The
introductory text for our
lesson is found in John 12:48:
"He that rejecteth me, and
receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have
spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day."
Those were words that
Jesus spoke during His ministry on Earth. He said there is coming a
day when everyone who ever lived is going to face a judgment. He also
stated that the words He had spoken were going to do the judging at that
time. Jesus spoke those words roughly 1985 years ago give or take.
This is not the only place Jesus made mention of a day of judgment.
In
John 5:28-29, we have a record of Jesus teaching, "Marvel not at this:
for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear
his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the
resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of
damnation." So from these two verses of scripture we have a day of
judgment, we have an hour in the future when this is going to begin, we have
a resurrection with only two possible outcomes, one of life and one of
damnation. How long does this life and this damnation last?
Jesus tells us in Matthew
25:46, "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the
righteous into life eternal." Damnation is everlasting.
The word everlasting comes from the Greek word
ai)w/nio$
aionios (ahee-o'-nee-os).
It
means 'eternal, for ever'. And on the other side we have the
resurrection of life which Jesus said is "Eternal life". So we have
Eternal punishment and we have eternal life. And one of these two
destinies are going to be received by each and every person who ever lived
and the words Jesus spoke are going be the deciding factor in that decision.
So... Where did Jesus get
these words? Were these
words of His own choosing or did He get the words that would judge all
mankind from someone else? One verse after our introductory text, Jesus goes on to tell us where He got the words. in John 12:49, "For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent
me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak."
So we see from all of this Jesus Christ, acting under the authority of God
the Father gave mankind the words that would be used to judge us all in the
last day?
Jesus spent about 3 1/2 years on His earthly ministry. His primary
companions on His earthly ministry were the 12 men who came to be known as
the Apostles. These men spent all that time with Jesus and during that
time He taught and prepared them for the duty of evangelizing after He returned to
Heaven. In Matthew 28:18-20 we have a record of what Jesus commanded
them just before He returned to Heaven:
"All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and
teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have
commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
Amen."
What if these men forgot
something? What if they left something out? Jesus assures them
in John 14:26, "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the
Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all
things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."
Nothing is going to be left out. The Holy Ghost is going to make sure
of that. Jesus told His disciples that the Holy Ghost was going to
come down from Heaven and He was going to teach them and help them to
remember everything He taught them. Nothing is going to be left out.
Nobody was going to forget anything important.
So now we have a
picture of all three members of the Godhead working together to make sure
the words that
are going to be used to judge us would be available to the first century
Christians. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.
God the Father gave the commandment to Jesus who then gave it to His
disciples and then returned to Heaven after His death on the cross and then
the Holy Ghost came down and made sure the word was remembered by the men
that Jesus taught. God the Father is the originator of the words that
would judge us. Jesus Christ is the Executor of the words. The
Bible refers to Him in John 1:1 as the Word of God: "In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Skipping down to verse 14 we read,
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" Jesus is God
the Son. He came to bring the words of God the Father directly to the
disciples and to offer Himself as a sacrifice for man's sin. God the
Father was the originator, God the Word, in the form of Jesus Christ came
and executed God's plan and gave the words He received from God the Father
to the disciples. Then after Jesus returned to Heaven, God the Holy
Ghost communicated, taught and brought to remembrance the words Jesus taught
directly to His disciples.
Is the Holy Ghost
God? In Acts 5 we read of the account of the deaths of Ananias and
Saphira. They sold a piece of land and when they gave the money from
the sale to the church they kept some of it back for themselves. Where
they messed up was that when they gave the money to the disciples, they told
them that the amount they gave was the total amount from the sale.
They lied about it. And it cost them
their lives. Significant to this lesson is what Peter said to Ananias
right before his death.
In Acts 5:3-4, we read, "But Peter said,
Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to
keep back part of the price of the land. Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast
thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but
unto God." In verse 3 Peter accused him of lying to the Holy Ghost.
In verse 4, Peter said, you lied to God. When Ananias and Saphira lied
to the Holy Ghost, they lied to God. The Holy Ghost therefore is God.
