The Bible /You can trust the Holy Bible

[0:00] Luke 4, verse 4, it says, And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

[0:15] Now it's interesting, some Bibles cut out those last few words. But by every word of God. Some Bibles cut that out, which is a real shame because that's the whole point of the verse.

[0:29] That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. The Bible is a treasured, trustworthy book. It's treasured, it's trustworthy.

[0:42] We can count on it because it's come from God. It says in Isaiah 66, verse 2, To this man will I look even to him that is of a poor and contrite spirit and trembleth at my word.

[0:56] We need to have a confidence in God's word that we can rest on its promises. We can rely on its truth and on the complete assurance that we have that this is God's true and absolute word.

[1:09] That we can heed and obey. We can have absolute confidence in the precious pages of the Holy Scriptures. It's sacred, absolute truth. There's no need for doubt.

[1:21] We can be firmly convinced of the reliability of this book. It's reliable and it's trustworthy. It's the revelation of God. It's not something that we should hold lightly, but reverently and prayerfully.

[1:33] Like that scripture says, that we should tremble at the word of God. We should take it very seriously and very solemnly. It's superior to all other books. It offers eternal benefits that no other book can give.

[1:46] It reveals the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners and the blessedness of believers. We believe in the divine inspiration of the Bible.

[2:00] It's divinely inspired. It says that the scriptures are given by inspiration of God. In 2 Timothy 3 verse 16. Some 45 human authors over a period of some 1500 years put into writing exactly what God wants us to know about himself, who he is, what he has done, what he is doing now and what he will do into the future.

[2:28] The Bible, though physically penned by man, is the inspired, God-breathed word of God. Chosen man just recorded what he said.

[2:38] The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord.

[2:50] Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. This verse tells us they are pure words. God's words are pure. They have a wonderful purity, like silver tried, purified even seven times.

[3:06] They are preserved. It tells us that God promises us a preservation of the scriptures of his words. They will be kept, preserved forever. God has promised that his word will be kept, preserved forever.

[3:21] Let's look at some truth about God's word together. As we flip through, some more truth about God's word. God's word has a purity. It says in Proverbs 30 verse 5, every word of God is pure.

[3:35] He is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Psalm 119 says, thy word is very pure. Therefore thy servant loveth it.

[3:46] God's word is totally pure. What is the opposite of pure? Impure. Impure. Impure. Impure. Or corrupt. God's word is either pure or it's corrupt.

[3:59] And the Bible certainly promises us, it assures us, that we can know for sure his word is pure. Now in the word of God, in 2 Corinthians 2 verse 17, it talks of some who corrupt the word of God.

[4:13] It's got the sense of adulterate, of mix something with it that is impure. It was used of tavern keepers who mixed wine with water to dilute it and water it down.

[4:26] God's word is not something that we should take lightly. And the Bible says some corrupt the word of God, they adulterate it, they dilute the word of God and its authority.

[4:37] And there's a danger there. We shouldn't change the word of God. It tells of some in Romans 1 verse 25 that they changed the truth of God into a lie. We shouldn't change the word of God.

[4:49] We shouldn't subtract from the word of God. Take words and sentences out of it. And we shouldn't add to the word of God. You know, some would subtract from the word. The scholars in Alexandria who took various scriptures out of the word of God.

[5:04] Various texts, phrases, words in quite a significant degree. They changed the word of God. They subtracted from the word of God. And there's also some that have added to the word of God.

[5:17] Some, as Rome has done, and tradition and the Apocrypha, they have added books to the Bible. Books which are not books of the canon of scripture. In other words, books that have not been tested and tried by the church of the day.

[5:34] They have been added to various books called the Apocryphal books. And so we need to be wary about adding to the word of God too. But friends, today we hold in our hands the Bible, the Holy Bible.

[5:46] God says it's inerrant. The word inerrant means it's totally without error or mistake. If we declare something to be God's word, it must be inerrant.

