Can I Trust the Bible?

About 20 years ago, joe richardson was fishing in sam rayburn lake near buna, Texas and his class ring fell out of the boat and sank to the bottom of the lake. 20 Years later -- actually, it was in 2008; right around thanksgiving -- he got a strange phone call. Turns out that three marines that were on vacation were out fishing on the lake and they caught an eight-pound bass. When they got the bass into the boat, out of its mouth fell a ring. Well, it wasn't very pleasant, so they took some wd-40 and insect repellant and scrubbed the ring, and pretty soon they saw what it was and they saw a name etched inside: joe richardson.

One of them had his iphone. He got out and he called the local joe richardsons just for fun. When he got to the fourth phone call, he found the owner of the ring, who thought it was a prank. Turns out that that was his ring. Soldiers met him and his wife at dairy queen and he was amazed that this ring had been found -- who knows how many fish it went through -- 20 years later.

You know, you read in the Bible where Jesus tells Peter, "I want you to go fishing. And you're gonna catch a fish and you'll find money in its mouth." Some people think that that's a fable. Is the Bible really true? Stay with us. We're going to find out during this program of M.I.Q. How can I know that God is listening? Did I come from apes or prehistoric sludge? Can the Bible be trusted? What should I do with my life? College? Cars? A job? Can I ever be perfect? Can I make a difference? [Asking questions simultaneously] .

..or what? Announcer: "M.I.Q.": Your questions, God's answers. Can the Bible be trusted? Find out now as we examine this epic book. Welcome to M.I.Q. Good evening everybody. Welcome back to m.

i.q: most important questions. This is an interactive discovery of truth. And today we're talking about those big questions of life. Is there a God? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Can I trust the Bible? And if you want real answers for these important questions, well, you've come to the right place. Those of you who are watching around the country and across the world, welcome.

We're glad that you are here and we'd love to hear from you. If you have a Bible-related question, you can go to the M.I.Q. Teens website and you can post your question online. The address is miqteens.com. You can also send us a text message.

And the number to send your text question to is 760-5 afacts. That number is 760-523-2287. Now I hope all of you have received an M.I.Q. Workbook. If you haven't, well, go to the m.

i.q. Teens website and you can order your own. Let me share with you what's in this book. This is a great resource. There are 11 lessons.

Actually, 10 lessons in the book that go along with each of our presentations. And each lesson is filled with fascinating facts, great illustrations and Bible answers that make sense. So those of you who are watching, you can also go to the M.I.Q. Teens website. You can order your own study guide.

Now, we have a theme song that we like to sing each evening to begin our program. This is a brand new song. We just wrote it for this series. We haven't yet chosen a name for The Song. We asked for your help -- I think it was the last program -- we asked for your help to name The Song and we've gotten many suggestions for names.

We haven't made a final decision yet. So keep sending in those text messages and let us know, through the website, what name we should have for our theme song. Now, immediately following our theme song this evening dylan will have our opening prayer and then we'll go right into our questions. Let's stand together as we sing our theme song this evening. When I gaze about the countless stars or on an endless sea my mind may swim with questions bewildering to me but then I read the Bible and seek your face in prayer I'm satisfied remembering your loving grace and care whatever questions I may have whether great or small I know Jesus died to save me and that he forgave me Jesus is the answer to it all Jesus is the answer to it all I have so many questions I wonder in my heart how something comes from nothing when did forever start why can't I see your glory where is the promised land I trust that you will lead me there if I can take your hand whatever questions I may have whether great or small I know Jesus died to save me and that he forgave me Jesus is the answer to it all Jesus is the answer to it all dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this series of meetings.

Father, we pray that you will bless these meetings, that you will bless the message tonight. And father, we pray that your Holy Spirit will be poured out. Father, may our ears be opened and receptive. In your name, amen. Well, Pastor Doug, it's time for questions.

Amen. Evening everyone. Audience: good evening. Good to see you all here. You know I was just thinking, before we get into the questions, we've done a number of these programs before, and one of the highlights, as we get feedback, is an opportunity to have questions answered.

And of course, this is most important questions. So we're gonna try to get to as many questions that the folks who are watching, and those in the audience, we wanna try and deal with as many questions as possible. Alright. Well, let's get going. All right, we'll get going.

Well, the first question that we have this evening is a video question. I think we're ready to roll that at this point. Hi, my name's Jordan. And my question is, how do we know that when the Bible is translated into all the different translations, nothing important and significant was lost in the Bible? Good question. Now this is a difficult question to answer well quickly.

First of all, translations are different from the original text. Just in english, there are hundreds of translations. I could, heaven forbid, have one called the Batchelor Bible. And anyone can take some of the original Greek and Hebrew and aramaic and make their own translation if you speak those languages into another language. I guess the big question is not only -- because there are some translations better than others.