What we need to take from
this is that God was in charge of the whole thing from start to finish and
was active in every aspect of it. All of the participation in
the communication of God's instructions to man
were carried out by God. Nothing was left out.
The giving of the word of God
was a matter of divine accomplishment throughout the proces
s.
In 2 Peter 1:3, Peter wrote, "According as his divine power hath given
unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the
knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue" Nothing
was left out. The Christians in the first century had everything that
pertained to life and Godliness by divine accomplishment through and
through.
The Title of this lesson is
"Where are the directions". The people living in the first century had
the directions. They had all the directions. The directions came
from God, the plan was set into place by God, and the directions were given
to man by God. God originated it. God executed it. God
communicated it. Nothing was left out.
So, how did the directions
which came directly from God, get from the first century Christians to 21st
century Christians?
Easy. They wrote them
down. They recorded those words in the only way that was available in
the first century. Through written language. So we know they had
all the directions then how do we know they got them all written down?
Nothing was left out of what they needed then. Is anything essential left out of what
was recorded?
Paul wrote a couple of
letters to Timothy that we know about. In one of them he wrote
something that is very significant
to this subject. In 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Paul wrote these words, "All
scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man
of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."
Let's look at the key
elements of that verse...
"All scripture"...
Not some of it, not part of it, but all of it.
"is given by inspiration
of God" This literally means 'God breathed'.
Scripture doesn't come from the mind of man. What was recorded
by the writers of the New Testament came from God. Paul wrote in 1
Corinthians 14:37, "If any man think himself to be a prophet, or
spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the
commandments of the Lord." In Galatians 1:11-12, Paul wrote, "But I certify you, brethren, that
the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received
it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ."
The same God that delivered the instructions to the first century Christians
also made sure it was written down and recorded correctly. God was in charge.
God was making sure it was being recorded per His specifications.
Back to the text: "and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect". Perfect,
meaning complete. Nothing left out; Nothing missing;
Nothing lacking; Complete; "that the man of God may be perfect".
Nothing essential has been left out.
"throughly furnished"
Fully equipped; Fitted; Thoroughly furnished. Nothing left out.
" unto all good works...
All...good works. None left out.
So now we know that the first
century Christians had everything they needed for a life of Godliness.
And we see that what was recorded as scripture had the same divine stamp of
completion and perfection, how do we know that what we hold in our hands
today is the same thing that was received by God in the first century?
How do we know nothing has been changed? How do we know nothing has
been left out? How can we be sure we have everything we need today?
There are a number of ways we
can go about answering that question. First, let's look at history and
how God preserved the old testament law. It was written by Moses
roughly 1400 years before Christ. After Alexander the Great conquered
the known world, the Greeks began assimilating all of the nations they
conquered into the Greek culture. This was a process known as
Hellenizing. The Greek language became the common tongue of the known
world. As a result of this, the OT scriptures written in ancient
Hebrew were translated into the Greek language. This Greek translation
of the Law of Moses was known as the Septuagint. Jesus Christ even
quoted from it during His earthly ministry. What we need to
understand from this is that throughout the history of the Israelite nation,
God preserved the Law of Moses.
God brought it through the
judges of Israel. He preserved it through the kings of Israel, both
good and bad and through all their wars. What is significant is that
there were times when Israel all but abandoned God, yet His word was
preserved. When King Hezekiah restored temple worship roughly 700
years before Christ, he used the law of Moses as the guide.
When the Babylonians
finished destroying Jerusalem, there was barely anything left. The
temple was ransacked and destroyed. When the captives were
allowed to return to Jerusalem, Ezra used the law of Moses to restore temple
worship after the temple was rebuilt. Babylon fell to the Median
Empire, which fell to the Persian Empire, which fell to the Greek Empire
which fell to the Roman Empire. Throughout all of the wars that
accompanied these hostile takeovers, God preserved the Old Testament
scriptures. When a 12 year old Jesus Christ was questioning the temple
scholars in Jerusalem about the law of Moses, it was the same law of Moses
that was delivered 1400 years before that. God preserved His word
throughout the history of the Israelite nation.
Then, in the first century
AD, the new covenant comes along. Now is God going to be any
less protective of the new covenant than He was the old? Well, let's
look at some facts.