[5:58] Otherwise, it cannot be truly called the word of God. Secondly, the word of God, we hold that the Bible is infallible. It's infallible. That means it's absolutely incapable of failing.

[6:13] It is completely trustworthy. We can state our life, our soul, our destiny on the promises of this book, of these pages. We can count its promises personal and true.

[6:26] It's infallible. It's like God. God cannot fail. He is reliable. And the word of God is infallible. It means it is totally true, precise and trustworthy without error in every part.

[6:40] And I believe that there is truly a pure, authentic, real, true, genuine word of God available for us, accurately translated in our language.

[6:52] Not an imitation or a counterfeit, but the real, reliable word of God. Martin Luther said, who used the same text to translate the Luther Bible, as we hold in the King James Bible, the Luther Bible is substantially the very same book as we hold in our hands, other than it being in the German language.

[7:16] Martin Luther said, God's word of itself is pure, clean, bright and clear. God's word is pure. John Wesley said, I am a Bible bigot.

[7:28] I follow it in all things, both great and small. There is a Bible that we can trust wholeheartedly. The Bible says, in his written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

[7:41] One Bible says, we live by every word of God. Others leave this part out. Which one is the inerrant, infallible word of God? Another example is in Colossians 1, verse 14.

[7:55] It says, in whom we have redemption through his blood. Even the forgiveness of sins. It says, in one Bible, we have redemption through his blood.

[8:12] Others leave out through his blood. This is a very serious omission in this important verse. Has someone tampered with the word of God? Who would have taken the blood of Christ out of God's word?

[8:28] Some. Sadly, there are some Bibles today that have been corrupted or diluted. Another verse we see is that second one on the screen.

[8:39] 1 Timothy 3, verse 16. It says, in one Bible, we read in the King James, God was manifest in the flesh. Others leave out this truth.

[8:50] It's a very serious omission. That's why we as a church hold to the King James Bible. The text on which it is translated. God was revealed in the flesh. Others leave this out.

[9:02] Why would they leave out this precious truth? To dilute this essential truth that God has come in the flesh. Has it been corrupted? I believe some texts, some of the foundational texts, some of the modern Bibles certainly have been corrupted.

[9:20] And it's a dangerous thing. It's a serious matter. It is important. And there are many instances we could cite also of this fact. Friends, today we have the wonderful assurance that the Bible we hold in our hands is a wonderful Bible.

[9:36] As God has promised that He will preserve His Word. God's Word is preserved. He says, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

[9:47] That's Matthew 24, verse 35. Back in Genesis 3, the devil started his attack on the very Word of God. In Genesis chapter 3, the devil came to Adam and Eve.

[10:00] And the devil questioned. Yea, ha, God said. You can hear the smile and the smirk in his voice as he hissed it out.

[10:11] Yea, hath God said. Casting doubt on God's Word. And sadly today, in universities, I know friends of mine have been affected by intellectual questioning, of doubting, casting doubt on the Word of God.

[10:26] It's a hostile action that the enemy is still on the warpath against God's Word today. But we believe that God's Word has been preserved. It is held for us in the English language.

[10:37] It has been cared for and safeguarded, despite the various attacks against it down through church history. And it says in Matthew 5, verse 18. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.

[11:00] Now in the Hebrew language, like a jot and a tittle would be, in a way, a very insignificant little punctuation mark. Perhaps we could compare it to an apostrophe or a comma or a full stop.

[11:15] That God takes His Word so seriously in the detail of it, the fine and intricate detail of His Word, that He tells us that God is interested in that detail and that it will be preserved.

[11:29] The grass withereth, the flower cladeth. But the Word of our God shall stand forever. God has promised it to you and to me, that He will preserve His Word.

[11:41] He will take care of it, He will look after it, and He will give us it in our language, that we can hold faithful and true and rely upon it. Luther said, my conscience has been taken captive by the Word of God.

[11:55] And to go against conscience or Scripture is neither right nor safe. We must stand with conviction on the Word of God. We must stand squarely and truly upon it for God's truth and be valiant for it.