But how do we know that the original text can be trustworthy? You know, the one thing that comes to me is the dead sea scrolls were one of the most incredible finds of modern history. There was a young boy watching goats, 1948, and looking for some stray goats, throwing rocks as boys do. He threw a rock not far from ein gedi down by the dead sea up in what he thought was just an empty cave up on a ledge, and he heard a crashing sound of pottery. And on investigation they found these bowls that were filled with all these ancient scrolls. Well, eventually they found out, after they tore some of them up and sold them to antique dealers, that they were copies that were like 2,000 years old of the Bible, the Scriptures.

Well, now they're housed in a museum called the scroll of the book museum in Israel. I've been there a couple of times. It's under three feet of reinforced concrete to avoid a terrorist attack because it's the greatest treasure that the Jewish nation has: their Scriptures. Now, I know my Bible pretty well. And when I went to that museum I had a guide that was very well trained to be a tour guide there.

They have a lot of thorough training. And we went up to the Isaiah scroll, and I just picked a place on the scroll, and I said, "can you read that?" And he said, "well, it's like you and I reading very old english." He says, "I can." And so I picked a place on the scroll. I said, "read that to me." And he started to read the story of hezekiah and sennacherib and what happens there in the Bible. And it was just like our Bible today. And so I think with great confidence, we can know that even over the last 2,000 years that God has done something miraculous to preserve the integrity and accuracy of the Scriptures.

So yes, the Bibles that we have are accurate reflections of the original message. Amen. Well, that was an important question. Our next question is a text question and we'll put that up on the screen. Well, first of all, I think the Lord has planted eternity in everybody's hearts.

And there's something within us that feels a yearning that's never satisfied without God. Very quickly, we are all sin-o-holics. We're all addicted. We're all selfish, and that's where sin comes from. And we're looking for something to satisfy.

And it's through a relationship with the Lord that we ultimately find that satisfaction. Now, you develop a taste for what you eat. And whenever I go to india, they eat a lot of curry and they like curry. You know why they like curry? Because they eat a lot of curry. And when you go to china, they eat a lot of rice.

You know why they like rice? They eat a lot of rice. You'll develop an appetite for what you eat. Your appetite and desire for God will grow as you prime it by turning to the Bible. Try it and you'll develop a like for it. I think our next question is another video question.

And we'll roll that at this time. Hi, my name's abree [phonetic], and my question is, how do we know the Bible is real? Good question. How do you know that the Bible is real? How do we know that it's not a fairytale or a fantasy? These are very important questions. Well, first of all, you've got evidence. I don't just believe the Bible because somebody took me and shook me and said, "this is the Bible, it's the Word of God, you need to believe it," and I said, "okay.

" I was skeptical. I wanted evidence upon which to base my faith. You've got the evidence of history. You've got the evidence of how it transforms lives. By the way, some of these answers to that good question are gonna be in our presentation tonight.

You got the evidence of how it is supported scientifically. And you've got the testimony of great people through history that have supported it. And over 1,500 years, 40 different authors ranging from fishermen to shepherds to Kings to priests, all participated in contributing to this sacred book. And yet in spite of the span of time, written on three continents, over all that time and all that diversity of people, there is a cohesiveness in the message. And it's just really stood the test of time.

So there's a lot of evidence. We're gonna look more at that in tonight's presentation. Well, Pastor Doug, I think we have another text question at this time. Well, when you say, "hear him," God does audibly speak to some individuals on occasion, but that's a miracle. It's a rare exception, but it does happen.

I have heard the Lord speak to me in ways I thought were very powerful. Sometimes I wondered if I was actually hearing his voice because it seemed so real, but probably it was just in my mind and in my heart. But in the Bible, God did audibly speak to a number of individuals, such as Samuel the prophet and Moses and Abraham and others I could name. Typically, the Lord speaks to us through His Word. He speaks to us sometimes very loudly through providence.

He speaks to us through nature. But God does still speak in a very vivid way to people. And he speaks to us mostly through the Holy Spirit combined with His Word. Word first. Well, I think, Pastor Doug, that's the time that we have allotted for questions at this point.

We might be getting some text questions. I think we have time for one more video question. Let's put that in now: the video question. Hello, my name is andrew and my question is, how come the old and new testaments have such different feels to them? The old testament is all about God's judgment, God's wrath, God's destruction, and the new testament is all about love and grace. How come the big switch? I'm glad we included that question.

That I think is a common feeling that some people have. Old testament, there's a loving God. I'm sorry, old testament: wrathful God, judgments, war, death. New testament: Jesus, little children, love, blessing. You know, that's really a myth.

You know where you find the most fearful plagues and curses in the Bible? Read Revelation 14: "if any many receives the Mark of the beast and worships his image, the wine of God's wrath is gonna be poured out without indignation into the cup unmingled with mercy." And it's just really scary. You look at the plagues, blood and heat and noisome soars. It's the new testament. Paul pronounces a curse on anyone who alters the gospel. You know, even the greatest torture that you find in the Bible happens in the new testament to Jesus.

