution some young person: just because maybe every authority in your life can't give you an answer does not mean that there's not an answer. What you need to do is say, "God, help me to resist my flesh and my carnality and my desire to be accepted, and to do what my flesh wants to do, long enough so that I can find some truth, to understand how I can beat down the lies of the enemy."

They're having encounters — spiritual encounters — in India. You had the great missionary up here; I hope you funded her. We're going to do our best to support everyone where we can. We have PIMs that we're paying, Baby Doll; we're trying to help people. But you have to realize, when they walk into a temple of Shiva, they are having a genuine spiritual encounter. It's just demonic. Maybe you need to talk to her and see the issues that she's facing over there. I'm going to tell you, they're having genuine spiritual encounters. Paul says in Corinthians, "Behind every idol is a demon spirit." But I'm going to tell you what we have: we have a unique book. We have a book different than every other holy book in the world, that vindicates that our encounter with God, our spiritual reality, is backed up by God, who's given us a forever settled word.

I wish I had time — I don't; you gave me time, but this is my ADD kicking in — but I wish I had time to pop open the Quran and show you all the scientific and medical and historical mistakes. I wish I could show you the myriad of times that it embraces the flat earth theory. Now, I understand, and I'm sympathetic, how an illiterate man named Muhammad could get that wrong in the seventh century. I'm sympathetic. But I don't know how an all-knowing God named Allah could get that wrong and put it in his book. I'm going to tell you, there's something different about our book. Brother Killmon, what does the Bible say when the Old Testament says, "He sits on the circle of the earth"? Literally, that means sphere. How did they know the earth was round? Because holy men of God wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

I really, man — I just want to go crazy. But that wonderful young lady, Brother Carson, came to Indiana Bible College, and she said this to the Lord: "I'm going to give You one year. If You are real, I'm going to give You one year." And she fell in love with classes like Science in the Bible and Christian Evidences. Why? Because it showed the truthfulness, the veracity — the fact that she can base her faith on something real.

All right, give me that next line. Everybody say, "Bad Bobby." Now, I don't mean this in any way other than probably just being a little snarky; I don't mean it to be mean. God bless everybody that's doing something to help people come out of alcoholism. I thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous, and Narcotics Anonymous, and all of the things that people are [doing]. Thank God for everybody who's trying to help people out of addiction. It's limited — that's the problem. But let's just say you're at Alcoholics Anonymous, and you say, "Well, I want to get out of this particular type of lifestyle." And you change your patterns of thinking. You change the places you go to. You get accountability in your life. And you stay out of bad friendships. And how many of you know, there are people that can quit drinking without Jesus? They can; they do. It's limited.

But I remember Brother Mullikin: they were just saying, like, "Okay, maybe you can just embrace some type of higher power, and that will help you." And maybe I don't believe in God — but it's a July in the Midwest, and I look outside, and I see this beautiful little red squirrel, and I say, "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to get up every morning, and I'm going to ask the squirrel to help me to quit drinking. Going to get up, have a little acorn devotionals." See, here's the problem with that change of discipline, and everything that comes along with that. I can say, "Look, I tried the squirrel, and it works for me." All right — you've got to have more than that.

And the beautiful thing is, the apostle Peter says, "We have a more sure word of prophecy," because what was prophesied was demonstrated true. You ready? The fact — Paul said, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, Brother Fuentes, we have no hope. Without the physical resurrection — without the fact that God can prophesy and vindicate His word — it means that we're left without the certainty of our belief.

Give me that next slide. Pray for the media team; they're just going to have to try to keep up. I'm going to give you what I'm going to call a defense for the Bible. When — number one — I'm going to give you something to consider. Big point. Give me that next slide: The Bible is a reliable record of historical documents. Okay, Brother Killmon, I'm not running yet. I want to run. Why? The apostle — is recorded as saying, Luke rather, saying — he says: "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order" — everybody say "in order" — "a declaration of those things which are most assuredly believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word." This isn't happenstance. We've done the research; we've looked; we've carefully studied. This isn't blind faith. "It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know" — on blind faith? Is that what the Bible says? — "that thou mightest know the certainty of the things, wherein thou hast been instructed."