[12:09] Someone wrote this, they said, Century follows century, but there it stands. Empires rise and fall and are forgotten, but there it stands.

[12:20] Dynasty follows dynasty, but there it stands. Kings are crowned and uncrowned, but there it stands. Storms of hate swell about it. Emperors decree its extermination.

[12:33] Atheists rail against it, but there it stands. Agnostics smile cynically. Unbelief abandons it. Higher critics deny its claims, but there it stands.

[12:44] The flames have kindled around it. Infidels predict its abandonment. Modernists try to explain it away, but praise God, there it stands.

[12:56] The Word of God stands and is preserved. And it stands preserved by the hand of Almighty God. Now, this may come as a surprise to some, but I'd like to go into some of the detail of the history of the Word of God.

[13:14] The history of the Word of God today, we know there's various texts available in various remnants and fragments. It's essentially, effectively, what would be considered to be two streams of manuscripts.

[13:27] The Bibles that we have translated in our world today. Two streams, two kinds. One came from a place called Antioch.

[13:37] A place called Antioch. This was where the disciples were first called Christians. It tells us in Acts 11, verse 26. In Antioch, this was where Paul started his missionary journeys.

[13:51] This is the King James Bible text. The other stream came from a place called Alexandria in Egypt, where corruption, idolatry, pagan worship, and false doctrines prevailed.

[14:08] Two streams, two places, two places that these various streams of manuscripts originated from. And it is a fact, friends today, it is a fact that most modern versions of the Bible are actually based on about 50 Greek manuscripts.

[14:29] Antioch, we see there, that's where the disciples were first called Christians. This is where they were persecuted and hounded for their faith and bled and died in the flames for their faith and trust in God's holy word in Antioch.

[14:46] About 5,000 manuscripts came from this stream of Bible texts that we know today as the foundation Greek text that the Bible, the King James Bible is translated up from.

[15:00] About 5,000 manuscripts. On the other side, in Alexandria, there was only about 50 manuscripts. This was the place of Egypt. Now, in the Bible, we know what Egypt stands for.

[15:13] It was a type of the world. Egypt was a place where there was corruption and much to be desired. Friends today, it's a contrast between two streams of manuscripts.

[15:24] On the one hand, you've got about 5,000 manuscripts of what is called the majority text. That's one of the names for it. The received text, the textus receptus, or the majority text, because it's where the majority of the manuscripts stem from.

[15:43] And on the other side, you've got the Alexandrian text. Only 1%, 1% of all the manuscripts of the Bible that we know about us today, standing back from this early period, only about 1% of the manuscripts support the Roman Catholic and modern translations.

[16:06] 1%. And yet, on the other side, the Antioch stream of text, from which we have translated the King James Bible, the New King James, the modern King James Version, 99% of the manuscripts support that version, that scriptural text.

[16:27] So it makes you wonder, doesn't it? The manuscript evidence is overwhelming. These unreliable texts on the 1% side, on the modern version side, the manuscripts on this side, are far from pure.

[16:43] They are unreliable texts. They very often disagree with one another. It's an amazing fact. This is very much substantiated. You can read great lengthy treaties on this kind of subject.

[16:57] Some Bibles discard or discredit whole swanches of Scripture, for example, the end of Mark 16. Because it is found, it is not found, the scholars say, in the best manuscripts, they take it out of modern versions of the Bible.

[17:15] Mark 16, from 9 to 20, while they put it down in the margin, in the footnotes saying that it's unreliable, it's not found in the best manuscripts. And yet the actual evidence of this Scripture verse is that it is present in 618 manuscripts, while it is missing in only two.

[17:37] Mark 16, the end of it, is found in 618 manuscripts, it is missing in only two. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.

[17:48] Vaticanus belongs to the Roman Catholic Library, was supposedly written about A.D. 350, by Order of Constantine, then Emperor of Rome, when supposedly he became a Christian.