The old testament does record wars and things like that, but it's also in the old testament where it first says "love your neighbor. "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart." Our God is a compassionate God. "If you'll search for me with all of your heart, you'll find me." You find so many wonderful -- "the Lord is my shepherd." And so it depends on what sections you're reading. But really, the message between the new and the old testament is very uniform. Ten percent of everything Jesus said, he's quoting the old testament.

So Jesus was very much an old testament character. And Jesus appears in the old testament in many ways. And maybe we'll have time to talk about that later. All right. Well, thank you, Pastor Doug.

Again, friends, if you have a Bible question, you can go ahead and send us a text message. The number for texting your Bible question is... 760-5-Afacts. That's 760-523-2278. Off-screen: 8-7! 8-7.

2-2-8-7, Thank you. And we'll try to get as many questions as we can on the program. Well, with that, Pastor Doug, we'll turn the time over to you. Thank you very much, Pastor Ross. It would seem fair to me that if you get 90% of the text Numbers right, it still ought to work, right? Doesn't work that way.

We're going to get into our presentation for tonight right away. And it's dealing with the subject, "can I trust the Bible?" This is one of the most important presentations, because it's really foundational to all the other big questions about God... About life and evolution and creation and our bodies and God's will for us. The Bible is the foundation for all of this. So understanding this subject and the importance of the Bible is gonna weigh very heavily on giving direction to everything else we're presenting during this event.

Question number one in the lesson... Now, I used to believe that. That's what I was taught growing up: that the Bible was a fairy tale. Going to the Bible, what does it say about itself? 2 Timothy 3:16... "All Scripture" -- how much? "All Scripture" -- by the way, when Timothy wrote this, was there a new testament yet? No.

So when Paul writes this in Timothy, he's principally speaking of the old testament, but of course, it became Scripture. Peter refers to Paul's writings as Scripture. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable." Hey, let me talk to you about something real quick. I'll be back. Now, this is an old cumbersome one.

This is a g.p.s., And I won't turn it on right now. But I think everybody knows how these work. People have them on their iphones now. They've got them on all their different mobile devices. I've been a pilot for about 25 years, and I've got two of these in my plane, because driving, you know, you run out of gas, you pull over, you call aaa.

You don't do that with an airplane; it's very unforgiving. You wanna know where you are at all times. And so, these things are fascinating because when you first study to be a pilot, originally, they made you do wind variations and you had these little charts and things that you calibrate for and v.o.r.s. And pilots are supposed to all know that. But you know what most pilots are depending on now? And even most airports are accepting what they call a g.

p.s. Navigation, where it used to be you had to use all the other methods of instrument flight. But I keep this in my car. When it picks up satellites, it gets two or three satellites, it tells you where you are. And it's not any one satellite.

You can't get a reading. Even any two satellites. You need to triangulate with at least three satellites before you can start to pinpoint where you are on the ground. More satellites, you can not only tell where you are on the map, you can tell what your elevation is. You want as many satellites as possible to make sure you can pinpoint where you are and where you're going.

It'll tell you how fast you're going, it'll tell you when you're going to arrive. It tells you what your descent speed it. Very, very important piece of navigation. The Bible in a sense provides that information, but you arrive at the truth by comparing Scripture with Scripture. And so it gives you the whole picture of where you're going.

You know, in your lesson books, the M.I.Q. Answer books, something very incredible happened years ago when people wanted to go from point a. To point b. They had to use the stars and they'd chart their position by the stars, or the sun or the moon. But they developed something that they put on submarines called an internal gyro navigation system.

And it allowed the u.s. Nautilus, in 1958, to go under the polar ice in the arctic. Now, can you imagine no satellites? No sun, moon and stars? Four days under the ice, they crossed under the north pole. 166 Men. What would've happened if they lost their position? They're in darkness, all they've got is this one unit that is telling them where they're going.

If they had a mechanical problem, at the surface they were doomed. But they did it, they went all the way across, underneath. Because they had an internal gyro navigation system. So having the combination of the text of the Scripture and God's spirit is gonna give you direction in your life. We need both facets in order to understand what is the truth.

Principally the Word of God -- by the way, the Holy Spirit will never tell you anything contrary to what the Bible says. Jesus said, "when the Spirit of truth has come, he will lead you into all truth." All right, question number 2: Isaiah 42:8-9, it says... And then it goes on to say... God in His Word tells us in advance what's going to happen. You think about what's involved in a prophecy being given in advance.

I mean, if one little detail of what's going on in this room right now were to change -- anything from just your shift in your body -- how that's going to inter-react with the other atoms around you... It creates a chain reaction. Everyone around you. It's going to make all of history different forever. Just how you sit and how you move right now.

Especially if you're on camera, right? [Laughter] how can God predict thousands of years in advance what's going to happen? And yet, there's thousands of prophecies in the Bible where God pinpointed exactly what was going to happen. One example, a prophet came along; he foretold king josiah years before he was born, by name, said what his name would be, that he would exhume these counterfeit priests, he would burn their bones on their false altars that they had built up. Everything that was foretold by the prophet happened. King josiah came and did exactly what he said. How could God foretell that? Well you know, one of the favorite prophecies for evangelists is they take the chapter two in the Bible, where it talks about Daniel.