There are presently
5,686 Greek manuscripts in existence today for the New Testament.
In addition, there are over 19,000
copies in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages. The total
supporting New Testament manuscript base is over 24,000. Because of
the vast number of manuscripts, we can do an extensive amount of cross
checking for accuracy. The
internal consistency of the New Testament documents we have at present is
about 99.5% textually pure. And the few differences that do exist are
insignificant to the message of the gospel. In other words, there are
no doctrinal conflicts.
If the critics of
the Bible dismiss the New Testament as reliable information, then they must
also dismiss the reliability of the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Caesar,
Homer, and other ancient authors. This is because the New Testament
documents are better-preserved and more numerous than any other ancient
writings. If we acknowledge the historicity and writings of
those other individuals, then we must also retain the historicity and
writings of the New Testament authors; after all, the evidence for the New
Testament's reliability is far greater than the others. The Christian has
substantially superior criteria for affirming the New Testament documents
than he does for any other ancient writing. It is good evidence on which to
base our trust in the reliability of the New Testament.
Now, in addition to this, the
early church writers who lived in the first couple of centuries following
Christ quoted a lot of scripture in their writings. Justin Martyr,
Irenaeus, Papias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement of Rome, Mathetes,
Hermas, Tatian, Theophilus, just to name a few. They quoted from
scripture so extensively in their writings that even if every single
manuscript and copy of the Bible were suddenly destroyed, the entire New
Testament, with the exception of only a handful of verses, could be restored
from their writings.
Some critics might try and
say that we don't have the originals so we can't know for sure. We
don't have any of the original autographs of Plato, Aristotle, Caesar,
Homer, and other ancient authors either. Plato wrote his stuff
in 427-347 B.C. The earliest record of any manuscripts of his writings
comes from 900 AD. That's about a 1200 year difference. Caesar:
roughly a thousand years between his writings and the earliest known
manuscript. Aristotle: about 1400 years. The list goes on
and on.
So let's apply this same test
to the New Testament scripture. We have fragments of the gospel of
John dating back to 125 AD. We have a whole bunch of manuscript
fragments dating back as far as 200 AD or earlier. That's a minor
difference compared to the centuries between the writings of other
historical figures. If we are going to discount the validity of the
scriptures based on the lack of the original autographs, then if we are
going to be consistent, we have to reject all of the writings of all of the
ancient historical authors who aren't even in the same ball park in a
comparison of the time between the original writing and the latest extant
manuscript.
Conclusion: God
preserved the old law through feast, famine, captivity, poverty, wars and
millennia of time. We still have them today 2000 years after Christ
walked the earth. God has likewise preserved the New Testament
through the feasts, famines, wars, crusades, plagues and dark ages of 2
millennia. God has been no less diligent with the preservation of the New
Testament than He was with the Law of Moses. When we hold our Bibles
today, we can be 100% confident that we are holding in our hands an accurate
and complete record of the word of God.
Nothing was left out in the
first century. Nothing is left out in the 21st century.
2 Timothy 3:16-17, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto
all good works."
How can we know it is
inspired? How can we know it came from God? God had ways of
authenticating Himself. He did this through signs, wonders and
miracles. Jesus healed the sick, made the blind see, made cripples
walk and raised the dead. But these signs and wonders were done for
the ones standing there as much as anyone else. What about those of us
who never got to see the signs, wonders and miracles which served to
authenticate the words of the speakers? Do we just take it on faith
that these authors were really inspired and were really writing the truth?
How can we be sure in our faith that the word of God really came from God?
God is an eternal being. As
such He is not constrained to time as we are. God possesses the
ability to look ahead in time and tell us what is going to happen in the
future. Man cannot do that. Now let's be clear, there are all
kinds of so-called prophets who have claimed to be able to do this.
And no doubt there are some who get it right from time to time. Call
it an informed prediction or call it blind luck, they'll get one right here
and there. But only God can look down the corridors of time and see what
is going to happen with 100% accuracy. Let's take a look at a few that
are just too compelling to ignore. There are prophecies in the Bible
that just cannot be simply explained away or disregarded.