Now, I'm going to tell you what God has done, is what Muhammad did not do. The Quran does not try to give predictive prophecy. Why? Because Muhammad knew, because he was steeped in the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, I would have flunked him at Indiana Bible College, because he plagiarized a whole lot of it. Turn to your neighbor and say, "Bad Bobby." God made His revelation falsifiable. God gave us His revelation in words. And all you have to do is start digging around in the dirt: and if you can prove the archaeology wrong, if you can prove the science wrong, you can prove this book is just another man-made invention. But I'm going to tell you, the archaeologist can't do it. I'm going to tell you, the professor can't do it. Every time they've tried to dismantle this book, we've been proven right again, and again, and again, because this book is forever settled.

I've got to get to where I need to go: it's historically validated. Give me that next slide. What do you mean by that? Let me give you some examples — these are just the tip of the iceberg. The biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah — all of these places, you know, [from] the father of faith — none of these were believed in history. We were made fun of, as Christians in modern history, for believing these things, until the 1960s. And in the 1960s, they found something called the Ebla tablets in Syria. And guess what? Sodom and Gomorrah were found. And guess what? You can believe the Bible again, Brother Flowers.

They would say, "Look — Moses, he couldn't write the Pentateuch. He was like a caveman; he was dragging his wife around by the hair, saying, 'Ugh.'" Sorry, Baby Doll. If you're keeping track, Brother Thomas, that's number two. All right. Now, what does that mean? He's dragging her around — there's no way that Moses could have written the Pentateuch; probably wasn't even a Moses — and all of these nonsensical approaches, and theologians that wrote their books and attacked the Bible. And guess what? The Ebla tablets show [writing] a thousand years before Moses, and they had a written language. And you can believe the Bible again. And you've got to throw away all of those lies in Old Testament books that's trying to dismantle the truth of God. I'm telling you, God has watched over His word, and we can believe the Bible again.

The Hittites are listed thirty-six times in the Old Testament. And one Old Testament professor said in 1884, "There's no evidence for a Hittite civilization." It's shown to be this massive civilization, and guess what? It's not there. But then the archaeologists, right after 1884 — guess what? They found massive evidence for a Hittite civilization. And guess what? You can believe the Bible again. I'm going to tell you, saint of God: what is your faith based on? That book is different than every other book in the world, and it vindicates the thing that we believe, and the experience that we've had.

Give me that next slide. Point number two: Not only do we have an historically accurate historical work — we have a writing written by eyewitnesses, in the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. The apostle Peter said, "We were eyewitnesses of His majesty." In 1 John chapter 1, verses 1 through 3: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled." See, what you have to understand is, people would say, "Well, they didn't even keep history the way we think of it." There's some conundrums out there today, and even some wonderful Apostolics are listening to the wrong people. And all due respect — I say that with as much love as possible — but what is our faith based on?

Now, there's a great man; his name is J. P. Moreland, a theologian. He says, "When you look at this language, this is a traditional rabbinical expert language." Now, what does that mean? That means, Brother Benson, if we're going to create the book of Benson, and you're going to be the Messiah, right? You're going to be the rabbi; you're going to pass your teachings on. What you would do is, you would find followers that would be your experts, that could teach what you believe after you're gone. Those are called rabbinical experts. And they have a technical language in New Testament time. And you know what it is? J. P. Moreland says they say things like this: "That which was from the beginning, which we have seen with our eyes, and which our hands have handled." What they're saying is, this isn't haphazard history. This isn't us trying to remember, Sister. It's Jesus's commissioned rabbinical experts, that's going to write down the very words of the Master.

But in the lifetime of other eyewitnesses — give me that next slide. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 5 through 8: the apostle Paul says that the resurrected Lord appeared to Peter, then to the twelve, and then to five hundred brethren at once. He says, most of whom remain until this time. And that means, if you wanted to lie and start your own religion, Brother Flowers, on the falsity that there was a Jesus who rose from the dead, the worst place to do that would be in Jerusalem, because it's falsifiable. And when you have people that say, "We believe" — and even skeptics will say that at the time of Paul's writing, there had to be at least a minimum three hundred eyewitnesses still alive — and they said, "We have seen the resurrected Lord." That's why you've got to take the witness seriously.