And Nebuchadnezzar has this dream and it tells about the kingdoms of the world that would be outlined from the time of Daniel, when Babylon was ruling, up until the present day. Now, who can foretell that? I mean, it was easy to say Babylon would be a world power. And this dream was given in the form of an image. They were all involved in idolatry back then and they would sometimes worship idols of gold or idols of silver, idols of bronze or stone or whatever. This idol had all the metals in one.

Starting with gold, ending with iron and clay. And Daniel said, "those different metals represent the different world kingdoms that are going to occupy God's people." It wasn't all the Kingdoms in the world, but the ones that would directly influence and occupy where the people of God were working. He said, "first there will be Babylon." And then it names the others in Daniel. It says, "then medo persia. Then greece.

" It mentions up to greece. Then it talked about this iron kingdom. Then that that iron kingdom of rome would be divided into what ended up happening in history: the divisions of europe. Everything that had foretold has happened. And then later in the vision, it says the next thing.

A stone cut without man's hands from a mountain comes down and smites the image. And it is pulverized, and the stone grows into a mountain, fills the whole earth, representing Jesus, the rock of ages... Jesus, the word... That would fill the whole earth. Everything in the vision has happened so far.

Why would we doubt that the last part is going to happen? So, the prophecies in the Bible do come true, and they're extremely accurate. Now, some people read the Bible the way that you might, you know... [Giggles] get fortune cookies. I had an interesting experience one day. Where, I bought a quad, an a.

t.v., On craig's list. It was a great deal. I got a buddy to help me transport it. I said, "let me buy you lunch." Went to a chinese restaurant. At the end of our meal, they gave us fortune cookies.

Do you know what the fortune said in one of our cookies? "You are going to buy something with four wheels that will be a lot of fun." [Laughter] it's the truth. I've got it pinned up on my board. And I've started eating more chinese food ever since then. [Laughter] now do you think I really believe that God spoke to me through a fortune cookie? I suppose God could if he, if he wanted to. But you know, that's not how we read the Bible.

The Word of God, it doesn't change. It doesn't go with our impressions. I mean, sometimes there'll be quirky things that'll happen where you can say, "oh, how did they know that?" That's not like Bible prophecy. Bible prophecy is unchanging. It's solid.

It's universal in its scope and the way it teaches us. Question number 3: is the Bible accurate when it speaks about areas of scientific health? You know, have you heard people saw, "well, you know, the Bible's an old book"? "It's not scientific"? "It's not accurate"? That's not true at all. Matter of fact, let's look at a couple of Scriptures on this. 1 John 3:20, "God is greater than our heart, and he knows all things." You know, back in the 1860s, when doctors did surgery, you didn't want to go to a hospital back then, because the doctor might say, "the surgery was a success, but the patient died." It happened a lot. Matter of fact, 80% more women had infections and problems and death having babies in hospitals than at home.

You know the reason? For... 600 Years before that they just didn't make a connection between cleanliness and infection. And the doctors would go from the surgery theater, with aprons covered with blood and who knows what else from former patients, without even washing their hands, no gloves, and go begin to work on the next person. And they just caused epidemics all the time in the hospital. Death everywhere.

Along came a doctor, he was a quaker, very religious man by the name of Joseph lister. And he read in the Bible where whenever somebody was sick or they touched a dead body, they were supposed to wash. And he thought, God is trying to tell us something. And then he saw the research of louis pasteur and he began to implement procedures of sanitation and cleanliness in his clinic. And the survival rate skyrocketed.

First the other doctors just about laughed him out of the profession. They thought he was eccentric and that he was a fanatic. And gradually everybody began to accept it. By the way, do you know where the word "listerine" comes from? Exactly. It was named after Joseph lister.

Even the band-aid, putting that over your wound. All of these things can be traced back to him. You look in the Bible, some of the laws and the rules that it had about sanitation. Just simple things like covering human waste. You know the Bible says that.

I've been to a lot of countries of the world. They still haven't read that part of the Bible. And i, I don't wanna get too graphic, but you know, in our country, we got places that are designated as the restroom. And I've been to a lot of countries that they just have some places that are designated as not the restroom; everything else is the restroom. And they're rampant with disease.

And when the Lord brought that nation out of Egypt, he gave them laws of science and health and sanitation that are all current and still up to date today. So can you believe the Bible? Absolutely. It's the book that God is using to communicate with us. Now, the Lord -- we talked about God last presentation and how we can't see him, but he can see us and he wants to speak to us. The Bible is a love letter from God.

You know I was, oh, I don't even remember. I travel so much. I was in one foreign country, and how many of you know what skype is? Skype is, yeah. And I get on skype. It's a cheap way to make a long distance phone calls.

And I forget, I was in Mexico or something and I skyped Karen. And Karen's got a little camera set up that I set up for her, and I can skype her. And I can look at her, and she can look at me. And it's just so sophisticated. And we're talking to each other and the kids will jump in the picture and I'll wave at them.