Open with me to Psalm 22 in
your Bibles please and let's take a look at one of these prophecies.
King David was undergoing some trials in life which he wrote about.
Just for the record, King David lived about 900 years before Christ walked
the Earth.
Psalm 22 starts
with the words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
Those words sound familiar don't they? We've all heard those before.
Those were the words Jesus cried from the cross right before He died.
Almost this entire Psalm is a Messianic foretelling of the crucifixion of
Christ but in particular let's focus on verses 13-18, which read, "
13 They gaped upon me with
their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like
water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted
in the midst of my bowels.
15 My strength is dried up
like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me
into the dust of death.
16 For dogs have compassed
me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and
my feet.
17 I may tell all my
bones: they look and stare upon me.
18 They part my garments
among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
When Jesus Christ was crucified, they spiked him to the
cross through the hands and feet. They stripped him naked and cast
lots for his garments. The horrific imagery of suffering in
David's Psalm are the symptoms of a crucifixion. People who are
crucified cannot exhale with the weight of their bodies hanging on their
outstretched arms. In order to breath, the victim has to pull himself
up with his arms and push up with their feet and hold themselves up long
enough to catch a few breaths of air and then collapse back again into a
position where it is impossible to get enough breath to live. This
goes on until the victim is too weak to sustain this and dies of exhaustion
asphyxiation. That's why their legs of the two thieves crucified with
Jesus were broken. They wanted to speed things along so by breaking
their legs, the victims were no longer able to use their legs to pick
themselves up for those breaths of air. Death came quickly after that.
All of the suffering conditions David wrote of in that passage were symptoms
of a crucifixion.
Now I ask you. How could David have chosen the
words "they pierced my hands and my feet." and "They part
my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." without a little divine assistance? How would a man who lived 900
years before Christ was pierced through the hands and the feet and had His
clothing distributed by casting lots on them know to write these words?
The answer.. He couldn't have.
How about Isaiah 53:3-12
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from
him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our
sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was
bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and
with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned
every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us
all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he
opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a
sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who
shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the
living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the
rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit
in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put
him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall
see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall
be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for
he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the
great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured
out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he
bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Isaiah wrote those words about 700 years before all of the things he
said in this prophecy happened to Jesus Christ. How could he know that
all on his own? And to make it even more compelling, if the Christian
religion were some kind of a hoax, then the architects of that hoax began
planning it thousands of years before it ever happened. And to dream
up a hoax that ended with the death of their champion? How could
Isaiah have known Jesus was going to do that? How did David know that
Jesus would have his hands and feet pierced?
There are roughly 400 messianic prophecies that provide details of
Jesus that no one could have possibly known without divine knowledge.
Isaiah 7:14, "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a
virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."
Just a lucky guess or a hoax 700 years in the making?
The Bible is full of this kind of stuff. The scriptures as we
have them could not exist without the direction of someone who was able
to foresee the future with unerring accuracy. No man is capable of
such a feat. No group of men are capable of such a feat.
There's too much time involved and only an eternal God who can see ahead for
centuries could explain what we have in scripture. God has left His
fingerprints all over the Bible for anyone who wishes to see it.
Where are the Directions?
God made sure the Christians had them in first century. They had
them all. Nothing was left out.
God made sure those directions were written down. All of them.
Nothing we need was left out.
God made sure those directions were preserved for all who would come
after. All of them. Nothing we need was left out.
God planned it, executed it, confirmed it, recorded it and preserved
it. He has had his hand in this from the beginning and all throughout
the centuries. When it comes to the directions, God's got this
covered. And as such, we can put our trust in it. We can live
our lives by it. We can be absolutely sure and absolutely confident
that the directions we have in the word of God today are the directions we
need. We can live our lives according to the word of God with absolute
assurance and confidence that the words that are going to judge us in the
last day are the same words we have in our possession right now. The
scriptures we have today came from the mind of God, were delivered by God,
communicated by God, authenticated by God, written down by God and preserved
by God to this very day.
So it is with supreme confidence that I stand before you today and
quote James 1:21, "Wherefore lay apart
all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the
engrafted word, which is able to save your souls."
John 17:17, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word
is truth."
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