And they were willing to die for their faith. Most of them were martyred. Let's look at the big three. I'll just talk about Peter, James, and Paul. The apostle Peter — here he is, as a fisherman, and we're going to — "You're going to gain all of this influence, Peter, and you're going to have to die the worst death possible: crucifixion." Thank you, Brother Fuentes, for taking us down the road of what our Lord suffered. There was not even an English word to capture what that suffering was, so they invented a word; it's called "excruciating." That word literally means "out of the cross." All right, you ready, Peter? You get to be the leader, but you're going to have to die the worst death in human history. He said, "I'm willing to die, but you've got to do it upside down, because I'm not worthy to be crucified like my [Lord]." Why in the world would Peter be crucified, and die the worst death in human history possible? All he had to say is, "Sorry, guys, I was just kidding."

Willing to die. How about James? James, the half-brother of Jesus. Anybody got any siblings in the room? I know I've got some family over there. Who's got some siblings in the room? Sister Torch, you've got some siblings. All right. Do you think any one of them can be the sinless Messiah? Hardest people to convince are your family. Let me help a young person: sometimes the hardest person to convince about your call — that's okay. Jesus said — they said, "Okay, if You're the Messiah, You're going on up to the feast; come up. Not everybody — You're the Messiah; You're doing all these [works]. Go up to Jerusalem." Jesus says, "I go not up yet; My time is not yet." I've got to wait on the timing of the Lord. Thank you for the timing piece, Pastor. But James, when he sees the resurrected Lord — when he writes his epistle in the New Testament, he doesn't say, "James, the half-brother of Jesus Christ, the Messiah." He says, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." He says, "I don't even relate to Him after the flesh." And if you can convince your family, you can convince anybody.

How about the apostle Paul, trained by Gamaliel? You can look at Romans and Galatians and understand his intellectual level was so high. He could have been the next great teacher in Israel, for sure. He could have been aligned, maybe, to be the high priest, because he was under Caiaphas. He had dual citizenship, so the political arena was open to him in terms of influence. But are you ready? Paul gave all of that up, mostly to minister and have influence with slaves and freed men. Why would somebody give all of that up? I'm telling you: because they saw the resurrected Lord Jesus, and they said — everything else, Paul says, "I count all things but dung, that I may win Christ."

Brother Killmon, they were willing to die for their faith. Yeah, yeah. But other people will slam planes into towers. I get it. But there is a big difference between thinking you're going to get so many virgins by dying a martyr — you're going to — now, forgive me; I say this with as much grace as I can, because that religion does not assure anyone of salvation. Two angels follow you all your life; one counts the good, one counts the bad. And if the good outweighs the bad, you're saved. You can take the shortcut, though, by becoming a martyr. Now you understand the complexity. But I'm going to tell you, what they hope to be true is one thing; this is what the disciples died for: they died for what they knew to be true. Not what they hoped to be true. Not what some book lied and said is true. They said, "We saw Him," and they were willing to die for their faith.

Yeah. Give me that next slide. I'll just give you some examples, very quickly. Paul and James were both decapitated. Matthew was nailed to the ground and decapitated. Jude was beaten to death. Peter was crucified upside down. John Mark was dragged through the streets until he was dead. Luke was hanged, and Timothy was beaten to death by a mob. I'm going to tell you, all of them were willing to die these horrendous deaths. Why? Because they saw the resurrected Lord. You have a more sure word of prophecy, because these eyewitnesses can be trusted.

Three points, if you're keeping track. Now, here's my dilemma: I've got to teach you to be an amateur historian today. This is one of my absolute funnest things to teach. This is where I'm going to expose the lie. So I'm going to teach you some terms, because all I want you to do is to be able to defend this book. Now, I'm going to say something a little strong; just count it to Bad Bobby. Put in your notes: Bad Bobby. We cannot afford to be a great church for 1946. We have to be able to be the church in our time, required to give an answer of the hope that lies within us, to our times. You've got to be able to defend that this book is the word of God.

Now, here's the thing: there is so much evidence on our side, it's almost embarrassing. When people start to debate me, I feel bad — but they can't try. I just — I kind of feel a little — and I'm so bad, I'm like, "Let me give you a better argument, then let me shoot that one down." Bad Bobby.