Well, one time something went out with the message. And I was able to hear her, and see her and the boys, but she couldn't see me. And we couldn't figure out what it was. But she could, she could, I could text her. And so we had this whole conversation where I kept sending her text messages and she would then answer.

She'd read them and she'd answer. She knew I was there, because I was saying things that only I would know and speaking to her heart. It wasn't some stranger out there that was texting her. But -- the communication was inhibited, but we were able to communicate. Well, in the Bible, God is texting you his will.

This world has been infiltrated and confounded by an arch fiend called the devil. And he has tried to cut the communication lines between us and God because of sin. Sin separates us from God. But the Lord still is desperate to get a message of love to us. And one of the principal ways that he does this is through his word, and of course, God himself became the word in Jesus.

He came to earth as a man. Jesus was the word in flesh. He lived it out. He is the word. "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.

" So Christ, we don't know what he looked like. We don't know what Jesus looked like. I know all our pictures look pretty much the same. Why did Jesus change the world? Because of the way he looked? Or what he said? And His Words are in the Bible. And you know what's amazing to me -- I still haven't figured out how to do this yet.

People would come and listen to Jesus, sit down and talk. Doesn't say he yelled and he was screaming, he jumped up and down and ranted and waved and pounded on the scrolls. He sat down and he talked to people. And the power of what he said was so profound that people would sit mesmerized all day long and listen to him for so long, they would forget to eat. There's something powerful about the Word of God that resonates in our souls.

And a lot of people who are down on the Bible or simply not up on the Bible... They're down on it, and they've never read it. Or they've got little snippets. I've heard people say, "oh, I don't believe the Bible. Yeah, I know the Bible.

I've read the Bible. It says God helps those that help themselves." That's not in the Bible. That's ben franklin. [Laughter] and I've heard people misquote the Bible so many times. Now they're telling me that someone's texted in a question that they think goes along with tonight's program.

Got it up on the screen. I am exhibit a. [Laughter] I think the Lord does have an -- not that I've got a great sense of humor. Just look at me. [Giggles] but.

.. I do think that the Lord has a sense of humor. I mean, the Bible tells us even it says, God will laugh, it says God sings. And you know, the Lord even uses irony in His Word. You think about one time when the prophets of baal were dancing around, trying to get their God baal to bring fire down out of heaven.

After a while, Elijah, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said, "maybe you should shout a little louder. He might be on a journey. Could be sleeping; you might need to wake him up." That's called irony. Jesus said, "it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the Kingdom." That, you know, you picture that. That's kind of God some humor in it.

Or when Jesus said, "before you take the mote, the speck of dust out of your neighbor's eye, take the two-by-four out of yours." [Laughter] see you're laughing now. There's humor in that. So yes, God has a sense of humor. Okay, back to our question. Question number 4: can we trust the historical records that we find in the Bible? Absolutely.

Do you know there is more historical support regarding the life of Jesus than there is for alexander the great or julius caesar? We have thousands of manuscripts that talk about Jesus. There's just a smattering of historical references that we still have in existence that talk about alexander the great. Or julius caesar. Now, I've got a little quote here. Some of you have heard of the Jewish historian, Josephus.

He was a contemporary with the apostles. He was present when Jerusalem was destroyed. A jew. In his antiquities of the jews, as he's just going through history, he inserts a paragraph that blows me away. Because he says this incredible statement and then he moves right along.

Listen to this. From this is by the way, antiquities of the jews. Book 18, chapter 3, section 1 through 5. "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man. For he was a doer of wonderful works and a teacher of such men that received the truth with pleasure.

He drew over to him both many of the jews and many of the gentiles. He was Christ. A jew said that. And when pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had him condemned to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him. For he appeared to them alive again the third day.

.. As the divine prophets had foretold. And these and 10,000 other wonderful things concerning him and the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct to this day." Wow. That's not in the Bible. That's history from the time of Christ.

Nobody -- atheists take the writings of Josephus. They have no problem with Josephus. But they have a problem with that statement. You gotta take the whole thing. There are thousands of manuscripts that support the accuracy of.

.. A matter of fact there is no book on archaeology or history that has more information that is more dependable than the Bible. It covers a greater span of history than any other book. I believe that you can believe it. Oh, I never got to my verse: John 19:35.

John the apostle is saying, I have seen this. Even John said, "I have seen with my eyes, I've handled with my hands. Believe me, I'm telling you firsthand: I saw the miracles. I've touched Jesus. He's real.

And if you don't accept that kind of evidence, what evidence will you accept?" I mean, to me it's very powerful. Now, keep in mind, I grew up -- I was taught by my father and my mother -- I don't want to be disrespectful -- that Jesus was a fairytale, that he was a myth. So I was very prejudiced. My mother was Jewish, and I was told Christians are the problems. They persecute the jews.