[18:01] There's doubts about whether, certainly, serious doubts, about whether Constantine was really a genuine believer, as we would know it. And yet God's preserved His Word through history, that people have been roasted alive for what they believe.

[18:17] They paid the price with their own blood, that we can have the Word of God in our hands today. Slain by the sword, through famine, beatings, burnings, hanging and torture. Many were slain with the Bible tied around their necks, as they were burnt to death.

[18:31] Many modern versions of the Bible leave out these important passages, friends. It's a serious matter. Ones that rob Christ of His deity. In stark contrast, where there's differences based on the text, the King James Bible exalts the Lord Jesus.

[18:47] It exalts the Lord Jesus because it's from the Antioch text. It's from the reliable early church origin. That is why we can count upon it.

[18:58] If you total the number of missing words in modern translations, you'd be missing the equivalent of 1 and 2 Peter. So how much shorter these modern translations are?

[19:11] Shouldn't that bother us? Shouldn't that bother us that there's so much missing from these modern versions? That is why we stand solidly on this Bible version, this Bible translation in our language.

[19:22] It's a cause for concern. It's a fact that the names of Christ in modern versions are missing some 175 times, 214 times in the New American Standard.

[19:35] We're not talking about personal preferences here or a like or dislike of wording or style. I admit that modern Bible translations can be useful to a degree, but it's the corrupt text that they find is a dangerous thing and it's something that should alarm us when these differences go much more beyond subtle word changes.

[19:56] They can affect major doctrines. And so we have in our hands the faithful text of the Word of God. I urge you to hold it fast the reliable, uncorrupted Word of God in the English language that God has put His holy stamp of approval on down through history where men and women have bled to death holding this glorious truth in their hands.

[20:19] And we can hold it in our hands today, the blessed Word of God that was preached with revival power through revival days and the Reformation where souls were won in harvest for Christ.

[20:32] God is not the altar of confusion. Let us hold fast the uncorrupted, infallible, inspired Word of God, the complete and accurate Holy Bible in English.

[20:42] God has preserved it for us and is pure and is preserved. And thirdly, it is profitable. The Word of God promises to you a great prophet.

[20:54] It says, Paul wrote to Timothy that 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, truly furnished unto all good works.

[21:10] It tells you there that the Word of God it is profitable for you to have this Word in your hands. It is God's truth. It has final authority. In our world today, by and large in the intellectual line in the universities and the sceptical, critical way of thinking that the world festers and fosters, we have a doubt that is cast on the Word of God.

[21:34] They doubt and critically analyse and criticise the Word of God. And they question that there is no final authority, that everything's relative.

[21:45] You know, what you believe, what I believe, you know, that's your truth and that's my truth. You know, but yet the Bible says there is a final authority and God's put His stamp on it, the Word of God.

[21:57] It's a truth, it's a fact. Many never read the Bible. The Bible is so profitable. Take it, read it, let it transform you on the inside, from the inside out. There is great gain and benefit locked away in these precious pages that we have in our hands.

[22:13] And God has our best interests in mind. He desires that we learn and grow. He's given us His Word that we may grow thereby. It says that we can profit from the Word of God.

[22:23] Just like a little baby has the mother's milk. As you want beige, let us desire, let us hunger and thirst and crave the Word of God. Let it be like milk to a baby.

[22:34] Let it be something that we want to nourish ourselves with and grow in. He's given us His Word that we may grow thereby. He wants to make you strong. He wants to make you firm and powerful in faith.

[22:45] You can profit from the Bible. We're not talking about financial gain per se, but something that's far more richer, far more precious, of far more lasting and eternal value.

[22:57] One man said, one morning, I spoke to 80 students in a class in a state university. I was informed that it would be better if I did not mention the Bible in the university.

[23:10] That same afternoon, the preacher says, I was invited to speak to 800 men in the state prison and the warden asked me to give them Bible trees.

[23:22] It's profitable. The Word of God. Don't leave it too late that you're in prison to get the Word of God to hear someone preach. Take it and read it and learn from it. Fellowship and receive it and hear it.