Historiography. That's the study of ancient historical writings. "Graph" — that's what the Greek word means. Now, I'm going to give you the two components of testing a book of antiquity. We're going to test the Bible. Turn to your neighbor and say, "Test it." And we're going to look at how it compares to all the other books of antiquity, all the other ancient writings. Two tests. You ready? The first one is time from the original: from the time you write the book of Benson, to the earliest copy we can get to. Because books wear out, especially written on vellum and parchment — they wear out over time. How early can you get to the original writing? That tells you whether or not it's trustworthy. Test number two: how many copies do you have? All right, turn to your neighbor and say, "Sounds good." And then what we're going to do is look at those two tests, and we're going to compare it to the Bible. Turn to your neighbor and say, "God help him." This is where you should start feeling sorry for the professor.

All right, let's look at historiography. Give me that test. You got it. Beautiful. Test number one: time from the original. This is what every historian will say: that when you look at the writings of, like, Pliny the Younger, that's 750 years after the original writing — so the earliest copy we have is 750 years after that writing. Or you look at the writings of Caesar, or Plato, or Aristotle — anywhere from a thousand to fourteen hundred years later. Western civilization is written — Brother Lopez — it's written on those documents; it's founded on those documents. But nobody is storming the halls of universities because they're teaching Aristotle. Why? Because Aristotle doesn't command you to do things. We're going to get there.

Sophocles — there's a good name for your son, if you ladies need a name — Sophocles, Euripides, or Catullus: all of these ancient historians are fourteen, fifteen, sixteen hundred years [removed]. Pick up that next slide for me. Now look at the slide. This is a timeline. When you look at the writings of Catullus, every historian says, "Pretty good; pretty trustworthy." When you look at Euripides, or Aristotle, or Caesar — great. When you look at Pliny, man, that's amazing. How close can we get to the New Testament? Massive. There is a book called Eyewitness to Jesus. There was a man named Peter Thiede, who has a book writing about the Magdalen Papyrus. Now, I get excited about this; I understand. Turn to your neighbor and say, "He really is a nerd." I love the truth. But Peter Thiede says, "Hey, I'm looking at that manuscript. This is what I do. I have this certain type of microscope, and it's a laser ocular kind of setup, and it scans and looks at the type of parchment, the style of the writing, and I can tell." He says, "Man, you say [it's] from the 300s. This is not from the 300s." He says, "This is actually from the 60s." This is a portion of the Gospels from the time of the apostles.

Okay. What are you saying, Brother Killmon? When the history professor says you can't trust the Bible as history, he just worked himself out of a job, because in terms of time from the original, there is nothing like the Bible in history. It is absolutely number one, with no close second.

Give me that next slide. Just push me. I will give it to you this way — I like word pictures. In the first two hundred years, we have well over sixty New Testament manuscripts. Everybody say, "Two hundred years." That's three times what you can produce of the other ancient works in two thousand years. Now tell me, Mr. Professor, why can't I believe the Bible again? Is it because of the evidence? No. No, no, no, no. It's because something in your heart is turning away from the evidence, because you don't want to acknowledge that that book has been preserved by God.

Test number two: how many manuscripts do you have? Here's what a history professor would say: anywhere between ten and two hundred manuscripts — everybody say "trustworthy." Give me that; I'll give you some examples. Give me that next slide. The writings of Caesar — he has different writings — and about ten is the average per [work] of his writing. Plato's Tetralogies: we have about seven of those. And Tacitus's Annals of history: we have about twenty. Again, Pliny the Younger: 750 [years]; it's a good number, but we only have seven. Tough, but probably true. They would say Thucydides, Suetonius. Herodotus is the father of modern history, and we only have about eight of his works. Sophocles, [Livy?], Euripides, Demosthenes, Aristophanes, and Aristotle's Poetics — and again, there's forty-nine of those. Demosthenes, man — two hundred, around; there's a little argument, but around two hundred. That's pretty amazing. Everybody say, "Trustworthy."