And yet, when I read it for myself after going through so many different books, I couldn't find anything that competed with the validity of the Bible. The Bible is accurate history. Everything from it's prophetic information, to it's information on science and a number of other fields. John 19:35, it tells us that what he says is true. All through the scope of history, you can trust the writings and the teachings of the Bible.

Alright, we're gonna go onto question number five: answer: Luke 24:27. The Bible really is a book about Jesus. You know the last book in the Bible begins by saying, "the Revelation of Jesus." And it's telling us all about Christ. Look at some of the incredible prophecies that are covered in the Bible. Let me read some of these to you real quick.

Just some of the prophecies in the Bible tells in the old testament where the Messiah would be born: in Bethlehem. By the way that's in Micah 5:2. It happened. You read about it in Matthew 1:2. It tells us that the Messiah, God becoming a man, the anointed one, would be born of a virgin.

Well, that's kind of unique. You know that doesn't happen everyday. That's said in the old testament. It's been claimed more than once, but I think those things are suspect. New testament, we all know about that.

Old testament, it says that the Messiah would come from the line of David. Jesus did. You find that in Revelation 22:16. Old testament, there'd be an attempted murder as he was a baby. It says that children of rachel in Bethlehem would be slaughtered.

Old testament, and written 500 years before it happened. How can you predict something like that? Did it happen? Did herod try to kill all the babies in Bethlehem? Says he'd be betrayed by a friend. And that's foretold by David in psalm 41:9. New testament, it happened. You know about Judas.

It says he'd be sold for silver, and how much silver? 30 Pieces. In the old testament, you find that in the book of Zechariah 11. Matthew 26, Judas sold him. It says that he would be crucified. They didn't even have that means of execution back when it was foretold.

King David said that in Psalms 22 a thousand years before Jesus was born. "They pierced my hands and my feet. They've surrounded me. They gambled for my clothing." How can you foretell all of that? The Bible is full of prophecies like this that came true exactly as it was foretold, and there's many more. You can find great lists that deal with this on the internet and other places that talk about the old testament predictions, the new testament fulfillment.

The Bible can be trusted. The Bible is a "lamp unto our feet, it is a light to our paths." Ultimately, the Bible is all telling us about Jesus. Now, Jesus is called many things in the Bible. Jesus is called "the word." We talked about that. He's called "the living water.

" He's called "the great I am." He's called "the rock of ages." He's called "the door." He's called "the shepherd" and a thousand other things. That, using these analogies from the parables in the Bible, to help us understand who he is. But one of the things that Jesus is called is "the light." Now, why is it important for you to read the Bible? All right. I need two volunteers. I need, let's have one girl and one boy.

Let me see, who's volunteer... You're close to the edge. It'll be easy for you to come. I need one boy. Maybe one from this side.

You're on the outside, you're close enough. Come on up. Come on up. Hurry up. Do what thou doest quickly.

Okay. Now you know... All right, these are two flashlights and I want you to take this. It's kind of dim. Find a camera.

See that red light up there? Aim that towards the camera. Okay? Aim yours towards the camera. Now yours, it's okay. Yours is on now. There's no light really on this one.

Now I want you to shake that like you're shaking up whipped cream. Be enthusiastic. Come on. Do what thou doest with all thy might. Crank that.

Is it getting... Crank it fast. It's not cranking. There you go. There you got it.

Here, let me help you with that. You got the outside thing? There's something called a "dooly-bob" here, there you go. Grab it. Real quick, crank. Are they getting brighter? Now shine it at the camera.

There, is it working? Now what happens if we wait here for six hours? We're not gonna find out. They're gonna go out. What do you have to do again? Crank it. You gotta shake them or crank them again. How often do you need to read the Bible? Everyday.

"Give us this day our daily bread." That's not just talking about food. The Bible is the bread of life. It is the light, the lamp unto our feet. Every day we need to take it in. You know why? We leak.

Our batteries drain. And there's a constant battle going on. Thank you very much. I'd give those away, but they're not mine, but you can take them back to your seats right now. The Word of God needs to be taken in continually and it will build your faith.

You can't just read a little bit of the Bible and expect its transforming power to alter your life. All right. Question number six: in psalm 119, what does it promise the Bible will do for us? It says... What will the Bible do for us? It will make us wiser. Again, you can read, it says.

.. Now, any of you want to be wiser for school? You want to do better? Nothing will really increase your i.q. More than the study of the sacred Scriptures. It challenges every part of your brain. It's got songs in it.

It has poetry. It has history. It has science. It has politics and government. It's got emotion.

I mean, everything that you could ever read about, to some extent, is found in the Bible. And it really exercises your brain, but you need it every day. It's God's voice speaking to your heart and it has a transforming influence on it, on your lives. Question number seven: let me just see. Do you sometimes wonder, be honest, do you sometimes wonder, "is it all true? Can I believe?" You may not want to raise your hands in front of your friends about that question, if you're honest.