[23:35] You can get the Bible on iPod. You can listen to it 24-7. You can put it in your player at home. You can listen to the Word of God. Let it feed you. Let it fill you.

[23:46] Let it satisfy you. Hunger and thirst after righteousness. Someone said, the Holy Spirit is our teacher and His operation manual for living in this world is the Bible.

[23:58] It has supreme authority for how we live, for what we believe. It is profitable, the Bible says, for doctrine, for teaching, for training, for reproof, for correction. But the question is, will we apply the Word of God?

[24:10] You know, there's a scripture that says that some are just hearers and not doers of the Word. They hear it and hear it. You know, they know it back to front, inside out, and round about.

[24:22] And yet, for all their knowledge and knowing and hearing, they're not doing. They're not living. They're not living it out. They're not putting it into action. They're not putting their running shoes on and going out with the Word of God.

[24:34] Will we apply the Word of God? One preacher put it like this. He said, apply yourself wholly to the scriptures and apply the scriptures wholly to yourself. Will we bow to God's almighty authority over our lives?

[24:48] Or will we pick and choose the bits of the Bible that we like? The written Word of God, this is your final authority from Almighty God. You can take it on faith.

[24:58] You can take it on trust, on that promise. The Bible's authority for faith, for practice, for life. It is God's truth. You can be assured that this is trustworthy and true.

[25:11] This is not some fanciful collection of fables and stories and mystical analogies of some so-called holy books of our world today. This is God's final authority for mankind, for planet Earth.

[25:24] And it's sent, a story was told of a South Sea Islander who proudly displayed his Bible to a GI. You know, the Americans had landed, taking back territory during World War II and the GI, the soldier said to the native, the American soldier said, we've outgrown that sort of thing.

[25:46] The natives smiled back, it is a good thing we haven't, if it weren't for this book, you'd have been a meal by now. You know, he was a headhunter, saved by the Gospel, by the truth of God's Word and it transformed him.

[26:00] His village, his island, the Word of God has got power to profit, to bless, to save. We don't worship the book, but we love the book because of its message.

[26:11] In Psalm 138, it says, I will praise thy name for thy loving kindness and thy truth, for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. God thinks highly of his name as we should, but he has magnified his word above his name.

[26:28] God counts his word as very precious and very, very profitable. Friends, just to close now, think about, do you love his word? Do you love his word or is it just something that you take as, you know, just another book on the shelf?

[26:44] Is this a book? Is this a manual for living? You know, someone has put it B-I-V-L-E, basic instructions before leaving earth.

[26:55] This is the instruction manual for life. This is the guide book for how to live. If you don't know where to look for answers, the answer's in here, the answer's in here, in his precious pages.

[27:06] And it's got a wonderful purity, it's pure. His words are pure, as silver, purified seven times in a furnace. God says his word has a wonderful purity, not a corruption.

[27:18] His word has got wonderful preservation, has been preserved for us in our language, as God has blessed it through history, through the revival and reformation days, and in our world today, we have the word of God that we can declare and souls can be saved by it.

[27:33] Hearing comes, faith comes by hearing the word of God. You know, and it says that I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.

[27:47] It's got a preservation and lastly, it's got a profit, a profit for your souls. God wants you to profit on the inside of you, on the very depth of your heart, of your soul, of your spirit.

[27:59] He wants to penetrate. As it talks about the word of God, it's sharp and active and powerful. It's cutting asunder. It's penetrating, coming in between the dividing of soul and spirit.

[28:10] Penetrates the very marrow of our heart and gets within us and touches some sensitive spots. It talks about how some are pricked or cut by the word as it was preached or spoken and testified and heard.

[28:24] God touches us and points out those things that He wants to deal with in our hearts, our souls, in our spirit, in terms of our sin, in terms of our conscience.

[28:35] And God's word is like a scalpel that He comes and takes away the cancer. Friends, take it as rare and take it in your life.