I still am not certain where the Lord has me going with this site but evidently it is not
where I expected.
This is not a problem mind you, on the contrary, I find it wonderfully entertaining.
In an effort to be obedient I have given up on my plans, so that I may obey His.
I don't know why He has asked me to make these changes,
nor do I have to.
It is my belief that He would have me post these notes from a sermon given in January 2004.
I find this interesting because it was not my intent to do so at this time,
especially as I have just finished delivering a sermon that He blessed amazingly just this morning.
Still,
His Will Not Mine.
as it should be.
For His purposes and to the individual or individuals that this intented:
May the Lord Bless You:
_The Word of God is the word of God!
There have been great men in our past (and for that matter today) that have achieved their greatness by simply making the statement that the Bible was written by men. I have no desire to be great. I have seen what being great entails and I want no part of it. However I have to agree, the Bible was in fact and in truth, written by men. I would even go so far as to say that I have found that all of the books of the Bible were written by men
…except those books that might have had a woman writing….but otherwise I agree completely that the Bible was written by men…..this doesn’t mean I ‘m going to become great does it?......
You realize that what those so-called great men meant by their revelations and what I meant, are two completely different things. These so-called great men would have you believe that because the Bible was written by men it can not possibly be the Word of God.
They would have you believe that men make mistakes
(which is very true just ask any man’s wife),
and if men make mistakes, then the Bible must be full of mistakes.
These twisted men of greatness have it in their mind that the simple fact that it was written by men proves that the Bible is not The Word of God.
I, on the other hand, being not-so-great as they, would say:
the fact that the Bible was written by men,
proves it must be the Word of God!
The word Bible comes from the word biblion; which means roll or book. It took roughly one thousand five hundred years to write.
(Give or take a hundred years or so...)
Over the course of those fifteen hundred years,
some forty different authors contributed to it.
Forty authors, fifteen hundred years…
yet when taken in context the bible does not contradict itself anywhere
it in fact predicts itself and then proves and records itself.
This is not trickery
this is all based on historical fact
that even those so called great men cannot deny.
One of my favorite stories to tell is the true story of a man who was a converted bookmaker.
For years this mans profession was to make "odds" on all kinds of events;
from sporting events, to whether or not Elvis is really alive.
This man was paid to calculate the odds of an outcome actually occurring.
The numbers this man came up with on any one man actually fulfilling all of the Old Testament prophesies concerning the messiah…
were so large so against it ever happening
that he came up with this analogy:
The odds of any one man doing what Jesus did
by fulfilling all of the prophesies
would be the same as taking a frying pan the size of Texas,
filling it full of silver dollars,
marking just one of those silver dollars with an X,
mixing it up
and then pulling the marked silver dollar out again
on the first try….
Now here is the best part:
Jesus’ fulfillment of Old Testament scripture is historical fact!
There are actual confirmed records that show it!
Records kept by people who would rather you didn’t know it:
the Pharisees and the Romans just to name a couple...
The Bible was indeed written by men.
The definition of Inspiration is
Gods superintending of human authors so that,
using their own individual personalities,
they composed and recorded without error
in the words of the original autographs
His revelation to man.
It would seem that Jesus himself declared the Old Testament scriptures in Luke 11:51
when He accused the scribes of being guilty of slaying all the prophets God had sent Israel,
from Abel to Zechariah.
Now check this out:
The account of Abel’s death is, of course, in Genesis;
that of Zechariah is in 2 Chron. 24:20-21,
which is the last book in the order of the books in the Hebrew Bible
(not Malachi as in our English Bibles).
Therefore, it is as if the Lord had said, “Your guilt is recorded all through the Bible—from Genesis to Malachi.’
The first church council to list all twenty-seven books of the New Testament was the Council of Carthage in a.d. 397.
Individual books of the New Testament
were acknowledged as Scripture before this time
(2 Peter 3:16; 1 Tim. 5:17),
and most were accepted in the era just after the apostles
(Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John and Jude were debated for some time).
The selection of the canon was a process that went on until each book proved its own worth by passing the tests of canonicity.
From A.D. 397 to 1548 to 1640 to 1782
Churches and men have wrestled to decide what to include
and not to include in this book we simply call the Bible.
In fact today we still wrestle with it.
We also wrestle with versions; which is best?
I still say it depends on what you are doing with it.
The most important thing is to trust Jesus who is the Word.
Trust His Holy Spirit and seek the Lord with all your heart
and He will guide you
just as He guided all those men who wrote our Bible.
I would like to finish by reading to you something that is going around on the Christian internet sites. I haven’t verified all of it but it sounds just about right:
SHORTEST CHAPTER
What is the shortest chapter in the Bible?
Answer: Psalms 117
What is the longest chapter in the Bible?
Answer: Psalms 119
Which chapter is in the exact center of the Bible?
Answer: Psalms 118
Fact: There are 594 chapters before Psalms 118
Fact: There are 594 chapters after Psalms 118
Add these chapters together and you get 1188
What is the center verse in the Bible?
Answer Psalms 118:8
Does this center verse say something significant about Gods perfect will for our lives?
The next time someone says they would like to find Gods perfect will for their life and/or they want to be in the center of His will, just send them to the center of His word!
Psalms 118:8
“It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man”
Now isn’t this odd how all this works out,
or was God in the center of it?
Numbers 6:24