Have you ever had doubts? I'll admit it. I've had doubts, wondered, "Noah and the ark? Jonah?" Have you heard that story about Jonah? Yeah. You ever have trouble with that? Did you hear about one time there was a lady who was riding on a city bus and she was reading her Bible and there was an atheist standing next to her. And he said, "you believe that book?" She said, "yes sir, absolutely, every word." Said, "you believe all the stories are true?" "Absolutely. It's the Word of God.

" She said, "do you believe that," or the man said to her, "do you believe like adam and eve? Noah and the ark?" "Yep." "You believe Jonah was in the belly of a great fish for three days and three nights?" She said, "I believe it." He said, "how could he survive in a fish during that time?" She said, "I don't know. When I get to heaven, I guess I'll ask him." And he said, "well, what if he's not in heaven?" She said, "then you ask him." [Laughter] so... [Laughter continues] every word is true. Now, they're telling me we got another text question that came in. All right.

Here's our question that someone's texted. We're getting hundreds of text questions, friends, and keep them coming. But we just have to pick a few of them. Yes. The Bible says that God made everything to be perfect, but after the world sinned, it says, "it grieved the Lord at his heart," in Genesis, "that he made man.

" He said, "I'm sorry about man." The earth was full of violence. the Lord is sorry about our sins. He's sorry about the lost. It's not that he's made a mistake. He doesn't have regrets like you and I might have regrets because of our sins; he is sorry about the choices that we have made.

He regrets those things. All right. We're gonna move right along here. Question number eight. Now, we're gonna spend some time on this question.

This is a very important one. Psalm 119:11. How do we fight against sin and temptation? How -- Jesus was our example. Was Jesus tempted? You remember the story where the devil came to tempt Jesus? All three times when Christ was tempted, what did he do? He said, "it is written," and he quoted socrates. No.

Aristotle? No. Buddha? No. All three times, Jesus quoted the Scriptures. In particular, Moses, the book of Deuteronomy: one of my favorite books. And eventually the devil left him because he couldn't fight the Word of God.

You know, something else is, I don't think Jesus pulled out his cell phone with the Bible on it and said, "hang on, lucifer. I think I got a verse on that somewhere." Furthermore, he didn't say, "wait a second. In my backpack here in the desert, I've got some scrolls. Let me find something for that." He had it in his mind so when the devil tempted him, he was able to right away, fire back. Are you able to give an answer to people that ask you about your faith? We need to be ready.

And so Jesus had the Word of God stored up in his mind and his heart, and that's how you fight temptation. Wanna hear an amazing fact? Back in 1880, there was a forger who had been imprisoned in the infamous sing sing prison. You ever heard about that? Going to sing sing. And after he died, the guards that were taking care of his personal effects, he used to carry six straight pins, seven straight pins -- six silver, one gold -- in his top pocket. His name was a.

Schuler. They have a number on him, but they don't even know what that "a" stood for. Well, the guard, "six silver pins, one gold," he thought, "I'll keep them, just kind of interesting." Well he was a forger and he used to counterfeit money and etch plates, counterfeit plates. And he thought he used the pins for etching. Well, he was looking at them, and he thought, "something odd about the top of this straight pin.

" And he looked on the top and he got a magnifying glass, he thought, "something's there." And then they got a microscope, and they looked at it. This is a picture of what was on the top of that pin that schuler had etched. This is the actual gold pin. It was almost perfect, the entire lord's prayer. He was in prison, he had a magnifying glass or something, and he etched the entire lord's prayer, I guess there's nearly 2,000 Marks that he had to make to get that on the head of a pin.

Now, that's incredible, but I understand that just two years ago, an institute in haifa, in Jerusalem, they managed to transfer the entire Hebrew text of the Scriptures on an area, a silicon chip the size of the head of a pin. The entire old testament in Hebrew, they etched it by firing atoms at a gold surface. That's actually in your answer books, that amazing fact. Well, you know, it's not going to save us to have the word of God stored on the head of a pin or to have it in your nightstand. It says, "thy word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin.

" Number nine: absolutely. Answer: 2 Corinthians 5:17. Now, perhaps on another night, I'll give you a few more details on my personal experience. But I was raised, as I shared, pretty much an agnostic or an atheist. And when I was 17 years old, I moved up into the mountains, and I moved into a cave.

And I'd been through a number of different religions trying to find out if there was any God. I'd read widely on various religions. I thought, "why read the Bible? They're all hypocrites." Some people blame professed Christians for the Bible and a lot of people say, "well, if that's what the Bible teaches, I don't want to read it." Very few people are really living a life of following the Bible. So I started reading the Bible, quite honestly -- thinking it was a big fairytale, a bunch of fables -- so I could argue with Christians. I thought they were all hypocrites.

Well, I got bogged down in the old testament, but I found it very interesting. And then I got to the new testament and I started reading about Jesus. And I read Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, and you know? It was unlike anything I'd ever read before. Now, I was just kind of a real wild hippie, living in the mountains. I mean, I was just way out there.

I'll tell you more about that later, but something about these words were changing me on the inside. And I went to the encyclopedia and they said, "yeah, Jesus really lived." And I thought, "well, either Jesus was... He was a liar, as c.s. Lewis said, or he was a lunatic or he was the Lord." But he had to be one of those. And I finally said, "look, I've tried everything else.