How many New Testament manuscripts do you have? Give me that next slide: 24,633. And it's growing all the time. I wish we had — Jesus said, "Go make disciples of all nations." Ethne means ethnics, or ethnic groups. And in the first century you have the Bible translated into Latin, and Coptic, and Syriac, and all sorts of other languages. I'm going to tell you, God preserved His word, and spread His word, and let His word be so preserved, in such a pervasive way, it could not be corrupted over time. Turn to your neighbor and say, "We win again." All due respect to the history professor.

Now, not only do we win, we win so bad it's embarrassing. So what's — I'll prove it to you. What is the number two book, in terms of number of manuscripts, that is closest to the New Testament? It's written — maybe some of you've heard this before, and maybe had to read it in high school. It's called the Iliad. There was about nine hundred and some, just a few years ago. In Egypt they found a treasure trove and found some more; it's up to 1,757. That is the second. Have you ever seen somebody in a race, and they're so far behind they think they're ahead? Give me that next slide. This is what it looks like: We have 24,633. By the time you get all the translations, we're upwards of 40,000 manuscripts. And the number two is 1,757. And I can't trust the Bible in terms of history? Tell me, Professor, what's wrong in your heart, that you won't look at the truth? What's wrong in your heart, that you won't acknowledge the truth and come to repentance, and acknowledge the Lord of the book?

Let me give you another word picture. Give me that next slide, please. Thank you so much; I owe you dinner. When you look at the writings of, like, Demosthenes, or even the Iliad — by the time you stack the manuscripts of the Iliad up, that's only about four feet tall. But if you stack up all the copies of Scripture, it would be over a mile high. You hear me, young person? Your faith is not based on just feeling and emotionalism. This book is like no other book in history. You hear me? It vindicates your experience. That's why we're Apostolic Pentecostal. We are Pentecostal in experience, but we're Apostolic in doctrine, because God has given us a sure word of prophecy.

Just push me back there; I've got to land. Tacitus — his Annals of history, written about 100 BC; the earliest copy we have is 850. There you go. If you're in a scriptorium, where they store scrolls, each one of those little dots would represent a scroll, a copy. All right, you've got the picture. The writings of Herodotus — his works of history, written about 480 BC; the earliest copy we have is 900. We have 109 of those particular copies. All right, give me that next slide. You have Plato's Tetralogies and his other writings; you have tons of those; you've got about 210. Give me that next slide. You've got Caesar's Gallic Wars — everything we know about Caesar — and it's 251 copies. All right. Homer's [Iliad] — there it is: 1,757. Now give me the next one. Give me the New Testament: 1,000. 5,000. Give me that next slide: 10,000. Give me that next slide: 15,000. Give me that next slide: 20,000. Give me that next slide: 24,633. Give me that next slide. That's what it looks like.

You telling me the facts don't speak for themselves? Can I be just a little controversial? Facts don't care about your feelings. You've got to surrender your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. You've got to acknowledge it's not a fact issue; it's a blindness-of-heart issue. But if you'll put your hand in the hand of the God of the book, He will guide your life into blessing. Never, never, never be intimidated by the culture. God has given us a forever settled word.

Please be seated. Tell your neighbor he's crazy. The geographical spread, the multiplicity of witnesses — God watched over His word. When that little girl came over from Ohio, Brother Carson, she fell in love with the truth, and the truth vindicated her experience; she already had it.

I had a missionary son — I want to say this very carefully. He's an alumnus. He was at Indiana Bible College. We were meeting at General Conference, and he and his wife are now on the mission field, doing really wonderful things for the Lord. He said to me, "Brother Killmon, I loved what I experienced in the church." He said, "But I was always afraid, if I started searching to see if this was different — I was afraid I couldn't find answers. I knew I would become an atheist." He said, "But you ready? When you started teaching things in the school, and the other professors started teaching me about the Bible, my faith was vindicated." And I said to him — I'll call his name Joe, because that's not his name — I said, "Josie, you came from a position of trying, trepidatiously, to affirm the faith that you believed was true." I said, "I was kind of on the other side of that: I knew what I believed was true, but I wanted to be able to share it with people, so that they can take steps of faith."