If the Bible's true, lord, help me to know that." And then all, the most amazing things began to happen in my life, and I would read something in the Bible and I'd claim the promise and I'd see miracles happening. And the most important miracle: it changed me. There's power in the word that is unlike any other power, and it's got the testimony of changed lives all through history. You know, you can read in question number 10 here: well, the only way you're going to experience that is by taking it in. And as you take it in, something will be transformed.

You know, there's a verse in the Bible and it says... Nobody can do it for you. You need to do it for yourself. You know, my father has a... He used to have a couple of airlines actually and he had a lot of jets.

Now, my brother started a camp in the florida keys for kids with cystic fibrosis. And so one year, my father donated a life raft off one of the jets for the kids to play with. It had expired its date, so he donated it because it was still good. And they took it down to the florida keys, the beach, all the kids came out to the water, and they pulled this cord and all these co2 cartridges began to explode and to fill up the raft. It's really fun to watch, because you.

.. [Imitates inflating, unfolding noises] and it begins to flop open and it's all automatic. And pretty soon, you've got this great big round, it's four rings of tubes and there's a lining between them, so no matter how it lands in the ocean, it's right side up. It's got this safety feature to it. And the kids all got in there and they jumped around.

We wanted them to play and exercise and that was great. And then one of the kids came back and he said, "Pastor Doug, there's something out there in the middle that we're getting hurt when we jump on it." It was the survival gear. We forgot to take the survival gear out of the middle. Kids were bouncing around and hitting this pack in the middle. So I went and I said, "well, let me get that out of there," and I unzipped the pouch and I pulled out all the survival gear.

Now somebody at the f.a.a. Somewhere did some research to find out, "what do people need when they're lost at sea?" Well, they had some vitamins. They had fishing gear, because you need food to stay alive. They had a water distilling kit, so you could turn saltwater -- it was really neat -- into fresh water. They had a battery so when that when you dropped it into the water, it would be activated and start to flash a locator beacon.

It's fascinating. They had a patch kit, because they found that ladies would jump from the airplane into the raft with their high heels on, poke a hole in it. [Laughter] so you had to have a patch kit. And as I'm pulling out all this survival gear, my heart began to beat because I thought, "is that what I thought?" I pull out, there's a book, but it didn't look like a first aid manual. It was a Bible.

And I'm kind of looking around, I'm going, "there must be a Christian that works at the factory somewhere where they make these things and sticking Bibles in. I don't want to get them in trouble." And I came to find out that they were putting Bibles in all the life rafts -- someone's gonna hear this program and stop it. But they were putting Bibles in all the life rafts, on all the jets that people flew. You know why? Because they had so much evidence that people through history needed them to survive. You know, right now as we speak, they've got some chilean miners that have been trapped 2,800 feet below ground.

And I understand that they finally broke through and got to them. You know, one of the things they asked for, about a month ago? They said, "send us some Bibles." Matter of fact, some members of our church got some miniature spanish Bibles, and they sent them down that 6 or 8-inch tube. And they said, "this has given us hope. This has given us faith." Well, what are you gonna wait for, friends? Get stuck out in the ocean, floating around, looking for survival gear? Until you're 2,000 feet below the ground before you realize that we need the Bible to get us out alive? God is trying to get our attention. He sent us an inspired message in this blessed book.

And some of you may have questions, more questions, about the Bible. That's why we're having these programs. We want your questions. But I want you to know, the Bible is the living Word of God. It will change your life.

Jesus will speak to your hearts. He's got a plan for you. There's a lot of confusing background signals that are going out in the world, but the real message of what is truth is gonna come from the Bible. And that needs to be your foundation. It needs to be your bread, it needs to be your rock.

It needs to be your light that's gonna guide you... And to guide you, friends. I hope that you'll read it. God bless you who have been tuning in. We look forward to seeing you in the next program.

Thank you for watching this episode of M.I.Q. During our next presentation, we'll be exploring evolution, creation and logic. See you then. How can I know that God is listening? Where is he when I need him? What is heaven like? Can I ever be perfect? Is church for me? Did I come from apes or prehistoric sludge? Announcer: do you have more questions about God, the Bible and living a Christian life? The official companion to the "most important questions" tv series has more answers. Get all the Bible-based answers to hundreds of the most frequently asked questions.

To order, call (800) 538-7275 or visit... Store.amazingfacts.org. Announcer: thank you for joining us for this broadcast. If you've missed any of our "Amazing Facts" programs, visit our website at amazingfacts.org. There you'll find an archive of all our television and radio programs, including "Amazing Facts presents," "central study hour," "everlasting gospel," "Bible answers live" and "Wonders in the Word.

"You'll also find a storehouse of biblical resources geared towards answering some of your most difficult questions and our online Bible school is just a click away. One location, so many possibilities. Amazingfacts.org. Revised 2015-02-05