You hear me? There are people that are saying, "I want to believe — but which religion?" And there's so much complexities and lies, and I've heard so much about the Bible — and what you've got to say is, "Let me just tell you about this book. Let me just tell you that this book is not like any other book in the world." The Book of Mormon is filled with historical inaccuracies. Brother Killmon, do you have one? Yep — and it's marked up. I've got a Quran, and it's marked up. I've got it tabbed, where I have commonality, so I can say, "Here's what you believe, and I believe, and we believe the same things about Jesus and Mary, and here's our starting points." But up on the top, I've got all these red tabs that say, "What do you do with these mistakes?" You've got to be able to defend the ground of your faith.

I'll close. Give me that next slide — one with this. But Brother Killmon, couldn't the Bible have been changed over time, like the game of telephone, or worse, intentionally? I want to help you today. There is a modern liberal myth, that overzealous monks got together and decided to change the Bible over time, to match the vast majority of witnesses. Now, Brother Killmon, what are you talking about — micro or macro differences in the text? I know that's a term, but, Brother Lopez: we're not talking about micro — flipping letters and doubling words, and you've got a whole family of manuscripts, and they all match, except one of them's got a double letter. Oh — mistake. No: it was in the scriptorium, where long "a" will sound like the Greek two-letter word, the diphthong, and we even know, okay, it sounds the same. So we get the copyist errors that are easy. No — now listen, that's off the table. But if you wanted to change the doctrine — if you wanted to say, instead of "God was manifest in the flesh" (theos), if you want to change it to hos — "he who" — I get that, because a Gnostic didn't like the fact that Jesus had a physical body. His problem is, he's got to travel all over the world to change that. I'll prove it to you.

Three levels of translation conspiracy. The first one would be the level of the Greek manuscripts. We have over 6,000 — what, around 5,600; the Eastern Orthodox Church is sitting on 1,100 more. And if you wanted to change the Bible, you would have to do it to them all, because one way God has protected His word is to allow that geographical spread over the entire church. So when Tertullian's trying to change stuff about the Godhead, even one of his own protégés says, "That's not how the Greek reads" — the students correct the professor. Now, what does that mean, Brother Killmon? It means, if you're going to do that, you've got to travel all over the Greek world, never show your ink work, and never get caught, changing 6,000 times. That's some serious ninja skills. I apologize for the illustration: you've got to creep into all other places. Now, here it is: you open your Greek Bible, and maybe you're reading — you know, the Greek for John 1 — or you're reading Acts 2:38, and there it is: "Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you" — scratch, scratch, scratch — and write up in the margin, "in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." You think you'd notice that? We can see when that happens. And you've got to do that 6,000 times, and not get caught.

But that's only level one. Remember I told you Jesus said, "Go make disciples of all people." So in the first century, two, a couple of centuries, three, we have 24,633, and then by the time you get beyond that, 40,000 — Syriac, Coptic, Latin. You've got to travel all over the world, never show your ink work, and never get caught. Turn to your neighbor and say, "That's crazy." There's a great Greek word for that; it's called hogwash.

But that's only level two, folks. Then you have level three. Even Bruce Metzger — who I would consider not in our alignment on some issues, but the admission is powerful — he says 95% of the New Testament can be recovered just from the citations of the early church fathers. These early preachers quoted the Bible — imagine that. How many citations, Brother Killmon? 86,000-plus. So you've got to change — you ready? — you've got to change the 6,000 Greek, the 24,633 in the translations, upwards of 40,000 later in history, and the 86,000 citations of the early church fathers. Never show your ink work, and never get caught. God has watched over His word.

So here's the thing: when you go into the culture, and you hear oppositions against the Bible, discern — this is a heart issue. Two most powerful verses in the Scriptures that stun me: the Bible says that there were the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and Jesus's word was there, present to heal them. They weren't open. Jesus heals a blind man from birth — hear me, hear me — and He tells the blind man, "Don't tell everybody, because there are blind people walking around." Brother Lopez, the Pharisees hear it, and they say, "Are you saying we're blind?" They knew what Jesus was saying. He says, "You say you see, so I cannot heal you." Blind hearts shouldn't rob you of this book.

God has watched over His word. How many of you are glad that your experience, your encounter with God, is vindicated by a book that's above every other book? Could you just pause for a moment and thank Him for His word? Everything we have, God, is a result of this book. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. How shall they hear without a preacher?" God has watched over His word, and our faith is strong. Amen.